1 50 763 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a6872378d4dbf0882e70e8a082c7bb8f.pdf d57149a0c89cf67c84e175d92a34692f PDF Text Text 140 SLOVAKIA Youth, Our Hope Pavol 0. Hviezdoslav O youth, our hope, the keeper o! dawn's promises, you rule the maytime, you bank all springtime treasure~ and blessed is your stewardship. To you I turn from pensive brooding, from distant gloomy vistas lightly silver-frosted now, and call: "Seize the keys; unclose that Eden shut to us!" Your cheek is lovely, tinged as with the morning flame; your eye casts rays like early beams shot from the dawn; your soul is halcyon-skied-unspoiled by wayward cloud; you pollen-powdered lips are sweet with instant song; swift as lightning flashes is your mind.-Turn the keys! Reveal lost paradise to us! Speed on with swarming bees, delight in fields fruited with gold-crested blooms and fair feasts of standing oak. Swiftly then return with viands rich and wholesome. When foul marauders come-ominous teeming cloud.sand winter cold invades the land-too soon alas!may our hive bear nor want nor ill. And yet have time for sportive play-lark-free exult in flight, indulge your age. You grow in healthful play. Ho! for a merry tune! Delight in song and dance, celebrate your youthfulness; trip a lively step: skip, leap and whirl! Let trembling earth return your beat. that joy may be at home with us. Then back to work! (Here truly is the fuller share of life's purpose.) Strive manfully with giantlike strength; don chivalric gear; unfold your eagle wingspread. For what bold quest? -The free reign of truth, a sure fount of good, beauty's crown: autonomy of spirit. O! restore our long-lost paradise! Translated by Sr. M. Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . Jankola Library Danville, Pa. 17821 � 140 SLOVAKIA Youth, Our Hope Pavol 0. Hviezdoslav O youth, our hope, the keeper o! dawn's promises, you rule the maytime, you bank all springtime treasure~ and blessed is your stewardship. To you I turn from pensive brooding, from distant gloomy vistas lightly silver-frosted now, and call: "Seize the keys; unclose that Eden shut to us!" Your cheek is lovely, tinged as with the morning flame; your eye casts rays like early beams shot from the dawn; your soul is halcyon-skied-unspoiled by wayward cloud; you pollen-powdered lips are sweet with instant song; swift as lightning flashes is your mind.-Turn the keys! Reveal lost paradise to us! Speed on with swarming bees, delight in fields fruited with gold-crested blooms and fair feasts of standing oak. Swiftly then return with viands rich and wholesome. When foul marauders come-ominous teeming cloud.sand winter cold invades the land-too soon alas!may our hive bear nor want nor ill. And yet have time for sportive play-lark-free exult in flight, indulge your age. You grow in healthful play. Ho! for a merry tune! Delight in song and dance, celebrate your youthfulness; trip a lively step: skip, leap and whirl! Let trembling earth return your beat. that joy may be at home with us. Then back to work! (Here truly is the fuller share of life's purpose.) Strive manfully with giantlike strength; don chivalric gear; unfold your eagle wingspread. For what bold quest? -The free reign of truth, a sure fount of good, beauty's crown: autonomy of spirit. O! restore our long-lost paradise! Translated by Sr. M. Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . Jankola Library Danville, Pa. 17821 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 140 SLOVAKIA Youth, Our Hope Pavol 0. Hviezdoslav O youth, our hope, the keeper o! dawn's promises, you rule the maytime, you bank all springtime treasure~ and blessed is your stewardship. To you I turn from pensive brooding, from distant gloomy vistas lightly silver-frosted now, and call: "Seize the keys; unclose that Eden shut to us!" Your cheek is lovely, tinged as with the morning flame; your eye casts rays like early beams shot from the dawn; your soul is halcyon-skied-unspoiled by wayward cloud; you pollen-powdered lips are sweet with instant song; swift as lightning flashes is your mind.-Turn the keys! Reveal lost paradise to us! Speed on with swarming bees, delight in fields fruited with gold-crested blooms and fair feasts of standing oak. Swiftly then return with viands rich and wholesome. When foul marauders come-ominous teeming cloud.sand winter cold invades the land-too soon alas!may our hive bear nor want nor ill. And yet have time for sportive play-lark-free exult in flight, indulge your age. You grow in healthful play. Ho! for a merry tune! Delight in song and dance, celebrate your youthfulness; trip a lively step: skip, leap and whirl! Let trembling earth return your beat. that joy may be at home with us. Then back to work! (Here truly is the fuller share of life's purpose.) Strive manfully with giantlike strength; don chivalric gear; unfold your eagle wingspread. For what bold quest? -The free reign of truth, a sure fount of good, beauty's crown: autonomy of spirit. O! restore our long-lost paradise! Translated by Sr. M. Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . Jankola Library Danville, Pa. 17821  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Youth, Our Hope Description An account of the resource Pavol O. Hviezdoslav trans. Sr. M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 23 (No. 46), 1973 p. 140 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hviezdoslav, Pavol Országh, 1849-1921 Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 name SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/bb502cc7f9fb360bcc24bbdbecb22db0.pdf 15dfe0aa7f47309abbd71a39d67376e8 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 53 Youth In Search Of Slovak Identity And Pride Along with other youths, Americans of Slovak descent are seeking their ethnic identity, their pride, and their self-respect. Identity and pride in particular, are words that are menti<;>ned frequently by the college youth, still in search of its place in the world. Certainly, identity with a group that already possesses pride and self-respect enhances these same qualities in the individual who seeks them. But, in turn, self-respect and pride are normally achieved by an individual's own accomplishments, and his own personality, which he brings to the group he belongs to. A youth's identity with an ancestral group, particularly in America today, may be a bit difficult. to obtain. This is due in part to the fact that in our mobil society, children of ethnic oriented parents have tended to lose their ethnic identity and to forget their valuable heritage in order to forge their way that much quicker in American life. By fusing into the melting pot a.s rapidly as possible, the meltable ethnics, and many Slovaks among them, have been lost into the mainstream of American life. This melting away and fusion of the Slovaks with other ethnic groups occurred within the time span of only one generation. Slovaks are a particularly adaptable people. They have been very quick to assimilate to the melting pot and have scored phenomenal success in American life. They have become successful in sports, in the military services, in the professions, in politics, and in every phase of business. This success of the American Slovaks, and of their children, has fomented their personal pride and their self-respect. So successful has the assimilation of the American Slovaks been that many have all but forgotten their ancestral ethnic heritage. Yet, having acquired their pride through personal achievements in a world that was just a few short years ago a big and alien one to them, the families of American youths of Slovak ancestry are �54 SLOVAKIA now seeking their identity with their ancestral Slovak heritage. Though at some time in the past, identity with their ethnic group had been considered by some American youth to be a personal liability, today that identity with ethnic groups seems to be a necessity. The college youth feel this need more than any other in order to "discover their identity." This is only natural, for when the ethnic groups reach a point where they are proud of their own accomplishments, then they begin to lose the sense of inferiority which had plagued them before. With a sense of new pride in their own accomplishments they can look back and consider how long a road they have traveled, since the time that their families left the Old World. This, looking back with pride, is, in a sense, the reason for the tourism to Slovakia of so many children and grandchildren of American Slovak immigrants. They are interested in looking up the Old World homestead, because it proves to them concretely how far they have come. They thus begin to discover their roots, their sense of beginning. It is pride that urges them to seek these roots. With confidence in themselves they can look with joy at the humble beginning that gave shelter to their ancestor's lives. The bank president from Ohio, the chancellor of a university in Pennsylvania, the air force colonel from Virginia, the professor of political science from New York, the dentist from California, the physician from Florida, the restaurant owner from New Jersey, and the countless successful workers in every state who have been able to raise fine families and maintain tidy homes with manicured lawns and neat gardens-all these, with pride seek their ethnic Slovak heritage. Pride in one's own accomplishments and a search of one's identity has instigated much of the American tourism to SlovenskoSlovakia. When one is no longer running from his past, from his ethnic group, he can indeed face his origins and contemplate them with pride. Besides traveling to Slovakia, how else can the American youth of Slovak heritage find his identity and seek out his roots that give him a sense of belonging and security? Many Americans, including those of ethnic ancestry, have turned to antique collecting. In this way they try to identify with a past they have almost lost. But there �SLOVAKIA 55 are other ways of finding one's sense of belonging and identity. First of all, for the Slovak ethnic group there are the great American public libraries like those of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, to name just a few. These have extensive holdings in Slovak literature, magazines, newspapers, histories, etc. A visit to the public library will reveal to the youth of Slovak heritage a wealth of information to satisfy much of his curiosity about his ethnic ancestry, and it will give him added pride to see what the Slovak people have been able to produce culturally, despite enormous handicaps both in Europe and in the United States. Besides the public libraries, there are the great American university libraries. Most of these also have fine collections of books and histories of and by Slovaks. All state and private colleges and universities, such as Ohio State, Western Reserve, New York, Texas, Kentucky, Harvard, Yale, Pittsburgh, Columbia (the list can be extended to over 2,000 colleges and universities all over the United States), all have some information on the Slovaks. A visit to university libraries will prove very rewarding for the identity seeker of Slovak heritage. Periodical reading rooms in Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, etc., provide newspapers both from the heritage country as well as from the organizations of Slovaks here in the United States. Thus, all that one has to do to discover his heritage is to locate the nearest college or university in his region and ask any librarian to help him find material on Slovaks. How else can pride be fostered in the Slovak ethnic heritage? This can be done by American journalists working on Slovak publications, such as the Floridian Slovak, the Ndrodne Noviny, the Jednota, Slovak v Amerike, etc., as well as by various Slovak organizations and the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. The Slovak lodge papers, church papers, almanacs, and magazines can attempt to reflect better the present day life among the Slovaks in America, in their cultural organizations, meetings, playgrounds, picnics, cultural and church affairs. Much of the American youth of Slovak heritage is interested in the Slovakia of today, with its soccer teams, its bustling stores, and market �56 SLOVAKIA places, with its crowded schools, universities, theaters, museums, its teeming railroad stations, its rivers, parks, and national monuments. The Slovak youth is interested not only in the High Tatras, but in life in the cities themselves, where the people are, where they act and react with each other. The Slovak youth is interested in life not only on the Danube and the Tatra.s, but as it is lived in the cities like Bratislava, Kosice, Banska Bystrica, Zvolen, Lucenec, Presov, Rimavska Sobota, etc. There are many things Americans with a Slovak heritage can be proud of, both in the United States and in Slovakia. The American journalists and cultural leaders can help the American youth of Slovak descent find its roots, its identity, pride and sense of belonging, which it so anxiously is trying to achieve. John Lihani, Ph.D. * * • 100th BIRTHDAY Sunday, July 16, 1972, Andrew Bucko, from Pittsburgh, Pa., commemorated his 100th birthday. Mr. Bucko was born in Slovakia, Spis County, on July 16, 1872. He came to this country as a young man in about 1890. Even though a teenager with no higher education, he saw the need of doing something for the bereaved, widowed and impoverished immigrants. Along with a few other thoughtful immigrants he founded St. Anthony's Beneficial Society whose program was to take care of families that had prematurely lost the breadwinner of the house. (In those days there was no Social Security, aid to widows, to orphans, etc.) This local society later on joined the First Catholic Slovak Union and became Branch 50 of the Jednota. This branch is still functioning. In 1903 Mr. Bucko became a co-founder of St. Matthew's Slovak Parish and was among the first to contribute and to lend money to the parish to buy the property on which St. Matthew's Church and Rectory stand to the present day. He is the only survivor of the "original" group of founders. � SLOVAKIA 53 Youth In Search Of Slovak Identity And Pride Along with other youths, Americans of Slovak descent are seeking their ethnic identity, their pride, and their self-respect. Identity and pride in particular, are words that are menti<;>ned frequently by the college youth, still in search of its place in the world. Certainly, identity with a group that already possesses pride and self-respect enhances these same qualities in the individual who seeks them. But, in turn, self-respect and pride are normally achieved by an individual's own accomplishments, and his own personality, which he brings to the group he belongs to. A youth's identity with an ancestral group, particularly in America today, may be a bit difficult. to obtain. This is due in part to the fact that in our mobil society, children of ethnic oriented parents have tended to lose their ethnic identity and to forget their valuable heritage in order to forge their way that much quicker in American life. By fusing into the melting pot a.s rapidly as possible, the meltable ethnics, and many Slovaks among them, have been lost into the mainstream of American life. This melting away and fusion of the Slovaks with other ethnic groups occurred within the time span of only one generation. Slovaks are a particularly adaptable people. They have been very quick to assimilate to the melting pot and have scored phenomenal success in American life. They have become successful in sports, in the military services, in the professions, in politics, and in every phase of business. This success of the American Slovaks, and of their children, has fomented their personal pride and their self-respect. So successful has the assimilation of the American Slovaks been that many have all but forgotten their ancestral ethnic heritage. Yet, having acquired their pride through personal achievements in a world that was just a few short years ago a big and alien one to them, the families of American youths of Slovak ancestry are �54 SLOVAKIA now seeking their identity with their ancestral Slovak heritage. Though at some time in the past, identity with their ethnic group had been considered by some American youth to be a personal liability, today that identity with ethnic groups seems to be a necessity. The college youth feel this need more than any other in order to "discover their identity." This is only natural, for when the ethnic groups reach a point where they are proud of their own accomplishments, then they begin to lose the sense of inferiority which had plagued them before. With a sense of new pride in their own accomplishments they can look back and consider how long a road they have traveled, since the time that their families left the Old World. This, looking back with pride, is, in a sense, the reason for the tourism to Slovakia of so many children and grandchildren of American Slovak immigrants. They are interested in looking up the Old World homestead, because it proves to them concretely how far they have come. They thus begin to discover their roots, their sense of beginning. It is pride that urges them to seek these roots. With confidence in themselves they can look with joy at the humble beginning that gave shelter to their ancestor's lives. The bank president from Ohio, the chancellor of a university in Pennsylvania, the air force colonel from Virginia, the professor of political science from New York, the dentist from California, the physician from Florida, the restaurant owner from New Jersey, and the countless successful workers in every state who have been able to raise fine families and maintain tidy homes with manicured lawns and neat gardens-all these, with pride seek their ethnic Slovak heritage. Pride in one's own accomplishments and a search of one's identity has instigated much of the American tourism to SlovenskoSlovakia. When one is no longer running from his past, from his ethnic group, he can indeed face his origins and contemplate them with pride. Besides traveling to Slovakia, how else can the American youth of Slovak heritage find his identity and seek out his roots that give him a sense of belonging and security? Many Americans, including those of ethnic ancestry, have turned to antique collecting. In this way they try to identify with a past they have almost lost. But there �SLOVAKIA 55 are other ways of finding one's sense of belonging and identity. First of all, for the Slovak ethnic group there are the great American public libraries like those of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, to name just a few. These have extensive holdings in Slovak literature, magazines, newspapers, histories, etc. A visit to the public library will reveal to the youth of Slovak heritage a wealth of information to satisfy much of his curiosity about his ethnic ancestry, and it will give him added pride to see what the Slovak people have been able to produce culturally, despite enormous handicaps both in Europe and in the United States. Besides the public libraries, there are the great American university libraries. Most of these also have fine collections of books and histories of and by Slovaks. All state and private colleges and universities, such as Ohio State, Western Reserve, New York, Texas, Kentucky, Harvard, Yale, Pittsburgh, Columbia (the list can be extended to over 2,000 colleges and universities all over the United States), all have some information on the Slovaks. A visit to university libraries will prove very rewarding for the identity seeker of Slovak heritage. Periodical reading rooms in Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, etc., provide newspapers both from the heritage country as well as from the organizations of Slovaks here in the United States. Thus, all that one has to do to discover his heritage is to locate the nearest college or university in his region and ask any librarian to help him find material on Slovaks. How else can pride be fostered in the Slovak ethnic heritage? This can be done by American journalists working on Slovak publications, such as the Floridian Slovak, the Ndrodne Noviny, the Jednota, Slovak v Amerike, etc., as well as by various Slovak organizations and the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. The Slovak lodge papers, church papers, almanacs, and magazines can attempt to reflect better the present day life among the Slovaks in America, in their cultural organizations, meetings, playgrounds, picnics, cultural and church affairs. Much of the American youth of Slovak heritage is interested in the Slovakia of today, with its soccer teams, its bustling stores, and market �56 SLOVAKIA places, with its crowded schools, universities, theaters, museums, its teeming railroad stations, its rivers, parks, and national monuments. The Slovak youth is interested not only in the High Tatras, but in life in the cities themselves, where the people are, where they act and react with each other. The Slovak youth is interested in life not only on the Danube and the Tatra.s, but as it is lived in the cities like Bratislava, Kosice, Banska Bystrica, Zvolen, Lucenec, Presov, Rimavska Sobota, etc. There are many things Americans with a Slovak heritage can be proud of, both in the United States and in Slovakia. The American journalists and cultural leaders can help the American youth of Slovak descent find its roots, its identity, pride and sense of belonging, which it so anxiously is trying to achieve. John Lihani, Ph.D. * * • 100th BIRTHDAY Sunday, July 16, 1972, Andrew Bucko, from Pittsburgh, Pa., commemorated his 100th birthday. Mr. Bucko was born in Slovakia, Spis County, on July 16, 1872. He came to this country as a young man in about 1890. Even though a teenager with no higher education, he saw the need of doing something for the bereaved, widowed and impoverished immigrants. Along with a few other thoughtful immigrants he founded St. Anthony's Beneficial Society whose program was to take care of families that had prematurely lost the breadwinner of the house. (In those days there was no Social Security, aid to widows, to orphans, etc.) This local society later on joined the First Catholic Slovak Union and became Branch 50 of the Jednota. This branch is still functioning. In 1903 Mr. Bucko became a co-founder of St. Matthew's Slovak Parish and was among the first to contribute and to lend money to the parish to buy the property on which St. Matthew's Church and Rectory stand to the present day. He is the only survivor of the "original" group of founders. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SLOVAKIA 53 Youth In Search Of Slovak Identity And Pride Along with other youths, Americans of Slovak descent are seeking their ethnic identity, their pride, and their self-respect. Identity and pride in particular, are words that are menti<;>ned frequently by the college youth, still in search of its place in the world. Certainly, identity with a group that already possesses pride and self-respect enhances these same qualities in the individual who seeks them. But, in turn, self-respect and pride are normally achieved by an individual's own accomplishments, and his own personality, which he brings to the group he belongs to. A youth's identity with an ancestral group, particularly in America today, may be a bit difficult. to obtain. This is due in part to the fact that in our mobil society, children of ethnic oriented parents have tended to lose their ethnic identity and to forget their valuable heritage in order to forge their way that much quicker in American life. By fusing into the melting pot a.s rapidly as possible, the meltable ethnics, and many Slovaks among them, have been lost into the mainstream of American life. This melting away and fusion of the Slovaks with other ethnic groups occurred within the time span of only one generation. Slovaks are a particularly adaptable people. They have been very quick to assimilate to the melting pot and have scored phenomenal success in American life. They have become successful in sports, in the military services, in the professions, in politics, and in every phase of business. This success of the American Slovaks, and of their children, has fomented their personal pride and their self-respect. So successful has the assimilation of the American Slovaks been that many have all but forgotten their ancestral ethnic heritage. Yet, having acquired their pride through personal achievements in a world that was just a few short years ago a big and alien one to them, the families of American youths of Slovak ancestry are 54 SLOVAKIA now seeking their identity with their ancestral Slovak heritage. Though at some time in the past, identity with their ethnic group had been considered by some American youth to be a personal liability, today that identity with ethnic groups seems to be a necessity. The college youth feel this need more than any other in order to "discover their identity." This is only natural, for when the ethnic groups reach a point where they are proud of their own accomplishments, then they begin to lose the sense of inferiority which had plagued them before. With a sense of new pride in their own accomplishments they can look back and consider how long a road they have traveled, since the time that their families left the Old World. This, looking back with pride, is, in a sense, the reason for the tourism to Slovakia of so many children and grandchildren of American Slovak immigrants. They are interested in looking up the Old World homestead, because it proves to them concretely how far they have come. They thus begin to discover their roots, their sense of beginning. It is pride that urges them to seek these roots. With confidence in themselves they can look with joy at the humble beginning that gave shelter to their ancestor's lives. The bank president from Ohio, the chancellor of a university in Pennsylvania, the air force colonel from Virginia, the professor of political science from New York, the dentist from California, the physician from Florida, the restaurant owner from New Jersey, and the countless successful workers in every state who have been able to raise fine families and maintain tidy homes with manicured lawns and neat gardens-all these, with pride seek their ethnic Slovak heritage. Pride in one's own accomplishments and a search of one's identity has instigated much of the American tourism to SlovenskoSlovakia. When one is no longer running from his past, from his ethnic group, he can indeed face his origins and contemplate them with pride. Besides traveling to Slovakia, how else can the American youth of Slovak heritage find his identity and seek out his roots that give him a sense of belonging and security? Many Americans, including those of ethnic ancestry, have turned to antique collecting. In this way they try to identify with a past they have almost lost. But there SLOVAKIA 55 are other ways of finding one's sense of belonging and identity. First of all, for the Slovak ethnic group there are the great American public libraries like those of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, to name just a few. These have extensive holdings in Slovak literature, magazines, newspapers, histories, etc. A visit to the public library will reveal to the youth of Slovak heritage a wealth of information to satisfy much of his curiosity about his ethnic ancestry, and it will give him added pride to see what the Slovak people have been able to produce culturally, despite enormous handicaps both in Europe and in the United States. Besides the public libraries, there are the great American university libraries. Most of these also have fine collections of books and histories of and by Slovaks. All state and private colleges and universities, such as Ohio State, Western Reserve, New York, Texas, Kentucky, Harvard, Yale, Pittsburgh, Columbia (the list can be extended to over 2,000 colleges and universities all over the United States), all have some information on the Slovaks. A visit to university libraries will prove very rewarding for the identity seeker of Slovak heritage. Periodical reading rooms in Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, etc., provide newspapers both from the heritage country as well as from the organizations of Slovaks here in the United States. Thus, all that one has to do to discover his heritage is to locate the nearest college or university in his region and ask any librarian to help him find material on Slovaks. How else can pride be fostered in the Slovak ethnic heritage? This can be done by American journalists working on Slovak publications, such as the Floridian Slovak, the Ndrodne Noviny, the Jednota, Slovak v Amerike, etc., as well as by various Slovak organizations and the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. The Slovak lodge papers, church papers, almanacs, and magazines can attempt to reflect better the present day life among the Slovaks in America, in their cultural organizations, meetings, playgrounds, picnics, cultural and church affairs. Much of the American youth of Slovak heritage is interested in the Slovakia of today, with its soccer teams, its bustling stores, and market 56 SLOVAKIA places, with its crowded schools, universities, theaters, museums, its teeming railroad stations, its rivers, parks, and national monuments. The Slovak youth is interested not only in the High Tatras, but in life in the cities themselves, where the people are, where they act and react with each other. The Slovak youth is interested in life not only on the Danube and the Tatra.s, but as it is lived in the cities like Bratislava, Kosice, Banska Bystrica, Zvolen, Lucenec, Presov, Rimavska Sobota, etc. There are many things Americans with a Slovak heritage can be proud of, both in the United States and in Slovakia. The American journalists and cultural leaders can help the American youth of Slovak descent find its roots, its identity, pride and sense of belonging, which it so anxiously is trying to achieve. John Lihani, Ph.D. * * • 100th BIRTHDAY Sunday, July 16, 1972, Andrew Bucko, from Pittsburgh, Pa., commemorated his 100th birthday. Mr. Bucko was born in Slovakia, Spis County, on July 16, 1872. He came to this country as a young man in about 1890. Even though a teenager with no higher education, he saw the need of doing something for the bereaved, widowed and impoverished immigrants. Along with a few other thoughtful immigrants he founded St. Anthony's Beneficial Society whose program was to take care of families that had prematurely lost the breadwinner of the house. (In those days there was no Social Security, aid to widows, to orphans, etc.) This local society later on joined the First Catholic Slovak Union and became Branch 50 of the Jednota. This branch is still functioning. In 1903 Mr. Bucko became a co-founder of St. Matthew's Slovak Parish and was among the first to contribute and to lend money to the parish to buy the property on which St. Matthew's Church and Rectory stand to the present day. He is the only survivor of the "original" group of founders.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Youth in Search of Slovak Identity and Pride Description An account of the resource John Lihani, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 23 (No. 46), 1973 pp. 53-56 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lihani, John Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/1811530be09d5420a61118cdcf74b327.pdf 889916433ca1d280bd2acb4f4cdcb461 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 29 WILSON AND T. G. MASARYK Joseph Bousa All who believe in the liberation activity of the untruthful "Liberator," Professor Masaryk, ought to read the documents of September 1918, pertaining to the American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia and in Siberia. These documents, taken from the National Archives in Washington, from ,t he archives of the American Department of State, are in the "Journal of Central European Affairs" (April 1953, pp. 47-60) which is published in Boulder, Colorado. After 1918, Masaryk and his paid "historians" told the nation at home just how Masaryk felt "at home" in the White House and how he convinced President Wilson and his advisers about the necessity of dismembering Austria-Hungary and creating the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. The historical facts were, of course, just the opposite of what Masaryk and his henchmen had always claimed. This is also evidenced in the documents published in the Journal. In the summer of 1918 Americans and President Wilson were not interested in Mr. Masaryk who recommended .that America give recognition to the bloody Bolshevik clique in Moscow as the actual government of Russia. The documents make it quite clear that America was for, while Masaryk was against intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1918 American public opinion was very much influenced by the victorious fight of the Czecho-Slovak Legions against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Russia. That is why President Wilson and the Government of the United States did exactly the opposite of what Masaryk wanted and recommended. Instead of recognizing the Red Soviet, as Masaryk had recommended, America recognized the opponents of the Soviet, the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia and in Eastern Russia as a belligerent Allied Army. Before our Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia began .to fight on May 25, 1918, against the Bolsheviks, our soldiers had repudiated the leadership of Ma- �30 SLOVAKIA saryk's National Council and his orders to disarm and remain neutral. This much is quite clear from the documents published in the Journal by Professor Victor Mamatey. It was President Wilson himself who scratched out Masaryk's name in the document which recognized "the belligerency of the Czecho-Slovak revolutionists in view of their military organization operating in Siberia and Eastern Russia." I refer the readers to a unique literary work, written truthfully and without regard to the fables of Masaryk, Benes, and their companions, the book entitled "Krvi a zelezem" (With Blood and Iron). It is the first volume of a work about the Czecho-Slovak revolution of 1914-1918 and the foreign policy of the United States. It was published by Dr. Anthony S. Kalina to honor the memory of his father, an outstanding Czech politician and fighter for the recognition of the right of the Czechs to their own state, and also to honor the memory of our Siberian brothers and their immeasurable sacrifices and immortal merits. The book was first published in Prague, in 1938, and was, after Munich, a great encouragement to our people. It is perhaps the first historical work that sold as a "best seller;" it read like a gripping romance. Our people at home read it like the Bible so that within two months Dr. Kalina had it printed four times in many thousands of copies until further publication was made impossible by the Nazis. Dr. Mamatey's article in the Colorado "Journal" in 1953 complements the statements made by Kalina in his "Krvi a zelemem." What was Masaryk's policy towards Russia? In January, 1917, T. G. Masaryk published a sensational article in the Petersburg ''Ruskaja V olja" which he entitled: "Delenda est Austria" (Austria Must Be Destroyed). The publication "Ruskaja Volja" was the organ of the Minister of the Interior, A. D. Protopopov, who was hated by the Russian people. In his article, Masaryk said: "The form of the independent Czech kingdom could be any one of several. .. A dynasty of Russian origin would be e:rtremely popular." Two months later, however - after the Russian March �SLOVAKIA 31 Revolution, utterly disregarding neutrality in Russian internal affairs, he again villified the Romanoff dynasty. Arriving in Russia, in May 1917, Masaryk demagogically proclaimed as reactionaries and monarchists all those who since 1914 were creating an independent Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia. With the help of the socialists, Masaryk removed from the leadership of Czech affairs in Russia Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, a progressive democrat who had done much for the creation of Czech military units in Russia. When Kerensky refused to see Masaryk and negotiate with him, Masaryk began to favor a second revolution - the Bolshevik Revolution. Thus it was that Masaryk went from one extreme to the other within a year: from the Romanoffs to the Bolsheviks. On the very first day of the communist putsch, November 7, 1917, Masaryk issued an order of neutrality toward the Bolsheviks. In March, 1918, under the protection of Bolshevik guards, Masaryk departed from Moscow, embarking for America through Japan. The people who expected Masaryk to seek recognition from the American Government for the independence of the Slovaks and Czechs were disappointed. In the very first sentence of the memorandum to President Wilson (April 10, 1918), T. G. Masaryk asked America to recognize the Soviets in Russia. In his book "Krvi a zelezem," Dr. Kalina publishes the documents of American diplomats in which Masaryk is designated as a member of the Bolshevik government, who is coming to America in the interests of the Soviets. A:fiter his arrival in America, Masaryk continued to recommend the recognition of the Soviets as the government of Russia by the American Government in a series of articles and lectures. What was the policy of America and President Wilson towards Russia? Favorable at first to the democratic Russian Revolution and the Kerensky government, it supported the anti-Bolshevik movement and categorically refused to recognize the Bolsheviks as the government of Russia. The policy of America was, therefore, in direct conflict with the policy of Masaryk. It thus happened that Masaryk, after he came to Washington on May 9, 1918, �32 SLOVAKIA had to wait six weeks before he was received by the White House. And available documents tell us most clearly that President Wilson would not have received Masaryk even then had it not been for the intervention of the CzechoSlovak Legion against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Eastern Russia. Except for this intervention, against the orders of T. G. Masaryk, it can be truthfully said, therefore, the movement for Czecho-Slovak independence would have collapsed. President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing, aware of Masaryk's non-interventionist policy in Russia, called him in for a hearing on June 19, 1918. Lansing had a difficult time trying to convince Masaryk not .to intervene with the intervention of the Czecho-Sfovak Legion against the Bolsheviks. Lansing talked with Masaryk on June 2 and 25, but Masaryk would not give in. On June 25, 1918, Masaryk even sent a telegram to Soviet Foreign Minister Cicerin in which he bade him to disarm the Czecho.:Slovak Legion in Russia and Siberia. If Masaryk were in Siberia at that time, I strongly suspect that he would have met the same fate as his Commissar Skotak after the battle of Liptak with the Bolsheviks on June 4, 1918: he too would have been hanged for treason. Masaryk kept on going from one extreme to another until it became crystal clear to him that he would end in complete failure not only with the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires, but also with America and the Allies, if he kept to his pro-Bolshevik policy. The Slovaks and Czechs were fighting two months with the Bolsheviks, conquering just about everything up to the Volga, when Masaryk suddenly decided (July 20, 1918) to drop his pro-Bolshevik attitude and support the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires. It was on that day that Masaryk, as titular head of the Czecho-Slovak National Council (Paris), requested President Wilson to help the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia in its fight aigainst the Bolsheviks. This belated Masaryk's conversion and request had catastrophical results. American help came laite. Our brethren on the Volga waited for help in vain. The Bolsheviks reorganized and consolidated their ranks in the meantime. Thus it was that the Bolshe- �SLOVAKIA 33 viks in Russia were saved. Had Masaryk not played with the Bolsheviks at that time and caused dissension and confusion in our ranks, the Bolsheviks could have been beaten ... and the Red plague would not have spread throughout the world. But even with his speedy conversion on July 20, 1918, Masaryk did not gain the confidence of President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing. American diplomatic documents show that even at the end of 1918, after the overthrow in Prague, President Wilson and Secretary Lansing were not convinced that Masaryk had the support of the Slovaks and Czechs at home. They still remembered that the Legions in Russia had revolted against his policy. Masaryk was saved only by the noblesse of the leaders of the domestic revolution, who made him President in 1918 and re-elected him again in 1927 when a majority of the nation began to oppose Masaryk's socialization. The American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak movement for freedom, without mentioning Masaryk's name, was published in Washington on September 3, 1918. This recognition was clearly the result of the fight of the Czecho-<Slovak Legions in Siberia and Eastern Russia. It came not only without Masaryk's help, but even directly against his unfortunate policy which favored the communists. Slowly but certainly historical science is revealing all the fraud and humbug perpetrated against the modern history of the Czechs and the Slovaks. Again and again history supports all those who had clearly warned against Masaryk's and Benes' policy of socialization. Thus are reha:bilitated such patriotic leaders of our nation as Dr. Charles Kramar, Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, Professor Francis Mares, Dr. Charles Pergler, Victor Dyk, J. S. Machar, and immortal merits of our great Generals, such as, M. R. Stefanik, Stanislaus Cecek, John Gajer, Radola Gajda, Edward Kadlec, Rudolph Medek, Joseph J. Svec, and many others. A study of our modern history has convinced me that also in the future our efforts to liberate our people at home from communism will be successful only if we return �SLOVAKIA 34 to the path pointed out to us by selfless men, men of vision, by our courageous sons of our nation. As has been said so many times over, I am also convinced that under the banner of false legends and liberation myths - whether they are Masaryk's and/or Benes' - we shall never succeed in consolidating our nation to fight against our sworn enemy - communism. 0 0 0 0 Joseph Bousa is a Czech associated with the group which publishes the periodical "Bohemia" under the leadership of Vladimir Pekelsky in Kolu-Ehrenfel d, West Germany. Professor Victor S. Mamatey (University of Florida) is the author of the "documents" article referred to by Bouska, who, for some reason or other, preferred . not to mention the author by name, though informed people know that Mamatey is of Slovak origin and the son of the late Albert Mamatey, President of the Slovak League of America during the period the above events transpired. It is true, as Mamatey states aJt the outset of his study, that "relatively little is known about precise circumstances and motives of recognition by the United States Government of the Czechoslovak National Council of Paris in September 1918." This is understandab le since most available studies on this matter ignore the documents that are at hand, the authors preferring to write panegyrics about Masaryk and Benes and their fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak " nation instead of true history. We cannot agree with Professor Mamatey that "Thomas G. Masaryk ... was a well-known political figure" at the time the above events happened, yet we cannot recommend his study .too highly to all scholars and students of history. Mamatey's study of fourteen pages suggests that available history books on Czecho-Slovakia (Roucek's, Kerner's, Odlozilik's, Bezdicek's, Thomson's among them) can become more complete for the edification of future historians, if the respective historians take note of it. The conclusions drawn by Professor Mamatey deserve to be published here for the edification of our readers: The conclusions that may be drawn from tJhe foregoing documents are several: le 11he recognit-ion of the Czechoslovak Nationial �35 SLOVAKIA Council was tbased neither on Bohemia's historical rights to independen,ce nor on the principle <Xf national seltf-determiruation, but on the fact of Czechoslovak belligerency. 2. The recognition committed the United States Government to uphold Czech0$lovak independ•enice from Austria.filung ary, and together with the recogniUon accorded the CzechoslO'Va'ks by other Allied Governments , it virtuaHy assured them a place as an Mlied belliigerent nation at the peace conforence. But it in no sense implied a recognition <Xf unlike exact territorial cla.imsQl). 3. Since the Czechoslovak s the Culban revolutionari es Wlhose beUi,gerency had been recognized by President Grant - were not in possession orf the territ oriy they claimed and thus lacked what had always been regarded as an essentia1 element of soviereignty, and since the lilffiits of this territory were at the time unknown to the American policy-maker s (2), Lansing thought it wise to dissociate the recognition of the Czechoslo\<ak National Council from any concep tion <Xf terflitory by following the British examp1'e of granting r~ognition to the Czecho-Slovaks - wherever they might be, in Siberia, France, or Italy rather than to Czechoslovak ia, a territorial unit then still of uncertain Hmits. 4. Jin preparing the recogn,it ion, St-.ite Department o.fificials carefiuHy studied it in the light of precedents. Lans-i ng also gave careful thought to its possible effoots on domest ic American politics and on the current internat ional situat ion. 1it does not appear, however, that any thought was given to its possible effect on post-war Europe. Neitoor President Wilson nor the State Department officials a,p,pear to have been concerned at the time with the 1mportant question otf the disposal of the German minority in Bohemia and Moravia. Generally speaking, President Wilson and his forei,gn...ipolicy advisors thought that all such detailed questions should be left to the peace coruference to decide (3). 5. Cont,r,ary to common belief, the recognition of the Czechoslovak Nationa l Council, like previous anti-Austrian measiur-es adopted by the United States GoverD1Inent, was not a res ult of direct, personal discussions between Wilson and Masaryk. The impetus to the adoption o.f this me·a sure came from the American publ ic, impresesd with the exploits of the Czechoslovak soldtiers in S~beria. Besrides th1e Silberian adventure, ~rtant elements of American pulblic opinion were, no doubt, influenced by Masaryk's skillful propa,gantla. But the State DepartJment oiificials, charged with the elaiboration of the recognition, paid little heed to his suggestions, and Presiden,t Wilson a,piproved the dec ~aration without discussing it with him (4). Ed itor. 0 ) It may be interesting to note in this connection tha t at the Paris :Pea'Ce Conference the American delegation advocated an ethnic boundary for Czechoslovakia until April 4, '1919, Wlhen druxing a period of the President's iHness, Edward M. House gave in to the French demand for the retention of the historical boundary of Bohemia and Moravia. (2) On Septemlber 27, 19118, as an, afterthought, th~ Department of State wired to London to inquire the views of the Foreign Office about the fuiture boundaries of the Czechoslovak State. The British �36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars. � SLOVAKIA 29 WILSON AND T. G. MASARYK Joseph Bousa All who believe in the liberation activity of the untruthful "Liberator," Professor Masaryk, ought to read the documents of September 1918, pertaining to the American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia and in Siberia. These documents, taken from the National Archives in Washington, from ,t he archives of the American Department of State, are in the "Journal of Central European Affairs" (April 1953, pp. 47-60) which is published in Boulder, Colorado. After 1918, Masaryk and his paid "historians" told the nation at home just how Masaryk felt "at home" in the White House and how he convinced President Wilson and his advisers about the necessity of dismembering Austria-Hungary and creating the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. The historical facts were, of course, just the opposite of what Masaryk and his henchmen had always claimed. This is also evidenced in the documents published in the Journal. In the summer of 1918 Americans and President Wilson were not interested in Mr. Masaryk who recommended .that America give recognition to the bloody Bolshevik clique in Moscow as the actual government of Russia. The documents make it quite clear that America was for, while Masaryk was against intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1918 American public opinion was very much influenced by the victorious fight of the Czecho-Slovak Legions against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Russia. That is why President Wilson and the Government of the United States did exactly the opposite of what Masaryk wanted and recommended. Instead of recognizing the Red Soviet, as Masaryk had recommended, America recognized the opponents of the Soviet, the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia and in Eastern Russia as a belligerent Allied Army. Before our Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia began .to fight on May 25, 1918, against the Bolsheviks, our soldiers had repudiated the leadership of Ma- �30 SLOVAKIA saryk's National Council and his orders to disarm and remain neutral. This much is quite clear from the documents published in the Journal by Professor Victor Mamatey. It was President Wilson himself who scratched out Masaryk's name in the document which recognized "the belligerency of the Czecho-Slovak revolutionists in view of their military organization operating in Siberia and Eastern Russia." I refer the readers to a unique literary work, written truthfully and without regard to the fables of Masaryk, Benes, and their companions, the book entitled "Krvi a zelezem" (With Blood and Iron). It is the first volume of a work about the Czecho-Slovak revolution of 1914-1918 and the foreign policy of the United States. It was published by Dr. Anthony S. Kalina to honor the memory of his father, an outstanding Czech politician and fighter for the recognition of the right of the Czechs to their own state, and also to honor the memory of our Siberian brothers and their immeasurable sacrifices and immortal merits. The book was first published in Prague, in 1938, and was, after Munich, a great encouragement to our people. It is perhaps the first historical work that sold as a "best seller;" it read like a gripping romance. Our people at home read it like the Bible so that within two months Dr. Kalina had it printed four times in many thousands of copies until further publication was made impossible by the Nazis. Dr. Mamatey's article in the Colorado "Journal" in 1953 complements the statements made by Kalina in his "Krvi a zelemem." What was Masaryk's policy towards Russia? In January, 1917, T. G. Masaryk published a sensational article in the Petersburg ''Ruskaja V olja" which he entitled: "Delenda est Austria" (Austria Must Be Destroyed). The publication "Ruskaja Volja" was the organ of the Minister of the Interior, A. D. Protopopov, who was hated by the Russian people. In his article, Masaryk said: "The form of the independent Czech kingdom could be any one of several. .. A dynasty of Russian origin would be e:rtremely popular." Two months later, however - after the Russian March �SLOVAKIA 31 Revolution, utterly disregarding neutrality in Russian internal affairs, he again villified the Romanoff dynasty. Arriving in Russia, in May 1917, Masaryk demagogically proclaimed as reactionaries and monarchists all those who since 1914 were creating an independent Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia. With the help of the socialists, Masaryk removed from the leadership of Czech affairs in Russia Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, a progressive democrat who had done much for the creation of Czech military units in Russia. When Kerensky refused to see Masaryk and negotiate with him, Masaryk began to favor a second revolution - the Bolshevik Revolution. Thus it was that Masaryk went from one extreme to the other within a year: from the Romanoffs to the Bolsheviks. On the very first day of the communist putsch, November 7, 1917, Masaryk issued an order of neutrality toward the Bolsheviks. In March, 1918, under the protection of Bolshevik guards, Masaryk departed from Moscow, embarking for America through Japan. The people who expected Masaryk to seek recognition from the American Government for the independence of the Slovaks and Czechs were disappointed. In the very first sentence of the memorandum to President Wilson (April 10, 1918), T. G. Masaryk asked America to recognize the Soviets in Russia. In his book "Krvi a zelezem," Dr. Kalina publishes the documents of American diplomats in which Masaryk is designated as a member of the Bolshevik government, who is coming to America in the interests of the Soviets. A:fiter his arrival in America, Masaryk continued to recommend the recognition of the Soviets as the government of Russia by the American Government in a series of articles and lectures. What was the policy of America and President Wilson towards Russia? Favorable at first to the democratic Russian Revolution and the Kerensky government, it supported the anti-Bolshevik movement and categorically refused to recognize the Bolsheviks as the government of Russia. The policy of America was, therefore, in direct conflict with the policy of Masaryk. It thus happened that Masaryk, after he came to Washington on May 9, 1918, �32 SLOVAKIA had to wait six weeks before he was received by the White House. And available documents tell us most clearly that President Wilson would not have received Masaryk even then had it not been for the intervention of the CzechoSlovak Legion against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Eastern Russia. Except for this intervention, against the orders of T. G. Masaryk, it can be truthfully said, therefore, the movement for Czecho-Slovak independence would have collapsed. President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing, aware of Masaryk's non-interventionist policy in Russia, called him in for a hearing on June 19, 1918. Lansing had a difficult time trying to convince Masaryk not .to intervene with the intervention of the Czecho-Sfovak Legion against the Bolsheviks. Lansing talked with Masaryk on June 2 and 25, but Masaryk would not give in. On June 25, 1918, Masaryk even sent a telegram to Soviet Foreign Minister Cicerin in which he bade him to disarm the Czecho.:Slovak Legion in Russia and Siberia. If Masaryk were in Siberia at that time, I strongly suspect that he would have met the same fate as his Commissar Skotak after the battle of Liptak with the Bolsheviks on June 4, 1918: he too would have been hanged for treason. Masaryk kept on going from one extreme to another until it became crystal clear to him that he would end in complete failure not only with the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires, but also with America and the Allies, if he kept to his pro-Bolshevik policy. The Slovaks and Czechs were fighting two months with the Bolsheviks, conquering just about everything up to the Volga, when Masaryk suddenly decided (July 20, 1918) to drop his pro-Bolshevik attitude and support the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires. It was on that day that Masaryk, as titular head of the Czecho-Slovak National Council (Paris), requested President Wilson to help the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia in its fight aigainst the Bolsheviks. This belated Masaryk's conversion and request had catastrophical results. American help came laite. Our brethren on the Volga waited for help in vain. The Bolsheviks reorganized and consolidated their ranks in the meantime. Thus it was that the Bolshe- �SLOVAKIA 33 viks in Russia were saved. Had Masaryk not played with the Bolsheviks at that time and caused dissension and confusion in our ranks, the Bolsheviks could have been beaten ... and the Red plague would not have spread throughout the world. But even with his speedy conversion on July 20, 1918, Masaryk did not gain the confidence of President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing. American diplomatic documents show that even at the end of 1918, after the overthrow in Prague, President Wilson and Secretary Lansing were not convinced that Masaryk had the support of the Slovaks and Czechs at home. They still remembered that the Legions in Russia had revolted against his policy. Masaryk was saved only by the noblesse of the leaders of the domestic revolution, who made him President in 1918 and re-elected him again in 1927 when a majority of the nation began to oppose Masaryk's socialization. The American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak movement for freedom, without mentioning Masaryk's name, was published in Washington on September 3, 1918. This recognition was clearly the result of the fight of the Czecho-<Slovak Legions in Siberia and Eastern Russia. It came not only without Masaryk's help, but even directly against his unfortunate policy which favored the communists. Slowly but certainly historical science is revealing all the fraud and humbug perpetrated against the modern history of the Czechs and the Slovaks. Again and again history supports all those who had clearly warned against Masaryk's and Benes' policy of socialization. Thus are reha:bilitated such patriotic leaders of our nation as Dr. Charles Kramar, Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, Professor Francis Mares, Dr. Charles Pergler, Victor Dyk, J. S. Machar, and immortal merits of our great Generals, such as, M. R. Stefanik, Stanislaus Cecek, John Gajer, Radola Gajda, Edward Kadlec, Rudolph Medek, Joseph J. Svec, and many others. A study of our modern history has convinced me that also in the future our efforts to liberate our people at home from communism will be successful only if we return �SLOVAKIA 34 to the path pointed out to us by selfless men, men of vision, by our courageous sons of our nation. As has been said so many times over, I am also convinced that under the banner of false legends and liberation myths - whether they are Masaryk's and/or Benes' - we shall never succeed in consolidating our nation to fight against our sworn enemy - communism. 0 0 0 0 Joseph Bousa is a Czech associated with the group which publishes the periodical "Bohemia" under the leadership of Vladimir Pekelsky in Kolu-Ehrenfel d, West Germany. Professor Victor S. Mamatey (University of Florida) is the author of the "documents" article referred to by Bouska, who, for some reason or other, preferred . not to mention the author by name, though informed people know that Mamatey is of Slovak origin and the son of the late Albert Mamatey, President of the Slovak League of America during the period the above events transpired. It is true, as Mamatey states aJt the outset of his study, that "relatively little is known about precise circumstances and motives of recognition by the United States Government of the Czechoslovak National Council of Paris in September 1918." This is understandab le since most available studies on this matter ignore the documents that are at hand, the authors preferring to write panegyrics about Masaryk and Benes and their fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak " nation instead of true history. We cannot agree with Professor Mamatey that "Thomas G. Masaryk ... was a well-known political figure" at the time the above events happened, yet we cannot recommend his study .too highly to all scholars and students of history. Mamatey's study of fourteen pages suggests that available history books on Czecho-Slovakia (Roucek's, Kerner's, Odlozilik's, Bezdicek's, Thomson's among them) can become more complete for the edification of future historians, if the respective historians take note of it. The conclusions drawn by Professor Mamatey deserve to be published here for the edification of our readers: The conclusions that may be drawn from tJhe foregoing documents are several: le 11he recognit-ion of the Czechoslovak Nationial �35 SLOVAKIA Council was tbased neither on Bohemia's historical rights to independen,ce nor on the principle <Xf national seltf-determiruation, but on the fact of Czechoslovak belligerency. 2. The recognition committed the United States Government to uphold Czech0$lovak independ•enice from Austria.filung ary, and together with the recogniUon accorded the CzechoslO'Va'ks by other Allied Governments , it virtuaHy assured them a place as an Mlied belliigerent nation at the peace conforence. But it in no sense implied a recognition <Xf unlike exact territorial cla.imsQl). 3. Since the Czechoslovak s the Culban revolutionari es Wlhose beUi,gerency had been recognized by President Grant - were not in possession orf the territ oriy they claimed and thus lacked what had always been regarded as an essentia1 element of soviereignty, and since the lilffiits of this territory were at the time unknown to the American policy-maker s (2), Lansing thought it wise to dissociate the recognition of the Czechoslo\<ak National Council from any concep tion <Xf terflitory by following the British examp1'e of granting r~ognition to the Czecho-Slovaks - wherever they might be, in Siberia, France, or Italy rather than to Czechoslovak ia, a territorial unit then still of uncertain Hmits. 4. Jin preparing the recogn,it ion, St-.ite Department o.fificials carefiuHy studied it in the light of precedents. Lans-i ng also gave careful thought to its possible effoots on domest ic American politics and on the current internat ional situat ion. 1it does not appear, however, that any thought was given to its possible effect on post-war Europe. Neitoor President Wilson nor the State Department officials a,p,pear to have been concerned at the time with the 1mportant question otf the disposal of the German minority in Bohemia and Moravia. Generally speaking, President Wilson and his forei,gn...ipolicy advisors thought that all such detailed questions should be left to the peace coruference to decide (3). 5. Cont,r,ary to common belief, the recognition of the Czechoslovak Nationa l Council, like previous anti-Austrian measiur-es adopted by the United States GoverD1Inent, was not a res ult of direct, personal discussions between Wilson and Masaryk. The impetus to the adoption o.f this me·a sure came from the American publ ic, impresesd with the exploits of the Czechoslovak soldtiers in S~beria. Besrides th1e Silberian adventure, ~rtant elements of American pulblic opinion were, no doubt, influenced by Masaryk's skillful propa,gantla. But the State DepartJment oiificials, charged with the elaiboration of the recognition, paid little heed to his suggestions, and Presiden,t Wilson a,piproved the dec ~aration without discussing it with him (4). Ed itor. 0 ) It may be interesting to note in this connection tha t at the Paris :Pea'Ce Conference the American delegation advocated an ethnic boundary for Czechoslovakia until April 4, '1919, Wlhen druxing a period of the President's iHness, Edward M. House gave in to the French demand for the retention of the historical boundary of Bohemia and Moravia. (2) On Septemlber 27, 19118, as an, afterthought, th~ Department of State wired to London to inquire the views of the Foreign Office about the fuiture boundaries of the Czechoslovak State. The British �36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1960, Vol. 10 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 6 [sic] (No. 31), March-June 1960.</li> <li>Issue 7 [sic] (No. 32), September-December 1960.</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 29 WILSON AND T. G. MASARYK Joseph Bousa All who believe in the liberation activity of the untruthful "Liberator," Professor Masaryk, ought to read the documents of September 1918, pertaining to the American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia and in Siberia. These documents, taken from the National Archives in Washington, from ,t he archives of the American Department of State, are in the "Journal of Central European Affairs" (April 1953, pp. 47-60) which is published in Boulder, Colorado. After 1918, Masaryk and his paid "historians" told the nation at home just how Masaryk felt "at home" in the White House and how he convinced President Wilson and his advisers about the necessity of dismembering Austria-Hungary and creating the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. The historical facts were, of course, just the opposite of what Masaryk and his henchmen had always claimed. This is also evidenced in the documents published in the Journal. In the summer of 1918 Americans and President Wilson were not interested in Mr. Masaryk who recommended .that America give recognition to the bloody Bolshevik clique in Moscow as the actual government of Russia. The documents make it quite clear that America was for, while Masaryk was against intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1918 American public opinion was very much influenced by the victorious fight of the Czecho-Slovak Legions against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Russia. That is why President Wilson and the Government of the United States did exactly the opposite of what Masaryk wanted and recommended. Instead of recognizing the Red Soviet, as Masaryk had recommended, America recognized the opponents of the Soviet, the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia and in Eastern Russia as a belligerent Allied Army. Before our Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia began .to fight on May 25, 1918, against the Bolsheviks, our soldiers had repudiated the leadership of Ma- 30 SLOVAKIA saryk's National Council and his orders to disarm and remain neutral. This much is quite clear from the documents published in the Journal by Professor Victor Mamatey. It was President Wilson himself who scratched out Masaryk's name in the document which recognized "the belligerency of the Czecho-Slovak revolutionists in view of their military organization operating in Siberia and Eastern Russia." I refer the readers to a unique literary work, written truthfully and without regard to the fables of Masaryk, Benes, and their companions, the book entitled "Krvi a zelezem" (With Blood and Iron). It is the first volume of a work about the Czecho-Slovak revolution of 1914-1918 and the foreign policy of the United States. It was published by Dr. Anthony S. Kalina to honor the memory of his father, an outstanding Czech politician and fighter for the recognition of the right of the Czechs to their own state, and also to honor the memory of our Siberian brothers and their immeasurable sacrifices and immortal merits. The book was first published in Prague, in 1938, and was, after Munich, a great encouragement to our people. It is perhaps the first historical work that sold as a "best seller;" it read like a gripping romance. Our people at home read it like the Bible so that within two months Dr. Kalina had it printed four times in many thousands of copies until further publication was made impossible by the Nazis. Dr. Mamatey's article in the Colorado "Journal" in 1953 complements the statements made by Kalina in his "Krvi a zelemem." What was Masaryk's policy towards Russia? In January, 1917, T. G. Masaryk published a sensational article in the Petersburg ''Ruskaja V olja" which he entitled: "Delenda est Austria" (Austria Must Be Destroyed). The publication "Ruskaja Volja" was the organ of the Minister of the Interior, A. D. Protopopov, who was hated by the Russian people. In his article, Masaryk said: "The form of the independent Czech kingdom could be any one of several. .. A dynasty of Russian origin would be e:rtremely popular." Two months later, however - after the Russian March SLOVAKIA 31 Revolution, utterly disregarding neutrality in Russian internal affairs, he again villified the Romanoff dynasty. Arriving in Russia, in May 1917, Masaryk demagogically proclaimed as reactionaries and monarchists all those who since 1914 were creating an independent Czecho-Slovak Army in Russia. With the help of the socialists, Masaryk removed from the leadership of Czech affairs in Russia Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, a progressive democrat who had done much for the creation of Czech military units in Russia. When Kerensky refused to see Masaryk and negotiate with him, Masaryk began to favor a second revolution - the Bolshevik Revolution. Thus it was that Masaryk went from one extreme to the other within a year: from the Romanoffs to the Bolsheviks. On the very first day of the communist putsch, November 7, 1917, Masaryk issued an order of neutrality toward the Bolsheviks. In March, 1918, under the protection of Bolshevik guards, Masaryk departed from Moscow, embarking for America through Japan. The people who expected Masaryk to seek recognition from the American Government for the independence of the Slovaks and Czechs were disappointed. In the very first sentence of the memorandum to President Wilson (April 10, 1918), T. G. Masaryk asked America to recognize the Soviets in Russia. In his book "Krvi a zelezem," Dr. Kalina publishes the documents of American diplomats in which Masaryk is designated as a member of the Bolshevik government, who is coming to America in the interests of the Soviets. A:fiter his arrival in America, Masaryk continued to recommend the recognition of the Soviets as the government of Russia by the American Government in a series of articles and lectures. What was the policy of America and President Wilson towards Russia? Favorable at first to the democratic Russian Revolution and the Kerensky government, it supported the anti-Bolshevik movement and categorically refused to recognize the Bolsheviks as the government of Russia. The policy of America was, therefore, in direct conflict with the policy of Masaryk. It thus happened that Masaryk, after he came to Washington on May 9, 1918, 32 SLOVAKIA had to wait six weeks before he was received by the White House. And available documents tell us most clearly that President Wilson would not have received Masaryk even then had it not been for the intervention of the CzechoSlovak Legion against the Bolsheviks in Siberia and Eastern Russia. Except for this intervention, against the orders of T. G. Masaryk, it can be truthfully said, therefore, the movement for Czecho-Slovak independence would have collapsed. President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing, aware of Masaryk's non-interventionist policy in Russia, called him in for a hearing on June 19, 1918. Lansing had a difficult time trying to convince Masaryk not .to intervene with the intervention of the Czecho-Sfovak Legion against the Bolsheviks. Lansing talked with Masaryk on June 2 and 25, but Masaryk would not give in. On June 25, 1918, Masaryk even sent a telegram to Soviet Foreign Minister Cicerin in which he bade him to disarm the Czecho.:Slovak Legion in Russia and Siberia. If Masaryk were in Siberia at that time, I strongly suspect that he would have met the same fate as his Commissar Skotak after the battle of Liptak with the Bolsheviks on June 4, 1918: he too would have been hanged for treason. Masaryk kept on going from one extreme to another until it became crystal clear to him that he would end in complete failure not only with the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires, but also with America and the Allies, if he kept to his pro-Bolshevik policy. The Slovaks and Czechs were fighting two months with the Bolsheviks, conquering just about everything up to the Volga, when Masaryk suddenly decided (July 20, 1918) to drop his pro-Bolshevik attitude and support the Czecho-Slovak Legionnaires. It was on that day that Masaryk, as titular head of the Czecho-Slovak National Council (Paris), requested President Wilson to help the Czecho-Slovak Army in Siberia in its fight aigainst the Bolsheviks. This belated Masaryk's conversion and request had catastrophical results. American help came laite. Our brethren on the Volga waited for help in vain. The Bolsheviks reorganized and consolidated their ranks in the meantime. Thus it was that the Bolshe- SLOVAKIA 33 viks in Russia were saved. Had Masaryk not played with the Bolsheviks at that time and caused dissension and confusion in our ranks, the Bolsheviks could have been beaten ... and the Red plague would not have spread throughout the world. But even with his speedy conversion on July 20, 1918, Masaryk did not gain the confidence of President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing. American diplomatic documents show that even at the end of 1918, after the overthrow in Prague, President Wilson and Secretary Lansing were not convinced that Masaryk had the support of the Slovaks and Czechs at home. They still remembered that the Legions in Russia had revolted against his policy. Masaryk was saved only by the noblesse of the leaders of the domestic revolution, who made him President in 1918 and re-elected him again in 1927 when a majority of the nation began to oppose Masaryk's socialization. The American recognition of the Czecho-Slovak movement for freedom, without mentioning Masaryk's name, was published in Washington on September 3, 1918. This recognition was clearly the result of the fight of the Czecho-<Slovak Legions in Siberia and Eastern Russia. It came not only without Masaryk's help, but even directly against his unfortunate policy which favored the communists. Slowly but certainly historical science is revealing all the fraud and humbug perpetrated against the modern history of the Czechs and the Slovaks. Again and again history supports all those who had clearly warned against Masaryk's and Benes' policy of socialization. Thus are reha:bilitated such patriotic leaders of our nation as Dr. Charles Kramar, Dr. Vaclav Vondrak, Professor Francis Mares, Dr. Charles Pergler, Victor Dyk, J. S. Machar, and immortal merits of our great Generals, such as, M. R. Stefanik, Stanislaus Cecek, John Gajer, Radola Gajda, Edward Kadlec, Rudolph Medek, Joseph J. Svec, and many others. A study of our modern history has convinced me that also in the future our efforts to liberate our people at home from communism will be successful only if we return SLOVAKIA 34 to the path pointed out to us by selfless men, men of vision, by our courageous sons of our nation. As has been said so many times over, I am also convinced that under the banner of false legends and liberation myths - whether they are Masaryk's and/or Benes' - we shall never succeed in consolidating our nation to fight against our sworn enemy - communism. 0 0 0 0 Joseph Bousa is a Czech associated with the group which publishes the periodical "Bohemia" under the leadership of Vladimir Pekelsky in Kolu-Ehrenfel d, West Germany. Professor Victor S. Mamatey (University of Florida) is the author of the "documents" article referred to by Bouska, who, for some reason or other, preferred . not to mention the author by name, though informed people know that Mamatey is of Slovak origin and the son of the late Albert Mamatey, President of the Slovak League of America during the period the above events transpired. It is true, as Mamatey states aJt the outset of his study, that "relatively little is known about precise circumstances and motives of recognition by the United States Government of the Czechoslovak National Council of Paris in September 1918." This is understandab le since most available studies on this matter ignore the documents that are at hand, the authors preferring to write panegyrics about Masaryk and Benes and their fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak " nation instead of true history. We cannot agree with Professor Mamatey that "Thomas G. Masaryk ... was a well-known political figure" at the time the above events happened, yet we cannot recommend his study .too highly to all scholars and students of history. Mamatey's study of fourteen pages suggests that available history books on Czecho-Slovakia (Roucek's, Kerner's, Odlozilik's, Bezdicek's, Thomson's among them) can become more complete for the edification of future historians, if the respective historians take note of it. The conclusions drawn by Professor Mamatey deserve to be published here for the edification of our readers: The conclusions that may be drawn from tJhe foregoing documents are several: le 11he recognit-ion of the Czechoslovak Nationial 35 SLOVAKIA Council was tbased neither on Bohemia's historical rights to independen,ce nor on the principle <Xf national seltf-determiruation, but on the fact of Czechoslovak belligerency. 2. The recognition committed the United States Government to uphold Czech0$lovak independ•enice from Austria.filung ary, and together with the recogniUon accorded the CzechoslO'Va'ks by other Allied Governments , it virtuaHy assured them a place as an Mlied belliigerent nation at the peace conforence. But it in no sense implied a recognition <Xf unlike exact territorial cla.imsQl). 3. Since the Czechoslovak s the Culban revolutionari es Wlhose beUi,gerency had been recognized by President Grant - were not in possession orf the territ oriy they claimed and thus lacked what had always been regarded as an essentia1 element of soviereignty, and since the lilffiits of this territory were at the time unknown to the American policy-maker s (2), Lansing thought it wise to dissociate the recognition of the Czechoslo\<ak National Council from any concep tion <Xf terflitory by following the British examp1'e of granting r~ognition to the Czecho-Slovaks - wherever they might be, in Siberia, France, or Italy rather than to Czechoslovak ia, a territorial unit then still of uncertain Hmits. 4. Jin preparing the recogn,it ion, St-.ite Department o.fificials carefiuHy studied it in the light of precedents. Lans-i ng also gave careful thought to its possible effoots on domest ic American politics and on the current internat ional situat ion. 1it does not appear, however, that any thought was given to its possible effect on post-war Europe. Neitoor President Wilson nor the State Department officials a,p,pear to have been concerned at the time with the 1mportant question otf the disposal of the German minority in Bohemia and Moravia. Generally speaking, President Wilson and his forei,gn...ipolicy advisors thought that all such detailed questions should be left to the peace coruference to decide (3). 5. Cont,r,ary to common belief, the recognition of the Czechoslovak Nationa l Council, like previous anti-Austrian measiur-es adopted by the United States GoverD1Inent, was not a res ult of direct, personal discussions between Wilson and Masaryk. The impetus to the adoption o.f this me·a sure came from the American publ ic, impresesd with the exploits of the Czechoslovak soldtiers in S~beria. Besrides th1e Silberian adventure, ~rtant elements of American pulblic opinion were, no doubt, influenced by Masaryk's skillful propa,gantla. But the State DepartJment oiificials, charged with the elaiboration of the recognition, paid little heed to his suggestions, and Presiden,t Wilson a,piproved the dec ~aration without discussing it with him (4). Ed itor. 0 ) It may be interesting to note in this connection tha t at the Paris :Pea'Ce Conference the American delegation advocated an ethnic boundary for Czechoslovakia until April 4, '1919, Wlhen druxing a period of the President's iHness, Edward M. House gave in to the French demand for the retention of the historical boundary of Bohemia and Moravia. (2) On Septemlber 27, 19118, as an, afterthought, th~ Department of State wired to London to inquire the views of the Foreign Office about the fuiture boundaries of the Czechoslovak State. The British 36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wilson and T. G. Masaryk Description An account of the resource Joseph Bouša Slovakia, Vol. 10, No. 6 (31), March-June 1960 pp. 29-36 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bouša, Joseph Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March-June 1960 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/58e736c35597fc360380bb232a58bd94.pdf 0796af79766589d3985fcf01f6273126 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right �12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College �SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, �14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of �SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. �16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) �SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is �18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through �SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." �20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its �SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national �22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before �SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation �SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. �SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. �SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. �SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � SLOVAKIA 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right �12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College �SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, �14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of �SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. �16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) �SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is �18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through �SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." �20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its �SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national �22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before �SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation �SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. �SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. �SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. �SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1970, Vol. 20 Description An account of the resource Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right 12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, 14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. 16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is 18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." 20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national 22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970 pp. 11-27 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4bf24b14b55c8c7c700a20bc2f0f46d7.pdf 9916fb9c6316cbdb4d95d65106f1cd09 PDF Text Text 48 SLOVAKIA WHY THE SLOVAKS WERE NOT CONTENT IN CZECHO-SWVAKIA Dr. Arved Grebert The Slovaks entered into a common state with the Czechs, into Ozecho-Slovrukia, on the condition that SlovaJkia would have its own self-government, its sta:tes' rights, that it would be governed by the people of Slorva,kia, have its own state courts, its own SlOIVaJk schools - in a ward, that the people of Slova,kia would be ruble to exercise their funda~ mental democraUc rights and, thus, be the masters of their own destiny. Czech Promises and Fulfillment I suppose it is quite logical to assume that Czecho-0-lovakia would not harve come into being withoot Slovakia. During World War I, the Czechs and Slov8lks concluded several agreements of which the best known are the Cleveland and Pittsburgh agreements. An examination orf the Cleveland Agreement t ells us that "Slovaikia would have complete national autonomy, its own legislature, its own state administration, and complete ctrltura!l and political autonomy." The Pittsburr,gh Agreement, dTafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk himself, guaranteed that "Slo.vaJkia sha.11 have its own administration, its own legislature and its own courts" and tha,t the SlorvaJk language "shall be the ofificial language in the scho.ols, aH state orffices and in pwb.Uc life in generad." In Chicago, T. G. Masaryk told the Slorvruks on May 6. 1918: "I aJm for the propositon that Slo!V'akia, joined with the Czech lands, should have complete sellf--administration; I am for the pr01p0siton that the S10,va,k language rule in the scihools, in the churches and in government offices everywhere." fa Pititsiburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, Masaryk told the Slovalks whom he desperately needed to re-a4ize his Ozecih0Slova.kia: "Thus it wihl be that half of the state shall be Czech and half SlorvaJk; t'he Slorvaik lan•g uage shadl rule in Slo- �SLOVAKIA 49 va;lcia in the schools and in pwbi-ic office. We understand each other. 'Dherefo.re, there are no words, nor shaJl there be any about any kind of majorizing of the Slova,ks by the Czechs. Yoo shall be the masters of your household and we shaH be masters of ours." Tha,t sa,me evening, while meeting with the representatives of Slovaik life, Masaryk said: ''You slhall hruve the entire adnninistTation in your hands, because Slovakia shall not be governed from Prague, but shall govern itself." But even if such agreements and promises were not made, the Slo;vruks, just as every nation, stihl had a natocal and unalienaJble right to freedom, self-determination and independence . .Surely, no adherent of the democratic way of life will deny that the Slcwa,ks definitel,y should have administered the .territory whkh they irrhrubited since aJbout the sixth century. Slovakia Flooded By Czechs But what haippened in 191'8, when the Czecho-Slova,k RepuibHc was estaJblisthed? Just as soon as Sl01VaJkia was annexed to the Ozech lands, thousands of Czechs poured into Slovakia to help arl!minister the state. It is true, of course, that Slovakia did need some exiperls to take over the state administration from the Magyar buTeauc,ra,cy. But she certainly did not need the multitude .o f woI1kers thait Prague had sent. Slovakia did not need the thousands of S1Ina:H Czech officials, teachers, clerks, policemen, soldiers, detectives, ralilroadimen, businessmen, farmers, laJborers, postmasters, mailmen, janitors, etc., who flooded Slova!kia and deipr1ved the Slovruks of wor.k in the1r OIWiil homeland. In 1910, theTe were 7,556 Czechs in Slorvaikia. Whein the first census in Czecho-1Slovakia was talken February 15, 1921, twenty-eight months after the Reipulblic was estaJblished, Czech statistics showed that there were 71,733 Cze:chs in Slovakia. Did their nwmibers decreruse af.ter ,t hat? From 19·21 hundreds of youn:g Slovaks gTaduated from the new schools ervecy year, ,but were not erven considered for state positions ; many took UJP technicrul training to fit them for particular joibs, b,uit that did not help to any noticea1ble extent. ln 1930, twel,ve years aifter the found4ng oif the Republic, Czechs were �SLOVAKIA 50 still coming into SloviaJkia "to help the Slorvalkis mn their State" ; Grech statistics put the nmnlber of Ozechs in Slova:k:ia at 1'30,926 - a;n increase oif 87.89 per cent ()!Ver 1921! Eight yea.TS later, in 1938, their ruumlber inoreased. to aJbout 200,000. 1n the meantime, rubout that mruny Slova!ks had to seek a lirvelihood in neighiborinig countries and in more distant lands. The Ozechs were doing the same tlhing the Magya,r s had dome prior to 1918. After Munich, when Creoh officials had to leruve the Sudeten1land, the NA.RJ()[)NE NOVINY (Nrutionai News) of Bratislruva remariked (Oct01ber 13, 1938): "from the lands ocicupied by Germany they will now be send.mg ahl, OT a:t least the majority of State employees to Slovakia. We see hundreds oif these people cominig in daHy." Cze<!'.h offidails and people took over not omy the lead.ring and ,key positions in Sl01VaJkia, 'but also positions that were completely sulbocdinate OT unimpo:rtant, li'ke janitors, offi'cial ser:vants, doonmen, ek., whrc:h the Sl01Vaks unquestionaJbly coUJld hawe fillled very easily - e:ven those who had little or no schodling. From 1921 to 1930, the numlber of State employees in the rugri'culltmral division increas~ by 57.93 per cent; in industry and the trades by 50.16 per cent ; in business and 'ba:nikilllg by 67. 93 per cent. While 203 independent Ozech farmers settled. in Slova!kia ,Uip to 1921, their nrnn.lber inm-eased to 1,031 by 1930 - this :being due "mainly to the co~oni:21ation of OzelC'h legionaires on some of the estates whilch were parcelil ed up" in ffiovakia. During the srume period, the number of Czechs in public adiministration iI11CTea,s ed by 14.10 per c·e nt; in the schools, in the category of o£ficials, by 70.41 per cent; in the free v01cations and the heailth serwke by 89.96 per cent; in the post-olfifice department by 10 ..74 per cent. And dwring that same time (19211930), the nlllmber of ind~ndent Oze.ch enteripri:ses in industTy and the trades increased. by 112.56 per cent; in business and banildn1g by 184.65 per cent. A. Bohaic, Ozec'h sfatistician, whose statistics we have used a'bove, rema11ked in 1935 that "even Ozech 18Jbor increased in industry" and that "in the practical professions in Slovakia, the Czechs will be validating themselves sig1 �SLOVAKIA 51 niffoantly in the future and instead od: the Czech official, as ll!p ,t o now, Sl'O!Vakia in the furture will see more Czech tradesmen, businessmen, trained war.kers and enteI'lprisers" (CIDS[ NA SLOVE~U, "Staitisticky 0/beior, XVI, c. 4-5, Prague, 1935). Slovakia - A Czech Colony SlovaJkia roolily became a Czech colony. Thousands od: Czechs, whom the Slo!VaJks did not need, came into Slovakia. Eiven Dr. VaJVTo Srobar, notorious Czechofile and Minister oif the Prague gcwerrum.ent, publidy remariked in 1.919: "In recent runes, the official forces arriving here from Bohemia, are mediocre and are committing various transgressions. Many Czechs are coming into SloiV'8Jkia as if it were an occupied territory and think that they may exploit it." Kornei Stodbta, another notorious ''Oze:chosloivaJk" (a Ozeoh SllorvaJk, i.e. a SlolV'ak in the pay of the Czechs), who held the pos,i tion of referent of the PostaQ Serrvice and Rail.roads in Slovakia, complained as ea:I111y as Deornlbier 17, 1918: "From the ministries of Prague they are send.ring us peo;ple we did not order and this is ca:wsinig us great difficulties" (S'I'olbar: 0SDOBODENE SLOVENSK0, p. 437). Michael Slaivik, another great "Czechoslo.rvak," also found something to complain about. As the adlrninistr8Jto,r (l~ll!pan) of the Zemplin region, he SOOJt a conifid!ential memorandum to T. G. Mas,ruryk on June 1, 1922, in which he complained: "Czechs haive been aJppointed as senvants in Slovakia, despite the fact that local good SllovaJks sought tho,se positions. IDven though we do not have a g.reat intelligentsia, nevertheless you wiU have to admit that there are plenity oif UIS who could be serrvants, b~ause we know how to serve after 1beinig serrvants for a thousand years!" But the people quoted eividently forgot that Slo:vakia really was a colony for the 0zec'hs. "If we succeed in saving the SlorvaJc1s, " we find in NASE SlJOVENSK0 (Our S'lovakia, in 1907, No. 1, rp. 4), in Czech, "our bro!ther Czechs will ther~by be 1presented with a wide field of operation, beca;use those, for whom there is no place· in Bohemia, ,wH1 come to Slova,kia and undoubte<Ny find here a wealithy source of �f>2 SLOVAKIA livelihood." And Otto's Commercial Dictionary (Ottuv olbohodni s.Iovnilk ), puil:Ylished in 0zech in 1919, states quite plainly (Vol 2, p. 1217) in 1919 that "SIJ.ovakia shall be our colonial land; it is incorrect to ho'ld to the view that, perhaips, a colonial territwy must not border on the motherfand. An exaimple is Russia with Siberia." Conscious of his own power, Dr. Edlwaird Benes threatened in his notorious "Speeoh to the Slovaiks" in 1933: ''I whll always stand out Oif principle against the political fantasy - I cannot ca[[ it by any other name - which, speruking aJbout a Slovak administration, SlovaJk bureaus and Slovaik eoonomicaJl management and enterprising, mints the one-sided Sllogan ":Slovakia for the Sl01Valks"." And Klima wrote in the ,p ublication "S'LOVENSKO" (ISlovaikia): "We have gained Slo1Vakia not only for 0zech cu1ture, but also for 0zech biusiness." Furthermore, in his book "Vychova a voiJ~sko" (Training and the Army) , Dr. F. Oberpfalcer wi,ote that the Ozechs must not lose their interest in Sl.ovaJkia, because if the Ozechs did not have SlolV,a kia "there would rerturn therefrom to us a multi-tude of our employees, for whom there would be no worl< in our country, misery and dissatisfaction with all their consequences would be increased." The Outflow of Slovak Blood While Sl01Va!kia was being fJooded wirt:h 0zechs, the natiiVe Slovaks, lacking workinig facilities, had to emigrate to France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Brazi:l, Arge:nitina and the United States. Whi'l.e thousands of Czechs got soft jobs in Slovaikia, nati<ve Sl01VaJks had to struggle beyond the ocean in a foreign, unfriendly environment for bread. Beneath the Tatras the 0zechs lived in comfort and fared well, whereas natirve sons of Slovakia had to go ,t o the forests and jUil!gJes of BraizH and Argentina and the mines of France and BclgiUlffi. In the "Hberaited fatherJand," after large Magya;r estates weTe parcel1ed, Czech legionnaires were able to get land, but the sons of SlovaJk farmers, becaiuse of a laCik of swfificient land, had to, clear jungles and forests in Argentina, or sJave on the plantations of Brazil. �SLOVAKIA 53 So that we might have an idea of the magnitude of Slova:k em~gration, let us turn to statistics: in the period from 1924-1928, out of ever,y 10,000 pQpU!lation, 7.7 per cent emigrarted to :Eiuropea,n countries from Czech lands an!d 14.3 peT cent from Slova!kia; from 1929 to 1'933 only 3.6 per cent emigratoo from Czech lands, while 14.8 per cent emigrated from Slova>kia to IDuropean countries. And what do statistiics teJ[ us aJbout emigration overseas? ~giuring on the same basis,, we find that 1.9 per cent entig;rated from Coooh lands, while 38.1 per cent went out of Sl01Va!kiia; and from 1929-1933, 0.6 per cent fr,oim the Czech lands, but 12.6 per cent from Slovakia (see: Annuaire statistique de la Repulblique tchecosfovaque, 1938, p. 33). We must bear in mind, too,, that it was mainly the Sudeften Gerimans who emigrated from the Ozech lands and not Czechs. In 1930, out olf every 100,000 peo,p le in SL01Va1kia, 503.15 had etmiligra:tion visas, whereas only 54.72 had them in Bohemia and 68.70 in Moravia.JSiiesia (vd. ChuTa, Slovensko bez dorastu? p. 187). In 1922, out of the, total n;umber of emigrants in the United States £rom Ozecho~Slovaikria, 42 Sl01Vaks. A year later the figure rose to 5:l1924 pyrMll!i.ded to 62.6 per cent. In the Slova;ks made up 78.1 per cent of the total Cze~ho.JSlova!kia. per cent were per cent, and in latter year, the emi·g ration from This, then, is what the Czechs called the "liberation" of Slovrukia from the Magyars! This f,loodiing of S1ova!kia with Czechs, ho,w ever, diid not serve to benefit only the indi-vidrual Czeoh emigrants themselves. There was more than that to it. The 200,000 Czechs in S'lova:kia represented the actual support of Czech hegemony over SlQ/Vakia. The 200,000 Czech officials, policemen, soldiers, cl0r1ks, bankers, tea;chers, etc., signified a complete occupation oif Sloiva>kia, which at tha.Jt time had a population of ruboru,t 2.8 miHion. The Czechs were everyiwhere in Slovakia; there was not a single burnau, institution, community, city and villruge, enterprise, oir cultur-a;l institution, without a. Czech, the representat1ve, sruppo-r t and coruf.idtante of the Czech hegemony o,v er S'lova>kia. �54 SLOVAKIA It was pib,vious thrut Slovaikia could not liberate herself from this situation without a politicail up.hea;val firom the outside. We must remettnlber, too, that in 192'1, there were 18,364 Ozec'h so[diers and of!ffoers in S1lovakia, but in 1930 thei.r numlber rose to 20,652 - as admitted by Czech staitistics. 'l'he Slovialks, for ''security" reason s were for the most part forced to serwe their term in the aTIIny in Ozech lands. In Slova.k ia there were 2,891 Czech and on[y 1,543 Slova;k gendarmes; olf this num1ber, 104 Czechs and only 21 Slovaks were officers. Of coiurae, even here the Czechs were in key posiition.s and a great part orf the Slovaks was very carefuUy "seledted," so that a "O.ooc:h Slovak" (1Sfov,a,k renegade in the pay orf the Czechs) practically aaways was preferred to a patriotic, nrutionaa[iy consciOIUS Slovak. The world was told b,y official Orech proipaganda and representatilves of the Prague regimes th.rut the Slovruks joined with the Czechs, as equal partners, to form the Ozecho-Slwak R~ublitc. We were told that the Slovalks and the Czechs ruled equal1y in the S'trute and thait the Slovaks determined their own state affairs in Slovakia. The Magyrurs had do,ne the srume thing before the C:zJechs. 'Dhe trurbh, however, was something else. The Sl01Vaiks pleaid:ed', begged and entreated the Benes Czechs for twenty yea,i,s to come to their senses and recognize in a pra'Ctical way the inherent rights of the Slovak nation, the right of the Slovaiks to govern their own sta;te within the frrumeworik of Ctzooho..,Slov~a, bu.rt to no aivail. The inevita!ble happened in 1939. Czecho-SlOIVaJkia had to cohlapse like a horuse of cards, beca'USe it treated the majority of its inhabitants as secondrat·e citizens. "Czechosilo;valk" democira;cy failed utterly, becaru.se in rea[,i ty it made a mO'Cikery of the greait £undamental _principles that make up for a democracy . 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "None of us has the right to obligate definitely for the future our people and state in fundamental matters, internal or international, to anything . . . . That holds for all of us and, above all, even for me personally. I think that it is necessary that this be altogether clear. That is why from the beginnnlng I have refused to make any funda(Dr. Edward Benes, to mental, internal or international, ties ...... " - th e Czechoslovak State Council, Nov. 21i, 1941) . � 48 SLOVAKIA WHY THE SLOVAKS WERE NOT CONTENT IN CZECHO-SWVAKIA Dr. Arved Grebert The Slovaks entered into a common state with the Czechs, into Ozecho-Slovrukia, on the condition that SlovaJkia would have its own self-government, its sta:tes' rights, that it would be governed by the people of Slorva,kia, have its own state courts, its own SlOIVaJk schools - in a ward, that the people of Slova,kia would be ruble to exercise their funda~ mental democraUc rights and, thus, be the masters of their own destiny. Czech Promises and Fulfillment I suppose it is quite logical to assume that Czecho-0-lovakia would not harve come into being withoot Slovakia. During World War I, the Czechs and Slov8lks concluded several agreements of which the best known are the Cleveland and Pittsburgh agreements. An examination orf the Cleveland Agreement t ells us that "Slovaikia would have complete national autonomy, its own legislature, its own state administration, and complete ctrltura!l and political autonomy." The Pittsburr,gh Agreement, dTafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk himself, guaranteed that "Slo.vaJkia sha.11 have its own administration, its own legislature and its own courts" and tha,t the SlorvaJk language "shall be the ofificial language in the scho.ols, aH state orffices and in pwb.Uc life in generad." In Chicago, T. G. Masaryk told the Slorvruks on May 6. 1918: "I aJm for the propositon that Slo!V'akia, joined with the Czech lands, should have complete sellf--administration; I am for the pr01p0siton that the S10,va,k language rule in the scihools, in the churches and in government offices everywhere." fa Pititsiburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, Masaryk told the Slovalks whom he desperately needed to re-a4ize his Ozecih0Slova.kia: "Thus it wihl be that half of the state shall be Czech and half SlorvaJk; t'he Slorvaik lan•g uage shadl rule in Slo- �SLOVAKIA 49 va;lcia in the schools and in pwbi-ic office. We understand each other. 'Dherefo.re, there are no words, nor shaJl there be any about any kind of majorizing of the Slova,ks by the Czechs. Yoo shall be the masters of your household and we shaH be masters of ours." Tha,t sa,me evening, while meeting with the representatives of Slovaik life, Masaryk said: ''You slhall hruve the entire adnninistTation in your hands, because Slovakia shall not be governed from Prague, but shall govern itself." But even if such agreements and promises were not made, the Slo;vruks, just as every nation, stihl had a natocal and unalienaJble right to freedom, self-determination and independence . .Surely, no adherent of the democratic way of life will deny that the Slcwa,ks definitel,y should have administered the .territory whkh they irrhrubited since aJbout the sixth century. Slovakia Flooded By Czechs But what haippened in 191'8, when the Czecho-Slova,k RepuibHc was estaJblisthed? Just as soon as Sl01VaJkia was annexed to the Ozech lands, thousands of Czechs poured into Slovakia to help arl!minister the state. It is true, of course, that Slovakia did need some exiperls to take over the state administration from the Magyar buTeauc,ra,cy. But she certainly did not need the multitude .o f woI1kers thait Prague had sent. Slovakia did not need the thousands of S1Ina:H Czech officials, teachers, clerks, policemen, soldiers, detectives, ralilroadimen, businessmen, farmers, laJborers, postmasters, mailmen, janitors, etc., who flooded Slova!kia and deipr1ved the Slovruks of wor.k in the1r OIWiil homeland. In 1910, theTe were 7,556 Czechs in Slorvaikia. Whein the first census in Czecho-1Slovakia was talken February 15, 1921, twenty-eight months after the Reipulblic was estaJblished, Czech statistics showed that there were 71,733 Cze:chs in Slovakia. Did their nwmibers decreruse af.ter ,t hat? From 19·21 hundreds of youn:g Slovaks gTaduated from the new schools ervecy year, ,but were not erven considered for state positions ; many took UJP technicrul training to fit them for particular joibs, b,uit that did not help to any noticea1ble extent. ln 1930, twel,ve years aifter the found4ng oif the Republic, Czechs were �SLOVAKIA 50 still coming into SloviaJkia "to help the Slorvalkis mn their State" ; Grech statistics put the nmnlber of Ozechs in Slova:k:ia at 1'30,926 - a;n increase oif 87.89 per cent ()!Ver 1921! Eight yea.TS later, in 1938, their ruumlber inoreased. to aJbout 200,000. 1n the meantime, rubout that mruny Slova!ks had to seek a lirvelihood in neighiborinig countries and in more distant lands. The Ozechs were doing the same tlhing the Magya,r s had dome prior to 1918. After Munich, when Creoh officials had to leruve the Sudeten1land, the NA.RJ()[)NE NOVINY (Nrutionai News) of Bratislruva remariked (Oct01ber 13, 1938): "from the lands ocicupied by Germany they will now be send.mg ahl, OT a:t least the majority of State employees to Slovakia. We see hundreds oif these people cominig in daHy." Cze<!'.h offidails and people took over not omy the lead.ring and ,key positions in Sl01VaJkia, 'but also positions that were completely sulbocdinate OT unimpo:rtant, li'ke janitors, offi'cial ser:vants, doonmen, ek., whrc:h the Sl01Vaks unquestionaJbly coUJld hawe fillled very easily - e:ven those who had little or no schodling. From 1921 to 1930, the numlber of State employees in the rugri'culltmral division increas~ by 57.93 per cent; in industry and the trades by 50.16 per cent ; in business and 'ba:nikilllg by 67. 93 per cent. While 203 independent Ozech farmers settled. in Slova!kia ,Uip to 1921, their nrnn.lber inm-eased to 1,031 by 1930 - this :being due "mainly to the co~oni:21ation of OzelC'h legionaires on some of the estates whilch were parcelil ed up" in ffiovakia. During the srume period, the number of Czechs in public adiministration iI11CTea,s ed by 14.10 per c·e nt; in the schools, in the category of o£ficials, by 70.41 per cent; in the free v01cations and the heailth serwke by 89.96 per cent; in the post-olfifice department by 10 ..74 per cent. And dwring that same time (19211930), the nlllmber of ind~ndent Oze.ch enteripri:ses in industTy and the trades increased. by 112.56 per cent; in business and banildn1g by 184.65 per cent. A. Bohaic, Ozec'h sfatistician, whose statistics we have used a'bove, rema11ked in 1935 that "even Ozech 18Jbor increased in industry" and that "in the practical professions in Slovakia, the Czechs will be validating themselves sig1 �SLOVAKIA 51 niffoantly in the future and instead od: the Czech official, as ll!p ,t o now, Sl'O!Vakia in the furture will see more Czech tradesmen, businessmen, trained war.kers and enteI'lprisers" (CIDS[ NA SLOVE~U, "Staitisticky 0/beior, XVI, c. 4-5, Prague, 1935). Slovakia - A Czech Colony SlovaJkia roolily became a Czech colony. Thousands od: Czechs, whom the Slo!VaJks did not need, came into Slovakia. Eiven Dr. VaJVTo Srobar, notorious Czechofile and Minister oif the Prague gcwerrum.ent, publidy remariked in 1.919: "In recent runes, the official forces arriving here from Bohemia, are mediocre and are committing various transgressions. Many Czechs are coming into SloiV'8Jkia as if it were an occupied territory and think that they may exploit it." Kornei Stodbta, another notorious ''Oze:chosloivaJk" (a Ozeoh SllorvaJk, i.e. a SlolV'ak in the pay of the Czechs), who held the pos,i tion of referent of the PostaQ Serrvice and Rail.roads in Slovakia, complained as ea:I111y as Deornlbier 17, 1918: "From the ministries of Prague they are send.ring us peo;ple we did not order and this is ca:wsinig us great difficulties" (S'I'olbar: 0SDOBODENE SLOVENSK0, p. 437). Michael Slaivik, another great "Czechoslo.rvak," also found something to complain about. As the adlrninistr8Jto,r (l~ll!pan) of the Zemplin region, he SOOJt a conifid!ential memorandum to T. G. Mas,ruryk on June 1, 1922, in which he complained: "Czechs haive been aJppointed as senvants in Slovakia, despite the fact that local good SllovaJks sought tho,se positions. IDven though we do not have a g.reat intelligentsia, nevertheless you wiU have to admit that there are plenity oif UIS who could be serrvants, b~ause we know how to serve after 1beinig serrvants for a thousand years!" But the people quoted eividently forgot that Slo:vakia really was a colony for the 0zec'hs. "If we succeed in saving the SlorvaJc1s, " we find in NASE SlJOVENSK0 (Our S'lovakia, in 1907, No. 1, rp. 4), in Czech, "our bro!ther Czechs will ther~by be 1presented with a wide field of operation, beca;use those, for whom there is no place· in Bohemia, ,wH1 come to Slova,kia and undoubte<Ny find here a wealithy source of �f>2 SLOVAKIA livelihood." And Otto's Commercial Dictionary (Ottuv olbohodni s.Iovnilk ), puil:Ylished in 0zech in 1919, states quite plainly (Vol 2, p. 1217) in 1919 that "SIJ.ovakia shall be our colonial land; it is incorrect to ho'ld to the view that, perhaips, a colonial territwy must not border on the motherfand. An exaimple is Russia with Siberia." Conscious of his own power, Dr. Edlwaird Benes threatened in his notorious "Speeoh to the Slovaiks" in 1933: ''I whll always stand out Oif principle against the political fantasy - I cannot ca[[ it by any other name - which, speruking aJbout a Slovak administration, SlovaJk bureaus and Slovaik eoonomicaJl management and enterprising, mints the one-sided Sllogan ":Slovakia for the Sl01Valks"." And Klima wrote in the ,p ublication "S'LOVENSKO" (ISlovaikia): "We have gained Slo1Vakia not only for 0zech cu1ture, but also for 0zech biusiness." Furthermore, in his book "Vychova a voiJ~sko" (Training and the Army) , Dr. F. Oberpfalcer wi,ote that the Ozechs must not lose their interest in Sl.ovaJkia, because if the Ozechs did not have SlolV,a kia "there would rerturn therefrom to us a multi-tude of our employees, for whom there would be no worl< in our country, misery and dissatisfaction with all their consequences would be increased." The Outflow of Slovak Blood While Sl01Va!kia was being fJooded wirt:h 0zechs, the natiiVe Slovaks, lacking workinig facilities, had to emigrate to France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Brazi:l, Arge:nitina and the United States. Whi'l.e thousands of Czechs got soft jobs in Slovaikia, nati<ve Sl01VaJks had to struggle beyond the ocean in a foreign, unfriendly environment for bread. Beneath the Tatras the 0zechs lived in comfort and fared well, whereas natirve sons of Slovakia had to go ,t o the forests and jUil!gJes of BraizH and Argentina and the mines of France and BclgiUlffi. In the "Hberaited fatherJand," after large Magya;r estates weTe parcel1ed, Czech legionnaires were able to get land, but the sons of SlovaJk farmers, becaiuse of a laCik of swfificient land, had to, clear jungles and forests in Argentina, or sJave on the plantations of Brazil. �SLOVAKIA 53 So that we might have an idea of the magnitude of Slova:k em~gration, let us turn to statistics: in the period from 1924-1928, out of ever,y 10,000 pQpU!lation, 7.7 per cent emigrarted to :Eiuropea,n countries from Czech lands an!d 14.3 peT cent from Slova!kia; from 1929 to 1'933 only 3.6 per cent emigratoo from Czech lands, while 14.8 per cent emigrated from Slova>kia to IDuropean countries. And what do statistiics teJ[ us aJbout emigration overseas? ~giuring on the same basis,, we find that 1.9 per cent entig;rated from Coooh lands, while 38.1 per cent went out of Sl01Va!kiia; and from 1929-1933, 0.6 per cent fr,oim the Czech lands, but 12.6 per cent from Slovakia (see: Annuaire statistique de la Repulblique tchecosfovaque, 1938, p. 33). We must bear in mind, too,, that it was mainly the Sudeften Gerimans who emigrated from the Ozech lands and not Czechs. In 1930, out olf every 100,000 peo,p le in SL01Va1kia, 503.15 had etmiligra:tion visas, whereas only 54.72 had them in Bohemia and 68.70 in Moravia.JSiiesia (vd. ChuTa, Slovensko bez dorastu? p. 187). In 1922, out of the, total n;umber of emigrants in the United States £rom Ozecho~Slovaikria, 42 Sl01Vaks. A year later the figure rose to 5:l1924 pyrMll!i.ded to 62.6 per cent. In the Slova;ks made up 78.1 per cent of the total Cze~ho.JSlova!kia. per cent were per cent, and in latter year, the emi·g ration from This, then, is what the Czechs called the "liberation" of Slovrukia from the Magyars! This f,loodiing of S1ova!kia with Czechs, ho,w ever, diid not serve to benefit only the indi-vidrual Czeoh emigrants themselves. There was more than that to it. The 200,000 Czechs in S'lova:kia represented the actual support of Czech hegemony over SlQ/Vakia. The 200,000 Czech officials, policemen, soldiers, cl0r1ks, bankers, tea;chers, etc., signified a complete occupation oif Sloiva>kia, which at tha.Jt time had a population of ruboru,t 2.8 miHion. The Czechs were everyiwhere in Slovakia; there was not a single burnau, institution, community, city and villruge, enterprise, oir cultur-a;l institution, without a. Czech, the representat1ve, sruppo-r t and coruf.idtante of the Czech hegemony o,v er S'lova>kia. �54 SLOVAKIA It was pib,vious thrut Slovaikia could not liberate herself from this situation without a politicail up.hea;val firom the outside. We must remettnlber, too, that in 192'1, there were 18,364 Ozec'h so[diers and of!ffoers in S1lovakia, but in 1930 thei.r numlber rose to 20,652 - as admitted by Czech staitistics. 'l'he Slovialks, for ''security" reason s were for the most part forced to serwe their term in the aTIIny in Ozech lands. In Slova.k ia there were 2,891 Czech and on[y 1,543 Slova;k gendarmes; olf this num1ber, 104 Czechs and only 21 Slovaks were officers. Of coiurae, even here the Czechs were in key posiition.s and a great part orf the Slovaks was very carefuUy "seledted," so that a "O.ooc:h Slovak" (1Sfov,a,k renegade in the pay orf the Czechs) practically aaways was preferred to a patriotic, nrutionaa[iy consciOIUS Slovak. The world was told b,y official Orech proipaganda and representatilves of the Prague regimes th.rut the Slovruks joined with the Czechs, as equal partners, to form the Ozecho-Slwak R~ublitc. We were told that the Slovalks and the Czechs ruled equal1y in the S'trute and thait the Slovaks determined their own state affairs in Slovakia. The Magyrurs had do,ne the srume thing before the C:zJechs. 'Dhe trurbh, however, was something else. The Sl01Vaiks pleaid:ed', begged and entreated the Benes Czechs for twenty yea,i,s to come to their senses and recognize in a pra'Ctical way the inherent rights of the Slovak nation, the right of the Slovaiks to govern their own sta;te within the frrumeworik of Ctzooho..,Slov~a, bu.rt to no aivail. The inevita!ble happened in 1939. Czecho-SlOIVaJkia had to cohlapse like a horuse of cards, beca'USe it treated the majority of its inhabitants as secondrat·e citizens. "Czechosilo;valk" democira;cy failed utterly, becaru.se in rea[,i ty it made a mO'Cikery of the greait £undamental _principles that make up for a democracy . 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "None of us has the right to obligate definitely for the future our people and state in fundamental matters, internal or international, to anything . . . . That holds for all of us and, above all, even for me personally. I think that it is necessary that this be altogether clear. That is why from the beginnnlng I have refused to make any funda(Dr. Edward Benes, to mental, internal or international, ties ...... " - th e Czechoslovak State Council, Nov. 21i, 1941) . � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 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 48 SLOVAKIA WHY THE SLOVAKS WERE NOT CONTENT IN CZECHO-SWVAKIA Dr. Arved Grebert The Slovaks entered into a common state with the Czechs, into Ozecho-Slovrukia, on the condition that SlovaJkia would have its own self-government, its sta:tes' rights, that it would be governed by the people of Slorva,kia, have its own state courts, its own SlOIVaJk schools - in a ward, that the people of Slova,kia would be ruble to exercise their funda~ mental democraUc rights and, thus, be the masters of their own destiny. Czech Promises and Fulfillment I suppose it is quite logical to assume that Czecho-0-lovakia would not harve come into being withoot Slovakia. During World War I, the Czechs and Slov8lks concluded several agreements of which the best known are the Cleveland and Pittsburgh agreements. An examination orf the Cleveland Agreement t ells us that "Slovaikia would have complete national autonomy, its own legislature, its own state administration, and complete ctrltura!l and political autonomy." The Pittsburr,gh Agreement, dTafted and signed by T. G. Masaryk himself, guaranteed that "Slo.vaJkia sha.11 have its own administration, its own legislature and its own courts" and tha,t the SlorvaJk language "shall be the ofificial language in the scho.ols, aH state orffices and in pwb.Uc life in generad." In Chicago, T. G. Masaryk told the Slorvruks on May 6. 1918: "I aJm for the propositon that Slo!V'akia, joined with the Czech lands, should have complete sellf--administration; I am for the pr01p0siton that the S10,va,k language rule in the scihools, in the churches and in government offices everywhere." fa Pititsiburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, Masaryk told the Slovalks whom he desperately needed to re-a4ize his Ozecih0Slova.kia: "Thus it wihl be that half of the state shall be Czech and half SlorvaJk; t'he Slorvaik lan•g uage shadl rule in Slo- SLOVAKIA 49 va;lcia in the schools and in pwbi-ic office. We understand each other. 'Dherefo.re, there are no words, nor shaJl there be any about any kind of majorizing of the Slova,ks by the Czechs. Yoo shall be the masters of your household and we shaH be masters of ours." Tha,t sa,me evening, while meeting with the representatives of Slovaik life, Masaryk said: ''You slhall hruve the entire adnninistTation in your hands, because Slovakia shall not be governed from Prague, but shall govern itself." But even if such agreements and promises were not made, the Slo;vruks, just as every nation, stihl had a natocal and unalienaJble right to freedom, self-determination and independence . .Surely, no adherent of the democratic way of life will deny that the Slcwa,ks definitel,y should have administered the .territory whkh they irrhrubited since aJbout the sixth century. Slovakia Flooded By Czechs But what haippened in 191'8, when the Czecho-Slova,k RepuibHc was estaJblisthed? Just as soon as Sl01VaJkia was annexed to the Ozech lands, thousands of Czechs poured into Slovakia to help arl!minister the state. It is true, of course, that Slovakia did need some exiperls to take over the state administration from the Magyar buTeauc,ra,cy. But she certainly did not need the multitude .o f woI1kers thait Prague had sent. Slovakia did not need the thousands of S1Ina:H Czech officials, teachers, clerks, policemen, soldiers, detectives, ralilroadimen, businessmen, farmers, laJborers, postmasters, mailmen, janitors, etc., who flooded Slova!kia and deipr1ved the Slovruks of wor.k in the1r OIWiil homeland. In 1910, theTe were 7,556 Czechs in Slorvaikia. Whein the first census in Czecho-1Slovakia was talken February 15, 1921, twenty-eight months after the Reipulblic was estaJblished, Czech statistics showed that there were 71,733 Cze:chs in Slovakia. Did their nwmibers decreruse af.ter ,t hat? From 19·21 hundreds of youn:g Slovaks gTaduated from the new schools ervecy year, ,but were not erven considered for state positions ; many took UJP technicrul training to fit them for particular joibs, b,uit that did not help to any noticea1ble extent. ln 1930, twel,ve years aifter the found4ng oif the Republic, Czechs were SLOVAKIA 50 still coming into SloviaJkia "to help the Slorvalkis mn their State" ; Grech statistics put the nmnlber of Ozechs in Slova:k:ia at 1'30,926 - a;n increase oif 87.89 per cent ()!Ver 1921! Eight yea.TS later, in 1938, their ruumlber inoreased. to aJbout 200,000. 1n the meantime, rubout that mruny Slova!ks had to seek a lirvelihood in neighiborinig countries and in more distant lands. The Ozechs were doing the same tlhing the Magya,r s had dome prior to 1918. After Munich, when Creoh officials had to leruve the Sudeten1land, the NA.RJ()[)NE NOVINY (Nrutionai News) of Bratislruva remariked (Oct01ber 13, 1938): "from the lands ocicupied by Germany they will now be send.mg ahl, OT a:t least the majority of State employees to Slovakia. We see hundreds oif these people cominig in daHy." Cze<!'.h offidails and people took over not omy the lead.ring and ,key positions in Sl01VaJkia, 'but also positions that were completely sulbocdinate OT unimpo:rtant, li'ke janitors, offi'cial ser:vants, doonmen, ek., whrc:h the Sl01Vaks unquestionaJbly coUJld hawe fillled very easily - e:ven those who had little or no schodling. From 1921 to 1930, the numlber of State employees in the rugri'culltmral division increas~ by 57.93 per cent; in industry and the trades by 50.16 per cent ; in business and 'ba:nikilllg by 67. 93 per cent. While 203 independent Ozech farmers settled. in Slova!kia ,Uip to 1921, their nrnn.lber inm-eased to 1,031 by 1930 - this :being due "mainly to the co~oni:21ation of OzelC'h legionaires on some of the estates whilch were parcelil ed up" in ffiovakia. During the srume period, the number of Czechs in public adiministration iI11CTea,s ed by 14.10 per c·e nt; in the schools, in the category of o£ficials, by 70.41 per cent; in the free v01cations and the heailth serwke by 89.96 per cent; in the post-olfifice department by 10 ..74 per cent. And dwring that same time (19211930), the nlllmber of ind~ndent Oze.ch enteripri:ses in industTy and the trades increased. by 112.56 per cent; in business and banildn1g by 184.65 per cent. A. Bohaic, Ozec'h sfatistician, whose statistics we have used a'bove, rema11ked in 1935 that "even Ozech 18Jbor increased in industry" and that "in the practical professions in Slovakia, the Czechs will be validating themselves sig1 SLOVAKIA 51 niffoantly in the future and instead od: the Czech official, as ll!p ,t o now, Sl'O!Vakia in the furture will see more Czech tradesmen, businessmen, trained war.kers and enteI'lprisers" (CIDS[ NA SLOVE~U, "Staitisticky 0/beior, XVI, c. 4-5, Prague, 1935). Slovakia - A Czech Colony SlovaJkia roolily became a Czech colony. Thousands od: Czechs, whom the Slo!VaJks did not need, came into Slovakia. Eiven Dr. VaJVTo Srobar, notorious Czechofile and Minister oif the Prague gcwerrum.ent, publidy remariked in 1.919: "In recent runes, the official forces arriving here from Bohemia, are mediocre and are committing various transgressions. Many Czechs are coming into SloiV'8Jkia as if it were an occupied territory and think that they may exploit it." Kornei Stodbta, another notorious ''Oze:chosloivaJk" (a Ozeoh SllorvaJk, i.e. a SlolV'ak in the pay of the Czechs), who held the pos,i tion of referent of the PostaQ Serrvice and Rail.roads in Slovakia, complained as ea:I111y as Deornlbier 17, 1918: "From the ministries of Prague they are send.ring us peo;ple we did not order and this is ca:wsinig us great difficulties" (S'I'olbar: 0SDOBODENE SLOVENSK0, p. 437). Michael Slaivik, another great "Czechoslo.rvak," also found something to complain about. As the adlrninistr8Jto,r (l~ll!pan) of the Zemplin region, he SOOJt a conifid!ential memorandum to T. G. Mas,ruryk on June 1, 1922, in which he complained: "Czechs haive been aJppointed as senvants in Slovakia, despite the fact that local good SllovaJks sought tho,se positions. IDven though we do not have a g.reat intelligentsia, nevertheless you wiU have to admit that there are plenity oif UIS who could be serrvants, b~ause we know how to serve after 1beinig serrvants for a thousand years!" But the people quoted eividently forgot that Slo:vakia really was a colony for the 0zec'hs. "If we succeed in saving the SlorvaJc1s, " we find in NASE SlJOVENSK0 (Our S'lovakia, in 1907, No. 1, rp. 4), in Czech, "our bro!ther Czechs will ther~by be 1presented with a wide field of operation, beca;use those, for whom there is no place· in Bohemia, ,wH1 come to Slova,kia and undoubte<Ny find here a wealithy source of f>2 SLOVAKIA livelihood." And Otto's Commercial Dictionary (Ottuv olbohodni s.Iovnilk ), puil:Ylished in 0zech in 1919, states quite plainly (Vol 2, p. 1217) in 1919 that "SIJ.ovakia shall be our colonial land; it is incorrect to ho'ld to the view that, perhaips, a colonial territwy must not border on the motherfand. An exaimple is Russia with Siberia." Conscious of his own power, Dr. Edlwaird Benes threatened in his notorious "Speeoh to the Slovaiks" in 1933: ''I whll always stand out Oif principle against the political fantasy - I cannot ca[[ it by any other name - which, speruking aJbout a Slovak administration, SlovaJk bureaus and Slovaik eoonomicaJl management and enterprising, mints the one-sided Sllogan ":Slovakia for the Sl01Valks"." And Klima wrote in the ,p ublication "S'LOVENSKO" (ISlovaikia): "We have gained Slo1Vakia not only for 0zech cu1ture, but also for 0zech biusiness." Furthermore, in his book "Vychova a voiJ~sko" (Training and the Army) , Dr. F. Oberpfalcer wi,ote that the Ozechs must not lose their interest in Sl.ovaJkia, because if the Ozechs did not have SlolV,a kia "there would rerturn therefrom to us a multi-tude of our employees, for whom there would be no worl< in our country, misery and dissatisfaction with all their consequences would be increased." The Outflow of Slovak Blood While Sl01Va!kia was being fJooded wirt:h 0zechs, the natiiVe Slovaks, lacking workinig facilities, had to emigrate to France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Brazi:l, Arge:nitina and the United States. Whi'l.e thousands of Czechs got soft jobs in Slovaikia, nati<ve Sl01VaJks had to struggle beyond the ocean in a foreign, unfriendly environment for bread. Beneath the Tatras the 0zechs lived in comfort and fared well, whereas natirve sons of Slovakia had to go ,t o the forests and jUil!gJes of BraizH and Argentina and the mines of France and BclgiUlffi. In the "Hberaited fatherJand," after large Magya;r estates weTe parcel1ed, Czech legionnaires were able to get land, but the sons of SlovaJk farmers, becaiuse of a laCik of swfificient land, had to, clear jungles and forests in Argentina, or sJave on the plantations of Brazil. SLOVAKIA 53 So that we might have an idea of the magnitude of Slova:k em~gration, let us turn to statistics: in the period from 1924-1928, out of ever,y 10,000 pQpU!lation, 7.7 per cent emigrarted to :Eiuropea,n countries from Czech lands an!d 14.3 peT cent from Slova!kia; from 1929 to 1'933 only 3.6 per cent emigratoo from Czech lands, while 14.8 per cent emigrated from Slova>kia to IDuropean countries. And what do statistiics teJ[ us aJbout emigration overseas? ~giuring on the same basis,, we find that 1.9 per cent entig;rated from Coooh lands, while 38.1 per cent went out of Sl01Va!kiia; and from 1929-1933, 0.6 per cent fr,oim the Czech lands, but 12.6 per cent from Slovakia (see: Annuaire statistique de la Repulblique tchecosfovaque, 1938, p. 33). We must bear in mind, too,, that it was mainly the Sudeften Gerimans who emigrated from the Ozech lands and not Czechs. In 1930, out olf every 100,000 peo,p le in SL01Va1kia, 503.15 had etmiligra:tion visas, whereas only 54.72 had them in Bohemia and 68.70 in Moravia.JSiiesia (vd. ChuTa, Slovensko bez dorastu? p. 187). In 1922, out of the, total n;umber of emigrants in the United States £rom Ozecho~Slovaikria, 42 Sl01Vaks. A year later the figure rose to 5:l1924 pyrMll!i.ded to 62.6 per cent. In the Slova;ks made up 78.1 per cent of the total Cze~ho.JSlova!kia. per cent were per cent, and in latter year, the emi·g ration from This, then, is what the Czechs called the "liberation" of Slovrukia from the Magyars! This f,loodiing of S1ova!kia with Czechs, ho,w ever, diid not serve to benefit only the indi-vidrual Czeoh emigrants themselves. There was more than that to it. The 200,000 Czechs in S'lova:kia represented the actual support of Czech hegemony over SlQ/Vakia. The 200,000 Czech officials, policemen, soldiers, cl0r1ks, bankers, tea;chers, etc., signified a complete occupation oif Sloiva>kia, which at tha.Jt time had a population of ruboru,t 2.8 miHion. The Czechs were everyiwhere in Slovakia; there was not a single burnau, institution, community, city and villruge, enterprise, oir cultur-a;l institution, without a. Czech, the representat1ve, sruppo-r t and coruf.idtante of the Czech hegemony o,v er S'lova>kia. 54 SLOVAKIA It was pib,vious thrut Slovaikia could not liberate herself from this situation without a politicail up.hea;val firom the outside. We must remettnlber, too, that in 192'1, there were 18,364 Ozec'h so[diers and of!ffoers in S1lovakia, but in 1930 thei.r numlber rose to 20,652 - as admitted by Czech staitistics. 'l'he Slovialks, for ''security" reason s were for the most part forced to serwe their term in the aTIIny in Ozech lands. In Slova.k ia there were 2,891 Czech and on[y 1,543 Slova;k gendarmes; olf this num1ber, 104 Czechs and only 21 Slovaks were officers. Of coiurae, even here the Czechs were in key posiition.s and a great part orf the Slovaks was very carefuUy "seledted," so that a "O.ooc:h Slovak" (1Sfov,a,k renegade in the pay orf the Czechs) practically aaways was preferred to a patriotic, nrutionaa[iy consciOIUS Slovak. The world was told b,y official Orech proipaganda and representatilves of the Prague regimes th.rut the Slovruks joined with the Czechs, as equal partners, to form the Ozecho-Slwak R~ublitc. We were told that the Slovalks and the Czechs ruled equal1y in the S'trute and thait the Slovaks determined their own state affairs in Slovakia. The Magyrurs had do,ne the srume thing before the C:zJechs. 'Dhe trurbh, however, was something else. The Sl01Vaiks pleaid:ed', begged and entreated the Benes Czechs for twenty yea,i,s to come to their senses and recognize in a pra'Ctical way the inherent rights of the Slovak nation, the right of the Slovaiks to govern their own sta;te within the frrumeworik of Ctzooho..,Slov~a, bu.rt to no aivail. The inevita!ble happened in 1939. Czecho-SlOIVaJkia had to cohlapse like a horuse of cards, beca'USe it treated the majority of its inhabitants as secondrat·e citizens. "Czechosilo;valk" democira;cy failed utterly, becaru.se in rea[,i ty it made a mO'Cikery of the greait £undamental _principles that make up for a democracy . 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "None of us has the right to obligate definitely for the future our people and state in fundamental matters, internal or international, to anything . . . . That holds for all of us and, above all, even for me personally. I think that it is necessary that this be altogether clear. That is why from the beginnnlng I have refused to make any funda(Dr. Edward Benes, to mental, internal or international, ties ...... " - th e Czechoslovak State Council, Nov. 21i, 1941) .  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why the Slovaks Were Not Content in Czecho-Slovakia Description An account of the resource Dr. Arved Grébert Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 4 (9), December 1953 pp. 48-54 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grébert, Arvéd, 1915-2001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1953 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b7e40668037125cd08284d687b4a5b03.pdf 7d2507fd213c03c36b5e9a765f5bd5c5 PDF Text Text SLO VA KIA Published by the Slovak League of America VOL. VIII DECEMBER, 1958 NO. 3 (28) WHY fflE CZECHS DID NOT FIGHT Dr. John A. Bafa Whatever has been written aibout this subject has practically aliways been fhwored, distorted with excuses, malevolence, derisfon, anger, shame, embitter.moot, and aippeasemen.t, a<Ccording to politi'Cal interest and viewpoint and attempts to coiver up. Moot of the time this smelled of wrong doing, misfortune, a new White Mountain. Never, however, was their any trace of a;clmowledging how and wihy something hruppened and w:ho was to 'blame for its h8lplpening. Dr. John A. Bat'a is a member of the famous Czech shoemakers, who, like so many others who had dared to criticize the ruinous policy of Dr. Edward Benes, even though belatedly, were persecuted by Benes and his followers even in exile. This is a translation of the original Czech article "Proc jsme the journal nebojovali" that was published in "BOHEMIA" Oct. 30, 1957. of Czech Democratic Federalists - 'Dhat was a terrible, historical defeat of our statehood without a fig.ht and the world thinks that we fled from the b8Jttle. What has been written Uip to this time by the Czecho..,SlovaJks about this has only attempted to, excuse or rupologize for the ultimatum of the Western Powers at Munich in 1938: the Western Powers were guilty; the Russians were guilty for not coming to he1p us; Hitler was guHty; etc . And the world keeps on chuckling at our naivite. HumaJnly this is naturaL Everyone would rather pay himself indu'lgently even when he is not altogether certain that he deserves a boot. We have been extremely welltrained to cry about and bewail White Mountain; we can �2 SLOVAKIA ma.Ike a goat 'b leat a!bout it. But this bleating cannot silence our conscience, gnawing at our mind, whielh aSiks quietly: "Whom do you want to fool, ch'lllCikle-head ?" King Mida'S was an example of a man w:ho was afraid to loo'k truth in tlhe face. He had do,nikey ears and an a,stronomicaUy hi,gh hat to cover them. When he gathered enough strength to look at his ears, they disappeared. He was a whole man. Now, if we had the courage of Midas to looik upon realities under the barik o.f truth and related events to otJher examples in the world, perhaps it wolllld daiwn upon us why we did not fight in 1938. It would bec~me apparent that we ourselves were at fault, we the citizens of that lost State, which was the Czecho-;Sfovalk Republic and which we alfowed to collapse. We did not lose the State in October, 1938; we lost it b,efore that time. Octoiber, 1938, was only the date of the thraishilllg we deserved, a'S wa,s perhaps a:lso all that followed it. We did not have an adequate conception regarding nation and state. Somehow we had an idea that the series ad: political fetishes and partisan laJbles, according to which we ran - and still .run - here and there, made a nation of us. We seemed to think - allld still thinlk - that an equal and secret right of ballot and democracy, which we sa;w someplace, but did not understand ;properly amd with it elected irresiponsihly an irresiponsible leader, that this, too, made us a nation. And that our elected leaders wo1u ld at once ,b ecome stateS1II1en and men ,be:cause they wo,re striped ,p ants and acquired a few titles. Because we, the citizens and voters, did not thin1k, catastrophe OiVertook us. We had an idea, but not the knowledge or ,c onviction of what ,was needed to ma;ke a nation of us and a solid, organic unit of our ,state. In the meantime, however, our politicans, diplomats, and statesmen did what they pleased, and ,p articularly did they .run away from responsibilities into dernogogy, lying, and false promises; the interests of the Repulblic and nation were bartered away; obligations and oaths were forgotten, and the Constitution was spat upon; they used their positions to serve their own per,sonal �SLOVAKIA 3 interests and whims and used the nation and state lilke rags. In twenty-five years, the Repulblic was bartered away twice by these paliticams-statesm en with titles and striped pants. First to the Nazis, then to the Communists. In both cases this happened against our will. The caiuse of this is the same as that for our not fightinig in 1938: in responsirble positions we did have persons of the male sex, hut not men. None of us can j:ustify for ourselves o,r before any judicious person the fact that we did not fight. The nation was armed to the teeth; it had an army of a million men, excellently trained and for decades inculcated with love for its nation and filled with a .will to fight and a willingness to sacrifice. And yet, the nation did not fight as it wanted to and knew it had to so that it could preseiwe its freedom and indeipendence which it had eiked out after 300 years of dependence and bondage under which it almost ,p erished. Some of our people get angry when they read or hear the e~ression "ollir nation caipitulated." They come back with the retort that not the nation, but the leaders capitulated. I do not agree. There was only one leader: the president, the ~wpreme commamder of an arnny of a million men, an army splendidly equipped, trained, and ready fo,r war. We elected him directly or indirectly to leadershi!p. We are, therefore, also responsibile for him. To turn away from this responsilbility is senseless or cowardly. JOlhn Masaryk told me in the spring of 1940 that the aJII11bassadors off Fra.nce and Britian litera:Uy dragged Dr. Benes from bed at three o'clock in the morning and forced him to sign the capitulation rby an ultimatum. That started an argument. I could not understamd how a commander of an army of million men could be forced to caipitulation by some two froc'ked uncles and thereiby surrender the army, equipment, and state to enemies and the nation to slavery. John Masaryk retorted that the question did not concern shoes with which I was familiar. I still contended that a statesman could not be forced to do anytjhing. He could be killed, 01Verthrown by a revolution, deposed, kidnapped. �4 SLOVAKIA tortured, that he could cO!IIla:rut suicide, but that he could not be forced. We have an example, I added: Master John Hus. John Masaryk snapped hack that what I was saying sma;ciked af Fascism, that only that ',grazl Mussolini' said that a nation that does not ,s uffer to sacrifice for the independence and freedom of its country is not worthy of it. I told him tlhat was the way I saiw it and that I was convinced that even his father, TGM, would sooner agree in this matter with Mussolini than with him and Benes. From that time on I did not get al()IIl!g with Jo:hn Masaryk and was blac>k1b alled by Benes and his government in London. During the war we wrote each other several times, but, knowing Benes, I knew that he was planning revell!ge. On June 6, 1940, I was placed on the English "Blacklist" - t-o this day I do not know why - with indications that Benes's London "goveTnment" had itis hands in the matter. And after Dr. Benes's v,i sit to the White House, I was also ,p laced on the American "BJadklist" without any investigation. To people in his circle Dr. Benes remarked that I had spoken improperly with him in 193'8. I spoke with him as man to, man. Periha,ps the fact that I told him that he ought to beluwe more liike a man was regarded an improipI'liety. As in 19'38, so I aJlso contend today that we had no right to avoid war when the defense of our independence was concerned - like TGM and Mussolini did, if you want to put it tJhat way. Up to this time, however,. there was always something indistinct that prevented me from writing my view pu'blioly, the view that turned John Masaryk against me. But that indistictn~ has now disappeared due to a strrungely simple cause: in .A!llg1ust, 1957, an Argentine steamer went do!Wil in La Plata and eighty travelers drowned. It sainlk - and then it dawned on me. Lea;ders, caiptains among people, have their honor which they treasure more than life itself. The ca;rptai:n g~ down wi-th his sinlking shi{p. It is the morale of men who understand responsirbility with fatal seriousness a,nd courage. In our nation we had no shlp captains so that we �SLOVAKIA 5 might compare their behavior when disaster strikes the shl,p they are in ohar,ge of. But we did have in oru,r history a series of ca.ptains of the ship of state. And behold, our state captains comprehended the respons,ilbilities and manliness of leadership just as honestly as, those ship captains. The famous "Iron and Gold King," the Czech Pfemysl OtaJkar ]I, offered his life on the eive oif the battle on Moravslke Pole to save the honor of the nation and the army. At that sad time his life was indispensalble to the life of the nation, but he died in battle. He was betrayed by Milota of Dedic, a member of the Benesov clan. The victor Rudolph Habsbur,g had his courageous riva,1 b.umed with honors and scornfully exiled the traitor who had come to pay him homage. And he did not shatter the Ozooh empire as he had threatened. Famous b:lind King John did not run from battle when the French, wiho had called on him for help, fled from the battlefield. He gave the Czechs an example of coUJra:ge and defiance of death in battle with his memoralble utterance: "Let us hope that it will never hruppen that a Czech king shaJll flee f,rom battle!" By his fortitude he prepared the way to the emperor's crown for his .s on Charles ·w. The English cro,w n prince honored him for his braivery and to this very day bears on his coat of arms the three famous feathers of the braive Czech King John. In 193'8, from contacts with our generals, I was convinced that our army was better equipped and trained and possessed a better fighting spirit than Hitler's army. This fact was confirmed in Nureniber,g before the International Court even by Hitler's Chief of Starff, General Halder. He ~aid that his predecessor, General Beclk, resilgned his position in July, 1938, in protest against war with OzechoSlovaJkia which Hitler had planned. General Halder had said that he, lilke the majority of German commanders, was rugainst wa,r even if it wa,s only with independent Olecho~Slovakia. General Beck proclaimed that even such a war would haive boon fatal for Germany. Halder added that, when Beck's resignatio.n did not hruve any effect on Hitler, the German generals planned to overthrow Hitler �6 SLOVAKIA on the eve o:f the war. But the putJsch had to be speedily called off when Dr. Edward Benes crupitulated for CzechoSlorvaJkia. Today wlhen a;li oif this is known, sOlme people will want to reproach and malign me for the indecency of attaclking a dead man. But I do not want to be a wise thinker after the cure. We must rerne:rnlb,er, hrowever, that all we, the peOiple of the Czecho-Slovak ReipU!blic, learned oillly now, all this was 'knoiWil a!OCUTately and in detail by our Suipreme Commander and President, Dr. Edward Benes, already in July, Arugust, and September, 1938, and also by the line of generals, poJiticans, diplomats, and high state officials. In his positiion Benes was bound to know this; he had at his disposal gigantic, highly effective, and costly means to know aibout it. In Paris, in 1939, an officer of the "DelllXieme Bureau" visited me and expressed his amazement over the accuracy of reports of the Czecho-.Slo>vak Intelligence SeTIVice. So, Dr. Ediwa;rd Benes knew that the German generals looked upon war with Czecho-1Slorvalkia as a step that would be fatal to Germany. If, therefore, despite this knowledge Dr. Benes let himself "be forced" to capitulation, he committed treaso!Il. In the solemn oath taken when he assumed the duties of president, the President and Supreme Commander promised solemnly before the nation and Almighty God that he shall seiwe only and exclusively the .s tate and the entire nation. He promised to sacrifice his life, if necessary, and without hesitation erven the life of half the nation in defense of the state and freedom. When Benes was sworn in as President, there were present several huruked leading politicans, soldiers, offi.cialis, diplomats, ministers. Where were all these people when Dr. Benes signed the ca,pituiation and thu~ oommitted perjury and higlh trea,s on? There can be no doubt that they had the duty to prevent such a crupitulation and, if necessary, even to kill or overthrow the man guilty of hi:gh treas()IIl. But what did the .people airound him do? Nothing! And worse. Many of them even escorted him into exile. They bowed profoundly before the man guilty of high �SLOVAKIA 7 treason, adhered to him, supported and helrped him to install himself as exile-president amd to return to our home as .p resident again orf the State he had betrayed to the Communists and "liberated" into CO'Jnmuni.sm. We see that u,p to the present time trnitor Benes is stilJ. honored, glorified, and .p raised by the .v ery same gentlemen as a national hero and martyr. Let us look at these events with the eyes o;f normal people in the wrold, whether they be westerns or easterners. Even i;f they not provolke us from our let:Jhwgy out of reg3!rd for us, they nevertheless think terrible things aJbout us. Let us take any other country, for example, little Finland cramped somewhere in the nor.th and directly under the heel of the most birutal power. Can you im8!gine a Finn singing such a capitulation ond not being cut down the moment he did it? Do not aslk who was sUJpposed to 'kill him. 'Ilhere were hundreds of people who had the manly duty to kill the scoundrel and trMtor, since for decades they were in a po'sision that charged them to do so, even if their manly honor did not. in heaiven's name, will those forces never be awakened that would want to see the entire extent of the deceitful g.a me of the knaive and coward, whom the nation that was pmnlk and lulled to sleep with sociali,S!m placed on the throne of Ozech k,i ngs so that it might b,e betrayed by him? Why does not our exile, as well as our nation at home, walke u,p and use the broom of shame on that band of traitors who must have 'k nown and .stiH know everything that J write about and yet brazenly sing a song of cowardice and treason as if it were our sacred national ~nthem? Let us imagine ho,w diffe.rent it could have been if the nation wouJ.d have - as it should have - rid itself of J3enes's command in time and demonstrated to the world jhow the descendants of the di'Vi.ne worriors know how to fight for thek country. It is .possi1ble that in the end our army would have been beaten, but not before months of terrible fighting. And who can say how many other coun- �8 SLOVAKIA tries would have thrust themselives upon Hitler's army to !finish it already in 1939-19'40 and not in 194'5? The German commander,s should have overthrown Hitler without Benes's capitulation; then World War would not ha-ve happened at all. Ami the Germans without Hitler would have been - as they are today - all of them, not divided, in the western camp. In a fight for its independence, Czecho-SlovaJkia would have gained a blessing, a baptism by fire, and would haive taJken its place among the first states of Europe. It would haJVe finished its fa.rst test of statehood with complete success, a test which •now still awaits us. As it is, instead of being in the forefront as a free nation among the free, our state is an unwilling scamp or against the West and our nation an unwilling scamp or dog's head of <:ommunist imperialism. Well, we know that role the "Psohla,vi'c" (dog's heads) played, and the fate that a,waits them from the Laminge~. We must ma,ke wp our minds as to what we really jWant. Do we want political parties, a party, or State? Do we want a party to whom the State and nation would be a rag, as it is today of the Communist Party? We 'know that a certain grouping of parties led the State and nation into the thraldom of a Nazi protectorate. A grouping of parties, all promotmg socialism, led it into the sla,very of a Communist protectorate. Iif it is not clear to us that the State is aJbove ,p arty and that loyalty to a State stands high albove loya,lty to any party, then there is no sense in thinking and dreaming aJbout any kind of liberation, because in such a case we cannot attain it. That would be a Sisyphean effort, which has already twice disappointed us. As long as we shall elect a leader, we must hold a stricter relation to him than to anyone else. We must afford him the possi!bility to lead and to show himself a man and we must see to it that he also fulfills hls responsibility. ,I f not, we must overthrow or even kill him! After an, are we or are we not the descendants of the glorious warriors pf God, the SOlllS and brothers of the famous Ozecho- SlorvaJk legionnaires? Let us forget political partisanshlip. The ,nation and the State are aJbove any and all parties! � SLO VA KIA Published by the Slovak League of America VOL. VIII DECEMBER, 1958 NO. 3 (28) WHY fflE CZECHS DID NOT FIGHT Dr. John A. Bafa Whatever has been written aibout this subject has practically aliways been fhwored, distorted with excuses, malevolence, derisfon, anger, shame, embitter.moot, and aippeasemen.t, a<Ccording to politi'Cal interest and viewpoint and attempts to coiver up. Moot of the time this smelled of wrong doing, misfortune, a new White Mountain. Never, however, was their any trace of a;clmowledging how and wihy something hruppened and w:ho was to 'blame for its h8lplpening. Dr. John A. Bat'a is a member of the famous Czech shoemakers, who, like so many others who had dared to criticize the ruinous policy of Dr. Edward Benes, even though belatedly, were persecuted by Benes and his followers even in exile. This is a translation of the original Czech article "Proc jsme the journal nebojovali" that was published in "BOHEMIA" Oct. 30, 1957. of Czech Democratic Federalists - 'Dhat was a terrible, historical defeat of our statehood without a fig.ht and the world thinks that we fled from the b8Jttle. What has been written Uip to this time by the Czecho..,SlovaJks about this has only attempted to, excuse or rupologize for the ultimatum of the Western Powers at Munich in 1938: the Western Powers were guilty; the Russians were guilty for not coming to he1p us; Hitler was guHty; etc . And the world keeps on chuckling at our naivite. HumaJnly this is naturaL Everyone would rather pay himself indu'lgently even when he is not altogether certain that he deserves a boot. We have been extremely welltrained to cry about and bewail White Mountain; we can �2 SLOVAKIA ma.Ike a goat 'b leat a!bout it. But this bleating cannot silence our conscience, gnawing at our mind, whielh aSiks quietly: "Whom do you want to fool, ch'lllCikle-head ?" King Mida'S was an example of a man w:ho was afraid to loo'k truth in tlhe face. He had do,nikey ears and an a,stronomicaUy hi,gh hat to cover them. When he gathered enough strength to look at his ears, they disappeared. He was a whole man. Now, if we had the courage of Midas to looik upon realities under the barik o.f truth and related events to otJher examples in the world, perhaps it wolllld daiwn upon us why we did not fight in 1938. It would bec~me apparent that we ourselves were at fault, we the citizens of that lost State, which was the Czecho-;Sfovalk Republic and which we alfowed to collapse. We did not lose the State in October, 1938; we lost it b,efore that time. Octoiber, 1938, was only the date of the thraishilllg we deserved, a'S wa,s perhaps a:lso all that followed it. We did not have an adequate conception regarding nation and state. Somehow we had an idea that the series ad: political fetishes and partisan laJbles, according to which we ran - and still .run - here and there, made a nation of us. We seemed to think - allld still thinlk - that an equal and secret right of ballot and democracy, which we sa;w someplace, but did not understand ;properly amd with it elected irresiponsihly an irresiponsible leader, that this, too, made us a nation. And that our elected leaders wo1u ld at once ,b ecome stateS1II1en and men ,be:cause they wo,re striped ,p ants and acquired a few titles. Because we, the citizens and voters, did not thin1k, catastrophe OiVertook us. We had an idea, but not the knowledge or ,c onviction of what ,was needed to ma;ke a nation of us and a solid, organic unit of our ,state. In the meantime, however, our politicans, diplomats, and statesmen did what they pleased, and ,p articularly did they .run away from responsibilities into dernogogy, lying, and false promises; the interests of the Repulblic and nation were bartered away; obligations and oaths were forgotten, and the Constitution was spat upon; they used their positions to serve their own per,sonal �SLOVAKIA 3 interests and whims and used the nation and state lilke rags. In twenty-five years, the Repulblic was bartered away twice by these paliticams-statesm en with titles and striped pants. First to the Nazis, then to the Communists. In both cases this happened against our will. The caiuse of this is the same as that for our not fightinig in 1938: in responsirble positions we did have persons of the male sex, hut not men. None of us can j:ustify for ourselves o,r before any judicious person the fact that we did not fight. The nation was armed to the teeth; it had an army of a million men, excellently trained and for decades inculcated with love for its nation and filled with a .will to fight and a willingness to sacrifice. And yet, the nation did not fight as it wanted to and knew it had to so that it could preseiwe its freedom and indeipendence which it had eiked out after 300 years of dependence and bondage under which it almost ,p erished. Some of our people get angry when they read or hear the e~ression "ollir nation caipitulated." They come back with the retort that not the nation, but the leaders capitulated. I do not agree. There was only one leader: the president, the ~wpreme commamder of an arnny of a million men, an army splendidly equipped, trained, and ready fo,r war. We elected him directly or indirectly to leadershi!p. We are, therefore, also responsibile for him. To turn away from this responsilbility is senseless or cowardly. JOlhn Masaryk told me in the spring of 1940 that the aJII11bassadors off Fra.nce and Britian litera:Uy dragged Dr. Benes from bed at three o'clock in the morning and forced him to sign the capitulation rby an ultimatum. That started an argument. I could not understamd how a commander of an army of million men could be forced to caipitulation by some two froc'ked uncles and thereiby surrender the army, equipment, and state to enemies and the nation to slavery. John Masaryk retorted that the question did not concern shoes with which I was familiar. I still contended that a statesman could not be forced to do anytjhing. He could be killed, 01Verthrown by a revolution, deposed, kidnapped. �4 SLOVAKIA tortured, that he could cO!IIla:rut suicide, but that he could not be forced. We have an example, I added: Master John Hus. John Masaryk snapped hack that what I was saying sma;ciked af Fascism, that only that ',grazl Mussolini' said that a nation that does not ,s uffer to sacrifice for the independence and freedom of its country is not worthy of it. I told him tlhat was the way I saiw it and that I was convinced that even his father, TGM, would sooner agree in this matter with Mussolini than with him and Benes. From that time on I did not get al()IIl!g with Jo:hn Masaryk and was blac>k1b alled by Benes and his government in London. During the war we wrote each other several times, but, knowing Benes, I knew that he was planning revell!ge. On June 6, 1940, I was placed on the English "Blacklist" - t-o this day I do not know why - with indications that Benes's London "goveTnment" had itis hands in the matter. And after Dr. Benes's v,i sit to the White House, I was also ,p laced on the American "BJadklist" without any investigation. To people in his circle Dr. Benes remarked that I had spoken improperly with him in 193'8. I spoke with him as man to, man. Periha,ps the fact that I told him that he ought to beluwe more liike a man was regarded an improipI'liety. As in 19'38, so I aJlso contend today that we had no right to avoid war when the defense of our independence was concerned - like TGM and Mussolini did, if you want to put it tJhat way. Up to this time, however,. there was always something indistinct that prevented me from writing my view pu'blioly, the view that turned John Masaryk against me. But that indistictn~ has now disappeared due to a strrungely simple cause: in .A!llg1ust, 1957, an Argentine steamer went do!Wil in La Plata and eighty travelers drowned. It sainlk - and then it dawned on me. Lea;ders, caiptains among people, have their honor which they treasure more than life itself. The ca;rptai:n g~ down wi-th his sinlking shi{p. It is the morale of men who understand responsirbility with fatal seriousness a,nd courage. In our nation we had no shlp captains so that we �SLOVAKIA 5 might compare their behavior when disaster strikes the shl,p they are in ohar,ge of. But we did have in oru,r history a series of ca.ptains of the ship of state. And behold, our state captains comprehended the respons,ilbilities and manliness of leadership just as honestly as, those ship captains. The famous "Iron and Gold King," the Czech Pfemysl OtaJkar ]I, offered his life on the eive oif the battle on Moravslke Pole to save the honor of the nation and the army. At that sad time his life was indispensalble to the life of the nation, but he died in battle. He was betrayed by Milota of Dedic, a member of the Benesov clan. The victor Rudolph Habsbur,g had his courageous riva,1 b.umed with honors and scornfully exiled the traitor who had come to pay him homage. And he did not shatter the Ozooh empire as he had threatened. Famous b:lind King John did not run from battle when the French, wiho had called on him for help, fled from the battlefield. He gave the Czechs an example of coUJra:ge and defiance of death in battle with his memoralble utterance: "Let us hope that it will never hruppen that a Czech king shaJll flee f,rom battle!" By his fortitude he prepared the way to the emperor's crown for his .s on Charles ·w. The English cro,w n prince honored him for his braivery and to this very day bears on his coat of arms the three famous feathers of the braive Czech King John. In 193'8, from contacts with our generals, I was convinced that our army was better equipped and trained and possessed a better fighting spirit than Hitler's army. This fact was confirmed in Nureniber,g before the International Court even by Hitler's Chief of Starff, General Halder. He ~aid that his predecessor, General Beclk, resilgned his position in July, 1938, in protest against war with OzechoSlovaJkia which Hitler had planned. General Halder had said that he, lilke the majority of German commanders, was rugainst wa,r even if it wa,s only with independent Olecho~Slovakia. General Beck proclaimed that even such a war would haive boon fatal for Germany. Halder added that, when Beck's resignatio.n did not hruve any effect on Hitler, the German generals planned to overthrow Hitler �6 SLOVAKIA on the eve o:f the war. But the putJsch had to be speedily called off when Dr. Edward Benes crupitulated for CzechoSlorvaJkia. Today wlhen a;li oif this is known, sOlme people will want to reproach and malign me for the indecency of attaclking a dead man. But I do not want to be a wise thinker after the cure. We must rerne:rnlb,er, hrowever, that all we, the peOiple of the Czecho-Slovak ReipU!blic, learned oillly now, all this was 'knoiWil a!OCUTately and in detail by our Suipreme Commander and President, Dr. Edward Benes, already in July, Arugust, and September, 1938, and also by the line of generals, poJiticans, diplomats, and high state officials. In his positiion Benes was bound to know this; he had at his disposal gigantic, highly effective, and costly means to know aibout it. In Paris, in 1939, an officer of the "DelllXieme Bureau" visited me and expressed his amazement over the accuracy of reports of the Czecho-.Slo>vak Intelligence SeTIVice. So, Dr. Ediwa;rd Benes knew that the German generals looked upon war with Czecho-1Slorvalkia as a step that would be fatal to Germany. If, therefore, despite this knowledge Dr. Benes let himself "be forced" to capitulation, he committed treaso!Il. In the solemn oath taken when he assumed the duties of president, the President and Supreme Commander promised solemnly before the nation and Almighty God that he shall seiwe only and exclusively the .s tate and the entire nation. He promised to sacrifice his life, if necessary, and without hesitation erven the life of half the nation in defense of the state and freedom. When Benes was sworn in as President, there were present several huruked leading politicans, soldiers, offi.cialis, diplomats, ministers. Where were all these people when Dr. Benes signed the ca,pituiation and thu~ oommitted perjury and higlh trea,s on? There can be no doubt that they had the duty to prevent such a crupitulation and, if necessary, even to kill or overthrow the man guilty of hi:gh treas()IIl. But what did the .people airound him do? Nothing! And worse. Many of them even escorted him into exile. They bowed profoundly before the man guilty of high �SLOVAKIA 7 treason, adhered to him, supported and helrped him to install himself as exile-president amd to return to our home as .p resident again orf the State he had betrayed to the Communists and "liberated" into CO'Jnmuni.sm. We see that u,p to the present time trnitor Benes is stilJ. honored, glorified, and .p raised by the .v ery same gentlemen as a national hero and martyr. Let us look at these events with the eyes o;f normal people in the wrold, whether they be westerns or easterners. Even i;f they not provolke us from our let:Jhwgy out of reg3!rd for us, they nevertheless think terrible things aJbout us. Let us take any other country, for example, little Finland cramped somewhere in the nor.th and directly under the heel of the most birutal power. Can you im8!gine a Finn singing such a capitulation ond not being cut down the moment he did it? Do not aslk who was sUJpposed to 'kill him. 'Ilhere were hundreds of people who had the manly duty to kill the scoundrel and trMtor, since for decades they were in a po'sision that charged them to do so, even if their manly honor did not. in heaiven's name, will those forces never be awakened that would want to see the entire extent of the deceitful g.a me of the knaive and coward, whom the nation that was pmnlk and lulled to sleep with sociali,S!m placed on the throne of Ozech k,i ngs so that it might b,e betrayed by him? Why does not our exile, as well as our nation at home, walke u,p and use the broom of shame on that band of traitors who must have 'k nown and .stiH know everything that J write about and yet brazenly sing a song of cowardice and treason as if it were our sacred national ~nthem? Let us imagine ho,w diffe.rent it could have been if the nation wouJ.d have - as it should have - rid itself of J3enes's command in time and demonstrated to the world jhow the descendants of the di'Vi.ne worriors know how to fight for thek country. It is .possi1ble that in the end our army would have been beaten, but not before months of terrible fighting. And who can say how many other coun- �8 SLOVAKIA tries would have thrust themselives upon Hitler's army to !finish it already in 1939-19'40 and not in 194'5? The German commander,s should have overthrown Hitler without Benes's capitulation; then World War would not ha-ve happened at all. Ami the Germans without Hitler would have been - as they are today - all of them, not divided, in the western camp. In a fight for its independence, Czecho-SlovaJkia would have gained a blessing, a baptism by fire, and would haive taJken its place among the first states of Europe. It would haJVe finished its fa.rst test of statehood with complete success, a test which •now still awaits us. As it is, instead of being in the forefront as a free nation among the free, our state is an unwilling scamp or against the West and our nation an unwilling scamp or dog's head of <:ommunist imperialism. Well, we know that role the "Psohla,vi'c" (dog's heads) played, and the fate that a,waits them from the Laminge~. We must ma,ke wp our minds as to what we really jWant. Do we want political parties, a party, or State? Do we want a party to whom the State and nation would be a rag, as it is today of the Communist Party? We 'know that a certain grouping of parties led the State and nation into the thraldom of a Nazi protectorate. A grouping of parties, all promotmg socialism, led it into the sla,very of a Communist protectorate. Iif it is not clear to us that the State is aJbove ,p arty and that loyalty to a State stands high albove loya,lty to any party, then there is no sense in thinking and dreaming aJbout any kind of liberation, because in such a case we cannot attain it. That would be a Sisyphean effort, which has already twice disappointed us. As long as we shall elect a leader, we must hold a stricter relation to him than to anyone else. We must afford him the possi!bility to lead and to show himself a man and we must see to it that he also fulfills hls responsibility. ,I f not, we must overthrow or even kill him! After an, are we or are we not the descendants of the glorious warriors pf God, the SOlllS and brothers of the famous Ozecho- SlorvaJk legionnaires? Let us forget political partisanshlip. The ,nation and the State are aJbove any and all parties! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SLO VA KIA Published by the Slovak League of America VOL. VIII DECEMBER, 1958 NO. 3 (28) WHY fflE CZECHS DID NOT FIGHT Dr. John A. Bafa Whatever has been written aibout this subject has practically aliways been fhwored, distorted with excuses, malevolence, derisfon, anger, shame, embitter.moot, and aippeasemen.t, a<Ccording to politi'Cal interest and viewpoint and attempts to coiver up. Moot of the time this smelled of wrong doing, misfortune, a new White Mountain. Never, however, was their any trace of a;clmowledging how and wihy something hruppened and w:ho was to 'blame for its h8lplpening. Dr. John A. Bat'a is a member of the famous Czech shoemakers, who, like so many others who had dared to criticize the ruinous policy of Dr. Edward Benes, even though belatedly, were persecuted by Benes and his followers even in exile. This is a translation of the original Czech article "Proc jsme the journal nebojovali" that was published in "BOHEMIA" Oct. 30, 1957. of Czech Democratic Federalists - 'Dhat was a terrible, historical defeat of our statehood without a fig.ht and the world thinks that we fled from the b8Jttle. What has been written Uip to this time by the Czecho..,SlovaJks about this has only attempted to, excuse or rupologize for the ultimatum of the Western Powers at Munich in 1938: the Western Powers were guilty; the Russians were guilty for not coming to he1p us; Hitler was guHty; etc . And the world keeps on chuckling at our naivite. HumaJnly this is naturaL Everyone would rather pay himself indu'lgently even when he is not altogether certain that he deserves a boot. We have been extremely welltrained to cry about and bewail White Mountain; we can 2 SLOVAKIA ma.Ike a goat 'b leat a!bout it. But this bleating cannot silence our conscience, gnawing at our mind, whielh aSiks quietly: "Whom do you want to fool, ch'lllCikle-head ?" King Mida'S was an example of a man w:ho was afraid to loo'k truth in tlhe face. He had do,nikey ears and an a,stronomicaUy hi,gh hat to cover them. When he gathered enough strength to look at his ears, they disappeared. He was a whole man. Now, if we had the courage of Midas to looik upon realities under the barik o.f truth and related events to otJher examples in the world, perhaps it wolllld daiwn upon us why we did not fight in 1938. It would bec~me apparent that we ourselves were at fault, we the citizens of that lost State, which was the Czecho-;Sfovalk Republic and which we alfowed to collapse. We did not lose the State in October, 1938; we lost it b,efore that time. Octoiber, 1938, was only the date of the thraishilllg we deserved, a'S wa,s perhaps a:lso all that followed it. We did not have an adequate conception regarding nation and state. Somehow we had an idea that the series ad: political fetishes and partisan laJbles, according to which we ran - and still .run - here and there, made a nation of us. We seemed to think - allld still thinlk - that an equal and secret right of ballot and democracy, which we sa;w someplace, but did not understand ;properly amd with it elected irresiponsihly an irresiponsible leader, that this, too, made us a nation. And that our elected leaders wo1u ld at once ,b ecome stateS1II1en and men ,be:cause they wo,re striped ,p ants and acquired a few titles. Because we, the citizens and voters, did not thin1k, catastrophe OiVertook us. We had an idea, but not the knowledge or ,c onviction of what ,was needed to ma;ke a nation of us and a solid, organic unit of our ,state. In the meantime, however, our politicans, diplomats, and statesmen did what they pleased, and ,p articularly did they .run away from responsibilities into dernogogy, lying, and false promises; the interests of the Repulblic and nation were bartered away; obligations and oaths were forgotten, and the Constitution was spat upon; they used their positions to serve their own per,sonal SLOVAKIA 3 interests and whims and used the nation and state lilke rags. In twenty-five years, the Repulblic was bartered away twice by these paliticams-statesm en with titles and striped pants. First to the Nazis, then to the Communists. In both cases this happened against our will. The caiuse of this is the same as that for our not fightinig in 1938: in responsirble positions we did have persons of the male sex, hut not men. None of us can j:ustify for ourselves o,r before any judicious person the fact that we did not fight. The nation was armed to the teeth; it had an army of a million men, excellently trained and for decades inculcated with love for its nation and filled with a .will to fight and a willingness to sacrifice. And yet, the nation did not fight as it wanted to and knew it had to so that it could preseiwe its freedom and indeipendence which it had eiked out after 300 years of dependence and bondage under which it almost ,p erished. Some of our people get angry when they read or hear the e~ression "ollir nation caipitulated." They come back with the retort that not the nation, but the leaders capitulated. I do not agree. There was only one leader: the president, the ~wpreme commamder of an arnny of a million men, an army splendidly equipped, trained, and ready fo,r war. We elected him directly or indirectly to leadershi!p. We are, therefore, also responsibile for him. To turn away from this responsilbility is senseless or cowardly. JOlhn Masaryk told me in the spring of 1940 that the aJII11bassadors off Fra.nce and Britian litera:Uy dragged Dr. Benes from bed at three o'clock in the morning and forced him to sign the capitulation rby an ultimatum. That started an argument. I could not understamd how a commander of an army of million men could be forced to caipitulation by some two froc'ked uncles and thereiby surrender the army, equipment, and state to enemies and the nation to slavery. John Masaryk retorted that the question did not concern shoes with which I was familiar. I still contended that a statesman could not be forced to do anytjhing. He could be killed, 01Verthrown by a revolution, deposed, kidnapped. 4 SLOVAKIA tortured, that he could cO!IIla:rut suicide, but that he could not be forced. We have an example, I added: Master John Hus. John Masaryk snapped hack that what I was saying sma;ciked af Fascism, that only that ',grazl Mussolini' said that a nation that does not ,s uffer to sacrifice for the independence and freedom of its country is not worthy of it. I told him tlhat was the way I saiw it and that I was convinced that even his father, TGM, would sooner agree in this matter with Mussolini than with him and Benes. From that time on I did not get al()IIl!g with Jo:hn Masaryk and was blac>k1b alled by Benes and his government in London. During the war we wrote each other several times, but, knowing Benes, I knew that he was planning revell!ge. On June 6, 1940, I was placed on the English "Blacklist" - t-o this day I do not know why - with indications that Benes's London "goveTnment" had itis hands in the matter. And after Dr. Benes's v,i sit to the White House, I was also ,p laced on the American "BJadklist" without any investigation. To people in his circle Dr. Benes remarked that I had spoken improperly with him in 193'8. I spoke with him as man to, man. Periha,ps the fact that I told him that he ought to beluwe more liike a man was regarded an improipI'liety. As in 19'38, so I aJlso contend today that we had no right to avoid war when the defense of our independence was concerned - like TGM and Mussolini did, if you want to put it tJhat way. Up to this time, however,. there was always something indistinct that prevented me from writing my view pu'blioly, the view that turned John Masaryk against me. But that indistictn~ has now disappeared due to a strrungely simple cause: in .A!llg1ust, 1957, an Argentine steamer went do!Wil in La Plata and eighty travelers drowned. It sainlk - and then it dawned on me. Lea;ders, caiptains among people, have their honor which they treasure more than life itself. The ca;rptai:n g~ down wi-th his sinlking shi{p. It is the morale of men who understand responsirbility with fatal seriousness a,nd courage. In our nation we had no shlp captains so that we SLOVAKIA 5 might compare their behavior when disaster strikes the shl,p they are in ohar,ge of. But we did have in oru,r history a series of ca.ptains of the ship of state. And behold, our state captains comprehended the respons,ilbilities and manliness of leadership just as honestly as, those ship captains. The famous "Iron and Gold King," the Czech Pfemysl OtaJkar ]I, offered his life on the eive oif the battle on Moravslke Pole to save the honor of the nation and the army. At that sad time his life was indispensalble to the life of the nation, but he died in battle. He was betrayed by Milota of Dedic, a member of the Benesov clan. The victor Rudolph Habsbur,g had his courageous riva,1 b.umed with honors and scornfully exiled the traitor who had come to pay him homage. And he did not shatter the Ozooh empire as he had threatened. Famous b:lind King John did not run from battle when the French, wiho had called on him for help, fled from the battlefield. He gave the Czechs an example of coUJra:ge and defiance of death in battle with his memoralble utterance: "Let us hope that it will never hruppen that a Czech king shaJll flee f,rom battle!" By his fortitude he prepared the way to the emperor's crown for his .s on Charles ·w. The English cro,w n prince honored him for his braivery and to this very day bears on his coat of arms the three famous feathers of the braive Czech King John. In 193'8, from contacts with our generals, I was convinced that our army was better equipped and trained and possessed a better fighting spirit than Hitler's army. This fact was confirmed in Nureniber,g before the International Court even by Hitler's Chief of Starff, General Halder. He ~aid that his predecessor, General Beclk, resilgned his position in July, 1938, in protest against war with OzechoSlovaJkia which Hitler had planned. General Halder had said that he, lilke the majority of German commanders, was rugainst wa,r even if it wa,s only with independent Olecho~Slovakia. General Beck proclaimed that even such a war would haive boon fatal for Germany. Halder added that, when Beck's resignatio.n did not hruve any effect on Hitler, the German generals planned to overthrow Hitler 6 SLOVAKIA on the eve o:f the war. But the putJsch had to be speedily called off when Dr. Edward Benes crupitulated for CzechoSlorvaJkia. Today wlhen a;li oif this is known, sOlme people will want to reproach and malign me for the indecency of attaclking a dead man. But I do not want to be a wise thinker after the cure. We must rerne:rnlb,er, hrowever, that all we, the peOiple of the Czecho-Slovak ReipU!blic, learned oillly now, all this was 'knoiWil a!OCUTately and in detail by our Suipreme Commander and President, Dr. Edward Benes, already in July, Arugust, and September, 1938, and also by the line of generals, poJiticans, diplomats, and high state officials. In his positiion Benes was bound to know this; he had at his disposal gigantic, highly effective, and costly means to know aibout it. In Paris, in 1939, an officer of the "DelllXieme Bureau" visited me and expressed his amazement over the accuracy of reports of the Czecho-.Slo>vak Intelligence SeTIVice. So, Dr. Ediwa;rd Benes knew that the German generals looked upon war with Czecho-1Slorvalkia as a step that would be fatal to Germany. If, therefore, despite this knowledge Dr. Benes let himself "be forced" to capitulation, he committed treaso!Il. In the solemn oath taken when he assumed the duties of president, the President and Supreme Commander promised solemnly before the nation and Almighty God that he shall seiwe only and exclusively the .s tate and the entire nation. He promised to sacrifice his life, if necessary, and without hesitation erven the life of half the nation in defense of the state and freedom. When Benes was sworn in as President, there were present several huruked leading politicans, soldiers, offi.cialis, diplomats, ministers. Where were all these people when Dr. Benes signed the ca,pituiation and thu~ oommitted perjury and higlh trea,s on? There can be no doubt that they had the duty to prevent such a crupitulation and, if necessary, even to kill or overthrow the man guilty of hi:gh treas()IIl. But what did the .people airound him do? Nothing! And worse. Many of them even escorted him into exile. They bowed profoundly before the man guilty of high SLOVAKIA 7 treason, adhered to him, supported and helrped him to install himself as exile-president amd to return to our home as .p resident again orf the State he had betrayed to the Communists and "liberated" into CO'Jnmuni.sm. We see that u,p to the present time trnitor Benes is stilJ. honored, glorified, and .p raised by the .v ery same gentlemen as a national hero and martyr. Let us look at these events with the eyes o;f normal people in the wrold, whether they be westerns or easterners. Even i;f they not provolke us from our let:Jhwgy out of reg3!rd for us, they nevertheless think terrible things aJbout us. Let us take any other country, for example, little Finland cramped somewhere in the nor.th and directly under the heel of the most birutal power. Can you im8!gine a Finn singing such a capitulation ond not being cut down the moment he did it? Do not aslk who was sUJpposed to 'kill him. 'Ilhere were hundreds of people who had the manly duty to kill the scoundrel and trMtor, since for decades they were in a po'sision that charged them to do so, even if their manly honor did not. in heaiven's name, will those forces never be awakened that would want to see the entire extent of the deceitful g.a me of the knaive and coward, whom the nation that was pmnlk and lulled to sleep with sociali,S!m placed on the throne of Ozech k,i ngs so that it might b,e betrayed by him? Why does not our exile, as well as our nation at home, walke u,p and use the broom of shame on that band of traitors who must have 'k nown and .stiH know everything that J write about and yet brazenly sing a song of cowardice and treason as if it were our sacred national ~nthem? Let us imagine ho,w diffe.rent it could have been if the nation wouJ.d have - as it should have - rid itself of J3enes's command in time and demonstrated to the world jhow the descendants of the di'Vi.ne worriors know how to fight for thek country. It is .possi1ble that in the end our army would have been beaten, but not before months of terrible fighting. And who can say how many other coun- 8 SLOVAKIA tries would have thrust themselives upon Hitler's army to !finish it already in 1939-19'40 and not in 194'5? The German commander,s should have overthrown Hitler without Benes's capitulation; then World War would not ha-ve happened at all. Ami the Germans without Hitler would have been - as they are today - all of them, not divided, in the western camp. In a fight for its independence, Czecho-SlovaJkia would have gained a blessing, a baptism by fire, and would haive taJken its place among the first states of Europe. It would haJVe finished its fa.rst test of statehood with complete success, a test which •now still awaits us. As it is, instead of being in the forefront as a free nation among the free, our state is an unwilling scamp or against the West and our nation an unwilling scamp or dog's head of <:ommunist imperialism. Well, we know that role the "Psohla,vi'c" (dog's heads) played, and the fate that a,waits them from the Laminge~. We must ma,ke wp our minds as to what we really jWant. Do we want political parties, a party, or State? Do we want a party to whom the State and nation would be a rag, as it is today of the Communist Party? We 'know that a certain grouping of parties led the State and nation into the thraldom of a Nazi protectorate. A grouping of parties, all promotmg socialism, led it into the sla,very of a Communist protectorate. Iif it is not clear to us that the State is aJbove ,p arty and that loyalty to a State stands high albove loya,lty to any party, then there is no sense in thinking and dreaming aJbout any kind of liberation, because in such a case we cannot attain it. That would be a Sisyphean effort, which has already twice disappointed us. As long as we shall elect a leader, we must hold a stricter relation to him than to anyone else. We must afford him the possi!bility to lead and to show himself a man and we must see to it that he also fulfills hls responsibility. ,I f not, we must overthrow or even kill him! After an, are we or are we not the descendants of the glorious warriors pf God, the SOlllS and brothers of the famous Ozecho- SlorvaJk legionnaires? Let us forget political partisanshlip. The ,nation and the State are aJbove any and all parties!  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why the Czechs Did Not Fight Description An account of the resource Dr. John A. Baťa Slovakia, Vol. 8, No. 3 (28), December 1958 pp. 1-8 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baťa, John A. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1958 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/c924276d9ff80efe173d5f9a83750a28.pdf 6aff34fe68eea9cc883d406cdf4ea461 PDF Text Text Why Separate Slovak Politics? Long before the putsch of February 1948, the com­munists of Czecho-Slovakia labeled all Slovaks who opposed them as Fascists and Nazis. When they came into power -by the graces of Beneš and Stalin -they got rid of all opposition in the usual Red manner. On the other hand, the followers of the ruinous policies of Dr. Edward Beneš call the Slovaks "Fascists and Nazis," because they insist on a separate Slovak state, the renewal of the Slovakia that they had proclaimed an independent state before World War II began. Lately they are going a bit farther than that; they have decided to prove that the Slovaks who had anything to do with the Slovak state, -the Hlinka Home Guard, and the Slovak People's Party -also collaborated with the Communists, especially during the 1946 parliamentary elec­tions. That, or course, is just plain silly, because it was not the Czechs or the followers of Beneš, but the Slovaks and the followers of Hlinka and Tiso, who openly opposed the Communists. Not only since 1948, but during the life of the first and second republics as well. The Slovaks are through with all forms of Czecho-Slovakia. They have had their fill of Magyars, Czechs and Germans. They are determined to fight for an independent Slovak state within or without a European federation. The Slovak Republic was destroyed against their will and illegally by the United Nations, and they still want to know why. Czecho-Slovak opponents of Slovak independence qualify the formation of the Slovak state as a betrayal of the Czechs and Czecho­Slovakia. They have no facts to prove that. They rest satisfied that Beneš had said so. What about the Slovaks themselves? Have they nothing to say about a matter that vitally concerns them? When all facts are considered in the light of the truth, we shall have to come to the conclusion that it was not the Slovak leaders who betrayed the Czechs and Czecho-Slovakia, but the Czech leaders - the Czech Socialists, especially the Czech Nazis (Czech National Socialists) headed by Dr. Edward Beneš. The difficult situation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938-1939 is still fresh In our minds. What was responsible for that situation? It was the ruinous policy of Dr. Edward Beneš, who served many years as Foreign Minister and then President of Czecho-Slovakia. The Slovak deputies often cautioned Beneš to change his course, but to no avail. That the Slovaks were able to get out of that hopeless situation and kept themselves not only above water throughout the war, but progressed immensely, that fact itself speaks In favor of the Slovak state. Now, take the situation that Slovakia finds itself in at the present time. Who is responsible for that situation? During the war the Slovak nation lived In the conviction that its future life after the conclusion of the war and the defeat of Germany would be able to develop only alongside and after the manner of the western democracies. The influence of German politics was undesirable. Let us only recall that the London broadcast was heard publicly in Slovakia and that despite the fact that it was influenced by people who had a most negative stand toward the Slovak state. It is known that many aviators of the western armies found refuge In Slovakia and even the military authorities treated them as guests. It is also known that many Czechs, fleeing to the west, found refuge and aid in Slovakia. Cžech politicians - specifically Beneš who posed as President of Czechoslovakia - went to Moscow despite the warnings of the western powers at a time when the formation of a Polish-Czechoslovak Federation was being negotiated. It was there that they sold out the Czech and Slovak nations to communistic Moscow. The Poles were embarrassed; any federation with the Czechs became a dead issue. This was not the result of a political compromise and good will. It was a singular triumph for Gottwald and Stalin. Then came 1944. It was evident that the end of the war was not far off. The Slovaks were preparing for a new life; pians were being made for a Christian and democratic order without the tutorship of the German Reich. A genuine Slovak revolt was included In the plans. Moscow and Beneš knew about these plans but they were determined to cross up the Slovaks. They could not allow the Slovaks, who were for an independent Slovakia and sympathized with the west, to rebel against the Germans. Beneš planned the strategy with Stalin. Soviet soldiers and saboteurs were parachuted into the mountains of Slovakia and the fake "national" rebellion of August 1944 was prepared. The result: about 70,000 Slovak dead, persecutions by the enraged Nazis, murder and destruction by both the desperate Nazis and the Red saboteurs. Soon after the war came the "Košice Agreement" which was cooked up In Moscow, and the fate of Slovakia was sealed. The Slovaks were disappointed. They expected a victory of right and truth, but had to be satisfied again with subordination. But they did not betray their Christian and democratic traditions and convictions. They proved that In the 1946 elections. Little Slovakia, overshadowed by the Red giant, spoke decisively in favor of the west. In Bohemia and Moravia - the CZECH lands - the Reds bested all parties; with the socialists they had a decided majority. In Slovakia, the best the Reds could do - even with the help of the Czech Reds, Beneš's spies and Secret Police, and the army - was about 32 per cent of the total vote. The Slovak Democratic Party - led by the political unknown Dr. Jozef Lettrich - became the victorious party with about 62 per cent of the total vote. Not by any of its own merits. The followers of Hlinka and Tiso - the overwhelming majority of the Slovak population - had little choice in the matter. Their party -the largest political party in pre-war Slovakia - was outlawed by the Red regime of Beneš. They could vote only for the candidates of the Communist and the Democratic Parties and, so, chose the lesser of two evils - the Democratic Party led by Lettrich. It was a vote against Communism. Of course, the Reds were furious. But Dr. Lettrich and other leaders of the Democratic Party failed to take advantage of the situation. They betrayed the confidence of the voters by continuing the Sovietophile policy of Beneš. The Reds of Slovakia lost the elections decisively and yet won the most important posts in the state! The voters of Slovakia had decided for a separate Slovak policy, but the leaders of the party blindly continued to follow Beneš and Moscow in their anti-Slovak policy. A group of bankrupt collaborators with Beneš and Stalin is playing the same politics today that brought disaster to the Slovak nation in February 1948. This group has organized the "COUNCIL OF FREE CZECHOSLOVAKIA" which is anything but representative of the will of the Slovak and Czech peoples ln America, at home or elsewhere In emigration. Most of the members of this Council are former members of the NATIONAL FRONT of Czechoslovakia, a fact that they would rather not be reminded of. The Slovaks want no part of them or their Council. They despise them as Red collaborators. After the terrible experience of the past, the Slovaks cannot trust the very people who betrayed their interests and collaborated with their enslavers. As In the elections of 1946, the Slovaks In emigration today proclaim themselves against the Council of Free Czechoslovakia that is comprised of the men who in a large measure are responsible for the unfortunate situation the Slovak and Czech nations find themselves In today. They are for a separate Slovak policy in emigration and In Slovakia. No more do they want a common policy with the Czechs. Slovak leaders have learned their lesson after living with the Czechs in a common state for 20 years; they remember Munich 1938, December 12, 1943, and the post-war period. They have lost their appetite to hazard with the life of their people. Slovak political leaders have on many occasions in the past shown their good will to come to some sensible agreement. They pleaded, begged and threatened many times, but to no avail. The only answer they received was the gallows and the courts. Let the Czechs, therefore, not reproach them for deciding to go their own way. They gladly accept full responsibility for the outcome. The Slovaks are convinced that they can thus better safeguard Slovakia from the catastrophes and sufferings that were her lot in the past decades, when she was ruled by others. WHO SAID IT? "Russia is for the liberation of Czechoslovakia... Russia is the strongest Slav brother and must be regarded as such... RUSSIA IS THE SOURCE OF TRUE OEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM THAT OUR PEOPLE IS EXPECTING." Dr. Edward Beneš, Chicago ĽUDOVÝ DENNÍK, April 21, 1939. "For Russia the importance of the (Czechoslovak-Soviet) treaty lies In the fact she has another ally whose leader, Dr. Beneš, is highly esteemed in Allied councils, and in the fact that Czechoslovakia WILL NOT participate in any European FEDERATION whose purpose is re-establishment of a policy of the cordon sanitaire. This was the second time Dr. Beneš and Czechoslovakia have blazed a trail toward amity of the Soviet Union and neighboring states in eastern Europe." - (NEW YORK TIMES, 12-13-43). SLOVAKIA 7 WHY SEPARATE SLOVAK POLITICS? {k l-) - Long before the putsch of Feb ruary 1948, the communists of Czecho-Slovakia labeled all Slovaks who opposed them as Fascists and Nazis. When they came into power - by the graces of Beneš and Stalin - they got rid of all oppositlon in the usual Red manner. On the other hand, the followers of the ruinous policles of Dr. Edward Beneš call the Slovaks "Fascísts and Nazis," because they insist on a separate Slovak state, the renewal of the Slovakia that they had proclaimed an independent state before World War II began. Lately they are golng a bit farther than that; they have decided to prove that the Slovaks who had anything to do with the Slovak state, - the Hlinka Home Guard, and the Slovak People's Party - also collabor ated with the Communists, especlally durlng the 1946 parliamentary elections. That, or course, is just p lain silly, because it was not the Czechs or the followers of Beneš, but the Slovaks and tbe followers of Hlinka and Tiso, who openly opposed the Communists. Not only slnce 1948, but during the life of the first and second republics as well. The Slovaks are through with all forms of Czecho-Slovakia. They have had their fill of Magyars, Czechs and Germans. They are determined to flght for an Independent Slovak state withln or wlthout a European federation. The Slovak Republic was destroyed agalnst their will and lllegally by tbe Unlted Nations, and they stlll want to know why. Czecho-Slovak opponents of Slovak independence qualify the formatlon of tbe Slovak state as a betrayal of the Czechs and CzechoSlovakia. They have no facts to prove that. 'ľhey rest satlsfied that Beneš had said so. What about the Slovaks themselves? H ave tbey nothing to say about a matter tbat vitally concerns them? When all facts are considered in the light of the truth, we shall have to come to the conclusion that lt was not the Slovak Jeaders who betr ayed the Czechs and Czecho-Slovakla, but the Czech leaders - the Czech Soclalists, especially the Czech Nazls {Czech Natlonal Socialists) headed by Dr. Edward Beneš. The dlfficult situatlon of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938- 1939 is still fresh In our mlnds. What was responslble for that sltuatlon? It was the rulnous pollcy of Dr. Edward Beneš, who served many years as Foreign Minister and then Presldent of Czecho-Slovakia. T h e Slovak deputles often cautioned Beneš to change his course, but t o no aval!. That the Slovaks were able to get out of that hopeless sltuatlon and kept themselves not only above water throughout the war, but progressed lmmensely, tbat fact itself speaks In favor of the Slovak state. Now, take tbe sltuatlon that Slovakla finds ltself in at the present time. Who is responsible for that sltuation? Durlng the war the Slovak natlon lived In the convict!on that lts future llfe after the conclusfon of the war and tbe defeat of Germany would be able to develop only alongslde and after the manner of the western democracles. The lnfluence of German politlcs was undeslrable. Let us only recall that the London broadcast was heard publicly �8 SLOVAKIA in Slovakla and that desplte the fact that lt was lnfluenced by people who had a most negatlve stand toward the Slovak state. It ls known that many aviators of the western armles found refuge In Slovakla and even the milltary authorltles treated them as guests. It is also known that many Czechs, fleelng to the west, found refuge and ald in Slova kla. Cžech pollticians - speclflcally Beneš who posed as Presldent of Czechoslovakia - went to Moscow desplte the warnlngs of the western powers at a Ume when the formatlon of a Pollsh-Czechoslovak Federatlon was belng negotlated. It was there that they sold out the Czech and Slovak natlons to communlstlc Moscow. The Poles were embarrassed; any federatlon wlth the Czechs became a dead lssue. Thls was not the result of a polltlcal compromlse and good wlll. It was a slngular trlumph for Gottwald and Stalln. Then came 1944. It was evldent that the end of the war was not far off. The Slovaks were preparlng for a new llfe; pians were belng made for a Christlan and democratlc order wlthout the tutorship of the German Reich. A genuine Slovak revolt was lncluded In the plans. Moscow and Beneš knew about these plans but they were determ.lned to cross up the Slovaks. They could not a llow the Slovaks, who were for an independent Slovakia and sympathized wlth the west, to rebel agalnst the Germans. Bene• planned the strategy wlth Stalln. Soviet soldiers and saboteurs were parachuted lnto the mountalns of Slovakia and the fake "natlonal" rebelllon of August 1944 was prepared. The result: about 70,000 Slovak dead, persecutlons by the enraged Nazis, murder and destruction by both the desperate Nazls and the Red saboteurs. Soon after the war came the "Košice Agreement" whlch was cooked up In Moscow, and the fate of Slovakia was sealed. The Slovaks were dlsappointed. They expected a vlctory ot right and truth, but had to be satisfied again wlth subordlnatlon. But they did not betray their Chrlstlan and democratic traditions and convictions. They proved that In the 1946 elections. Llttle Slovakla, overshadowed by the Red giant, spoke declsively in favor ot the west. In Bohemia and Moravla - the CZECH lands - the Reds bested all partles; wlth the soclallsts they had a decided majority. In Slovakia, the best the Reds could do - even with the help of the Czech Reds, Beneš's spies and Secret Police, and the army - was about 32 per cent of the total vote. The Slovak Democratlc Party - led by the political unknown Dr. Jozef Lettrlch - became the victorlous party with about 62 per cent o! the total vote. Not by any of its own merits. The followers of Hlinka and Tlso - the overwhelming majority of the Slovak populatlon - had Jlttle choice In the matter. Thelr party - the largest polltlcal party In pre-war Slovakla - was outlawed by the Red re• glme of Beneš. They could vote only for the candldates of the Communist and the Democratlc Partles and, so, chose the lesser of two evils - the Democratlc Party Jed by Lettrlch. It was a vote agalnst Communism. Of course, the Reds were furlous. But Dr. Leltrlch and other leaders of the Democratlc Party failed to take advantage of the sltuatlon. They betrayed the contldence of the voters by contlnulng the Sovietophlle pollcy ot Bene•. �SLOVAKIA 9 The Reds of Slovakla Iost the electlons declsively and yet won the most important posts ln the state! The voters of Slovakia had declded for a separate Slovak pollcy, but the leaders of the party bllndly contlnued to follow Beneš and Moscow in thelr anti-Slovak pollcy. A group of bankrupt collaborators wlth Beneš and StaUn ls playlng the same poutlcs today that brought dlsaster to the Slovak natlon ln February 1948. This group has organlzed the "COUNCIL OF FREE CZECHOSLOVAKIA" whlch is anything but representatlve of the wlll of the Slovak and Czech peoples ln America, at home or elsewhere In emigratlon. Most of the merobers of this Council are former members of the NATIONAL FRONT of Czechoslovakia, a fact that they would rather not be remlnded of. The Slovaks want no part of them or their Councll. They desplse them as Red collaborators. After the terrlble experience of the past, the Slovaks cannot trust the very people who betrayed their lnterests and collaborated wlth thelr enslavers. As In the elections of 1946, the Slovaks In emlgration today proclalm themselves against the Councll of Free Czechoslovakla that ls comprlsed of the men who In a large mea.s ure a re responslble for the unfortunate sltuatlon the Slovak and Czech nations find themselves In today. They are for a separate Slovak pollcy In emlgratlon and In Slovakia. No more do they want a common policy with 1he Czechs. Slovak leaders have learned thelr lesson after llvlng wlth the Czechs In a common state for 20 years; they remember Munlch 1938, December 12, 1943, and the post-war perlod. They have lost the!r appetlte to hazard with the llfe of thelr people. Slovak polltlcal leaders have on many occaslons In the past shown their good wlll to come to some senslble agreement. They pleaded, begged and threatened many times, but to no aval!. The only answer they recelved was the gallows and the courts. Let the Czechs, therelore, not reproach them for decld!ng to go thelr own way. They gladly a ccept full responsibllity for the outcome. The Slovaks are convlnced that they can thus better safeguard Slovak!a trom the catastrophles and sufferlngs that were her Jot in the past decades, when she was ruled by others. • • • • WHO SAID IT ? "Russia 1s for the liber ation of Czechoslovakia ..• Russia is the strong eat Slav b rothe r and must be regarded as such •• • RUSSIA IS THE SOURCE OF TRUE OEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM THAT OUR PEOPLE IS E X PECTING." DENNfK, Apr!l 21, 1939. Dr. Edward Beneš, Chicago L' UDOV'Í' • "For Russ1a the lmportance of the (CzechosJovak-Sovlet) treaty lies In the fact she has another ally whose leatler, Dr. Bene•, 1s hlghly esteemed In Allied counclls, and In the tact that Czechoslovakla WILL NOT participate in any European FEDERATION whose purpose is re-establishment or a pollcy of the cordon sanitaire. Thla waa the aecond t l me Dr, Be.nea and Czechoalovakia have blazed a trail toward amlty of the Soviet Union and nelghborlng states in eaatern Europe." (NEW YORK TIMES, 12-13-43). � 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 Why Separate Slovak Politics? Long before the putsch of February 1948, the com­munists of Czecho-Slovakia labeled all Slovaks who opposed them as Fascists and Nazis. When they came into power -by the graces of Beneš and Stalin -they got rid of all opposition in the usual Red manner. On the other hand, the followers of the ruinous policies of Dr. Edward Beneš call the Slovaks "Fascists and Nazis," because they insist on a separate Slovak state, the renewal of the Slovakia that they had proclaimed an independent state before World War II began. Lately they are going a bit farther than that; they have decided to prove that the Slovaks who had anything to do with the Slovak state, -the Hlinka Home Guard, and the Slovak People's Party -also collaborated with the Communists, especially during the 1946 parliamentary elec­tions. That, or course, is just plain silly, because it was not the Czechs or the followers of Beneš, but the Slovaks and the followers of Hlinka and Tiso, who openly opposed the Communists. Not only since 1948, but during the life of the first and second republics as well. The Slovaks are through with all forms of Czecho-Slovakia. They have had their fill of Magyars, Czechs and Germans. They are determined to fight for an independent Slovak state within or without a European federation. The Slovak Republic was destroyed against their will and illegally by the United Nations, and they still want to know why. Czecho-Slovak opponents of Slovak independence qualify the formation of the Slovak state as a betrayal of the Czechs and Czecho­Slovakia. They have no facts to prove that. They rest satisfied that Beneš had said so. What about the Slovaks themselves? Have they nothing to say about a matter that vitally concerns them? When all facts are considered in the light of the truth, we shall have to come to the conclusion that it was not the Slovak leaders who betrayed the Czechs and Czecho-Slovakia, but the Czech leaders - the Czech Socialists, especially the Czech Nazis (Czech National Socialists) headed by Dr. Edward Beneš. The difficult situation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938-1939 is still fresh In our minds. What was responsible for that situation? It was the ruinous policy of Dr. Edward Beneš, who served many years as Foreign Minister and then President of Czecho-Slovakia. The Slovak deputies often cautioned Beneš to change his course, but to no avail. That the Slovaks were able to get out of that hopeless situation and kept themselves not only above water throughout the war, but progressed immensely, that fact itself speaks In favor of the Slovak state. Now, take the situation that Slovakia finds itself in at the present time. Who is responsible for that situation? During the war the Slovak nation lived In the conviction that its future life after the conclusion of the war and the defeat of Germany would be able to develop only alongside and after the manner of the western democracies. The influence of German politics was undesirable. Let us only recall that the London broadcast was heard publicly in Slovakia and that despite the fact that it was influenced by people who had a most negative stand toward the Slovak state. It is known that many aviators of the western armies found refuge In Slovakia and even the military authorities treated them as guests. It is also known that many Czechs, fleeing to the west, found refuge and aid in Slovakia. Cžech politicians - specifically Beneš who posed as President of Czechoslovakia - went to Moscow despite the warnings of the western powers at a time when the formation of a Polish-Czechoslovak Federation was being negotiated. It was there that they sold out the Czech and Slovak nations to communistic Moscow. The Poles were embarrassed; any federation with the Czechs became a dead issue. This was not the result of a political compromise and good will. It was a singular triumph for Gottwald and Stalin. Then came 1944. It was evident that the end of the war was not far off. The Slovaks were preparing for a new life; pians were being made for a Christian and democratic order without the tutorship of the German Reich. A genuine Slovak revolt was included In the plans. Moscow and Beneš knew about these plans but they were determined to cross up the Slovaks. They could not allow the Slovaks, who were for an independent Slovakia and sympathized with the west, to rebel against the Germans. Beneš planned the strategy with Stalin. Soviet soldiers and saboteurs were parachuted into the mountains of Slovakia and the fake "national" rebellion of August 1944 was prepared. The result: about 70,000 Slovak dead, persecutions by the enraged Nazis, murder and destruction by both the desperate Nazis and the Red saboteurs. Soon after the war came the "Košice Agreement" which was cooked up In Moscow, and the fate of Slovakia was sealed. The Slovaks were disappointed. They expected a victory of right and truth, but had to be satisfied again with subordination. But they did not betray their Christian and democratic traditions and convictions. They proved that In the 1946 elections. Little Slovakia, overshadowed by the Red giant, spoke decisively in favor of the west. In Bohemia and Moravia - the CZECH lands - the Reds bested all parties; with the socialists they had a decided majority. In Slovakia, the best the Reds could do - even with the help of the Czech Reds, Beneš's spies and Secret Police, and the army - was about 32 per cent of the total vote. The Slovak Democratic Party - led by the political unknown Dr. Jozef Lettrich - became the victorious party with about 62 per cent of the total vote. Not by any of its own merits. The followers of Hlinka and Tiso - the overwhelming majority of the Slovak population - had little choice in the matter. Their party -the largest political party in pre-war Slovakia - was outlawed by the Red regime of Beneš. They could vote only for the candidates of the Communist and the Democratic Parties and, so, chose the lesser of two evils - the Democratic Party led by Lettrich. It was a vote against Communism. Of course, the Reds were furious. But Dr. Lettrich and other leaders of the Democratic Party failed to take advantage of the situation. They betrayed the confidence of the voters by continuing the Sovietophile policy of Beneš. The Reds of Slovakia lost the elections decisively and yet won the most important posts in the state! The voters of Slovakia had decided for a separate Slovak policy, but the leaders of the party blindly continued to follow Beneš and Moscow in their anti-Slovak policy. A group of bankrupt collaborators with Beneš and Stalin is playing the same politics today that brought disaster to the Slovak nation in February 1948. This group has organized the "COUNCIL OF FREE CZECHOSLOVAKIA" which is anything but representative of the will of the Slovak and Czech peoples ln America, at home or elsewhere In emigration. Most of the members of this Council are former members of the NATIONAL FRONT of Czechoslovakia, a fact that they would rather not be reminded of. The Slovaks want no part of them or their Council. They despise them as Red collaborators. After the terrible experience of the past, the Slovaks cannot trust the very people who betrayed their interests and collaborated with their enslavers. As In the elections of 1946, the Slovaks In emigration today proclaim themselves against the Council of Free Czechoslovakia that is comprised of the men who in a large measure are responsible for the unfortunate situation the Slovak and Czech nations find themselves In today. They are for a separate Slovak policy in emigration and In Slovakia. No more do they want a common policy with the Czechs. Slovak leaders have learned their lesson after living with the Czechs in a common state for 20 years; they remember Munich 1938, December 12, 1943, and the post-war period. They have lost their appetite to hazard with the life of their people. Slovak political leaders have on many occasions in the past shown their good will to come to some sensible agreement. They pleaded, begged and threatened many times, but to no avail. The only answer they received was the gallows and the courts. Let the Czechs, therefore, not reproach them for deciding to go their own way. They gladly accept full responsibility for the outcome. The Slovaks are convinced that they can thus better safeguard Slovakia from the catastrophes and sufferings that were her lot in the past decades, when she was ruled by others. WHO SAID IT? "Russia is for the liberation of Czechoslovakia... Russia is the strongest Slav brother and must be regarded as such... RUSSIA IS THE SOURCE OF TRUE OEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM THAT OUR PEOPLE IS EXPECTING." Dr. Edward Beneš, Chicago ĽUDOVÝ DENNÍK, April 21, 1939. "For Russia the importance of the (Czechoslovak-Soviet) treaty lies In the fact she has another ally whose leader, Dr. Beneš, is highly esteemed in Allied councils, and in the fact that Czechoslovakia WILL NOT participate in any European FEDERATION whose purpose is re-establishment of a policy of the cordon sanitaire. This was the second time Dr. Beneš and Czechoslovakia have blazed a trail toward amity of the Soviet Union and neighboring states in eastern Europe." - (NEW YORK TIMES, 12-13-43). 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 Why Separate Slovak Politics? Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1), May 1951 pp. 7-9 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/4dd10926a6ce50c231f5404ea182979f.pdf 93b506172dcb7b0a52c73b83924d8be1 PDF Text Text 146 SLOVAKIA Why Our Melting Pot Cooled Off Rudolph J. V e c o l i A policeman called me the other day about a "missing person" case. It turned out that he was the missing person. He was trying to find out where his ancestors came from . He had a Slavic name and knew that his grandparents had emigrated from Austria-Hungary, but there he lost the trail. "I want to know who I am, and to be able to tell my two sons who they are," my caller explained. Luckily we were able to locate the policeman's grandfather in the records of a Slovak church in Minneapolis. This told us the village in Slovakia from which his family had come. Our policeman was overjoyed; now he knew who he was and he was going to try to locate relatives in Slovakia. This search for grandparents was not an isolated case. "Who am I?" has become an urgent question for many Americans, for the middle-aged as well as the young. We appear to be going through a collective identity crisis. One manifestation of the crisis has been the widespread affirmation of group identities. Young people, especially children of the middle class, have created the "counter-culture" with its distinctive lifestyle, dress, and language. Women's liberation provides a new positive sense of collective identity for many of what was once known as the "gentle sex." But, for most Americans, race, religion, and national origin continue to provide the basis for group identity today-as they have historically. Not only are Black Americans, Indians, and Chicanos asserting a new-found pride in their heritage, but Croatian Americans, Finnish Americans, and Slovak Americans, among others, are declaring that they are beautiful as well. An editorial in Christian Century, pointing out that even old-stock white Americans had particularistic identities, declared: "We are all ethnics now." �SLOVAKIA 147 It seems that everyone needs an ethnic label these days. At a recent conference on cross-cultural education there was a workshop on "The Problem of the Non-Ethnic"! Presumably these are individuals of such mixed ancestry that they do not fit neatly into an ethnic category. But as anthropologist Margaret Mead said, this is nonsense, since everyone has grandparents and a heritage, even if it cannot be precisely labeled. The extraordinary resurgence of ethnic consciousness is not easily explained. Clearly the traumatic events of the sixties shattered the illusion of an American consensus. The civil rights movement, black nationalism, the Vietnam War, the student movement-all demonstrated that Americans were not of one mind about basic principles and values. Watts, Cicero, My Lai, Kent State, Chicago, elicited very different responses among different segments of the American people. We became polarized over the basic issues of racial justice, war and peace, lifestyles, the very meaning of democracy; polarized along lines of race, age, and social class. Perhaps it was the loss of a shared sense of the national purpose which caused persons to seek psychological and social security with "their own kind." In the face of this fragmentation, the myth of the "melting pot" was revealed to be transparent fiction. The mysterious process whereby peoples of diverse racial and cultural origins were to be assimilated into an "all-American" middle-class society obviously had not worked its magic. Blacks, by their words and actions, most aggressively challenged the "melting pot" ideal. Not only had they not been melted, but they made it clear they did not wish to be melted into some nondescript American type. Confronted with "black identity," other Americans were compelled to define their own particularistic identities. Not only Indians, Chicanos, and Orientals, but white ethnic groups reacted with a heightened group consciousness. "Black power" was echoed by the slogans of "Polish power" and "Italian power." It surprised many that these white ethnics who were supposed to have been assimilated long ago remained selfconscious elements in the body politic. But the census of 1960 had reported over 34 million as "foreign-stock," i. e., foreign-born or with at least one parent foreign-born. These �148 SLOVAKIA immigrants and their children constituted almost 20 percent of the American population. In addition, many of the third generation and beyond retained some degree of ethnic identity. However, their presence had been ignored by the mass media, the schools and other institutions. Because of pressures to Americanize, these descendants of European immigrants had publicly suppressed their ethnicity, though many continued to cultivate their cultural heritages in the privacy of their families, churches and organizations. Now the lid is off; the stigma of shame of being a "hyphenate," is being rejected. A new pride is being asserted in one's identity as a Ukrainian-American or a Greek-American, to give just two examples. Labeled the "forgotten American," the "middle Americans," or the "silent majority," white ethnics have come in for a good deal of attention of late. For the most part they have been portrayed as backlashing racists, potential recruits for the politics of reaction. In the mass media they have been stereotyped as Joe, the homicidal psychotic, or as Archie, the "lovable bigot." This has intensified their anger and resentment. As Barbara Mikulski, a Polish-American leader, protested: "The ethnic American is sick of being stereotyped as a racist and dullard by phony white liberals, pseudo black militants, and patronizing bureaucrats." Recently, writers such as Andrew M. Greeley and Murray Friedman have been providing us with more sympathetic analyses of lower middle-class ethnic Americans. As bluecollar workers, the bulk of them are either poor (two of every three poor people in this country are white) or "near-poor." Hard-pressed by inflation, heavy taxes, and job insecurity, they do not feel a part of the "Affluent Society." Their sons, like those of black and brown Americans, have fought and died in Vietnam, because many fewer of them go to college. Another stereotype of the ethnic American is that he is a hawk; actually many of them are strongly opposed to the war, but they do pride themselves on being patriotic Americans. They bitterly resent the class and ethnic snobbery which puts them down because of their immigrant and working-class backgrounds. In part this explains their �SLOVAKIA 149 hostility toward the educated elite and the universities . No wonder they cheer Spiro Agnew when he attacks intellectuals as "effete snobs." Like the blacks, the white ethnics are oppressed by a sense of powerlessness and exploitation; like them, they suffer from poor or inadequate schools and municipal services; like them, they are cynical about politics and politicians. As the bulk of the white population of the northern cities, the ethnics endure many of the same urban problems as do the blacks. Frustrated and insecure, they have projected their fears and anger against the blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other groups whom they regard as threats to their own marginal status. They are convicted that it is their jobs, their neighborhoods, their schools, that these newcomers are after. From the ethnics' point of view the blacks have received preferential treatment in federal programs, while their needs have been neglected. As Msgr. Geno C. Baroni, director of the Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, put it: "Little attention has been given to the anguish of the socially and politically alienated middle American." To indulge in accusations of "white racism" is a futile exercise of moral indignation. A more positive response, as Irving Levine, director of the National Project on Ethnic America has argued, is "to identify the real problems of lower middle-class ethnic groups and speak creatively to their deepest needs." The "New Pluralism" is thus not simply a psychological aberration that can be treated by exhortations to brotherhood and tolerance. Rather it is rooted in the very social and economic structure of this society. It reflects the injustices and inequities which that structure inflicts upon large numbers of Americans because of their social class and ethnic-racial character. What has happened is that many groups heretofore inarticulate have found their voices. They are demanding often in angry tones full and equal participation in all areas of American life. Pluralism is a two-edged sword. If our institutions are unresponsive to the legitimate needs and aspirations of all groups, this can lead to increasing group conflict and further polarization. However, if those institutions are responsive, the thrust of the "New Pluralism" can carry �150 SLOVAK.IA us far toward the realization of a more democratic society. This applies to the private sector as well as the public, to business, corporations as well as governmental agencies, to the churches as well as to the schools. Decision-makers at all levels must become more sensitive to group differences, aultural as well as racial. Politicians by the nature of their trade have been most responsive to ethnic pressures, though too often they have manipulated them to serve political ends. But professionals and bureaucrats in the "mainstream" institutions have usually subscribed to a universalistic model of the "typical American." They have typically displayed an insensitivity and ignorance, even arrogance, toward the cultural and social differences among their students, patients, employees, and clients. The sphere of education exemplifies this lack of sensitivity in classic fashion. It is needed a paradox that the educational system of a multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual society such as ours has been dominated by an Anglo-American model, both in curriculum and format. This can only be understood in terms of the grip of an assimilationist ideology upon administrators and teachers alike. Historically the schools were designed to serve as agencies of the " Melting Pot." It was to be their function to transform the children of the immigrants (including internal migrants ) into "good, little, middle-class Americans. '' As one educator stated it: "Our task is to assimilate or amalgamate these people as part of the American race, and to implant in their children, so far as can be done, the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law, order, and popular government." Although this statement was made over a half century ago, it continued to serve as an accurate description of educational policy until recent times. Rather than building upon the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the students, the schools sought to purify them of their "foreign" traits. The results often were, as sociologist Milton Gordon has observed, "ethnic self-hatred, family disorganization, and juvenile delinquency." Again it was the "black revolution" that initially challenged the monocultural model of American education. �SLOVAKIA 151 In most cases, efforts to adapt schools to special needs of black children have been only partially successful. However, this small beginning has called into question the basic assumptions upon which American educational philosophy and practice has rested for many decades. More and more, educators and parents are seeking a pluralistic way of teaching children which will mirror the pluralistic society in which they live. The principle that formal education should respect and reinforce the cultural and ethnic identity of the child rather than seeking to eradicate it is gaining ground. "Ethnic studies" have emerged as a major response to this need. Because American history as taught in the past was "white history," Afro-American studies was incorporated into the curriculum at the demand of the black community. But blacks have not been the only "invisible men" in American history, Indians, Hispanos, and immigrants have also been ignored or treated disparagingly in most textbooks. Hence the need to revise the course content so that the role of all the many different ethnic elements in American society may be appropriately represented. This is a large task, and resources have been inadequate. Many were encouraged by the introduction of a bill in the Congress that would have provided federal funds in support of "Ethnic Heritage Studies." While the bill was passed unanimously by the Senate, it was rejected in the House of Representatives. There is still hope that it may be revived in the current session. Ethnic studies may, of course, degenerate into tokenism, the placing of a few pictures on the wall and the adding of a few pages to a textbook. To be successful they must permeate the curriculum, not only of history, but language, literature and the social studies. Of crucial importance will be the attitudes of teachers. First, they must be convinced of the value of all cultures as equally valid expressions of the human spirit. This is the most difficult task, to overcome our own ethnocentricity. For the child, ethnic studies should serve two functions . They must foster within him a sense of his worth and dignity based on his identification with his own ancestors. Second, they must provide him with a capacity for an appreciation and acceptance of the cultural differences of �152 SLOVAKIA others. Free of a sense of either superiority or inferiority, he would be well equipped to live in a pluralistic society. We need to experiment with the format for teaching ethnic studies. Just as ecology may best be studied in a natural environment, so the ethnic communities with their rich cultural resources may be the most appropriate setting for learning about ethnic heritages. The "New Pluralism" is not limited to the East, nor to the troubled cities of New York and Chicago; it is a phenomenon that more or less pervades all of America. Bemused by the legend of Scandinavian predominance, we sometimes lose sight of the ethnic complexity of Minnesota. Certainly the racial groups of this state, blacks, chicanes, Indians, and orientals, are a smaller proportion of the total population than in many other states. But their militancy in recent years has made them conspicuous. Less visible have been the white ethnic groups, although the discerning observer might perceive their stirrings as well. Yet in 1960, more than 25 percent of the state of Minnesota population was of foreign stock, which meant that probably more than half of all Minnesotans had grandfathers born in another country. Although Norwegians, Germans, and Swedes were by far the largest groups, there were also significant numbers of British, Canadians, Czechs, Croatians, East European Jews, Finns, Italians, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, and Slovenes, as well as a scattering of other groups. Nor is pluralism in Minnesota only an urban phenomenon. Small towns on he Iron Range and in rural counties have a complex mixture of ethnic groups. To explore ethnicity in Minnesota, to initiate an inquiry into the state of the "New Pluralism" here, a conference was held recently at the International Institute in St. Paul. The Minnesota Project on Ethnic America, with the assistance of the National Project on Ethnic America of the American Jewish Committee and with the cosponsorship of various organizations and institutions, sponsored the sessions. The conference provided a forum in which perceptions, feelings, and judgments regarding social issues were offered from a variety of ethnic perspectives. Discovery of common ground may provide the means for moving Minnesota toward a "New Pluralism" based upon mutual respect and shared goals . - ( Minneapolis Tribune.) � 146 SLOVAKIA Why Our Melting Pot Cooled Off Rudolph J. V e c o l i A policeman called me the other day about a "missing person" case. It turned out that he was the missing person. He was trying to find out where his ancestors came from . He had a Slavic name and knew that his grandparents had emigrated from Austria-Hungary, but there he lost the trail. "I want to know who I am, and to be able to tell my two sons who they are," my caller explained. Luckily we were able to locate the policeman's grandfather in the records of a Slovak church in Minneapolis. This told us the village in Slovakia from which his family had come. Our policeman was overjoyed; now he knew who he was and he was going to try to locate relatives in Slovakia. This search for grandparents was not an isolated case. "Who am I?" has become an urgent question for many Americans, for the middle-aged as well as the young. We appear to be going through a collective identity crisis. One manifestation of the crisis has been the widespread affirmation of group identities. Young people, especially children of the middle class, have created the "counter-culture" with its distinctive lifestyle, dress, and language. Women's liberation provides a new positive sense of collective identity for many of what was once known as the "gentle sex." But, for most Americans, race, religion, and national origin continue to provide the basis for group identity today-as they have historically. Not only are Black Americans, Indians, and Chicanos asserting a new-found pride in their heritage, but Croatian Americans, Finnish Americans, and Slovak Americans, among others, are declaring that they are beautiful as well. An editorial in Christian Century, pointing out that even old-stock white Americans had particularistic identities, declared: "We are all ethnics now." �SLOVAKIA 147 It seems that everyone needs an ethnic label these days. At a recent conference on cross-cultural education there was a workshop on "The Problem of the Non-Ethnic"! Presumably these are individuals of such mixed ancestry that they do not fit neatly into an ethnic category. But as anthropologist Margaret Mead said, this is nonsense, since everyone has grandparents and a heritage, even if it cannot be precisely labeled. The extraordinary resurgence of ethnic consciousness is not easily explained. Clearly the traumatic events of the sixties shattered the illusion of an American consensus. The civil rights movement, black nationalism, the Vietnam War, the student movement-all demonstrated that Americans were not of one mind about basic principles and values. Watts, Cicero, My Lai, Kent State, Chicago, elicited very different responses among different segments of the American people. We became polarized over the basic issues of racial justice, war and peace, lifestyles, the very meaning of democracy; polarized along lines of race, age, and social class. Perhaps it was the loss of a shared sense of the national purpose which caused persons to seek psychological and social security with "their own kind." In the face of this fragmentation, the myth of the "melting pot" was revealed to be transparent fiction. The mysterious process whereby peoples of diverse racial and cultural origins were to be assimilated into an "all-American" middle-class society obviously had not worked its magic. Blacks, by their words and actions, most aggressively challenged the "melting pot" ideal. Not only had they not been melted, but they made it clear they did not wish to be melted into some nondescript American type. Confronted with "black identity," other Americans were compelled to define their own particularistic identities. Not only Indians, Chicanos, and Orientals, but white ethnic groups reacted with a heightened group consciousness. "Black power" was echoed by the slogans of "Polish power" and "Italian power." It surprised many that these white ethnics who were supposed to have been assimilated long ago remained selfconscious elements in the body politic. But the census of 1960 had reported over 34 million as "foreign-stock," i. e., foreign-born or with at least one parent foreign-born. These �148 SLOVAKIA immigrants and their children constituted almost 20 percent of the American population. In addition, many of the third generation and beyond retained some degree of ethnic identity. However, their presence had been ignored by the mass media, the schools and other institutions. Because of pressures to Americanize, these descendants of European immigrants had publicly suppressed their ethnicity, though many continued to cultivate their cultural heritages in the privacy of their families, churches and organizations. Now the lid is off; the stigma of shame of being a "hyphenate," is being rejected. A new pride is being asserted in one's identity as a Ukrainian-American or a Greek-American, to give just two examples. Labeled the "forgotten American," the "middle Americans," or the "silent majority," white ethnics have come in for a good deal of attention of late. For the most part they have been portrayed as backlashing racists, potential recruits for the politics of reaction. In the mass media they have been stereotyped as Joe, the homicidal psychotic, or as Archie, the "lovable bigot." This has intensified their anger and resentment. As Barbara Mikulski, a Polish-American leader, protested: "The ethnic American is sick of being stereotyped as a racist and dullard by phony white liberals, pseudo black militants, and patronizing bureaucrats." Recently, writers such as Andrew M. Greeley and Murray Friedman have been providing us with more sympathetic analyses of lower middle-class ethnic Americans. As bluecollar workers, the bulk of them are either poor (two of every three poor people in this country are white) or "near-poor." Hard-pressed by inflation, heavy taxes, and job insecurity, they do not feel a part of the "Affluent Society." Their sons, like those of black and brown Americans, have fought and died in Vietnam, because many fewer of them go to college. Another stereotype of the ethnic American is that he is a hawk; actually many of them are strongly opposed to the war, but they do pride themselves on being patriotic Americans. They bitterly resent the class and ethnic snobbery which puts them down because of their immigrant and working-class backgrounds. In part this explains their �SLOVAKIA 149 hostility toward the educated elite and the universities . No wonder they cheer Spiro Agnew when he attacks intellectuals as "effete snobs." Like the blacks, the white ethnics are oppressed by a sense of powerlessness and exploitation; like them, they suffer from poor or inadequate schools and municipal services; like them, they are cynical about politics and politicians. As the bulk of the white population of the northern cities, the ethnics endure many of the same urban problems as do the blacks. Frustrated and insecure, they have projected their fears and anger against the blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other groups whom they regard as threats to their own marginal status. They are convicted that it is their jobs, their neighborhoods, their schools, that these newcomers are after. From the ethnics' point of view the blacks have received preferential treatment in federal programs, while their needs have been neglected. As Msgr. Geno C. Baroni, director of the Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, put it: "Little attention has been given to the anguish of the socially and politically alienated middle American." To indulge in accusations of "white racism" is a futile exercise of moral indignation. A more positive response, as Irving Levine, director of the National Project on Ethnic America has argued, is "to identify the real problems of lower middle-class ethnic groups and speak creatively to their deepest needs." The "New Pluralism" is thus not simply a psychological aberration that can be treated by exhortations to brotherhood and tolerance. Rather it is rooted in the very social and economic structure of this society. It reflects the injustices and inequities which that structure inflicts upon large numbers of Americans because of their social class and ethnic-racial character. What has happened is that many groups heretofore inarticulate have found their voices. They are demanding often in angry tones full and equal participation in all areas of American life. Pluralism is a two-edged sword. If our institutions are unresponsive to the legitimate needs and aspirations of all groups, this can lead to increasing group conflict and further polarization. However, if those institutions are responsive, the thrust of the "New Pluralism" can carry �150 SLOVAK.IA us far toward the realization of a more democratic society. This applies to the private sector as well as the public, to business, corporations as well as governmental agencies, to the churches as well as to the schools. Decision-makers at all levels must become more sensitive to group differences, aultural as well as racial. Politicians by the nature of their trade have been most responsive to ethnic pressures, though too often they have manipulated them to serve political ends. But professionals and bureaucrats in the "mainstream" institutions have usually subscribed to a universalistic model of the "typical American." They have typically displayed an insensitivity and ignorance, even arrogance, toward the cultural and social differences among their students, patients, employees, and clients. The sphere of education exemplifies this lack of sensitivity in classic fashion. It is needed a paradox that the educational system of a multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual society such as ours has been dominated by an Anglo-American model, both in curriculum and format. This can only be understood in terms of the grip of an assimilationist ideology upon administrators and teachers alike. Historically the schools were designed to serve as agencies of the " Melting Pot." It was to be their function to transform the children of the immigrants (including internal migrants ) into "good, little, middle-class Americans. '' As one educator stated it: "Our task is to assimilate or amalgamate these people as part of the American race, and to implant in their children, so far as can be done, the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law, order, and popular government." Although this statement was made over a half century ago, it continued to serve as an accurate description of educational policy until recent times. Rather than building upon the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the students, the schools sought to purify them of their "foreign" traits. The results often were, as sociologist Milton Gordon has observed, "ethnic self-hatred, family disorganization, and juvenile delinquency." Again it was the "black revolution" that initially challenged the monocultural model of American education. �SLOVAKIA 151 In most cases, efforts to adapt schools to special needs of black children have been only partially successful. However, this small beginning has called into question the basic assumptions upon which American educational philosophy and practice has rested for many decades. More and more, educators and parents are seeking a pluralistic way of teaching children which will mirror the pluralistic society in which they live. The principle that formal education should respect and reinforce the cultural and ethnic identity of the child rather than seeking to eradicate it is gaining ground. "Ethnic studies" have emerged as a major response to this need. Because American history as taught in the past was "white history," Afro-American studies was incorporated into the curriculum at the demand of the black community. But blacks have not been the only "invisible men" in American history, Indians, Hispanos, and immigrants have also been ignored or treated disparagingly in most textbooks. Hence the need to revise the course content so that the role of all the many different ethnic elements in American society may be appropriately represented. This is a large task, and resources have been inadequate. Many were encouraged by the introduction of a bill in the Congress that would have provided federal funds in support of "Ethnic Heritage Studies." While the bill was passed unanimously by the Senate, it was rejected in the House of Representatives. There is still hope that it may be revived in the current session. Ethnic studies may, of course, degenerate into tokenism, the placing of a few pictures on the wall and the adding of a few pages to a textbook. To be successful they must permeate the curriculum, not only of history, but language, literature and the social studies. Of crucial importance will be the attitudes of teachers. First, they must be convinced of the value of all cultures as equally valid expressions of the human spirit. This is the most difficult task, to overcome our own ethnocentricity. For the child, ethnic studies should serve two functions . They must foster within him a sense of his worth and dignity based on his identification with his own ancestors. Second, they must provide him with a capacity for an appreciation and acceptance of the cultural differences of �152 SLOVAKIA others. Free of a sense of either superiority or inferiority, he would be well equipped to live in a pluralistic society. We need to experiment with the format for teaching ethnic studies. Just as ecology may best be studied in a natural environment, so the ethnic communities with their rich cultural resources may be the most appropriate setting for learning about ethnic heritages. The "New Pluralism" is not limited to the East, nor to the troubled cities of New York and Chicago; it is a phenomenon that more or less pervades all of America. Bemused by the legend of Scandinavian predominance, we sometimes lose sight of the ethnic complexity of Minnesota. Certainly the racial groups of this state, blacks, chicanes, Indians, and orientals, are a smaller proportion of the total population than in many other states. But their militancy in recent years has made them conspicuous. Less visible have been the white ethnic groups, although the discerning observer might perceive their stirrings as well. Yet in 1960, more than 25 percent of the state of Minnesota population was of foreign stock, which meant that probably more than half of all Minnesotans had grandfathers born in another country. Although Norwegians, Germans, and Swedes were by far the largest groups, there were also significant numbers of British, Canadians, Czechs, Croatians, East European Jews, Finns, Italians, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, and Slovenes, as well as a scattering of other groups. Nor is pluralism in Minnesota only an urban phenomenon. Small towns on he Iron Range and in rural counties have a complex mixture of ethnic groups. To explore ethnicity in Minnesota, to initiate an inquiry into the state of the "New Pluralism" here, a conference was held recently at the International Institute in St. Paul. The Minnesota Project on Ethnic America, with the assistance of the National Project on Ethnic America of the American Jewish Committee and with the cosponsorship of various organizations and institutions, sponsored the sessions. The conference provided a forum in which perceptions, feelings, and judgments regarding social issues were offered from a variety of ethnic perspectives. Discovery of common ground may provide the means for moving Minnesota toward a "New Pluralism" based upon mutual respect and shared goals . - ( Minneapolis Tribune.) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 146 SLOVAKIA Why Our Melting Pot Cooled Off Rudolph J. V e c o l i A policeman called me the other day about a "missing person" case. It turned out that he was the missing person. He was trying to find out where his ancestors came from . He had a Slavic name and knew that his grandparents had emigrated from Austria-Hungary, but there he lost the trail. "I want to know who I am, and to be able to tell my two sons who they are," my caller explained. Luckily we were able to locate the policeman's grandfather in the records of a Slovak church in Minneapolis. This told us the village in Slovakia from which his family had come. Our policeman was overjoyed; now he knew who he was and he was going to try to locate relatives in Slovakia. This search for grandparents was not an isolated case. "Who am I?" has become an urgent question for many Americans, for the middle-aged as well as the young. We appear to be going through a collective identity crisis. One manifestation of the crisis has been the widespread affirmation of group identities. Young people, especially children of the middle class, have created the "counter-culture" with its distinctive lifestyle, dress, and language. Women's liberation provides a new positive sense of collective identity for many of what was once known as the "gentle sex." But, for most Americans, race, religion, and national origin continue to provide the basis for group identity today-as they have historically. Not only are Black Americans, Indians, and Chicanos asserting a new-found pride in their heritage, but Croatian Americans, Finnish Americans, and Slovak Americans, among others, are declaring that they are beautiful as well. An editorial in Christian Century, pointing out that even old-stock white Americans had particularistic identities, declared: "We are all ethnics now." SLOVAKIA 147 It seems that everyone needs an ethnic label these days. At a recent conference on cross-cultural education there was a workshop on "The Problem of the Non-Ethnic"! Presumably these are individuals of such mixed ancestry that they do not fit neatly into an ethnic category. But as anthropologist Margaret Mead said, this is nonsense, since everyone has grandparents and a heritage, even if it cannot be precisely labeled. The extraordinary resurgence of ethnic consciousness is not easily explained. Clearly the traumatic events of the sixties shattered the illusion of an American consensus. The civil rights movement, black nationalism, the Vietnam War, the student movement-all demonstrated that Americans were not of one mind about basic principles and values. Watts, Cicero, My Lai, Kent State, Chicago, elicited very different responses among different segments of the American people. We became polarized over the basic issues of racial justice, war and peace, lifestyles, the very meaning of democracy; polarized along lines of race, age, and social class. Perhaps it was the loss of a shared sense of the national purpose which caused persons to seek psychological and social security with "their own kind." In the face of this fragmentation, the myth of the "melting pot" was revealed to be transparent fiction. The mysterious process whereby peoples of diverse racial and cultural origins were to be assimilated into an "all-American" middle-class society obviously had not worked its magic. Blacks, by their words and actions, most aggressively challenged the "melting pot" ideal. Not only had they not been melted, but they made it clear they did not wish to be melted into some nondescript American type. Confronted with "black identity," other Americans were compelled to define their own particularistic identities. Not only Indians, Chicanos, and Orientals, but white ethnic groups reacted with a heightened group consciousness. "Black power" was echoed by the slogans of "Polish power" and "Italian power." It surprised many that these white ethnics who were supposed to have been assimilated long ago remained selfconscious elements in the body politic. But the census of 1960 had reported over 34 million as "foreign-stock," i. e., foreign-born or with at least one parent foreign-born. These 148 SLOVAKIA immigrants and their children constituted almost 20 percent of the American population. In addition, many of the third generation and beyond retained some degree of ethnic identity. However, their presence had been ignored by the mass media, the schools and other institutions. Because of pressures to Americanize, these descendants of European immigrants had publicly suppressed their ethnicity, though many continued to cultivate their cultural heritages in the privacy of their families, churches and organizations. Now the lid is off; the stigma of shame of being a "hyphenate," is being rejected. A new pride is being asserted in one's identity as a Ukrainian-American or a Greek-American, to give just two examples. Labeled the "forgotten American," the "middle Americans," or the "silent majority," white ethnics have come in for a good deal of attention of late. For the most part they have been portrayed as backlashing racists, potential recruits for the politics of reaction. In the mass media they have been stereotyped as Joe, the homicidal psychotic, or as Archie, the "lovable bigot." This has intensified their anger and resentment. As Barbara Mikulski, a Polish-American leader, protested: "The ethnic American is sick of being stereotyped as a racist and dullard by phony white liberals, pseudo black militants, and patronizing bureaucrats." Recently, writers such as Andrew M. Greeley and Murray Friedman have been providing us with more sympathetic analyses of lower middle-class ethnic Americans. As bluecollar workers, the bulk of them are either poor (two of every three poor people in this country are white) or "near-poor." Hard-pressed by inflation, heavy taxes, and job insecurity, they do not feel a part of the "Affluent Society." Their sons, like those of black and brown Americans, have fought and died in Vietnam, because many fewer of them go to college. Another stereotype of the ethnic American is that he is a hawk; actually many of them are strongly opposed to the war, but they do pride themselves on being patriotic Americans. They bitterly resent the class and ethnic snobbery which puts them down because of their immigrant and working-class backgrounds. In part this explains their SLOVAKIA 149 hostility toward the educated elite and the universities . No wonder they cheer Spiro Agnew when he attacks intellectuals as "effete snobs." Like the blacks, the white ethnics are oppressed by a sense of powerlessness and exploitation; like them, they suffer from poor or inadequate schools and municipal services; like them, they are cynical about politics and politicians. As the bulk of the white population of the northern cities, the ethnics endure many of the same urban problems as do the blacks. Frustrated and insecure, they have projected their fears and anger against the blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other groups whom they regard as threats to their own marginal status. They are convicted that it is their jobs, their neighborhoods, their schools, that these newcomers are after. From the ethnics' point of view the blacks have received preferential treatment in federal programs, while their needs have been neglected. As Msgr. Geno C. Baroni, director of the Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, put it: "Little attention has been given to the anguish of the socially and politically alienated middle American." To indulge in accusations of "white racism" is a futile exercise of moral indignation. A more positive response, as Irving Levine, director of the National Project on Ethnic America has argued, is "to identify the real problems of lower middle-class ethnic groups and speak creatively to their deepest needs." The "New Pluralism" is thus not simply a psychological aberration that can be treated by exhortations to brotherhood and tolerance. Rather it is rooted in the very social and economic structure of this society. It reflects the injustices and inequities which that structure inflicts upon large numbers of Americans because of their social class and ethnic-racial character. What has happened is that many groups heretofore inarticulate have found their voices. They are demanding often in angry tones full and equal participation in all areas of American life. Pluralism is a two-edged sword. If our institutions are unresponsive to the legitimate needs and aspirations of all groups, this can lead to increasing group conflict and further polarization. However, if those institutions are responsive, the thrust of the "New Pluralism" can carry 150 SLOVAK.IA us far toward the realization of a more democratic society. This applies to the private sector as well as the public, to business, corporations as well as governmental agencies, to the churches as well as to the schools. Decision-makers at all levels must become more sensitive to group differences, aultural as well as racial. Politicians by the nature of their trade have been most responsive to ethnic pressures, though too often they have manipulated them to serve political ends. But professionals and bureaucrats in the "mainstream" institutions have usually subscribed to a universalistic model of the "typical American." They have typically displayed an insensitivity and ignorance, even arrogance, toward the cultural and social differences among their students, patients, employees, and clients. The sphere of education exemplifies this lack of sensitivity in classic fashion. It is needed a paradox that the educational system of a multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual society such as ours has been dominated by an Anglo-American model, both in curriculum and format. This can only be understood in terms of the grip of an assimilationist ideology upon administrators and teachers alike. Historically the schools were designed to serve as agencies of the " Melting Pot." It was to be their function to transform the children of the immigrants (including internal migrants ) into "good, little, middle-class Americans. '' As one educator stated it: "Our task is to assimilate or amalgamate these people as part of the American race, and to implant in their children, so far as can be done, the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law, order, and popular government." Although this statement was made over a half century ago, it continued to serve as an accurate description of educational policy until recent times. Rather than building upon the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the students, the schools sought to purify them of their "foreign" traits. The results often were, as sociologist Milton Gordon has observed, "ethnic self-hatred, family disorganization, and juvenile delinquency." Again it was the "black revolution" that initially challenged the monocultural model of American education. SLOVAKIA 151 In most cases, efforts to adapt schools to special needs of black children have been only partially successful. However, this small beginning has called into question the basic assumptions upon which American educational philosophy and practice has rested for many decades. More and more, educators and parents are seeking a pluralistic way of teaching children which will mirror the pluralistic society in which they live. The principle that formal education should respect and reinforce the cultural and ethnic identity of the child rather than seeking to eradicate it is gaining ground. "Ethnic studies" have emerged as a major response to this need. Because American history as taught in the past was "white history," Afro-American studies was incorporated into the curriculum at the demand of the black community. But blacks have not been the only "invisible men" in American history, Indians, Hispanos, and immigrants have also been ignored or treated disparagingly in most textbooks. Hence the need to revise the course content so that the role of all the many different ethnic elements in American society may be appropriately represented. This is a large task, and resources have been inadequate. Many were encouraged by the introduction of a bill in the Congress that would have provided federal funds in support of "Ethnic Heritage Studies." While the bill was passed unanimously by the Senate, it was rejected in the House of Representatives. There is still hope that it may be revived in the current session. Ethnic studies may, of course, degenerate into tokenism, the placing of a few pictures on the wall and the adding of a few pages to a textbook. To be successful they must permeate the curriculum, not only of history, but language, literature and the social studies. Of crucial importance will be the attitudes of teachers. First, they must be convinced of the value of all cultures as equally valid expressions of the human spirit. This is the most difficult task, to overcome our own ethnocentricity. For the child, ethnic studies should serve two functions . They must foster within him a sense of his worth and dignity based on his identification with his own ancestors. Second, they must provide him with a capacity for an appreciation and acceptance of the cultural differences of 152 SLOVAKIA others. Free of a sense of either superiority or inferiority, he would be well equipped to live in a pluralistic society. We need to experiment with the format for teaching ethnic studies. Just as ecology may best be studied in a natural environment, so the ethnic communities with their rich cultural resources may be the most appropriate setting for learning about ethnic heritages. The "New Pluralism" is not limited to the East, nor to the troubled cities of New York and Chicago; it is a phenomenon that more or less pervades all of America. Bemused by the legend of Scandinavian predominance, we sometimes lose sight of the ethnic complexity of Minnesota. Certainly the racial groups of this state, blacks, chicanes, Indians, and orientals, are a smaller proportion of the total population than in many other states. But their militancy in recent years has made them conspicuous. Less visible have been the white ethnic groups, although the discerning observer might perceive their stirrings as well. Yet in 1960, more than 25 percent of the state of Minnesota population was of foreign stock, which meant that probably more than half of all Minnesotans had grandfathers born in another country. Although Norwegians, Germans, and Swedes were by far the largest groups, there were also significant numbers of British, Canadians, Czechs, Croatians, East European Jews, Finns, Italians, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, and Slovenes, as well as a scattering of other groups. Nor is pluralism in Minnesota only an urban phenomenon. Small towns on he Iron Range and in rural counties have a complex mixture of ethnic groups. To explore ethnicity in Minnesota, to initiate an inquiry into the state of the "New Pluralism" here, a conference was held recently at the International Institute in St. Paul. The Minnesota Project on Ethnic America, with the assistance of the National Project on Ethnic America of the American Jewish Committee and with the cosponsorship of various organizations and institutions, sponsored the sessions. The conference provided a forum in which perceptions, feelings, and judgments regarding social issues were offered from a variety of ethnic perspectives. Discovery of common ground may provide the means for moving Minnesota toward a "New Pluralism" based upon mutual respect and shared goals . - ( Minneapolis Tribune.)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why Our Melting Pot Cooled Off Description An account of the resource Rudolph J. Vecoli Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 146-152 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vecoli, Rudolph J. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5e5e2567ea318500d36591c95c2961fb.pdf 1955ec5ec45e0530005398f324b39d77 PDF Text Text 16 SLOVAKIA WHY NO MORE CZEOHOSLOVAKIA ? DR. JOSEPH K I RSCHBAUM After the communist reglme Jn Bohemla and Slovakia came to power in February 1948, there appeared ln Europe, the Unlted States and In other non-European countrles a new "Czechoslovak" emlgration, conststlng of dlsmlssed diplomats and escaped politlcal leaders of the varlous Czech and Slovak civil partles. This emlgration, lf we are to appraise it by lts actlvlty, contlnues in the pollcles of Dr. Eward Beneš and hls followers, whlch means a contlnuatlon in the same mistakes and blunders whlch have evoked two dangerous crises in Europe durlng the past thlrty years. As a result of thls blundering policy more than half the population of the Czecboslovak Republic (Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ukralnlans and Carpatho-Russlans) was elther deprlved of the most fundamental human and civil rlghts, or deslgnedly lmpeded In lts polltlcal and economical development. Prince Adolf zu Schwarzenberg, head of one of tbe oldest families in Bohemia, had thls to say about Czech policy: "Even In norma! tlmes the double game of Czecb policy can be seen Quite clearly. As long as Czecboslovakia adopted the role of dependence on the West, Benes was at the helm and from 1945 onward prepared the dellvery of hls country to the Communists. Al! the mlndste-rs in hls Cablnet {there were about two dozen of them) worked with thelr ldollzed Presldent, and in a most masterly fashion steered thelr country lnto Communlsm, always hop!ng for a good job as a reward for thelr laudable work In the Bolshevist interest." NEW ENGLISH REVIEW MAGAZINE, 1949, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 20-22). It is a fact that Czechoslovakia was re-establlshed at the end of World War II agalnst the w111 of the absolute majori ty of the Slovaks and the many mlll!ons of national minorltles by the polllical actlv!ty of a small group of Czech exiles, who were not concerned "·lth the lnterests of the Czech and Slovak nations, or the interests of the ,vbole of Europe, but were rather Jed by imperlallsm, their persona! amblt!ons and a des!re for revenge. And it ls a historical fact that the Czecboslovak State was surrendered, without res!stance, to the power of Mosoow by these pollticlans just as in 1938-1939, w!thout the least resistance, they surrendered it to Berlin. In tbe llgbt of these faots and In the interest of better organ!· zation and cooperatlon or the Centra! European natlons, as well as In the interest of trutb and justlce, lt appea:-s necessary to point out the arguments whlch speak agalnst the exlstence or the Czechoslovak Republlc. An analysis, lssuing from European and Centro-European points of vlew and not only from the lnterests of natlons and mlnorlt!es whlch were forced tnto the Czecboslovak Republ!c agalnst their wlll, is demanded In this connectlon by our slde, because !t !s based on the motlve contained In the Declaratlon o! Independence of the Unlted ~tates, In whlcb we read: " W hen in t he course of human events, it becomes necessary for �SLOVAKIA 17 one people to dissolve the political banda which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separated and equal station to whi ch the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opíníons of mankind requ ires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." What are the causes which led the Slovaks and the minorities to demand the dlssolution of political ties with the Czech nation in t he Czechoslovak Republic? Generally speaking, we can mention, first of all, the following: 1. Tendencies for the preservatlon or restoration of the Czechos lovak Republic do not meet with the approval of the majority of lts inhabitants and the principle of democracy and the principles ex· pressed in the Atlantic Charter. 2. The Czechoslovak Republic has no cause to exist in a just arrangement of Europe even from the standpoint of European in· terests. 3. The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated Centra! Europe. More than thirty years of clever Czech propaganda migh t, at a first glance, contradict these allegations. There Js no argument ahout that. In the mirror of our experience with the propaganda of Goebels, and, today, that of Moscow, we see, however, that even a propaganda of falsehoods can be successful for a time, deceiving and convinclng many people. But the force of truth is eternal. By resorting to lies we may enjoy successes temporarily, but the truth shall prevail in the end. In the case of the Czechoslovak Republic, we are concerned witili nothing more than the truth. Tbat is why we are analyzing the above-mentioned arguments at least in their main outlines. And in dolng this, we pu.rposely refer to the testimonies of· objective, politlcal European observers, so that no one rnight say that the Slovak s truggle for freedom and independence issues from an exaggerated nationalism or natlonal intolerenace, as Cz&eh propaganda designedly claims that it does. The Slovaks were co-founders of the Czechoslovak Republic and would have wished its preservation, if the Czechoslovak State would bave had possessed the prerequisites to fulfill the task that falls to a state in the sense of a modem, sociologlcal conception, on the one hand, and, on the other, from the standpolnt of European interests. The Czechoslovak Repu blic, however, diel not. The Slovaks, therefore, in the lntent of democracy, the Atlantic Charter, and the Charter of the United Nations Organization, are demanding a new order of Centro-Eu.ropean relationships. to which the Czechoslovak Republic definitely 1s an obstacle, as shall be made clear in the arguments that follow. Are the tendenciea to preserve or restore the Czechoslovak Republic in harmony with the will of the majority of ita inhabítanta and the princ iples upon which a modern state ia founded ? �18 SLOVAKIA This question was already asked at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, at whlch the Czechoslovak Republlc was born, as Lloyd George tells us in bis book "The Truth About the Peace Treaties": "Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians - is this not a new Austria which will thus arise under the Czech ban• ner, a new polyglot state in which six nations will be packed together, all filled with hatred of one against the other, arrested in their whole economic and social development and in the progress of their civilization by hate and national strife, nourished by tyranny and poisoning their whole public llfe? - How can the new polyglot State, the artificial work of an imperialist diplomacy, exist without any economic community, geographical unity, or common history?" - {pp. 944, 946). Lloyd George evldently wa.s troubled wlth the prOl)osltion of setting up Czechoslovakia and stated bluntly: "The Czechs were specially favored by the Allies. The result was the recognition of the polyglot and incoherent state of Czechoslovakia." - (p. 948). We see, then, at the very beglnning of the Czechoslovak RepubJic, that nelther the lnterests o( the lnhabitants ot the newly-rlsing s tate, nor tbe prlnclple or the rlght of self-determlnation and of democratlc freedoms were tbe decldlng factors, but only the "special favor of tbe Allles." It was, tberefore, only natural tbat the Czecbo• slovak Republlc durlng al! lts 20 years was troubled with interna! controversles - cleverly masked abroad by a great propaganda apparatu.s - and that lt collapsed wltbout the least resistance of its populatlon with tbe flrst lmpact from outslde in 1938-1939. What is more, we can show that ,tbe majority of the inhabitants even deslred the collapse of the Czechoslovak Republic by quotlng statements of Czech polltlclans themselves and recalllng those made durlng the polltlcal trlals of the "people's" democracy of Czechoslovakla versus the Slovaks, Germans and Magyars - the trials staged by the Czech Government after 1945. Why dld they deslre lts dlssolutlon? Indisputably because the Czechoslovak Republi c dld not satisfy the polltlcal and economlc !nterests and aspirations of its inhabitants, except those of the Czech minority which managed tbe State. Al the Par!s Peace Conference (1919), Dr. Edward Beneš declared that: "lt is the intention of the Czechoslovak Government to create the organlzatlon of tbe State by accepting as a basis of natural rights tbe prlnclples applled in the Constitutlon of tbe Swlss Republlc, tbat !s, to make the Czechoslovak Republlc a sor-t of Swltzerland . . ." Tbe Czecb governments, bowever, did not manage tbe Czechoslovak Republlc as Beneš had promlsed, but In sucb manner as Jf only an exclusive Czecb State was concerned, whose mission apparently wa,s to asslmilate the non-Czech populat!on, and espec!ally the Slovaks, and hold them in cbeck economlcally and soc!ally. Tbe resistance of the other lnhabltants and the support of tbe efforts whlch almed at the dlssolutlon of tbe Czechoslovak Republlc, therefore, became an entlrely logical r~ult of the sltuation in whlcb tbe non-Czech inha.b!tants llved. Tbi.s was abundantly clear to objectlve observers already in 1938. Lloyd George said: "Had the Czech leaders, in tíme and without �SLOVAKIA 19 waiting for the menacing preasure of Germany, redeemed their promise to grant local autonomy to the various races in their Republic on the llnes of the Swiu Confederation, the present troubles would (p. 952). Long before 1938, but especlally in the stlrr!ng months before MuniC'h and in the Sprlng of 1939, many dlscern!ng representatlves of the Czech and Slovak natlons were certaln that the Czechoslovak Republlc dld not develop into a forma,tion whlch could more lastlngly assure the secur!ty and the vltal !nterests of both these natlons wh!ch were the ethnlcal foundatlon of the Republlc. Ir the Czech natlon for a Ume enjoyed certa!n advantages because of the exlstence ot Czechoslovak!a, lt was only at the expense of the rest of the inhabitants. But the Czechs later had to pay dearly for those advantages and also had to become aware o[ the fact that the Czechoslovak State could not guarantee the securRy even or the Czech natlon agalnst a slngle nelghbor. As far as the S lovaks are conceTned, they could not resolve tbe ma,tter any other way, because the Slovak natlon In the Czechoslovak State - actually, however, in a CZECH State -· was In a posltlon altogether unbecomlng a cultured natlon, belng exposed to planned ass:lmllatlon and economical exploltatlon by the Czechs, wbom the whole state apparatus served. Here we are not even mentlon!ng th e status of the mlnorities as a problem, which occup!ed the League or Na.Uons for twenty years and, later, was an opportune alibi for the liquldation of the Cz-echoslovak Republ!c. Th!s problem, as well as t hat of the Slovak.s, was dealt with by such personallties as Lord Run• clman and C. A. Macartney. Rererrlng to Czechoslovak!a, the latter wrote: have been averted" - "The fact remains that the Government has been obliged more often than not to rule Slovakia against the wishes of most of its inhabltants, maintaining itself only by the expedienta of restrictlng the power, of the self-governing bodies to within the narrowest posslble limita, of filling the seats designated for 'experu' with its own nominees, and utilizing freely weapons of censorship and police supervision" (H UNGAIRY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 145). After completlng bis miss!on In 1938, Lord Runciman made even more unfavorable statements In reportlng on the status or the more than three and a half mlll!on German minority in the Republ!c. He said: " I have been left with the impreaaion that Czechoslovak rule in the Sudeten areas for the last twenty years ... has been marked by tactlessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance and discriminatio n, to a point where the resentment of the German populatlon was inevitably moving in the d irection of revolt. The Sudeten Germans fel>t, too, that in the past they had been given many promises by the Czechoslovak Government, but that llttle or no action had fol lowed these promises...." (Britlsh White Paper, Cmd. 5847). That is why the Republlc was not derended when Its in tegrity was threatened and, la,ter, not even when lts very exlstence was In danger. Not by a single nation of Czechoslovakia, not even the Czech natlon! �20 S LOVAKIA On the contrary, its dlssolutlon was made possible by its own inha.bitan,ts, the majority of whom could realize their natural right to freedom and their o wn State only by the destruction of Czechos lovakia. So it happened in the case of the Slovaks. W ri ting about the S lovaks in 1942, Macartney said: " ... most of them found themselves unable to accept the Peace Confe rence thesis of a unitary Czechoslovak nation. Some of them fe lt this to mean, in practice, domination by the economically and socially atronger Czecha, and they reacted in the form of a flamboyant Slovak nationalism which was the main reason for the absence of revolt with which they accepted the dissolution of the Czechos lovak State" (PRO BLEMS OF T HE DANUBE BASIN, p. 122). Dur ing the Second World War, a group of Czech exiles in London (The Czech Natio nal Commiltee) and Slovak exiles (The S lovak Na• tional Council in London), both fighting on the sid e of the Allies, tried to find a diťferent solutlon to the Czech and S lovak pr oblem than that which the fľamework of Czechoslovakia offered. Representatives of the Czech and Slovak natlons, in accord w ith the prlnciple of the right of self-determlnation and the r ight of every nation to independence, proposed ,the organlzing of a separate Slovak State and a separate Czech State within the framewo rk of a larger federalive Centro-European unit. Their efforts were prompted not only by t he interests of their own nations, but also by the interests of Eu ropean peace and prosperity, as well as by a sense for justice and the righ t. A g roup of Czech poli ticians headed by Ben eš, however, motivated by persona! prestige, by a desfre for revenge a nd the re newal of Czech i mperia'lism more than by t he interests of its own nation, did not hes.ltate to surrender the destiny of the Czech and Slovak natlons to the "tender" mercies of th~ Soviet Un ion. Unfortunately for the nations concerned, for Europe and the democratic world, this group of political madmen realized tbeir program. The Czechoslovak Republlc was restored by the grace of Moscow. Of course, no t in the interests of the Czecbs and the Slovaks, but, as it is abundantly clear today, in the interests of Moscow. Robert Ingrim, forelgn correspondent of leading European newspapers, wrote in 1946: " Russia's aim, when signing that t reaty against the wishes of Ame rica and Britain, was, of course, not to sec ure Czechia as an a ll y. They made use of Benes' fea r of a frontier revision in order to get a strong foothold in the he art of th e Continent" - (AFTER HITLER STALIN? - P. 180). What develo ped in the Czechoslovak Republic after 1945, and es pecially th e events of Feb ruary 1948, definitely prove that point. flut we must a lso state tbat restored Czechoslovakia realized it could exist only by having a Czecb majority assured. Beneš and his group were only too well aware of that and, therefore, promoted tbeir pian for ousting the Germans and Magyars trom Czechoslovakia. Because they were successful, over three million Germans and almost a half m illlon Magya rs were expelled from the ·Republic. Tbe consequences of thls " hum ane and orderly " expulsion by Beneš and bis regime will be feLt for a long time to the detriment of cooperation between the natlons of Centra! Europe. �SLOVAKIA 21 The majority of the Slovaks was definitely against the restoration of Czechoslovakla. Because the Slovak nation was not given an opportunity to express itself about i.ts own destlny, it felt and even today feels that lt was wrong, morally and otherwise, to destroy the independent State o! Slovakla, and that it was deprived of its rlght to ind ependence illegally and by vlolence. What happened in Slovakia s ince the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic has only steeled the Slovaks In thelr determination to revolt agains.t the Czech lmperialistic St.rute at the fil'st opportnne moment and 1-.estore their own S lovak State. F. A. VoigU had this to say a bout the Czech-Slovak relat!onship: "The conflict between the Czechs and Slovaks appears to be irreconcilable. lt would seem that the Czechoslovak State is, today, a fiction and that it will never again be a reality, for if RuHian overlordahip were removed, the Czechs could only reaHert their authority over the Slovaks by force of arms - and in this they would surely fail, for they have not one friend in Central Europe, whereas the Slovaks have many" (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, Nov. 1945). As a result of the sltuation prevailing today, thousands of Slovak exiles in Europe, a million and a half Americans of Slovak descent, and many thousands of Slovaks in Canada, England, Argentína, Belgium, Spain, France, I,taly, Austria and Swltzerland, as well as an overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation at horne, are fighting for an Independent Slovak State, the only pol!tlcal formation which can guarantee their national existence and happlness According to the repo11t of the Prague Ministry of the Interi01•, there were uncovered 36 conspiracies in Slovakia against the Republic in Jess than two years. Thls reslstance against the State of the Czechs and Slovaks continues despite the fact that a large percentage of Slovak intellectuals has been cast into jall, tortured and exiled. and despite the fact that about 300,000 Slovaks have been transferred to the Czech-German border to weaken resistancP. in Slovakia. The logical concluslon to be drawn from all this is that from 1945 restored Czechoslovakia is belng preserved only by brute force and suppression of the most fundamental natlonal and indivldual rights, and that Czechoslovakla is a negation of all the rlghts which modern society has des igna.ted to a state for the purpose and lntent of its existence: to guarantee a free political and economical development of its people. II The Czechoslovak Republic has no reason to exist in a righteous arrangement of Europe from the viewpoint of European interests. While the Czechoslovak Republic, in the democratic sense, did not and does not fulfill the functlons of a state in relation to the majority of lts inhabitants, it is not difficult to find proofs that there ls no reason for this State to exist even as far as the interests of Europe are concerned, and much less so as far as the interests of Centra! Europe are concerned. At the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia was formed with the intention that lt would perform the function of a defensive barrier �22 SLOVAKIA agalnst Germany and that it would be a part of the cordon sanitaire against Russla. Lloyd George wrote that Beneš assured the Peace Conference that "the Czecha were protectors of democracy against Germaniam" and that "it was their duty at all timea to fi ght the Germans" - (p. 932). Czechoslovakia, however, did not fulflll a slngle functlon it was supposed to, but conversely, wlth lts senseless policy towards the non-Czech majority of its lnhabitant.s, lt flrst weakened the proposed system of defense against Germany and then was the alibi and the cause for the collapse of thls system and, therefore, helped German aggression In Centra! Europe. Durlng all twenty years of its existence, the Czecbóslovak Repub• lic could not find a posltlve relationship toward even a slngle one ot its nelghbors. With its Interna! and forelgn policles, it actually prevented the consoUdat!on of the Oentro-European area and indirectly prepared the ground for the s uccess of the policy of Natlonal Sociallsm of Germany whlch, on the other hand, galned not only the mlnorlties of Czechoslovakia, but also the na.tions to which these mlnorltles belonged, by promislng to apply and abide by the natlonality prlnclple. And so, instead of becoming a barrler agalnst Germany, Czechoslovakia actually became the gate whereby Germany passed into the Danube area and southeastern Europe without any opposltion whatsoever. Instead of stopping German aggression and German im periallsm, Czechoslovakla substaf\tially facilitated the German "Drang nach Osten." And looktng from that va.ntage point, what is the situation slnce 1945? After 1-ts restoration in 1945, did the Czechoslovak State become a "bastlon o! democracy" as promis'E!d by the Czech pol!ticlans who requested the Allies to restore lt? Of course, we kno1~ that it did not. The fact 1s that it did not even become a brldge between the East and the West In the posltive sense, but only a brldge for the trafflc of the Soviet Union and lts satellltes. Over this brldge the Soviet Union went unlmpedéd into the heart of Europe. At the same Ume Czechoslovakla became the gate through which the Soviet Union and communlsm will attack the democratlc world. And who is to blame for that? In a large mea.sure all those who worked so energetioally for the restoration of Czechoslovakia In order to assure their "trlumphant" return home, the restoratlon of the Czechoslovak State w.hich collapsed so utterly in 1939, and also the assent of the Allles to expel the German and Magyar mlnorities, the Czech polltlcians, headed by Beneš, not only concluded an agreement wlth Moscow, whereby the Soviet Union w.as enabled to interfere In the affairs of Czechoslovakia, but also allowed the Soviet Union to take Ruthenia wlthout any regard for the will of the inhabltanta thereof and in violatlon of ~he Czechoslovak Con.stitutlon. Thus, Russla for the flrst tlme in its hlstory got a foothold in the Danube Basin only a few kllometers from Bu<lapest and Vlenna. The transfer of Ruthenla to the Soviet Union took place In the Sprlng of 19!l5--as compensatlon for the Sovleťs assent to expel the G-ermana .and -•Magyars from Czechoslovakla. From a polltlcal· and �SLOVAK.IA 23 strategic viewpoint, this was a great victory for the Soviet Union. Robert l ngrim had this to say about the matter: "The alliance with the Czechs who, wlthout Aussian aupport, would have been unable to re-establish their rule over a non-Czech majority of Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, and Authenians, is one prong of Stalin's great hayfork.... A look at the map of Europe showa the meaning of that hayfork. By including the eaatern part of formerly Auatrian Galícia in her Poliah booty, Ruaaia establishes territori al contact with the Czech satellite. The westernmoat tip of Bohernia is but 200 miles off the French border" (Op. cit. p. 181-182). Furthermore, Czech polltlclans under the leadershlp of Beneš not only prevented the possiblllty of harmonious cooperatlon of the nations of Centra! Europe, but wf.th the!r deportatlons evoked s-uch a fear of German retrlbution that they themselves see a guarantee of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia only In the politlcal and mil!tary support of the Soviet Union. In thls respect, note,.vorthy is the statement of Dr. Beneš hlmself, addressed In 1947 to a Slovak delegatlon headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich: " T he Czechs cannot accept under any circumstances an independent Slovakia i n the future •.• The Czechs, having on the one side 70 million Germans, must on the other side have Aussia as their neighbor. Therefore, they could not accept an independent Slovakia. This is a vítal problem for the existence of the Czechs as a nation and as a State" (Feb. 16, 1947). Consequently the inhabltants of Czechoslovak\a are forced to support the pollcles of the Soviet Union In the interest of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia, even though thelr polltlcal convictlons and sympathies are In dlametrical confllct wlth those pol!cles. On the otber hand, however, lt follow-s that the Czecboslovak State bases 1s exlstence only on the mllltary and pol!tlcal m1ght of a forelgn power; consequently lt has become a tool of that power and does not possess abll!ty and vítal force of !ts own to exlst as a sovereign state. T.bereln we must also seek the reason why the communist putsch of February 1948 dld not meet witb any reslstance even from the Czech nation. The very exdstence of the Czechoslovak State, whlch was not capable of exlstlng by ltself and was founded on the suppresslon of freedoms of other nat!ons, demanded the subjugat!on not only of the Czech people, hut also the Slovak natlon, w,h lch was over 70 per cent antl-communlst, by the commun!st totalltarian dlctatorshlp. The consequences of thla pollcy, whereby the so-called "raJson d'Etat" was placed before the interest of the freedom and the llfe of the lnhabltants, are lll-fated not only for the Czech and Slovak na• tions, but the Soviet Union, by means of th!s pollcy, got lnto the very heart of the E uropean contlnent and communlsm galned an important gateway through whi-ch lt can attack western Europe. Thus Czechoslovakla, twlce wlthln a slngle decade, made it posslble or substantlally easler for lmperlallsm to enter Europe and thréaten the freedoms of lts natlons: In 1938 the lmperlal!sm ot natlonally soclalistlc Germany and, In 1946-48, the lmper!allsm of communlst Russla. So, the functlon given the Czechoslovak Republlc, or that whlch !ts creators promlsed lt would perform. was not only not fulfllled, but, conversely, th!s State - besldes preventlng the coop- �24 SLOVAKIA eration of the nations of Centra! Europe and oppressing the majority of lts inhabitants - has cast Europe into dangerou.s crises twlce within a single decade and facilitated the victory of those forces, against wh1ch lt was supposed to serve, directly or indirectly, as a barrler. Therefore, it appears evldent that the exlstence of this State uot only does not have motivatlon, but that it is in the interest of Europe and its healthy organlzation that this synthetlc formatien. founded on violence and the suppression of the most fundamental freedoms of millions of human beings and existing only with the help oľ a foreign power, definitely disappear from the map of Europe. Such is the conviction not only of the absolute majoľ'ity of the S lovak nation and its true representatives, who never agreed with the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republlc, but also the convictlon of many upright and freedom-Jovlng Czechs, who fought on the side of the Allies during the past war for the creation of a separate Czech State and a separate Slovak State within a framework of a federated Centra) Europe. These Czechs have refused to return to the synthetic political creation which does not reflect the will of the majority or its !nha'bitants, but is in fact the tool of the policy and aims of the Soviet Union. 111 The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated C entral Europe. If the Czechoslovak Republic has no raison ďetre in a system of sovereign states fľom a standpoint of European interests - the securlty of Central Europe and a harmonious relationship of lts na• tions - then the existence of this unnatura! formation appears to be utterly useless and unjust in the case of federating Europe, or at least Central Europe. There are several logical and objective argu• ip.ents in support of this statement. The Czechoslovak Republic, as we have seen, was created wíth the intent of forming a barrier against German expansion, and in 1945 it was restored so it could be a bastion of democracy and a bridge be· tween the East and the West. In these functions !t falled miserably. And these motlves do not hold in the case of a federation of Europe, or at least Centra! Europe. Indivldual states, whlch could not stop aggression in Europe even with a system of alliances, certainly wlll not play the role, in a federated Europe, of preventlng a repetition of a German attack or Russlan hegemony; that wlll be the role of the federation of the Continent, or that of Centra! Europe. The argument that Czechoslovakia should be retained, because it is a larger unit than would ·be either a Czech or Slovak unit, cannot play a part in the case of a European or Centro-European federation. Strategic and economic arguments, which give priority to larger for· mations, have not proved themselves in the case of Czechoslovak!a even wlth a system of soverelgn states, because factually it could not defend ltself against any one of its neighbors. The lnclusion of the minorities and the creation of a Czechoslovakia wlth some 15 mill!on inhabitants would conmct w!th the basic principle of federalism and the expressed right of nations to self-determination. �SLOVAKIA 25 Furtherm ore the Czech nation, which has gone over to the cam p of the satelltes of the Soviet Union more or less wlllingly, cannot h31Ve any claims w hich would give it preference over all its other neighbors and allow the Czechs to annex territories occupied by nonCzech inh ab itants. After 1945, when Hungary and Germany were defeated States, and Cz~ hoslovakia - whether deservingly or not - was included a mong the victorious Allles, it was possible to restore Czechoslovakia with lts old borders, especially when Slovakia was to be punished for not being on the border of P ortugal, but on t he border of Germany, and, therefore, was included in the camp of the defeated. In a E urope liberated from t he hegemony of Moscow, not a single argument used to validate the orlgin or the restoration of -the Czechos lovak Re public wlll be aible to be used in the future, especially no t in the case of federalization of Europe or Centra! Europe. The feder• ative principle excludes hegemony of one nation over another. In the case of Slovakia, then, what logical argument can there be against the Slovak natlon h aving its own independen t State? 1s lt logical and just to say that every nation, no matter how small, EXCEPT THE SLOVAK NA'l'ION, has an inherent right to fr~dom and independence? What lnterest of the United States, England or France - or t hat of the Cent ro-European nations, wh o do not wlsh the exist· ence of the Czechoslovak Republic and already in 1939 r ecognized the righ t of th e Slov.aks to independence - could be served by such an arg ument? What loglcal arguments can there be against the just dem and of the Slovaks to be recognized legally as equal wHh other nations? In 1918 the Slovak nation was included in Czechoslovakia, by the great powers, because Dr. Edward Beneš, T. G. Masaryk and Czech propaganda claimed t hat Slovaks were Czechs who spoke a dialect o f the Czech language and, therefore, the principle of self-determination did no t a pply to them. W hen Andrew Hlinka wanted to expose this fah,e claim, he was expelled from P aris at the request of Dr. Beneš u nder th e pr etext that he was an agent of the Vatican and the Habsbu rgs. And Dr. Beneš was successful with bis "big lie" a bout the non-existence of the Slovak nation. The distinguished Eng lish historian, C. A. Macartney has this to say on the matt&r: "The story of the gradual adoption by the Allies of the theses of Masaryk and his group cannot and need not be reto ld here. By patient and indefatigable propaganda, they implanted their major postulatea - the existence of a "Czechoslovak nation" and the desire of the Slovak branch of it to form a part of Czechoslovak State- so firm ly in the minds of the Allies that they were never serious ly questioned at the Peace Conference. The "Czecho-Slovak" Govern ment had been recognized by a ll the princ ipal Allied and Assoc iated Powers even before the peace negotiations began -- an act whic h implied that the Slovak queation waa in principle already s ettled - while when t he moment arrived for settling a ll questions of detai l, including the drafting of a frontier, it found the Czecho-Slovak Government firmly establiahed as a negotiating party; indeed, in something like a priv ileged position" (HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 98). �26 SLOVAKIA Can the arguments of Masaryk and Beneš be appl!ed today or Iu the future? The fabrlcator ot that falsebood hlmself "had to" capltulate and recognlze the exlstence ot the Independent Slovak natlon. In the end Beneš was opposed to only "the proclalmlng and a manifestatlonal recognitlon of the Slovaks a.s a natlon wholly soverelgn," because, accordlng to bim, "any klnd of proclamation and manitestatlonal recognltlon of the Slovaks as a natlon totally soverelgn, not dependent on the Czechs, must lead firat to the deaire and then even to the realization of Slovak atatehood ltaelf" - (ÚVAHY O SLOVAN• STv1, p. 353). Beneš was not the only one who capltulated on that score. Other Czeohs and many Slovak adherents of the thesls o! a "unita.ry Czecboslova.k nation" - wbo made a good llvlng out of lt at the expense o! -the Slovak uation - also caplitulated. Is lt still posslble to prevent the Slovak natlon from passlng from the deslre to the "realizatlon of thelr own Slovak statehood"? What arguments are there to pre• vent thls? The argument that the Slovaks are not sufficiently mature to manage thelr own affalrs certalnly does not hold today. Even sucb a Cze-0hophlle as Dr. Mllan Hodža admltted tbat "Slovaki;i has reached if not paased the Central European's civilization level ... Some political writers in thia country used to be rather skeptical about Slova. kla and her position and even about her political ability to live. Today it is evidently proved that these doubts were unfounded" - (FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, Jarolds, London, 1942, p. 94). The Engllsh expert on Centro-European questlons, C. A. Macartney, stated that In Slovakia there exlsts "a distinctive Slovak nationalism as a factor of the Danubian situation" (PROBLEMS OF THE DANUBE BASIN, London, 1942, p. 122). And let us ask a further question: Wlll lt be loglcally possible to use the argument that the Slovaks, whether in emlgratlon or at home, would not flght for thelr independence on the slde of the democracles? The Slovaks, who are dedlcated to an Independent Slovakla, are In thls !lght, wblch 1s being waged agalnst communist aggresslon, tor over a hundred years as a natlon and their past 1s not sullled by collaboratlon with communlsm. Could the western democracles, therefore, belleve the propaganda of a few Beneš Slovaks (Czechoslovaks) who collaborated with communls m and helped lt to power and then escaped abroad only when they could no Jonger hold government posltlons to enrich themselves - and dlsregard the will of the overwhelmlng majority of the Slovak natlon and lts representatlves In E>migratlon wbo stand for a separate, democratlc Slovak State witbln the framework of a federated Europe or Centra! EurQpe? ·. 1For what reasons? By an objectlve analysls, we can come to only one concluslon: in a federated Europe or Centra! Europe, the Czechoslovak Repub11c bas no rea:son to exlst and can exlst only by tbe grace of some greá.t power, just as lt dld up to 1938 by the grace of France and England, and just as lt does today by tbe grace of tbe Soviet Union. But outslde tbe Soviet Union, there ls no sucb great power whlch In tbe future would need a heterogenous Czechoslovak State founded on �BLOVAKIA 27 violence and preventing the cooperatlon of the European natlons. Centra! Europe wlll need peace and a harmonlous cohabltatlon of natlons to recover from the wounds infllcted by the war and the Russlan occupation. Czech-oslovakla has definltely shown - as up to 1938, so even after 1945 - that it cannot flnd a positlve relatlonshlp toward lts neighbors, that lts exlstence evokes an atmosphere of dlstrust and revlslonism and violates the natural order of the Central-European area. Therefore, there can be no place for the Czechoslovak State In that area. • • • MUSEUMS OF SLOVAKIA The three Jeading museums of Slovakia are in Bratislava, TurSvätý Martin, and Košice. The Agrlcultural Museum In Bratislava, seriously damaged by bombs in 1944, 1s devoted principally to geology, soil, t he cultlvatlon or plants, lncluding frult trees and vegetables, animal husbandry, forestry, and zoology_ The museum iu the capital or Slovakia has In its program to present as complete a plcture as possible of the archaeology, of the creatlve arts, and of the Natural Hlstory of the land, with spe<:ial emphasls on Western Slovak1a. Its ethnographic collect!ons are not as extensive as those at Turčiansky Svätý Martin whlch was establlshed iJl 1896 by local patrlots and was maintalned by them. Ln a.ddltion to the aforemeniioned unu-sually rich e thnogra,phic materlal, the museum possesses a noteworthy collectlon o! models of typical Slovak wooden bulldings. Slnce the city was the prlnclpal headquarters of Slovak natlonal and cultural actlvity, there is assembled here also invaluable source material concernlng the literary progress of the !and. The Eastern Slovakla Museum at Košice possesses a valuable library of over thirty thousand volumes and interestlng collectlons of archeologloal and Natural History Qlbjects. The paintings, whlcb the museum had, were taken to Budapest In 1918. Local museums are organlzed territorlally elther as regional or city lnstltutions. To the former group belong the museums at Trenčín, Nitra, Banská Štiavnica, Komarno, Banská Bystrica, Ružomberok, Bardlov, Levoča, and Rimavská Sobota. The leadlng city museums are at Bratislava and at Kremnica. Speclalized museums are the Agricultural Museum at Bratislava, the Tatra Museums at Poprad and Veľká, and the Jewlsh Museum at Prešov. čiansky • • • WHO SAID IT?: - "Durlng my stay in the Unlted States, I spoke with almost all the leaders of Amerlcan democracy, and, as I expected. l found they all had a full understandlng of our just cause. Dr. Benei'a journey to Moacow and ita hiatorical aignificance la a pproved and recognized in Amerlca. Of course, there are a few reactlonarles there who nurse thelr selfish lnterests with exaggerated fear 'of Bolshevism. I dld not even try to convlnce them." -- (Jan Masaryk: l :.ondon Broadcast, February 16, 1944). � 16 SLOVAKIA WHY NO MORE CZEOHOSLOVAKIA ? DR. JOSEPH K I RSCHBAUM After the communist reglme Jn Bohemla and Slovakia came to power in February 1948, there appeared ln Europe, the Unlted States and In other non-European countrles a new "Czechoslovak" emlgration, conststlng of dlsmlssed diplomats and escaped politlcal leaders of the varlous Czech and Slovak civil partles. This emlgration, lf we are to appraise it by lts actlvlty, contlnues in the pollcles of Dr. Eward Beneš and hls followers, whlch means a contlnuatlon in the same mistakes and blunders whlch have evoked two dangerous crises in Europe durlng the past thlrty years. As a result of thls blundering policy more than half the population of the Czecboslovak Republic (Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ukralnlans and Carpatho-Russlans) was elther deprlved of the most fundamental human and civil rlghts, or deslgnedly lmpeded In lts polltlcal and economical development. Prince Adolf zu Schwarzenberg, head of one of tbe oldest families in Bohemia, had thls to say about Czech policy: "Even In norma! tlmes the double game of Czecb policy can be seen Quite clearly. As long as Czecboslovakia adopted the role of dependence on the West, Benes was at the helm and from 1945 onward prepared the dellvery of hls country to the Communists. Al! the mlndste-rs in hls Cablnet {there were about two dozen of them) worked with thelr ldollzed Presldent, and in a most masterly fashion steered thelr country lnto Communlsm, always hop!ng for a good job as a reward for thelr laudable work In the Bolshevist interest." NEW ENGLISH REVIEW MAGAZINE, 1949, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 20-22). It is a fact that Czechoslovakia was re-establlshed at the end of World War II agalnst the w111 of the absolute majori ty of the Slovaks and the many mlll!ons of national minorltles by the polllical actlv!ty of a small group of Czech exiles, who were not concerned "·lth the lnterests of the Czech and Slovak nations, or the interests of the ,vbole of Europe, but were rather Jed by imperlallsm, their persona! amblt!ons and a des!re for revenge. And it ls a historical fact that the Czecboslovak State was surrendered, without res!stance, to the power of Mosoow by these pollticlans just as in 1938-1939, w!thout the least resistance, they surrendered it to Berlin. In tbe llgbt of these faots and In the interest of better organ!· zation and cooperatlon or the Centra! European natlons, as well as In the interest of trutb and justlce, lt appea:-s necessary to point out the arguments whlch speak agalnst the exlstence or the Czechoslovak Republlc. An analysis, lssuing from European and Centro-European points of vlew and not only from the lnterests of natlons and mlnorlt!es whlch were forced tnto the Czecboslovak Republ!c agalnst their wlll, is demanded In this connectlon by our slde, because !t !s based on the motlve contained In the Declaratlon o! Independence of the Unlted ~tates, In whlcb we read: " W hen in t he course of human events, it becomes necessary for �SLOVAKIA 17 one people to dissolve the political banda which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separated and equal station to whi ch the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opíníons of mankind requ ires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." What are the causes which led the Slovaks and the minorities to demand the dlssolution of political ties with the Czech nation in t he Czechoslovak Republic? Generally speaking, we can mention, first of all, the following: 1. Tendencies for the preservatlon or restoration of the Czechos lovak Republic do not meet with the approval of the majority of lts inhabitants and the principle of democracy and the principles ex· pressed in the Atlantic Charter. 2. The Czechoslovak Republic has no cause to exist in a just arrangement of Europe even from the standpoint of European in· terests. 3. The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated Centra! Europe. More than thirty years of clever Czech propaganda migh t, at a first glance, contradict these allegations. There Js no argument ahout that. In the mirror of our experience with the propaganda of Goebels, and, today, that of Moscow, we see, however, that even a propaganda of falsehoods can be successful for a time, deceiving and convinclng many people. But the force of truth is eternal. By resorting to lies we may enjoy successes temporarily, but the truth shall prevail in the end. In the case of the Czechoslovak Republic, we are concerned witili nothing more than the truth. Tbat is why we are analyzing the above-mentioned arguments at least in their main outlines. And in dolng this, we pu.rposely refer to the testimonies of· objective, politlcal European observers, so that no one rnight say that the Slovak s truggle for freedom and independence issues from an exaggerated nationalism or natlonal intolerenace, as Cz&eh propaganda designedly claims that it does. The Slovaks were co-founders of the Czechoslovak Republic and would have wished its preservation, if the Czechoslovak State would bave had possessed the prerequisites to fulfill the task that falls to a state in the sense of a modem, sociologlcal conception, on the one hand, and, on the other, from the standpolnt of European interests. The Czechoslovak Repu blic, however, diel not. The Slovaks, therefore, in the lntent of democracy, the Atlantic Charter, and the Charter of the United Nations Organization, are demanding a new order of Centro-Eu.ropean relationships. to which the Czechoslovak Republic definitely 1s an obstacle, as shall be made clear in the arguments that follow. Are the tendenciea to preserve or restore the Czechoslovak Republic in harmony with the will of the majority of ita inhabítanta and the princ iples upon which a modern state ia founded ? �18 SLOVAKIA This question was already asked at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, at whlch the Czechoslovak Republlc was born, as Lloyd George tells us in bis book "The Truth About the Peace Treaties": "Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians - is this not a new Austria which will thus arise under the Czech ban• ner, a new polyglot state in which six nations will be packed together, all filled with hatred of one against the other, arrested in their whole economic and social development and in the progress of their civilization by hate and national strife, nourished by tyranny and poisoning their whole public llfe? - How can the new polyglot State, the artificial work of an imperialist diplomacy, exist without any economic community, geographical unity, or common history?" - {pp. 944, 946). Lloyd George evldently wa.s troubled wlth the prOl)osltion of setting up Czechoslovakia and stated bluntly: "The Czechs were specially favored by the Allies. The result was the recognition of the polyglot and incoherent state of Czechoslovakia." - (p. 948). We see, then, at the very beglnning of the Czechoslovak RepubJic, that nelther the lnterests o( the lnhabitants ot the newly-rlsing s tate, nor tbe prlnclple or the rlght of self-determlnation and of democratlc freedoms were tbe decldlng factors, but only the "special favor of tbe Allles." It was, tberefore, only natural tbat the Czecbo• slovak Republlc durlng al! lts 20 years was troubled with interna! controversles - cleverly masked abroad by a great propaganda apparatu.s - and that lt collapsed wltbout the least resistance of its populatlon with tbe flrst lmpact from outslde in 1938-1939. What is more, we can show that ,tbe majority of the inhabitants even deslred the collapse of the Czechoslovak Republic by quotlng statements of Czech polltlclans themselves and recalllng those made durlng the polltlcal trlals of the "people's" democracy of Czechoslovakla versus the Slovaks, Germans and Magyars - the trials staged by the Czech Government after 1945. Why dld they deslre lts dlssolutlon? Indisputably because the Czechoslovak Republi c dld not satisfy the polltlcal and economlc !nterests and aspirations of its inhabitants, except those of the Czech minority which managed tbe State. Al the Par!s Peace Conference (1919), Dr. Edward Beneš declared that: "lt is the intention of the Czechoslovak Government to create the organlzatlon of tbe State by accepting as a basis of natural rights tbe prlnclples applled in the Constitutlon of tbe Swlss Republlc, tbat !s, to make the Czechoslovak Republlc a sor-t of Swltzerland . . ." Tbe Czecb governments, bowever, did not manage tbe Czechoslovak Republlc as Beneš had promlsed, but In sucb manner as Jf only an exclusive Czecb State was concerned, whose mission apparently wa,s to asslmilate the non-Czech populat!on, and espec!ally the Slovaks, and hold them in cbeck economlcally and soc!ally. Tbe resistance of the other lnhabltants and the support of tbe efforts whlch almed at the dlssolutlon of tbe Czechoslovak Republlc, therefore, became an entlrely logical r~ult of the sltuation in whlcb tbe non-Czech inha.b!tants llved. Tbi.s was abundantly clear to objectlve observers already in 1938. Lloyd George said: "Had the Czech leaders, in tíme and without �SLOVAKIA 19 waiting for the menacing preasure of Germany, redeemed their promise to grant local autonomy to the various races in their Republic on the llnes of the Swiu Confederation, the present troubles would (p. 952). Long before 1938, but especlally in the stlrr!ng months before MuniC'h and in the Sprlng of 1939, many dlscern!ng representatlves of the Czech and Slovak natlons were certaln that the Czechoslovak Republlc dld not develop into a forma,tion whlch could more lastlngly assure the secur!ty and the vltal !nterests of both these natlons wh!ch were the ethnlcal foundatlon of the Republlc. Ir the Czech natlon for a Ume enjoyed certa!n advantages because of the exlstence ot Czechoslovak!a, lt was only at the expense of the rest of the inhabitants. But the Czechs later had to pay dearly for those advantages and also had to become aware o[ the fact that the Czechoslovak State could not guarantee the securRy even or the Czech natlon agalnst a slngle nelghbor. As far as the S lovaks are conceTned, they could not resolve tbe ma,tter any other way, because the Slovak natlon In the Czechoslovak State - actually, however, in a CZECH State -· was In a posltlon altogether unbecomlng a cultured natlon, belng exposed to planned ass:lmllatlon and economical exploltatlon by the Czechs, wbom the whole state apparatus served. Here we are not even mentlon!ng th e status of the mlnorities as a problem, which occup!ed the League or Na.Uons for twenty years and, later, was an opportune alibi for the liquldation of the Cz-echoslovak Republ!c. Th!s problem, as well as t hat of the Slovak.s, was dealt with by such personallties as Lord Run• clman and C. A. Macartney. Rererrlng to Czechoslovak!a, the latter wrote: have been averted" - "The fact remains that the Government has been obliged more often than not to rule Slovakia against the wishes of most of its inhabltants, maintaining itself only by the expedienta of restrictlng the power, of the self-governing bodies to within the narrowest posslble limita, of filling the seats designated for 'experu' with its own nominees, and utilizing freely weapons of censorship and police supervision" (H UNGAIRY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 145). After completlng bis miss!on In 1938, Lord Runciman made even more unfavorable statements In reportlng on the status or the more than three and a half mlll!on German minority in the Republ!c. He said: " I have been left with the impreaaion that Czechoslovak rule in the Sudeten areas for the last twenty years ... has been marked by tactlessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance and discriminatio n, to a point where the resentment of the German populatlon was inevitably moving in the d irection of revolt. The Sudeten Germans fel>t, too, that in the past they had been given many promises by the Czechoslovak Government, but that llttle or no action had fol lowed these promises...." (Britlsh White Paper, Cmd. 5847). That is why the Republlc was not derended when Its in tegrity was threatened and, la,ter, not even when lts very exlstence was In danger. Not by a single nation of Czechoslovakia, not even the Czech natlon! �20 S LOVAKIA On the contrary, its dlssolutlon was made possible by its own inha.bitan,ts, the majority of whom could realize their natural right to freedom and their o wn State only by the destruction of Czechos lovakia. So it happened in the case of the Slovaks. W ri ting about the S lovaks in 1942, Macartney said: " ... most of them found themselves unable to accept the Peace Confe rence thesis of a unitary Czechoslovak nation. Some of them fe lt this to mean, in practice, domination by the economically and socially atronger Czecha, and they reacted in the form of a flamboyant Slovak nationalism which was the main reason for the absence of revolt with which they accepted the dissolution of the Czechos lovak State" (PRO BLEMS OF T HE DANUBE BASIN, p. 122). Dur ing the Second World War, a group of Czech exiles in London (The Czech Natio nal Commiltee) and Slovak exiles (The S lovak Na• tional Council in London), both fighting on the sid e of the Allies, tried to find a diťferent solutlon to the Czech and S lovak pr oblem than that which the fľamework of Czechoslovakia offered. Representatives of the Czech and Slovak natlons, in accord w ith the prlnciple of the right of self-determlnation and the r ight of every nation to independence, proposed ,the organlzing of a separate Slovak State and a separate Czech State within the framewo rk of a larger federalive Centro-European unit. Their efforts were prompted not only by t he interests of their own nations, but also by the interests of Eu ropean peace and prosperity, as well as by a sense for justice and the righ t. A g roup of Czech poli ticians headed by Ben eš, however, motivated by persona! prestige, by a desfre for revenge a nd the re newal of Czech i mperia'lism more than by t he interests of its own nation, did not hes.ltate to surrender the destiny of the Czech and Slovak natlons to the "tender" mercies of th~ Soviet Un ion. Unfortunately for the nations concerned, for Europe and the democratic world, this group of political madmen realized tbeir program. The Czechoslovak Republlc was restored by the grace of Moscow. Of course, no t in the interests of the Czecbs and the Slovaks, but, as it is abundantly clear today, in the interests of Moscow. Robert Ingrim, forelgn correspondent of leading European newspapers, wrote in 1946: " Russia's aim, when signing that t reaty against the wishes of Ame rica and Britain, was, of course, not to sec ure Czechia as an a ll y. They made use of Benes' fea r of a frontier revision in order to get a strong foothold in the he art of th e Continent" - (AFTER HITLER STALIN? - P. 180). What develo ped in the Czechoslovak Republic after 1945, and es pecially th e events of Feb ruary 1948, definitely prove that point. flut we must a lso state tbat restored Czechoslovakia realized it could exist only by having a Czecb majority assured. Beneš and his group were only too well aware of that and, therefore, promoted tbeir pian for ousting the Germans and Magyars trom Czechoslovakia. Because they were successful, over three million Germans and almost a half m illlon Magya rs were expelled from the ·Republic. Tbe consequences of thls " hum ane and orderly " expulsion by Beneš and bis regime will be feLt for a long time to the detriment of cooperation between the natlons of Centra! Europe. �SLOVAKIA 21 The majority of the Slovaks was definitely against the restoration of Czechoslovakla. Because the Slovak nation was not given an opportunity to express itself about i.ts own destlny, it felt and even today feels that lt was wrong, morally and otherwise, to destroy the independent State o! Slovakla, and that it was deprived of its rlght to ind ependence illegally and by vlolence. What happened in Slovakia s ince the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic has only steeled the Slovaks In thelr determination to revolt agains.t the Czech lmperialistic St.rute at the fil'st opportnne moment and 1-.estore their own S lovak State. F. A. VoigU had this to say a bout the Czech-Slovak relat!onship: "The conflict between the Czechs and Slovaks appears to be irreconcilable. lt would seem that the Czechoslovak State is, today, a fiction and that it will never again be a reality, for if RuHian overlordahip were removed, the Czechs could only reaHert their authority over the Slovaks by force of arms - and in this they would surely fail, for they have not one friend in Central Europe, whereas the Slovaks have many" (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, Nov. 1945). As a result of the sltuation prevailing today, thousands of Slovak exiles in Europe, a million and a half Americans of Slovak descent, and many thousands of Slovaks in Canada, England, Argentína, Belgium, Spain, France, I,taly, Austria and Swltzerland, as well as an overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation at horne, are fighting for an Independent Slovak State, the only pol!tlcal formation which can guarantee their national existence and happlness According to the repo11t of the Prague Ministry of the Interi01•, there were uncovered 36 conspiracies in Slovakia against the Republic in Jess than two years. Thls reslstance against the State of the Czechs and Slovaks continues despite the fact that a large percentage of Slovak intellectuals has been cast into jall, tortured and exiled. and despite the fact that about 300,000 Slovaks have been transferred to the Czech-German border to weaken resistancP. in Slovakia. The logical concluslon to be drawn from all this is that from 1945 restored Czechoslovakia is belng preserved only by brute force and suppression of the most fundamental natlonal and indivldual rights, and that Czechoslovakla is a negation of all the rlghts which modern society has des igna.ted to a state for the purpose and lntent of its existence: to guarantee a free political and economical development of its people. II The Czechoslovak Republic has no reason to exist in a righteous arrangement of Europe from the viewpoint of European interests. While the Czechoslovak Republic, in the democratic sense, did not and does not fulfill the functlons of a state in relation to the majority of lts inhabitants, it is not difficult to find proofs that there ls no reason for this State to exist even as far as the interests of Europe are concerned, and much less so as far as the interests of Centra! Europe are concerned. At the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia was formed with the intention that lt would perform the function of a defensive barrier �22 SLOVAKIA agalnst Germany and that it would be a part of the cordon sanitaire against Russla. Lloyd George wrote that Beneš assured the Peace Conference that "the Czecha were protectors of democracy against Germaniam" and that "it was their duty at all timea to fi ght the Germans" - (p. 932). Czechoslovakia, however, did not fulflll a slngle functlon it was supposed to, but conversely, wlth lts senseless policy towards the non-Czech majority of its lnhabitant.s, lt flrst weakened the proposed system of defense against Germany and then was the alibi and the cause for the collapse of thls system and, therefore, helped German aggression In Centra! Europe. Durlng all twenty years of its existence, the Czecbóslovak Repub• lic could not find a posltlve relationship toward even a slngle one ot its nelghbors. With its Interna! and forelgn policles, it actually prevented the consoUdat!on of the Oentro-European area and indirectly prepared the ground for the s uccess of the policy of Natlonal Sociallsm of Germany whlch, on the other hand, galned not only the mlnorlties of Czechoslovakia, but also the na.tions to which these mlnorltles belonged, by promislng to apply and abide by the natlonality prlnclple. And so, instead of becoming a barrler agalnst Germany, Czechoslovakia actually became the gate whereby Germany passed into the Danube area and southeastern Europe without any opposltion whatsoever. Instead of stopping German aggression and German im periallsm, Czechoslovakla substaf\tially facilitated the German "Drang nach Osten." And looktng from that va.ntage point, what is the situation slnce 1945? After 1-ts restoration in 1945, did the Czechoslovak State become a "bastlon o! democracy" as promis'E!d by the Czech pol!ticlans who requested the Allies to restore lt? Of course, we kno1~ that it did not. The fact 1s that it did not even become a brldge between the East and the West In the posltive sense, but only a brldge for the trafflc of the Soviet Union and lts satellltes. Over this brldge the Soviet Union went unlmpedéd into the heart of Europe. At the same Ume Czechoslovakla became the gate through which the Soviet Union and communlsm will attack the democratlc world. And who is to blame for that? In a large mea.sure all those who worked so energetioally for the restoration of Czechoslovakia In order to assure their "trlumphant" return home, the restoratlon of the Czechoslovak State w.hich collapsed so utterly in 1939, and also the assent of the Allles to expel the German and Magyar mlnorities, the Czech polltlcians, headed by Beneš, not only concluded an agreement wlth Moscow, whereby the Soviet Union w.as enabled to interfere In the affairs of Czechoslovakia, but also allowed the Soviet Union to take Ruthenia wlthout any regard for the will of the inhabltanta thereof and in violatlon of ~he Czechoslovak Con.stitutlon. Thus, Russla for the flrst tlme in its hlstory got a foothold in the Danube Basin only a few kllometers from Bu<lapest and Vlenna. The transfer of Ruthenla to the Soviet Union took place In the Sprlng of 19!l5--as compensatlon for the Sovleťs assent to expel the G-ermana .and -•Magyars from Czechoslovakla. From a polltlcal· and �SLOVAK.IA 23 strategic viewpoint, this was a great victory for the Soviet Union. Robert l ngrim had this to say about the matter: "The alliance with the Czechs who, wlthout Aussian aupport, would have been unable to re-establish their rule over a non-Czech majority of Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, and Authenians, is one prong of Stalin's great hayfork.... A look at the map of Europe showa the meaning of that hayfork. By including the eaatern part of formerly Auatrian Galícia in her Poliah booty, Ruaaia establishes territori al contact with the Czech satellite. The westernmoat tip of Bohernia is but 200 miles off the French border" (Op. cit. p. 181-182). Furthermore, Czech polltlclans under the leadershlp of Beneš not only prevented the possiblllty of harmonious cooperatlon of the nations of Centra! Europe, but wf.th the!r deportatlons evoked s-uch a fear of German retrlbution that they themselves see a guarantee of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia only In the politlcal and mil!tary support of the Soviet Union. In thls respect, note,.vorthy is the statement of Dr. Beneš hlmself, addressed In 1947 to a Slovak delegatlon headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich: " T he Czechs cannot accept under any circumstances an independent Slovakia i n the future •.• The Czechs, having on the one side 70 million Germans, must on the other side have Aussia as their neighbor. Therefore, they could not accept an independent Slovakia. This is a vítal problem for the existence of the Czechs as a nation and as a State" (Feb. 16, 1947). Consequently the inhabltants of Czechoslovak\a are forced to support the pollcles of the Soviet Union In the interest of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia, even though thelr polltlcal convictlons and sympathies are In dlametrical confllct wlth those pol!cles. On the otber hand, however, lt follow-s that the Czecboslovak State bases 1s exlstence only on the mllltary and pol!tlcal m1ght of a forelgn power; consequently lt has become a tool of that power and does not possess abll!ty and vítal force of !ts own to exlst as a sovereign state. T.bereln we must also seek the reason why the communist putsch of February 1948 dld not meet witb any reslstance even from the Czech nation. The very exdstence of the Czechoslovak State, whlch was not capable of exlstlng by ltself and was founded on the suppresslon of freedoms of other nat!ons, demanded the subjugat!on not only of the Czech people, hut also the Slovak natlon, w,h lch was over 70 per cent antl-communlst, by the commun!st totalltarian dlctatorshlp. The consequences of thla pollcy, whereby the so-called "raJson d'Etat" was placed before the interest of the freedom and the llfe of the lnhabltants, are lll-fated not only for the Czech and Slovak na• tions, but the Soviet Union, by means of th!s pollcy, got lnto the very heart of the E uropean contlnent and communlsm galned an important gateway through whi-ch lt can attack western Europe. Thus Czechoslovakla, twlce wlthln a slngle decade, made it posslble or substantlally easler for lmperlallsm to enter Europe and thréaten the freedoms of lts natlons: In 1938 the lmperlal!sm ot natlonally soclalistlc Germany and, In 1946-48, the lmper!allsm of communlst Russla. So, the functlon given the Czechoslovak Republlc, or that whlch !ts creators promlsed lt would perform. was not only not fulfllled, but, conversely, th!s State - besldes preventlng the coop- �24 SLOVAKIA eration of the nations of Centra! Europe and oppressing the majority of lts inhabitants - has cast Europe into dangerou.s crises twlce within a single decade and facilitated the victory of those forces, against wh1ch lt was supposed to serve, directly or indirectly, as a barrler. Therefore, it appears evldent that the exlstence of this State uot only does not have motivatlon, but that it is in the interest of Europe and its healthy organlzation that this synthetlc formatien. founded on violence and the suppression of the most fundamental freedoms of millions of human beings and existing only with the help oľ a foreign power, definitely disappear from the map of Europe. Such is the conviction not only of the absolute majoľ'ity of the S lovak nation and its true representatives, who never agreed with the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republlc, but also the convictlon of many upright and freedom-Jovlng Czechs, who fought on the side of the Allies during the past war for the creation of a separate Czech State and a separate Slovak State within a framework of a federated Centra) Europe. These Czechs have refused to return to the synthetic political creation which does not reflect the will of the majority or its !nha'bitants, but is in fact the tool of the policy and aims of the Soviet Union. 111 The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated C entral Europe. If the Czechoslovak Republic has no raison ďetre in a system of sovereign states fľom a standpoint of European interests - the securlty of Central Europe and a harmonious relationship of lts na• tions - then the existence of this unnatura! formation appears to be utterly useless and unjust in the case of federating Europe, or at least Central Europe. There are several logical and objective argu• ip.ents in support of this statement. The Czechoslovak Republic, as we have seen, was created wíth the intent of forming a barrier against German expansion, and in 1945 it was restored so it could be a bastion of democracy and a bridge be· tween the East and the West. In these functions !t falled miserably. And these motlves do not hold in the case of a federation of Europe, or at least Centra! Europe. Indivldual states, whlch could not stop aggression in Europe even with a system of alliances, certainly wlll not play the role, in a federated Europe, of preventlng a repetition of a German attack or Russlan hegemony; that wlll be the role of the federation of the Continent, or that of Centra! Europe. The argument that Czechoslovakia should be retained, because it is a larger unit than would ·be either a Czech or Slovak unit, cannot play a part in the case of a European or Centro-European federation. Strategic and economic arguments, which give priority to larger for· mations, have not proved themselves in the case of Czechoslovak!a even wlth a system of soverelgn states, because factually it could not defend ltself against any one of its neighbors. The lnclusion of the minorities and the creation of a Czechoslovakia wlth some 15 mill!on inhabitants would conmct w!th the basic principle of federalism and the expressed right of nations to self-determination. �SLOVAKIA 25 Furtherm ore the Czech nation, which has gone over to the cam p of the satelltes of the Soviet Union more or less wlllingly, cannot h31Ve any claims w hich would give it preference over all its other neighbors and allow the Czechs to annex territories occupied by nonCzech inh ab itants. After 1945, when Hungary and Germany were defeated States, and Cz~ hoslovakia - whether deservingly or not - was included a mong the victorious Allles, it was possible to restore Czechoslovakia with lts old borders, especially when Slovakia was to be punished for not being on the border of P ortugal, but on t he border of Germany, and, therefore, was included in the camp of the defeated. In a E urope liberated from t he hegemony of Moscow, not a single argument used to validate the orlgin or the restoration of -the Czechos lovak Re public wlll be aible to be used in the future, especially no t in the case of federalization of Europe or Centra! Europe. The feder• ative principle excludes hegemony of one nation over another. In the case of Slovakia, then, what logical argument can there be against the Slovak natlon h aving its own independen t State? 1s lt logical and just to say that every nation, no matter how small, EXCEPT THE SLOVAK NA'l'ION, has an inherent right to fr~dom and independence? What lnterest of the United States, England or France - or t hat of the Cent ro-European nations, wh o do not wlsh the exist· ence of the Czechoslovak Republic and already in 1939 r ecognized the righ t of th e Slov.aks to independence - could be served by such an arg ument? What loglcal arguments can there be against the just dem and of the Slovaks to be recognized legally as equal wHh other nations? In 1918 the Slovak nation was included in Czechoslovakia, by the great powers, because Dr. Edward Beneš, T. G. Masaryk and Czech propaganda claimed t hat Slovaks were Czechs who spoke a dialect o f the Czech language and, therefore, the principle of self-determination did no t a pply to them. W hen Andrew Hlinka wanted to expose this fah,e claim, he was expelled from P aris at the request of Dr. Beneš u nder th e pr etext that he was an agent of the Vatican and the Habsbu rgs. And Dr. Beneš was successful with bis "big lie" a bout the non-existence of the Slovak nation. The distinguished Eng lish historian, C. A. Macartney has this to say on the matt&r: "The story of the gradual adoption by the Allies of the theses of Masaryk and his group cannot and need not be reto ld here. By patient and indefatigable propaganda, they implanted their major postulatea - the existence of a "Czechoslovak nation" and the desire of the Slovak branch of it to form a part of Czechoslovak State- so firm ly in the minds of the Allies that they were never serious ly questioned at the Peace Conference. The "Czecho-Slovak" Govern ment had been recognized by a ll the princ ipal Allied and Assoc iated Powers even before the peace negotiations began -- an act whic h implied that the Slovak queation waa in principle already s ettled - while when t he moment arrived for settling a ll questions of detai l, including the drafting of a frontier, it found the Czecho-Slovak Government firmly establiahed as a negotiating party; indeed, in something like a priv ileged position" (HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 98). �26 SLOVAKIA Can the arguments of Masaryk and Beneš be appl!ed today or Iu the future? The fabrlcator ot that falsebood hlmself "had to" capltulate and recognlze the exlstence ot the Independent Slovak natlon. In the end Beneš was opposed to only "the proclalmlng and a manifestatlonal recognitlon of the Slovaks a.s a natlon wholly soverelgn," because, accordlng to bim, "any klnd of proclamation and manitestatlonal recognltlon of the Slovaks as a natlon totally soverelgn, not dependent on the Czechs, must lead firat to the deaire and then even to the realization of Slovak atatehood ltaelf" - (ÚVAHY O SLOVAN• STv1, p. 353). Beneš was not the only one who capltulated on that score. Other Czeohs and many Slovak adherents of the thesls o! a "unita.ry Czecboslova.k nation" - wbo made a good llvlng out of lt at the expense o! -the Slovak uation - also caplitulated. Is lt still posslble to prevent the Slovak natlon from passlng from the deslre to the "realizatlon of thelr own Slovak statehood"? What arguments are there to pre• vent thls? The argument that the Slovaks are not sufficiently mature to manage thelr own affalrs certalnly does not hold today. Even sucb a Cze-0hophlle as Dr. Mllan Hodža admltted tbat "Slovaki;i has reached if not paased the Central European's civilization level ... Some political writers in thia country used to be rather skeptical about Slova. kla and her position and even about her political ability to live. Today it is evidently proved that these doubts were unfounded" - (FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, Jarolds, London, 1942, p. 94). The Engllsh expert on Centro-European questlons, C. A. Macartney, stated that In Slovakia there exlsts "a distinctive Slovak nationalism as a factor of the Danubian situation" (PROBLEMS OF THE DANUBE BASIN, London, 1942, p. 122). And let us ask a further question: Wlll lt be loglcally possible to use the argument that the Slovaks, whether in emlgratlon or at home, would not flght for thelr independence on the slde of the democracles? The Slovaks, who are dedlcated to an Independent Slovakla, are In thls !lght, wblch 1s being waged agalnst communist aggresslon, tor over a hundred years as a natlon and their past 1s not sullled by collaboratlon with communlsm. Could the western democracles, therefore, belleve the propaganda of a few Beneš Slovaks (Czechoslovaks) who collaborated with communls m and helped lt to power and then escaped abroad only when they could no Jonger hold government posltlons to enrich themselves - and dlsregard the will of the overwhelmlng majority of the Slovak natlon and lts representatlves In E>migratlon wbo stand for a separate, democratlc Slovak State witbln the framework of a federated Europe or Centra! EurQpe? ·. 1For what reasons? By an objectlve analysls, we can come to only one concluslon: in a federated Europe or Centra! Europe, the Czechoslovak Repub11c bas no rea:son to exlst and can exlst only by tbe grace of some greá.t power, just as lt dld up to 1938 by the grace of France and England, and just as lt does today by tbe grace of tbe Soviet Union. But outslde tbe Soviet Union, there ls no sucb great power whlch In tbe future would need a heterogenous Czechoslovak State founded on �BLOVAKIA 27 violence and preventing the cooperatlon of the European natlons. Centra! Europe wlll need peace and a harmonlous cohabltatlon of natlons to recover from the wounds infllcted by the war and the Russlan occupation. Czech-oslovakla has definltely shown - as up to 1938, so even after 1945 - that it cannot flnd a positlve relatlonshlp toward lts neighbors, that lts exlstence evokes an atmosphere of dlstrust and revlslonism and violates the natural order of the Central-European area. Therefore, there can be no place for the Czechoslovak State In that area. • • • MUSEUMS OF SLOVAKIA The three Jeading museums of Slovakia are in Bratislava, TurSvätý Martin, and Košice. The Agrlcultural Museum In Bratislava, seriously damaged by bombs in 1944, 1s devoted principally to geology, soil, t he cultlvatlon or plants, lncluding frult trees and vegetables, animal husbandry, forestry, and zoology_ The museum iu the capital or Slovakia has In its program to present as complete a plcture as possible of the archaeology, of the creatlve arts, and of the Natural Hlstory of the land, with spe<:ial emphasls on Western Slovak1a. Its ethnographic collect!ons are not as extensive as those at Turčiansky Svätý Martin whlch was establlshed iJl 1896 by local patrlots and was maintalned by them. Ln a.ddltion to the aforemeniioned unu-sually rich e thnogra,phic materlal, the museum possesses a noteworthy collectlon o! models of typical Slovak wooden bulldings. Slnce the city was the prlnclpal headquarters of Slovak natlonal and cultural actlvity, there is assembled here also invaluable source material concernlng the literary progress of the !and. The Eastern Slovakla Museum at Košice possesses a valuable library of over thirty thousand volumes and interestlng collectlons of archeologloal and Natural History Qlbjects. The paintings, whlcb the museum had, were taken to Budapest In 1918. Local museums are organlzed territorlally elther as regional or city lnstltutions. To the former group belong the museums at Trenčín, Nitra, Banská Štiavnica, Komarno, Banská Bystrica, Ružomberok, Bardlov, Levoča, and Rimavská Sobota. The leadlng city museums are at Bratislava and at Kremnica. Speclalized museums are the Agricultural Museum at Bratislava, the Tatra Museums at Poprad and Veľká, and the Jewlsh Museum at Prešov. čiansky • • • WHO SAID IT?: - "Durlng my stay in the Unlted States, I spoke with almost all the leaders of Amerlcan democracy, and, as I expected. l found they all had a full understandlng of our just cause. Dr. Benei'a journey to Moacow and ita hiatorical aignificance la a pproved and recognized in Amerlca. Of course, there are a few reactlonarles there who nurse thelr selfish lnterests with exaggerated fear 'of Bolshevism. I dld not even try to convlnce them." -- (Jan Masaryk: l :.ondon Broadcast, February 16, 1944). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 16 SLOVAKIA WHY NO MORE CZEOHOSLOVAKIA ? DR. JOSEPH K I RSCHBAUM After the communist reglme Jn Bohemla and Slovakia came to power in February 1948, there appeared ln Europe, the Unlted States and In other non-European countrles a new "Czechoslovak" emlgration, conststlng of dlsmlssed diplomats and escaped politlcal leaders of the varlous Czech and Slovak civil partles. This emlgration, lf we are to appraise it by lts actlvlty, contlnues in the pollcles of Dr. Eward Beneš and hls followers, whlch means a contlnuatlon in the same mistakes and blunders whlch have evoked two dangerous crises in Europe durlng the past thlrty years. As a result of thls blundering policy more than half the population of the Czecboslovak Republic (Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ukralnlans and Carpatho-Russlans) was elther deprlved of the most fundamental human and civil rlghts, or deslgnedly lmpeded In lts polltlcal and economical development. Prince Adolf zu Schwarzenberg, head of one of tbe oldest families in Bohemia, had thls to say about Czech policy: "Even In norma! tlmes the double game of Czecb policy can be seen Quite clearly. As long as Czecboslovakia adopted the role of dependence on the West, Benes was at the helm and from 1945 onward prepared the dellvery of hls country to the Communists. Al! the mlndste-rs in hls Cablnet {there were about two dozen of them) worked with thelr ldollzed Presldent, and in a most masterly fashion steered thelr country lnto Communlsm, always hop!ng for a good job as a reward for thelr laudable work In the Bolshevist interest." NEW ENGLISH REVIEW MAGAZINE, 1949, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 20-22). It is a fact that Czechoslovakia was re-establlshed at the end of World War II agalnst the w111 of the absolute majori ty of the Slovaks and the many mlll!ons of national minorltles by the polllical actlv!ty of a small group of Czech exiles, who were not concerned "·lth the lnterests of the Czech and Slovak nations, or the interests of the ,vbole of Europe, but were rather Jed by imperlallsm, their persona! amblt!ons and a des!re for revenge. And it ls a historical fact that the Czecboslovak State was surrendered, without res!stance, to the power of Mosoow by these pollticlans just as in 1938-1939, w!thout the least resistance, they surrendered it to Berlin. In tbe llgbt of these faots and In the interest of better organ!· zation and cooperatlon or the Centra! European natlons, as well as In the interest of trutb and justlce, lt appea:-s necessary to point out the arguments whlch speak agalnst the exlstence or the Czechoslovak Republlc. An analysis, lssuing from European and Centro-European points of vlew and not only from the lnterests of natlons and mlnorlt!es whlch were forced tnto the Czecboslovak Republ!c agalnst their wlll, is demanded In this connectlon by our slde, because !t !s based on the motlve contained In the Declaratlon o! Independence of the Unlted ~tates, In whlcb we read: " W hen in t he course of human events, it becomes necessary for SLOVAKIA 17 one people to dissolve the political banda which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separated and equal station to whi ch the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opíníons of mankind requ ires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." What are the causes which led the Slovaks and the minorities to demand the dlssolution of political ties with the Czech nation in t he Czechoslovak Republic? Generally speaking, we can mention, first of all, the following: 1. Tendencies for the preservatlon or restoration of the Czechos lovak Republic do not meet with the approval of the majority of lts inhabitants and the principle of democracy and the principles ex· pressed in the Atlantic Charter. 2. The Czechoslovak Republic has no cause to exist in a just arrangement of Europe even from the standpoint of European in· terests. 3. The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated Centra! Europe. More than thirty years of clever Czech propaganda migh t, at a first glance, contradict these allegations. There Js no argument ahout that. In the mirror of our experience with the propaganda of Goebels, and, today, that of Moscow, we see, however, that even a propaganda of falsehoods can be successful for a time, deceiving and convinclng many people. But the force of truth is eternal. By resorting to lies we may enjoy successes temporarily, but the truth shall prevail in the end. In the case of the Czechoslovak Republic, we are concerned witili nothing more than the truth. Tbat is why we are analyzing the above-mentioned arguments at least in their main outlines. And in dolng this, we pu.rposely refer to the testimonies of· objective, politlcal European observers, so that no one rnight say that the Slovak s truggle for freedom and independence issues from an exaggerated nationalism or natlonal intolerenace, as Cz&eh propaganda designedly claims that it does. The Slovaks were co-founders of the Czechoslovak Republic and would have wished its preservation, if the Czechoslovak State would bave had possessed the prerequisites to fulfill the task that falls to a state in the sense of a modem, sociologlcal conception, on the one hand, and, on the other, from the standpolnt of European interests. The Czechoslovak Repu blic, however, diel not. The Slovaks, therefore, in the lntent of democracy, the Atlantic Charter, and the Charter of the United Nations Organization, are demanding a new order of Centro-Eu.ropean relationships. to which the Czechoslovak Republic definitely 1s an obstacle, as shall be made clear in the arguments that follow. Are the tendenciea to preserve or restore the Czechoslovak Republic in harmony with the will of the majority of ita inhabítanta and the princ iples upon which a modern state ia founded ? 18 SLOVAKIA This question was already asked at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, at whlch the Czechoslovak Republlc was born, as Lloyd George tells us in bis book "The Truth About the Peace Treaties": "Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians - is this not a new Austria which will thus arise under the Czech ban• ner, a new polyglot state in which six nations will be packed together, all filled with hatred of one against the other, arrested in their whole economic and social development and in the progress of their civilization by hate and national strife, nourished by tyranny and poisoning their whole public llfe? - How can the new polyglot State, the artificial work of an imperialist diplomacy, exist without any economic community, geographical unity, or common history?" - {pp. 944, 946). Lloyd George evldently wa.s troubled wlth the prOl)osltion of setting up Czechoslovakia and stated bluntly: "The Czechs were specially favored by the Allies. The result was the recognition of the polyglot and incoherent state of Czechoslovakia." - (p. 948). We see, then, at the very beglnning of the Czechoslovak RepubJic, that nelther the lnterests o( the lnhabitants ot the newly-rlsing s tate, nor tbe prlnclple or the rlght of self-determlnation and of democratlc freedoms were tbe decldlng factors, but only the "special favor of tbe Allles." It was, tberefore, only natural tbat the Czecbo• slovak Republlc durlng al! lts 20 years was troubled with interna! controversles - cleverly masked abroad by a great propaganda apparatu.s - and that lt collapsed wltbout the least resistance of its populatlon with tbe flrst lmpact from outslde in 1938-1939. What is more, we can show that ,tbe majority of the inhabitants even deslred the collapse of the Czechoslovak Republic by quotlng statements of Czech polltlclans themselves and recalllng those made durlng the polltlcal trlals of the "people's" democracy of Czechoslovakla versus the Slovaks, Germans and Magyars - the trials staged by the Czech Government after 1945. Why dld they deslre lts dlssolutlon? Indisputably because the Czechoslovak Republi c dld not satisfy the polltlcal and economlc !nterests and aspirations of its inhabitants, except those of the Czech minority which managed tbe State. Al the Par!s Peace Conference (1919), Dr. Edward Beneš declared that: "lt is the intention of the Czechoslovak Government to create the organlzatlon of tbe State by accepting as a basis of natural rights tbe prlnclples applled in the Constitutlon of tbe Swlss Republlc, tbat !s, to make the Czechoslovak Republlc a sor-t of Swltzerland . . ." Tbe Czecb governments, bowever, did not manage tbe Czechoslovak Republlc as Beneš had promlsed, but In sucb manner as Jf only an exclusive Czecb State was concerned, whose mission apparently wa,s to asslmilate the non-Czech populat!on, and espec!ally the Slovaks, and hold them in cbeck economlcally and soc!ally. Tbe resistance of the other lnhabltants and the support of tbe efforts whlch almed at the dlssolutlon of tbe Czechoslovak Republlc, therefore, became an entlrely logical r~ult of the sltuation in whlcb tbe non-Czech inha.b!tants llved. Tbi.s was abundantly clear to objectlve observers already in 1938. Lloyd George said: "Had the Czech leaders, in tíme and without SLOVAKIA 19 waiting for the menacing preasure of Germany, redeemed their promise to grant local autonomy to the various races in their Republic on the llnes of the Swiu Confederation, the present troubles would (p. 952). Long before 1938, but especlally in the stlrr!ng months before MuniC'h and in the Sprlng of 1939, many dlscern!ng representatlves of the Czech and Slovak natlons were certaln that the Czechoslovak Republlc dld not develop into a forma,tion whlch could more lastlngly assure the secur!ty and the vltal !nterests of both these natlons wh!ch were the ethnlcal foundatlon of the Republlc. Ir the Czech natlon for a Ume enjoyed certa!n advantages because of the exlstence ot Czechoslovak!a, lt was only at the expense of the rest of the inhabitants. But the Czechs later had to pay dearly for those advantages and also had to become aware o[ the fact that the Czechoslovak State could not guarantee the securRy even or the Czech natlon agalnst a slngle nelghbor. As far as the S lovaks are conceTned, they could not resolve tbe ma,tter any other way, because the Slovak natlon In the Czechoslovak State - actually, however, in a CZECH State -· was In a posltlon altogether unbecomlng a cultured natlon, belng exposed to planned ass:lmllatlon and economical exploltatlon by the Czechs, wbom the whole state apparatus served. Here we are not even mentlon!ng th e status of the mlnorities as a problem, which occup!ed the League or Na.Uons for twenty years and, later, was an opportune alibi for the liquldation of the Cz-echoslovak Republ!c. Th!s problem, as well as t hat of the Slovak.s, was dealt with by such personallties as Lord Run• clman and C. A. Macartney. Rererrlng to Czechoslovak!a, the latter wrote: have been averted" - "The fact remains that the Government has been obliged more often than not to rule Slovakia against the wishes of most of its inhabltants, maintaining itself only by the expedienta of restrictlng the power, of the self-governing bodies to within the narrowest posslble limita, of filling the seats designated for 'experu' with its own nominees, and utilizing freely weapons of censorship and police supervision" (H UNGAIRY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 145). After completlng bis miss!on In 1938, Lord Runciman made even more unfavorable statements In reportlng on the status or the more than three and a half mlll!on German minority in the Republ!c. He said: " I have been left with the impreaaion that Czechoslovak rule in the Sudeten areas for the last twenty years ... has been marked by tactlessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance and discriminatio n, to a point where the resentment of the German populatlon was inevitably moving in the d irection of revolt. The Sudeten Germans fel>t, too, that in the past they had been given many promises by the Czechoslovak Government, but that llttle or no action had fol lowed these promises...." (Britlsh White Paper, Cmd. 5847). That is why the Republlc was not derended when Its in tegrity was threatened and, la,ter, not even when lts very exlstence was In danger. Not by a single nation of Czechoslovakia, not even the Czech natlon! 20 S LOVAKIA On the contrary, its dlssolutlon was made possible by its own inha.bitan,ts, the majority of whom could realize their natural right to freedom and their o wn State only by the destruction of Czechos lovakia. So it happened in the case of the Slovaks. W ri ting about the S lovaks in 1942, Macartney said: " ... most of them found themselves unable to accept the Peace Confe rence thesis of a unitary Czechoslovak nation. Some of them fe lt this to mean, in practice, domination by the economically and socially atronger Czecha, and they reacted in the form of a flamboyant Slovak nationalism which was the main reason for the absence of revolt with which they accepted the dissolution of the Czechos lovak State" (PRO BLEMS OF T HE DANUBE BASIN, p. 122). Dur ing the Second World War, a group of Czech exiles in London (The Czech Natio nal Commiltee) and Slovak exiles (The S lovak Na• tional Council in London), both fighting on the sid e of the Allies, tried to find a diťferent solutlon to the Czech and S lovak pr oblem than that which the fľamework of Czechoslovakia offered. Representatives of the Czech and Slovak natlons, in accord w ith the prlnciple of the right of self-determlnation and the r ight of every nation to independence, proposed ,the organlzing of a separate Slovak State and a separate Czech State within the framewo rk of a larger federalive Centro-European unit. Their efforts were prompted not only by t he interests of their own nations, but also by the interests of Eu ropean peace and prosperity, as well as by a sense for justice and the righ t. A g roup of Czech poli ticians headed by Ben eš, however, motivated by persona! prestige, by a desfre for revenge a nd the re newal of Czech i mperia'lism more than by t he interests of its own nation, did not hes.ltate to surrender the destiny of the Czech and Slovak natlons to the "tender" mercies of th~ Soviet Un ion. Unfortunately for the nations concerned, for Europe and the democratic world, this group of political madmen realized tbeir program. The Czechoslovak Republlc was restored by the grace of Moscow. Of course, no t in the interests of the Czecbs and the Slovaks, but, as it is abundantly clear today, in the interests of Moscow. Robert Ingrim, forelgn correspondent of leading European newspapers, wrote in 1946: " Russia's aim, when signing that t reaty against the wishes of Ame rica and Britain, was, of course, not to sec ure Czechia as an a ll y. They made use of Benes' fea r of a frontier revision in order to get a strong foothold in the he art of th e Continent" - (AFTER HITLER STALIN? - P. 180). What develo ped in the Czechoslovak Republic after 1945, and es pecially th e events of Feb ruary 1948, definitely prove that point. flut we must a lso state tbat restored Czechoslovakia realized it could exist only by having a Czecb majority assured. Beneš and his group were only too well aware of that and, therefore, promoted tbeir pian for ousting the Germans and Magyars trom Czechoslovakia. Because they were successful, over three million Germans and almost a half m illlon Magya rs were expelled from the ·Republic. Tbe consequences of thls " hum ane and orderly " expulsion by Beneš and bis regime will be feLt for a long time to the detriment of cooperation between the natlons of Centra! Europe. SLOVAKIA 21 The majority of the Slovaks was definitely against the restoration of Czechoslovakla. Because the Slovak nation was not given an opportunity to express itself about i.ts own destlny, it felt and even today feels that lt was wrong, morally and otherwise, to destroy the independent State o! Slovakla, and that it was deprived of its rlght to ind ependence illegally and by vlolence. What happened in Slovakia s ince the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republic has only steeled the Slovaks In thelr determination to revolt agains.t the Czech lmperialistic St.rute at the fil'st opportnne moment and 1-.estore their own S lovak State. F. A. VoigU had this to say a bout the Czech-Slovak relat!onship: "The conflict between the Czechs and Slovaks appears to be irreconcilable. lt would seem that the Czechoslovak State is, today, a fiction and that it will never again be a reality, for if RuHian overlordahip were removed, the Czechs could only reaHert their authority over the Slovaks by force of arms - and in this they would surely fail, for they have not one friend in Central Europe, whereas the Slovaks have many" (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, Nov. 1945). As a result of the sltuation prevailing today, thousands of Slovak exiles in Europe, a million and a half Americans of Slovak descent, and many thousands of Slovaks in Canada, England, Argentína, Belgium, Spain, France, I,taly, Austria and Swltzerland, as well as an overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation at horne, are fighting for an Independent Slovak State, the only pol!tlcal formation which can guarantee their national existence and happlness According to the repo11t of the Prague Ministry of the Interi01•, there were uncovered 36 conspiracies in Slovakia against the Republic in Jess than two years. Thls reslstance against the State of the Czechs and Slovaks continues despite the fact that a large percentage of Slovak intellectuals has been cast into jall, tortured and exiled. and despite the fact that about 300,000 Slovaks have been transferred to the Czech-German border to weaken resistancP. in Slovakia. The logical concluslon to be drawn from all this is that from 1945 restored Czechoslovakia is belng preserved only by brute force and suppression of the most fundamental natlonal and indivldual rights, and that Czechoslovakla is a negation of all the rlghts which modern society has des igna.ted to a state for the purpose and lntent of its existence: to guarantee a free political and economical development of its people. II The Czechoslovak Republic has no reason to exist in a righteous arrangement of Europe from the viewpoint of European interests. While the Czechoslovak Republic, in the democratic sense, did not and does not fulfill the functlons of a state in relation to the majority of lts inhabitants, it is not difficult to find proofs that there ls no reason for this State to exist even as far as the interests of Europe are concerned, and much less so as far as the interests of Centra! Europe are concerned. At the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia was formed with the intention that lt would perform the function of a defensive barrier 22 SLOVAKIA agalnst Germany and that it would be a part of the cordon sanitaire against Russla. Lloyd George wrote that Beneš assured the Peace Conference that "the Czecha were protectors of democracy against Germaniam" and that "it was their duty at all timea to fi ght the Germans" - (p. 932). Czechoslovakia, however, did not fulflll a slngle functlon it was supposed to, but conversely, wlth lts senseless policy towards the non-Czech majority of its lnhabitant.s, lt flrst weakened the proposed system of defense against Germany and then was the alibi and the cause for the collapse of thls system and, therefore, helped German aggression In Centra! Europe. Durlng all twenty years of its existence, the Czecbóslovak Repub• lic could not find a posltlve relationship toward even a slngle one ot its nelghbors. With its Interna! and forelgn policles, it actually prevented the consoUdat!on of the Oentro-European area and indirectly prepared the ground for the s uccess of the policy of Natlonal Sociallsm of Germany whlch, on the other hand, galned not only the mlnorlties of Czechoslovakia, but also the na.tions to which these mlnorltles belonged, by promislng to apply and abide by the natlonality prlnclple. And so, instead of becoming a barrler agalnst Germany, Czechoslovakia actually became the gate whereby Germany passed into the Danube area and southeastern Europe without any opposltion whatsoever. Instead of stopping German aggression and German im periallsm, Czechoslovakla substaf\tially facilitated the German "Drang nach Osten." And looktng from that va.ntage point, what is the situation slnce 1945? After 1-ts restoration in 1945, did the Czechoslovak State become a "bastlon o! democracy" as promis'E!d by the Czech pol!ticlans who requested the Allies to restore lt? Of course, we kno1~ that it did not. The fact 1s that it did not even become a brldge between the East and the West In the posltive sense, but only a brldge for the trafflc of the Soviet Union and lts satellltes. Over this brldge the Soviet Union went unlmpedéd into the heart of Europe. At the same Ume Czechoslovakla became the gate through which the Soviet Union and communlsm will attack the democratlc world. And who is to blame for that? In a large mea.sure all those who worked so energetioally for the restoration of Czechoslovakia In order to assure their "trlumphant" return home, the restoratlon of the Czechoslovak State w.hich collapsed so utterly in 1939, and also the assent of the Allles to expel the German and Magyar mlnorities, the Czech polltlcians, headed by Beneš, not only concluded an agreement wlth Moscow, whereby the Soviet Union w.as enabled to interfere In the affairs of Czechoslovakia, but also allowed the Soviet Union to take Ruthenia wlthout any regard for the will of the inhabltanta thereof and in violatlon of ~he Czechoslovak Con.stitutlon. Thus, Russla for the flrst tlme in its hlstory got a foothold in the Danube Basin only a few kllometers from Bu<lapest and Vlenna. The transfer of Ruthenla to the Soviet Union took place In the Sprlng of 19!l5--as compensatlon for the Sovleťs assent to expel the G-ermana .and -•Magyars from Czechoslovakla. From a polltlcal· and SLOVAK.IA 23 strategic viewpoint, this was a great victory for the Soviet Union. Robert l ngrim had this to say about the matter: "The alliance with the Czechs who, wlthout Aussian aupport, would have been unable to re-establish their rule over a non-Czech majority of Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, and Authenians, is one prong of Stalin's great hayfork.... A look at the map of Europe showa the meaning of that hayfork. By including the eaatern part of formerly Auatrian Galícia in her Poliah booty, Ruaaia establishes territori al contact with the Czech satellite. The westernmoat tip of Bohernia is but 200 miles off the French border" (Op. cit. p. 181-182). Furthermore, Czech polltlclans under the leadershlp of Beneš not only prevented the possiblllty of harmonious cooperatlon of the nations of Centra! Europe, but wf.th the!r deportatlons evoked s-uch a fear of German retrlbution that they themselves see a guarantee of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia only In the politlcal and mil!tary support of the Soviet Union. In thls respect, note,.vorthy is the statement of Dr. Beneš hlmself, addressed In 1947 to a Slovak delegatlon headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich: " T he Czechs cannot accept under any circumstances an independent Slovakia i n the future •.• The Czechs, having on the one side 70 million Germans, must on the other side have Aussia as their neighbor. Therefore, they could not accept an independent Slovakia. This is a vítal problem for the existence of the Czechs as a nation and as a State" (Feb. 16, 1947). Consequently the inhabltants of Czechoslovak\a are forced to support the pollcles of the Soviet Union In the interest of the exlstence of Czechoslovakia, even though thelr polltlcal convictlons and sympathies are In dlametrical confllct wlth those pol!cles. On the otber hand, however, lt follow-s that the Czecboslovak State bases 1s exlstence only on the mllltary and pol!tlcal m1ght of a forelgn power; consequently lt has become a tool of that power and does not possess abll!ty and vítal force of !ts own to exlst as a sovereign state. T.bereln we must also seek the reason why the communist putsch of February 1948 dld not meet witb any reslstance even from the Czech nation. The very exdstence of the Czechoslovak State, whlch was not capable of exlstlng by ltself and was founded on the suppresslon of freedoms of other nat!ons, demanded the subjugat!on not only of the Czech people, hut also the Slovak natlon, w,h lch was over 70 per cent antl-communlst, by the commun!st totalltarian dlctatorshlp. The consequences of thla pollcy, whereby the so-called "raJson d'Etat" was placed before the interest of the freedom and the llfe of the lnhabltants, are lll-fated not only for the Czech and Slovak na• tions, but the Soviet Union, by means of th!s pollcy, got lnto the very heart of the E uropean contlnent and communlsm galned an important gateway through whi-ch lt can attack western Europe. Thus Czechoslovakla, twlce wlthln a slngle decade, made it posslble or substantlally easler for lmperlallsm to enter Europe and thréaten the freedoms of lts natlons: In 1938 the lmperlal!sm ot natlonally soclalistlc Germany and, In 1946-48, the lmper!allsm of communlst Russla. So, the functlon given the Czechoslovak Republlc, or that whlch !ts creators promlsed lt would perform. was not only not fulfllled, but, conversely, th!s State - besldes preventlng the coop- 24 SLOVAKIA eration of the nations of Centra! Europe and oppressing the majority of lts inhabitants - has cast Europe into dangerou.s crises twlce within a single decade and facilitated the victory of those forces, against wh1ch lt was supposed to serve, directly or indirectly, as a barrler. Therefore, it appears evldent that the exlstence of this State uot only does not have motivatlon, but that it is in the interest of Europe and its healthy organlzation that this synthetlc formatien. founded on violence and the suppression of the most fundamental freedoms of millions of human beings and existing only with the help oľ a foreign power, definitely disappear from the map of Europe. Such is the conviction not only of the absolute majoľ'ity of the S lovak nation and its true representatives, who never agreed with the restoration of the Czechoslovak Republlc, but also the convictlon of many upright and freedom-Jovlng Czechs, who fought on the side of the Allies during the past war for the creation of a separate Czech State and a separate Slovak State within a framework of a federated Centra) Europe. These Czechs have refused to return to the synthetic political creation which does not reflect the will of the majority or its !nha'bitants, but is in fact the tool of the policy and aims of the Soviet Union. 111 The Czechoslovak Republic has no place in a federated Europe or a federated C entral Europe. If the Czechoslovak Republic has no raison ďetre in a system of sovereign states fľom a standpoint of European interests - the securlty of Central Europe and a harmonious relationship of lts na• tions - then the existence of this unnatura! formation appears to be utterly useless and unjust in the case of federating Europe, or at least Central Europe. There are several logical and objective argu• ip.ents in support of this statement. The Czechoslovak Republic, as we have seen, was created wíth the intent of forming a barrier against German expansion, and in 1945 it was restored so it could be a bastion of democracy and a bridge be· tween the East and the West. In these functions !t falled miserably. And these motlves do not hold in the case of a federation of Europe, or at least Centra! Europe. Indivldual states, whlch could not stop aggression in Europe even with a system of alliances, certainly wlll not play the role, in a federated Europe, of preventlng a repetition of a German attack or Russlan hegemony; that wlll be the role of the federation of the Continent, or that of Centra! Europe. The argument that Czechoslovakia should be retained, because it is a larger unit than would ·be either a Czech or Slovak unit, cannot play a part in the case of a European or Centro-European federation. Strategic and economic arguments, which give priority to larger for· mations, have not proved themselves in the case of Czechoslovak!a even wlth a system of soverelgn states, because factually it could not defend ltself against any one of its neighbors. The lnclusion of the minorities and the creation of a Czechoslovakia wlth some 15 mill!on inhabitants would conmct w!th the basic principle of federalism and the expressed right of nations to self-determination. SLOVAKIA 25 Furtherm ore the Czech nation, which has gone over to the cam p of the satelltes of the Soviet Union more or less wlllingly, cannot h31Ve any claims w hich would give it preference over all its other neighbors and allow the Czechs to annex territories occupied by nonCzech inh ab itants. After 1945, when Hungary and Germany were defeated States, and Cz~ hoslovakia - whether deservingly or not - was included a mong the victorious Allles, it was possible to restore Czechoslovakia with lts old borders, especially when Slovakia was to be punished for not being on the border of P ortugal, but on t he border of Germany, and, therefore, was included in the camp of the defeated. In a E urope liberated from t he hegemony of Moscow, not a single argument used to validate the orlgin or the restoration of -the Czechos lovak Re public wlll be aible to be used in the future, especially no t in the case of federalization of Europe or Centra! Europe. The feder• ative principle excludes hegemony of one nation over another. In the case of Slovakia, then, what logical argument can there be against the Slovak natlon h aving its own independen t State? 1s lt logical and just to say that every nation, no matter how small, EXCEPT THE SLOVAK NA'l'ION, has an inherent right to fr~dom and independence? What lnterest of the United States, England or France - or t hat of the Cent ro-European nations, wh o do not wlsh the exist· ence of the Czechoslovak Republic and already in 1939 r ecognized the righ t of th e Slov.aks to independence - could be served by such an arg ument? What loglcal arguments can there be against the just dem and of the Slovaks to be recognized legally as equal wHh other nations? In 1918 the Slovak nation was included in Czechoslovakia, by the great powers, because Dr. Edward Beneš, T. G. Masaryk and Czech propaganda claimed t hat Slovaks were Czechs who spoke a dialect o f the Czech language and, therefore, the principle of self-determination did no t a pply to them. W hen Andrew Hlinka wanted to expose this fah,e claim, he was expelled from P aris at the request of Dr. Beneš u nder th e pr etext that he was an agent of the Vatican and the Habsbu rgs. And Dr. Beneš was successful with bis "big lie" a bout the non-existence of the Slovak nation. The distinguished Eng lish historian, C. A. Macartney has this to say on the matt&r: "The story of the gradual adoption by the Allies of the theses of Masaryk and his group cannot and need not be reto ld here. By patient and indefatigable propaganda, they implanted their major postulatea - the existence of a "Czechoslovak nation" and the desire of the Slovak branch of it to form a part of Czechoslovak State- so firm ly in the minds of the Allies that they were never serious ly questioned at the Peace Conference. The "Czecho-Slovak" Govern ment had been recognized by a ll the princ ipal Allied and Assoc iated Powers even before the peace negotiations began -- an act whic h implied that the Slovak queation waa in principle already s ettled - while when t he moment arrived for settling a ll questions of detai l, including the drafting of a frontier, it found the Czecho-Slovak Government firmly establiahed as a negotiating party; indeed, in something like a priv ileged position" (HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS, p. 98). 26 SLOVAKIA Can the arguments of Masaryk and Beneš be appl!ed today or Iu the future? The fabrlcator ot that falsebood hlmself "had to" capltulate and recognlze the exlstence ot the Independent Slovak natlon. In the end Beneš was opposed to only "the proclalmlng and a manifestatlonal recognitlon of the Slovaks a.s a natlon wholly soverelgn," because, accordlng to bim, "any klnd of proclamation and manitestatlonal recognltlon of the Slovaks as a natlon totally soverelgn, not dependent on the Czechs, must lead firat to the deaire and then even to the realization of Slovak atatehood ltaelf" - (ÚVAHY O SLOVAN• STv1, p. 353). Beneš was not the only one who capltulated on that score. Other Czeohs and many Slovak adherents of the thesls o! a "unita.ry Czecboslova.k nation" - wbo made a good llvlng out of lt at the expense o! -the Slovak uation - also caplitulated. Is lt still posslble to prevent the Slovak natlon from passlng from the deslre to the "realizatlon of thelr own Slovak statehood"? What arguments are there to pre• vent thls? The argument that the Slovaks are not sufficiently mature to manage thelr own affalrs certalnly does not hold today. Even sucb a Cze-0hophlle as Dr. Mllan Hodža admltted tbat "Slovaki;i has reached if not paased the Central European's civilization level ... Some political writers in thia country used to be rather skeptical about Slova. kla and her position and even about her political ability to live. Today it is evidently proved that these doubts were unfounded" - (FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, Jarolds, London, 1942, p. 94). The Engllsh expert on Centro-European questlons, C. A. Macartney, stated that In Slovakia there exlsts "a distinctive Slovak nationalism as a factor of the Danubian situation" (PROBLEMS OF THE DANUBE BASIN, London, 1942, p. 122). And let us ask a further question: Wlll lt be loglcally possible to use the argument that the Slovaks, whether in emlgratlon or at home, would not flght for thelr independence on the slde of the democracles? The Slovaks, who are dedlcated to an Independent Slovakla, are In thls !lght, wblch 1s being waged agalnst communist aggresslon, tor over a hundred years as a natlon and their past 1s not sullled by collaboratlon with communlsm. Could the western democracles, therefore, belleve the propaganda of a few Beneš Slovaks (Czechoslovaks) who collaborated with communls m and helped lt to power and then escaped abroad only when they could no Jonger hold government posltlons to enrich themselves - and dlsregard the will of the overwhelmlng majority of the Slovak natlon and lts representatlves In E>migratlon wbo stand for a separate, democratlc Slovak State witbln the framework of a federated Europe or Centra! EurQpe? ·. 1For what reasons? By an objectlve analysls, we can come to only one concluslon: in a federated Europe or Centra! Europe, the Czechoslovak Repub11c bas no rea:son to exlst and can exlst only by tbe grace of some greá.t power, just as lt dld up to 1938 by the grace of France and England, and just as lt does today by tbe grace of tbe Soviet Union. But outslde tbe Soviet Union, there ls no sucb great power whlch In tbe future would need a heterogenous Czechoslovak State founded on BLOVAKIA 27 violence and preventing the cooperatlon of the European natlons. Centra! Europe wlll need peace and a harmonlous cohabltatlon of natlons to recover from the wounds infllcted by the war and the Russlan occupation. Czech-oslovakla has definltely shown - as up to 1938, so even after 1945 - that it cannot flnd a positlve relatlonshlp toward lts neighbors, that lts exlstence evokes an atmosphere of dlstrust and revlslonism and violates the natural order of the Central-European area. Therefore, there can be no place for the Czechoslovak State In that area. • • • MUSEUMS OF SLOVAKIA The three Jeading museums of Slovakia are in Bratislava, TurSvätý Martin, and Košice. The Agrlcultural Museum In Bratislava, seriously damaged by bombs in 1944, 1s devoted principally to geology, soil, t he cultlvatlon or plants, lncluding frult trees and vegetables, animal husbandry, forestry, and zoology_ The museum iu the capital or Slovakia has In its program to present as complete a plcture as possible of the archaeology, of the creatlve arts, and of the Natural Hlstory of the land, with spe<:ial emphasls on Western Slovak1a. Its ethnographic collect!ons are not as extensive as those at Turčiansky Svätý Martin whlch was establlshed iJl 1896 by local patrlots and was maintalned by them. Ln a.ddltion to the aforemeniioned unu-sually rich e thnogra,phic materlal, the museum possesses a noteworthy collectlon o! models of typical Slovak wooden bulldings. Slnce the city was the prlnclpal headquarters of Slovak natlonal and cultural actlvity, there is assembled here also invaluable source material concernlng the literary progress of the !and. The Eastern Slovakla Museum at Košice possesses a valuable library of over thirty thousand volumes and interestlng collectlons of archeologloal and Natural History Qlbjects. The paintings, whlcb the museum had, were taken to Budapest In 1918. Local museums are organlzed territorlally elther as regional or city lnstltutions. To the former group belong the museums at Trenčín, Nitra, Banská Štiavnica, Komarno, Banská Bystrica, Ružomberok, Bardlov, Levoča, and Rimavská Sobota. The leadlng city museums are at Bratislava and at Kremnica. Speclalized museums are the Agricultural Museum at Bratislava, the Tatra Museums at Poprad and Veľká, and the Jewlsh Museum at Prešov. čiansky • • • WHO SAID IT?: - "Durlng my stay in the Unlted States, I spoke with almost all the leaders of Amerlcan democracy, and, as I expected. l found they all had a full understandlng of our just cause. Dr. Benei'a journey to Moacow and ita hiatorical aignificance la a pproved and recognized in Amerlca. Of course, there are a few reactlonarles there who nurse thelr selfish lnterests with exaggerated fear 'of Bolshevism. I dld not even try to convlnce them." -- (Jan Masaryk: l :.ondon Broadcast, February 16, 1944).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why No More Czechoslovakia? Description An account of the resource Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 pp. 16-27 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 December 1951 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/3380d34be5fcf938a0d1f7129710a52d.pdf 2f234003418e579f04ecd8bd5ce32a42 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 59 WHY DID BENES RESIGN IN 1938? P. A. Hrobak This quest.ion still. puzzles many people. Benes hlmself, both in his letter to the government and in !his speech to the people in paTting, 1lol'd Why he had Tesigned, but he told it in such a way :that it is not fully clear to the average person. To say it simply a:nd briefJy: Benes resigned beca1USe the policy of which he himself had been the chief exponent and representative for twenty years had proved faulty; it went bankrupt and he could, therefore, no longer remain at the head Ol:f the State. He himself told it in !this manner: "I 'had played so great a role in this deve1opment of events that I had to contemplate seTiously what my duty should be under ,c hanged ciircumstances. . . . I came into office under entirely different circumstances; and iI must reckon this adtuality. Circumstances have changed so completely, that I feel my remaining in office might create an obstacle in the new ci;z-cumstances with which our State is now coping . . . This is mainly so, as it concerns the international situation with a view towards :t:Jhe speedy (In a building up of cooperation with om neighbors" letter to Premier GeneTal Syirovy). "I have reached my decision of my own free will and in accordance with my person:al conviction after conswltation with <politi~al and constibuitional circles and with a number of other leading persons. . . In these ciiroomstances I think it is advisable that the new developments and the new European coliaboration should not be disturbed from our side through the faot that the personal position of its leading 1representative rupparently 0onstitutes an obstacle to tihls development. I was elected to my present position at a time s:ubstamJtially different from 1Jhe pres(,Farewell Broadcast, Oct. 5, 1938: MEMOIRS, ent." 1954, pp. 292-293). What these words of Benes actwail.ly meant wiU, perhaps, be best e.xiplained by a few quotations from Czech periodicals of 1938: �60 SLOVAKIA "Orf necessity our. :uuture pr0igram ,c ontains good re'lations with Ge:ranany - a program which we could have adopted long ago, iif ilt were not for the 'oavalierislh' Western Poweir,s which threatened to brook off theiir allialil.ce with us m suiCh an event" - Stanislav Yester, "Lidove Noviny, Oct. 5). '~Venlkov" called fOT lnew, friendlly conltacits with ,n eighbodng states, and a;sked for "awaJkening from dreams into reality .a nd the acceptance of a program which will be ours." "We do not know what wihl come next in :@urope. We do know, however, that nea,r us iis a power with which our state 0annot a,1low itself to come irnto dispute. Long enough already have we played for othern the role of a genda;rme who keeps Genmany in check: when the crucial moment came, we fownd ourseLves deseTted - alone. . . Well, good. If the woTild is to be governed not by j,u stice, bwt by force, the:n our place is with those who harve the greater strength and are more d ecisive. N ot!hing else remains for us. We <look for unity with Germany . .. And let us become, liike Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, one of G€rmamy's }a,rge 1proviiders and buyers, amd let uis refuse to enter into a ,c ombination of any kind, in which we would become part .o f an anti-Genm~ front. We are now thinking onily of O'lN'.selves and 'let UIS be loyal only to ourselves" -- ("Lidove Noviny," Oct. 5). "We have aJ.ready 'had more than enaugh ·orf t'he wailing sympathy of the western states 'towaJrdsi that courageous little n:a tion.' . . . We call beyond our bo,rdecrs: Put am end to your unwelcome manifestations oif sympathy towards Czecho-Slovakia. We are finally realizing what om standing in Cenrtrrul Emrope is, and we shaU guide OIUTselves 1acoordingly, whether you J[ke it or not. Ouir nation hears its defeat and hum..hliation not onily with pain, but wi11h great pride. We had /been betting on t'he wrong horse, a,nd we know how to take the necessaJry consequences.'' - ("Lidove Listy," OcJt. '5 ). We see that one after the other they admit to the fault of Czecho-Slovakia's twenty-year foreign policy. But �SLOVAKIA 61 who wa,s i,t that determined the trend of :Czecho-Slavakia's foreign policy for :twenty yearn? Of coUJrse, it rwa;s Benes! It was Benes who made Czecho~SlovaJkia whoHy dependent upon the ,l ove of France and, England, and it was Benes who did not permit Czecho-Slova:kia to attempt to make friends with Germany, as Bulga~ia and Yiugo,s[avia had done. It wa:s Bernes who made of CzecJho-Slov,aJkia a French gendarme to stand guard over Germany; and it was Benes who did not know how to ,rouse himself frrom a d<re3Jlll. and open his eyes to the reality that France and England did not know how to derul with Germany. It was Benes who ohstiinately held Czecho-Slovaikia in that runti-German front. Jt was IBenes who !bet on the wrong horse. And finally, it was Benes who paid no heed to the warnings coming frolffi the Slovak awtonomisrt ,camp (P.opul1ists and Nati,onalists), but also from Czech soUTces (Kramaf and otJhers) : that tJhe fore~gn po1ky of Czecho-Slovwkia was dangerous. and against her interests . Under such circumstances, when his h1wndering foreign poHcy contribulted in no smal,l measure to what had happened, Benes co'lllld do nothing else but resign. Of course, his apologists may say that Benes meant well, that he did not wish the State ill, but he was too trusting, since he depended upon the alliance with France; and, perh1a ps, he was not foresi,g hted enough, 1siince he did not see long ago,, in s,pite orf numerous and repeated warnings, which way the European wind was blowing. People noticed it in Yugoslavia, they noticed it in Bulgaria, they noticed it in Ro:umamia and they noticed it a lso in P.Oiland - aJnd they went with the wind. Benes did not notice it; he went ,a gainst the wind. And when he did begin to notice that things were going bad, he committed the cardinal error of not turning ,a bout quickly, hut against the wiind even more and cond uded a military pact with Soviet Rlu!ssia! 'J.1hat was the red cloth ,b efore the al,r e~dy hl'ritated dictators, Hitleir and iMus,s,o1ini. And ffingland, Whffil it came to deciding for or against war, was fiHed with fear that, if there should be a war, Central �62 SLOVAKIA EUTope would be O'Ver-run by Stalin's red army, which nobody, perhaps, omtld ever drive Ol,!t of it. When Benes departed, there left with him twenty years of faulty Czecho-Slovak foreign poticy. As we see from qu'Otations above, it has already been admitted also by those who approved of his policy and supported it. And with Benes there rulso departed twenty years of faulty internall policy, for let us not forget that Benes was one of the most leadmg exiponents of "Czechoslovruk" national unity and 1:he greatest opponent of Slovak autonomy. The Czechs also noticed thi,s fault of internal policy, lbut did not profit by it am.y more than T. G. Masaryk and Benes did by the ,l esson of Austr10-<Hl\l!Ilgary. Perhaps it was too late to do anything about the malignant cancer which had been planted in the political life of Czecho-Slova.kia, which, liike Austro-Hungary, ihad ,b ecome a prison to non-Czech nations. T. G. ,M.asarylk and Dr. Edward Benes had founded Ozecho~Slovakia on a [ie, bwlt it on more lies and inequities, but still Joudly proclaimed on every occasion that the "truth prevaiJs" ! Well, truth did prevail, despite the hypocrisy of the Czech founders of the Repuiblic. Benes resigned the presidency a.nd fled the country during its f,i rst great crisis, because he was a coward. He did wrong 13.iild he knew it. H1s people knew it, too. He capitulated to Hlitler, ,a ccepting .Muruch without even consuJlting the iparliament of CzeC'ho-Slovrukia. Ha:d he not :fled, who knows butt that iBenes might have been tried for treason and hung in 1938 by his own people? • • • WHO SAID IT? "New Ozecho..Slovakia will be a Slav state which, while having good relations with the great western democracies, will politically, economically, militarily and ou1turn1ly lean without any resel"Vations on the victorious ibuliwruik olf Slav peoples, the USSR, and cooperate with the Sl8JV and democratic states of Poland and the Yugoslav federation of states." - Laco Novomesky, d~puty-chairman of the Slovaik National Council.,. headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich, OWI Bll!lletin, May 26, 1945. � SLOVAKIA 59 WHY DID BENES RESIGN IN 1938? P. A. Hrobak This quest.ion still. puzzles many people. Benes hlmself, both in his letter to the government and in !his speech to the people in paTting, 1lol'd Why he had Tesigned, but he told it in such a way :that it is not fully clear to the average person. To say it simply a:nd briefJy: Benes resigned beca1USe the policy of which he himself had been the chief exponent and representative for twenty years had proved faulty; it went bankrupt and he could, therefore, no longer remain at the head Ol:f the State. He himself told it in !this manner: "I 'had played so great a role in this deve1opment of events that I had to contemplate seTiously what my duty should be under ,c hanged ciircumstances. . . . I came into office under entirely different circumstances; and iI must reckon this adtuality. Circumstances have changed so completely, that I feel my remaining in office might create an obstacle in the new ci;z-cumstances with which our State is now coping . . . This is mainly so, as it concerns the international situation with a view towards :t:Jhe speedy (In a building up of cooperation with om neighbors" letter to Premier GeneTal Syirovy). "I have reached my decision of my own free will and in accordance with my person:al conviction after conswltation with <politi~al and constibuitional circles and with a number of other leading persons. . . In these ciiroomstances I think it is advisable that the new developments and the new European coliaboration should not be disturbed from our side through the faot that the personal position of its leading 1representative rupparently 0onstitutes an obstacle to tihls development. I was elected to my present position at a time s:ubstamJtially different from 1Jhe pres(,Farewell Broadcast, Oct. 5, 1938: MEMOIRS, ent." 1954, pp. 292-293). What these words of Benes actwail.ly meant wiU, perhaps, be best e.xiplained by a few quotations from Czech periodicals of 1938: �60 SLOVAKIA "Orf necessity our. :uuture pr0igram ,c ontains good re'lations with Ge:ranany - a program which we could have adopted long ago, iif ilt were not for the 'oavalierislh' Western Poweir,s which threatened to brook off theiir allialil.ce with us m suiCh an event" - Stanislav Yester, "Lidove Noviny, Oct. 5). '~Venlkov" called fOT lnew, friendlly conltacits with ,n eighbodng states, and a;sked for "awaJkening from dreams into reality .a nd the acceptance of a program which will be ours." "We do not know what wihl come next in :@urope. We do know, however, that nea,r us iis a power with which our state 0annot a,1low itself to come irnto dispute. Long enough already have we played for othern the role of a genda;rme who keeps Genmany in check: when the crucial moment came, we fownd ourseLves deseTted - alone. . . Well, good. If the woTild is to be governed not by j,u stice, bwt by force, the:n our place is with those who harve the greater strength and are more d ecisive. N ot!hing else remains for us. We <look for unity with Germany . .. And let us become, liike Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, one of G€rmamy's }a,rge 1proviiders and buyers, amd let uis refuse to enter into a ,c ombination of any kind, in which we would become part .o f an anti-Genm~ front. We are now thinking onily of O'lN'.selves and 'let UIS be loyal only to ourselves" -- ("Lidove Noviny," Oct. 5). "We have aJ.ready 'had more than enaugh ·orf t'he wailing sympathy of the western states 'towaJrdsi that courageous little n:a tion.' . . . We call beyond our bo,rdecrs: Put am end to your unwelcome manifestations oif sympathy towards Czecho-Slovakia. We are finally realizing what om standing in Cenrtrrul Emrope is, and we shaU guide OIUTselves 1acoordingly, whether you J[ke it or not. Ouir nation hears its defeat and hum..hliation not onily with pain, but wi11h great pride. We had /been betting on t'he wrong horse, a,nd we know how to take the necessaJry consequences.'' - ("Lidove Listy," OcJt. '5 ). We see that one after the other they admit to the fault of Czecho-Slovakia's twenty-year foreign policy. But �SLOVAKIA 61 who wa,s i,t that determined the trend of :Czecho-Slavakia's foreign policy for :twenty yearn? Of coUJrse, it rwa;s Benes! It was Benes who made Czecho~SlovaJkia whoHy dependent upon the ,l ove of France and, England, and it was Benes who did not permit Czecho-Slova:kia to attempt to make friends with Germany, as Bulga~ia and Yiugo,s[avia had done. It wa:s Bernes who made of CzecJho-Slov,aJkia a French gendarme to stand guard over Germany; and it was Benes who did not know how to ,rouse himself frrom a d<re3Jlll. and open his eyes to the reality that France and England did not know how to derul with Germany. It was Benes who ohstiinately held Czecho-Slovaikia in that runti-German front. Jt was IBenes who !bet on the wrong horse. And finally, it was Benes who paid no heed to the warnings coming frolffi the Slovak awtonomisrt ,camp (P.opul1ists and Nati,onalists), but also from Czech soUTces (Kramaf and otJhers) : that tJhe fore~gn po1ky of Czecho-Slovwkia was dangerous. and against her interests . Under such circumstances, when his h1wndering foreign poHcy contribulted in no smal,l measure to what had happened, Benes co'lllld do nothing else but resign. Of course, his apologists may say that Benes meant well, that he did not wish the State ill, but he was too trusting, since he depended upon the alliance with France; and, perh1a ps, he was not foresi,g hted enough, 1siince he did not see long ago,, in s,pite orf numerous and repeated warnings, which way the European wind was blowing. People noticed it in Yugoslavia, they noticed it in Bulgaria, they noticed it in Ro:umamia and they noticed it a lso in P.Oiland - aJnd they went with the wind. Benes did not notice it; he went ,a gainst the wind. And when he did begin to notice that things were going bad, he committed the cardinal error of not turning ,a bout quickly, hut against the wiind even more and cond uded a military pact with Soviet Rlu!ssia! 'J.1hat was the red cloth ,b efore the al,r e~dy hl'ritated dictators, Hitleir and iMus,s,o1ini. And ffingland, Whffil it came to deciding for or against war, was fiHed with fear that, if there should be a war, Central �62 SLOVAKIA EUTope would be O'Ver-run by Stalin's red army, which nobody, perhaps, omtld ever drive Ol,!t of it. When Benes departed, there left with him twenty years of faulty Czecho-Slovak foreign poticy. As we see from qu'Otations above, it has already been admitted also by those who approved of his policy and supported it. And with Benes there rulso departed twenty years of faulty internall policy, for let us not forget that Benes was one of the most leadmg exiponents of "Czechoslovruk" national unity and 1:he greatest opponent of Slovak autonomy. The Czechs also noticed thi,s fault of internal policy, lbut did not profit by it am.y more than T. G. Masaryk and Benes did by the ,l esson of Austr10-<Hl\l!Ilgary. Perhaps it was too late to do anything about the malignant cancer which had been planted in the political life of Czecho-Slova.kia, which, liike Austro-Hungary, ihad ,b ecome a prison to non-Czech nations. T. G. ,M.asarylk and Dr. Edward Benes had founded Ozecho~Slovakia on a [ie, bwlt it on more lies and inequities, but still Joudly proclaimed on every occasion that the "truth prevaiJs" ! Well, truth did prevail, despite the hypocrisy of the Czech founders of the Repuiblic. Benes resigned the presidency a.nd fled the country during its f,i rst great crisis, because he was a coward. He did wrong 13.iild he knew it. H1s people knew it, too. He capitulated to Hlitler, ,a ccepting .Muruch without even consuJlting the iparliament of CzeC'ho-Slovrukia. Ha:d he not :fled, who knows butt that iBenes might have been tried for treason and hung in 1938 by his own people? • • • WHO SAID IT? "New Ozecho..Slovakia will be a Slav state which, while having good relations with the great western democracies, will politically, economically, militarily and ou1turn1ly lean without any resel"Vations on the victorious ibuliwruik olf Slav peoples, the USSR, and cooperate with the Sl8JV and democratic states of Poland and the Yugoslav federation of states." - Laco Novomesky, d~puty-chairman of the Slovaik National Council.,. headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich, OWI Bll!lletin, May 26, 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 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 59 WHY DID BENES RESIGN IN 1938? P. A. Hrobak This quest.ion still. puzzles many people. Benes hlmself, both in his letter to the government and in !his speech to the people in paTting, 1lol'd Why he had Tesigned, but he told it in such a way :that it is not fully clear to the average person. To say it simply a:nd briefJy: Benes resigned beca1USe the policy of which he himself had been the chief exponent and representative for twenty years had proved faulty; it went bankrupt and he could, therefore, no longer remain at the head Ol:f the State. He himself told it in !this manner: "I 'had played so great a role in this deve1opment of events that I had to contemplate seTiously what my duty should be under ,c hanged ciircumstances. . . . I came into office under entirely different circumstances; and iI must reckon this adtuality. Circumstances have changed so completely, that I feel my remaining in office might create an obstacle in the new ci;z-cumstances with which our State is now coping . . . This is mainly so, as it concerns the international situation with a view towards :t:Jhe speedy (In a building up of cooperation with om neighbors" letter to Premier GeneTal Syirovy). "I have reached my decision of my own free will and in accordance with my person:al conviction after conswltation with <politi~al and constibuitional circles and with a number of other leading persons. . . In these ciiroomstances I think it is advisable that the new developments and the new European coliaboration should not be disturbed from our side through the faot that the personal position of its leading 1representative rupparently 0onstitutes an obstacle to tihls development. I was elected to my present position at a time s:ubstamJtially different from 1Jhe pres(,Farewell Broadcast, Oct. 5, 1938: MEMOIRS, ent." 1954, pp. 292-293). What these words of Benes actwail.ly meant wiU, perhaps, be best e.xiplained by a few quotations from Czech periodicals of 1938: 60 SLOVAKIA "Orf necessity our. :uuture pr0igram ,c ontains good re'lations with Ge:ranany - a program which we could have adopted long ago, iif ilt were not for the 'oavalierislh' Western Poweir,s which threatened to brook off theiir allialil.ce with us m suiCh an event" - Stanislav Yester, "Lidove Noviny, Oct. 5). '~Venlkov" called fOT lnew, friendlly conltacits with ,n eighbodng states, and a;sked for "awaJkening from dreams into reality .a nd the acceptance of a program which will be ours." "We do not know what wihl come next in :@urope. We do know, however, that nea,r us iis a power with which our state 0annot a,1low itself to come irnto dispute. Long enough already have we played for othern the role of a genda;rme who keeps Genmany in check: when the crucial moment came, we fownd ourseLves deseTted - alone. . . Well, good. If the woTild is to be governed not by j,u stice, bwt by force, the:n our place is with those who harve the greater strength and are more d ecisive. N ot!hing else remains for us. We <look for unity with Germany . .. And let us become, liike Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, one of G€rmamy's }a,rge 1proviiders and buyers, amd let uis refuse to enter into a ,c ombination of any kind, in which we would become part .o f an anti-Genm~ front. We are now thinking onily of O'lN'.selves and 'let UIS be loyal only to ourselves" -- ("Lidove Noviny," Oct. 5). "We have aJ.ready 'had more than enaugh ·orf t'he wailing sympathy of the western states 'towaJrdsi that courageous little n:a tion.' . . . We call beyond our bo,rdecrs: Put am end to your unwelcome manifestations oif sympathy towards Czecho-Slovakia. We are finally realizing what om standing in Cenrtrrul Emrope is, and we shaU guide OIUTselves 1acoordingly, whether you J[ke it or not. Ouir nation hears its defeat and hum..hliation not onily with pain, but wi11h great pride. We had /been betting on t'he wrong horse, a,nd we know how to take the necessaJry consequences.'' - ("Lidove Listy," OcJt. '5 ). We see that one after the other they admit to the fault of Czecho-Slovakia's twenty-year foreign policy. But SLOVAKIA 61 who wa,s i,t that determined the trend of :Czecho-Slavakia's foreign policy for :twenty yearn? Of coUJrse, it rwa;s Benes! It was Benes who made Czecho~SlovaJkia whoHy dependent upon the ,l ove of France and, England, and it was Benes who did not permit Czecho-Slova:kia to attempt to make friends with Germany, as Bulga~ia and Yiugo,s[avia had done. It wa:s Bernes who made of CzecJho-Slov,aJkia a French gendarme to stand guard over Germany; and it was Benes who did not know how to ,rouse himself frrom a d<re3Jlll. and open his eyes to the reality that France and England did not know how to derul with Germany. It was Benes who ohstiinately held Czecho-Slovaikia in that runti-German front. Jt was IBenes who !bet on the wrong horse. And finally, it was Benes who paid no heed to the warnings coming frolffi the Slovak awtonomisrt ,camp (P.opul1ists and Nati,onalists), but also from Czech soUTces (Kramaf and otJhers) : that tJhe fore~gn po1ky of Czecho-Slovwkia was dangerous. and against her interests . Under such circumstances, when his h1wndering foreign poHcy contribulted in no smal,l measure to what had happened, Benes co'lllld do nothing else but resign. Of course, his apologists may say that Benes meant well, that he did not wish the State ill, but he was too trusting, since he depended upon the alliance with France; and, perh1a ps, he was not foresi,g hted enough, 1siince he did not see long ago,, in s,pite orf numerous and repeated warnings, which way the European wind was blowing. People noticed it in Yugoslavia, they noticed it in Bulgaria, they noticed it in Ro:umamia and they noticed it a lso in P.Oiland - aJnd they went with the wind. Benes did not notice it; he went ,a gainst the wind. And when he did begin to notice that things were going bad, he committed the cardinal error of not turning ,a bout quickly, hut against the wiind even more and cond uded a military pact with Soviet Rlu!ssia! 'J.1hat was the red cloth ,b efore the al,r e~dy hl'ritated dictators, Hitleir and iMus,s,o1ini. And ffingland, Whffil it came to deciding for or against war, was fiHed with fear that, if there should be a war, Central 62 SLOVAKIA EUTope would be O'Ver-run by Stalin's red army, which nobody, perhaps, omtld ever drive Ol,!t of it. When Benes departed, there left with him twenty years of faulty Czecho-Slovak foreign poticy. As we see from qu'Otations above, it has already been admitted also by those who approved of his policy and supported it. And with Benes there rulso departed twenty years of faulty internall policy, for let us not forget that Benes was one of the most leadmg exiponents of "Czechoslovruk" national unity and 1:he greatest opponent of Slovak autonomy. The Czechs also noticed thi,s fault of internal policy, lbut did not profit by it am.y more than T. G. Masaryk and Benes did by the ,l esson of Austr10-<Hl\l!Ilgary. Perhaps it was too late to do anything about the malignant cancer which had been planted in the political life of Czecho-Slova.kia, which, liike Austro-Hungary, ihad ,b ecome a prison to non-Czech nations. T. G. ,M.asarylk and Dr. Edward Benes had founded Ozecho~Slovakia on a [ie, bwlt it on more lies and inequities, but still Joudly proclaimed on every occasion that the "truth prevaiJs" ! Well, truth did prevail, despite the hypocrisy of the Czech founders of the Repuiblic. Benes resigned the presidency a.nd fled the country during its f,i rst great crisis, because he was a coward. He did wrong 13.iild he knew it. H1s people knew it, too. He capitulated to Hlitler, ,a ccepting .Muruch without even consuJlting the iparliament of CzeC'ho-Slovrukia. Ha:d he not :fled, who knows butt that iBenes might have been tried for treason and hung in 1938 by his own people? • • • WHO SAID IT? "New Ozecho..Slovakia will be a Slav state which, while having good relations with the great western democracies, will politically, economically, militarily and ou1turn1ly lean without any resel"Vations on the victorious ibuliwruik olf Slav peoples, the USSR, and cooperate with the Sl8JV and democratic states of Poland and the Yugoslav federation of states." - Laco Novomesky, d~puty-chairman of the Slovaik National Council.,. headed by Dr. Joseph Lettrich, OWI Bll!lletin, May 26, 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 Why Did Beneš Resign in 1938? Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (20-21), September-December 1956 pp. 59-62 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 September-December 1956 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9b9b3c6eab5d3f9227a036adee4be991.pdf 8384edaaf1e310b34172cfe6933180ee PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' �44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. �SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded �46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . �SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 ) � SLOVAKIA Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' �44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. �SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded �46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . �SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 ) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1972, Vol. 22 Description An account of the resource Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' 44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded 46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 )  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Who Killed Dr. Tiso? Description An account of the resource Karol Sidor, writing as Paul Kotva Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 43-47 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sidor, Karol, 1901-1953 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/06ffe1aed7fe2ac7435cb40bb8e506df.pdf 95d24e9b5d08db54f68d08c75203d2fb PDF Text Text 63 SLOVAKIA Lieta:va ,p robably witnessed its most glorious day at the time when Francis Thul'zo mrurried Kostika's daughter and received Lietava as a dowry. Thurzo, however, ;preferred to live in the Orava Castle. When he left Lletava without an occupant, it gradually 1beca.me neglected and the teeth of time and weather toolk their toll. During the time od: Francis Raik6czi M, the stronghold of Lletaiva wa·s ,partly repaired, ibut shortly thererufter was completely abandoned to its sad fate. • • • WIDTE MOUNTAIN - IDSTOR'ICAL FORGERY Soone Czechs, Ozech historians and their aipologists indulge in descrilbing tJhe anti-Hussite .crusades as national swppression and the "Hussite Century" as a period of enlightemnent and Czech "national" rule in BO'hemia. Their claim that the Czechs lost their "national" independence in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) has 1been rnpeated so often that finally most Ozechs have come to believe it. T. G. Masaryik, Dr. Edward Benes and their !followers haive propagated this legend consistently sin.ce the foundation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918. It is a singular example of historkal forgery. The overthrow of Hussitism has been consciously misinterpreted as a siUippress:ion of the Czech n1a tion lby the Czechs th~se1ves to gain the symaipthy of other nations. The White Mountain !battle was not a nationaJl, but strictly a religious allld dynastic a,ffair.. After the battle was O'Ver, the emperor had some 27 od: the "relbel" :l eaders decapitated. Six were of German odgin. But none was executed because of his nationality. 1 We know that the Thirty Years' War started in Bohemia in 1'618, when the Pmtestant aristocraits there refused to elect Feroinand of Austria, iHoly Roman IDmipe;ror, to the vrucant throne od: Bohem'ia, 1preforring yo1Un,g Fredericlk, Elector Palatine, instead. This rularmed the Protestant princes, especially John George of Saxony, to such an. extent that they declared themselves neutral and let Frederick �64 SLOVAKIA do the reibeUing against the emperor by himself. The emperor's generai, Tilly, defeated Frederick and the Czech ma;g;nates ·at White Moiuntain in 1620. Frederick fled the country while the emperor was rounding up his enemies. The emperor abrogated the ipr1vileges orf the aristocratic estates with the wcclaim of the common Czech pe01ple. The Thirty Years' Wa;r raged with like fury in Bohemia -and the Germanies. There ,certainly was no national pumpose, especially no Czech national punpose - 'behind it a,t all After the smoke ,orf the lb attle cleia,r~d, there was -little evidence of Czech national co;nsciousness until the mid<ile orf the nineteenth century. 1 In the liight of historic~l facts,, the legend tha,t the Czechs lost their political (national) indeipendence in 1620 remains just what it was - a legend. As much so as the legend or fiction o;f a single, united "Ozechoslava;k" nation! • • • WHO SAID IT? "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Sfova;ks. . . So important was the Siova,k problem in the minds of both Czech and Slorvak leaders, that it was a major subject of study a11d debate during the war and has continued to .be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itse'lf a complete reversal orf .the ethnic theory on which the first Repulblic was built: the. belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kpsice , Program further provided that the Slovaks should be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland, and that the gorvernment will regard the Slorvak Na-. tional Counici.J not only as the rightfiu[ re<presentatirve of the indirviduwl Siorvak nation, but aJlso as, the bearer of so:verei,gn right on SlorvaJk territory." ~ William Diamond, CZECHOSLOVAKIA BETWEIDN EAST AND WEST, Londoo., 1947. � 63 SLOVAKIA Lieta:va ,p robably witnessed its most glorious day at the time when Francis Thul'zo mrurried Kostika's daughter and received Lietava as a dowry. Thurzo, however, ;preferred to live in the Orava Castle. When he left Lletava without an occupant, it gradually 1beca.me neglected and the teeth of time and weather toolk their toll. During the time od: Francis Raik6czi M, the stronghold of Lletaiva wa·s ,partly repaired, ibut shortly thererufter was completely abandoned to its sad fate. • • • WIDTE MOUNTAIN - IDSTOR'ICAL FORGERY Soone Czechs, Ozech historians and their aipologists indulge in descrilbing tJhe anti-Hussite .crusades as national swppression and the "Hussite Century" as a period of enlightemnent and Czech "national" rule in BO'hemia. Their claim that the Czechs lost their "national" independence in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) has 1been rnpeated so often that finally most Ozechs have come to believe it. T. G. Masaryik, Dr. Edward Benes and their !followers haive propagated this legend consistently sin.ce the foundation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918. It is a singular example of historkal forgery. The overthrow of Hussitism has been consciously misinterpreted as a siUippress:ion of the Czech n1a tion lby the Czechs th~se1ves to gain the symaipthy of other nations. The White Mountain !battle was not a nationaJl, but strictly a religious allld dynastic a,ffair.. After the battle was O'Ver, the emperor had some 27 od: the "relbel" :l eaders decapitated. Six were of German odgin. But none was executed because of his nationality. 1 We know that the Thirty Years' War started in Bohemia in 1'618, when the Pmtestant aristocraits there refused to elect Feroinand of Austria, iHoly Roman IDmipe;ror, to the vrucant throne od: Bohem'ia, 1preforring yo1Un,g Fredericlk, Elector Palatine, instead. This rularmed the Protestant princes, especially John George of Saxony, to such an. extent that they declared themselves neutral and let Frederick �64 SLOVAKIA do the reibeUing against the emperor by himself. The emperor's generai, Tilly, defeated Frederick and the Czech ma;g;nates ·at White Moiuntain in 1620. Frederick fled the country while the emperor was rounding up his enemies. The emperor abrogated the ipr1vileges orf the aristocratic estates with the wcclaim of the common Czech pe01ple. The Thirty Years' Wa;r raged with like fury in Bohemia -and the Germanies. There ,certainly was no national pumpose, especially no Czech national punpose - 'behind it a,t all After the smoke ,orf the lb attle cleia,r~d, there was -little evidence of Czech national co;nsciousness until the mid<ile orf the nineteenth century. 1 In the liight of historic~l facts,, the legend tha,t the Czechs lost their political (national) indeipendence in 1620 remains just what it was - a legend. As much so as the legend or fiction o;f a single, united "Ozechoslava;k" nation! • • • WHO SAID IT? "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Sfova;ks. . . So important was the Siova,k problem in the minds of both Czech and Slorvak leaders, that it was a major subject of study a11d debate during the war and has continued to .be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itse'lf a complete reversal orf .the ethnic theory on which the first Repulblic was built: the. belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kpsice , Program further provided that the Slovaks should be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland, and that the gorvernment will regard the Slorvak Na-. tional Counici.J not only as the rightfiu[ re<presentatirve of the indirviduwl Siorvak nation, but aJlso as, the bearer of so:verei,gn right on SlorvaJk territory." ~ William Diamond, CZECHOSLOVAKIA BETWEIDN EAST AND WEST, Londoo., 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 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 63 SLOVAKIA Lieta:va ,p robably witnessed its most glorious day at the time when Francis Thul'zo mrurried Kostika's daughter and received Lietava as a dowry. Thurzo, however, ;preferred to live in the Orava Castle. When he left Lletava without an occupant, it gradually 1beca.me neglected and the teeth of time and weather toolk their toll. During the time od: Francis Raik6czi M, the stronghold of Lletaiva wa·s ,partly repaired, ibut shortly thererufter was completely abandoned to its sad fate. • • • WIDTE MOUNTAIN - IDSTOR'ICAL FORGERY Soone Czechs, Ozech historians and their aipologists indulge in descrilbing tJhe anti-Hussite .crusades as national swppression and the "Hussite Century" as a period of enlightemnent and Czech "national" rule in BO'hemia. Their claim that the Czechs lost their "national" independence in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) has 1been rnpeated so often that finally most Ozechs have come to believe it. T. G. Masaryik, Dr. Edward Benes and their !followers haive propagated this legend consistently sin.ce the foundation of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918. It is a singular example of historkal forgery. The overthrow of Hussitism has been consciously misinterpreted as a siUippress:ion of the Czech n1a tion lby the Czechs th~se1ves to gain the symaipthy of other nations. The White Mountain !battle was not a nationaJl, but strictly a religious allld dynastic a,ffair.. After the battle was O'Ver, the emperor had some 27 od: the "relbel" :l eaders decapitated. Six were of German odgin. But none was executed because of his nationality. 1 We know that the Thirty Years' War started in Bohemia in 1'618, when the Pmtestant aristocraits there refused to elect Feroinand of Austria, iHoly Roman IDmipe;ror, to the vrucant throne od: Bohem'ia, 1preforring yo1Un,g Fredericlk, Elector Palatine, instead. This rularmed the Protestant princes, especially John George of Saxony, to such an. extent that they declared themselves neutral and let Frederick 64 SLOVAKIA do the reibeUing against the emperor by himself. The emperor's generai, Tilly, defeated Frederick and the Czech ma;g;nates ·at White Moiuntain in 1620. Frederick fled the country while the emperor was rounding up his enemies. The emperor abrogated the ipr1vileges orf the aristocratic estates with the wcclaim of the common Czech pe01ple. The Thirty Years' Wa;r raged with like fury in Bohemia -and the Germanies. There ,certainly was no national pumpose, especially no Czech national punpose - 'behind it a,t all After the smoke ,orf the lb attle cleia,r~d, there was -little evidence of Czech national co;nsciousness until the mid<ile orf the nineteenth century. 1 In the liight of historic~l facts,, the legend tha,t the Czechs lost their political (national) indeipendence in 1620 remains just what it was - a legend. As much so as the legend or fiction o;f a single, united "Ozechoslava;k" nation! • • • WHO SAID IT? "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Sfova;ks. . . So important was the Siova,k problem in the minds of both Czech and Slorvak leaders, that it was a major subject of study a11d debate during the war and has continued to .be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itse'lf a complete reversal orf .the ethnic theory on which the first Repulblic was built: the. belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kpsice , Program further provided that the Slovaks should be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland, and that the gorvernment will regard the Slorvak Na-. tional Counici.J not only as the rightfiu[ re<presentatirve of the indirviduwl Siorvak nation, but aJlso as, the bearer of so:verei,gn right on SlorvaJk territory." ~ William Diamond, CZECHOSLOVAKIA BETWEIDN EAST AND WEST, Londoo., 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 White Mountain - Historical Forgery Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 4, No. 1 (10), March 1954 pp. 63-64 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1954 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/6a8a09c216e7b7661efe6c3de1a0d511.pdf b14e793df6c682021c427c97b9b4dde8 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA n ffiHE)RE DID ST. METHODIUS DIE? P.A. H'ROBAK All attempts to ascertain just exactly where St. Methodius breathed his last and where he was buried have thus far failed. However, we do know that he died on April 6, 885. It seems that at the time of his death it was generally known where St. Methodius, the apostle of the Slova;ks, had his Archbishopric, but no one thought it necessary to note the exact location. St. Methodius, according to historical sources, died i,n Great Moravia, where he was also buried. The center or nucleus of that empire was Slovakia, which included at that time Trans-.Danubian Pannonia. The question of the location of St. Method's grave came out in the open in 1885, when the millenium of his death was commemorated. At that time many historians and theologians, particularly those of Mora;via, claimed that Velehrad in Moravia was the place where Methodius not only died, but also was the seat of his ecclesiastical province. His Eminence, Fridrich Cardinal Furstenberg, Archbishop of Olomouc, issued a pastoral letter on December 25, 1884, on the occasion of the l,000th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius in which he said: "However, visit and this your Archbishop requests - the place where, according to tradition, the holy body of your apostle is hidden: make a visit to Velehrad in 1885 ... " In the pastoral letter, issued by the Bishop of Brno on December 115, 1884, we find the statement: ",S t. Methodius died and was buried in Moravia." The exact place of his grave, however, is not given; Velehrad is not even mentiooed. Quite underatandably, the community of Velehrad had its "Central Jubilee Committee" which issued a call to all people to come to Velehrad "where our Apostle parted with world." The ,p roclamation was signed by over two hundred individuals. On February 22, 1885, the Cardinal-Arch1bishop of �14 SLOVAKIA Prague, the Bishop of Kralovy Hradec, the Bishop of Litomerice, and the Bishop of Budejovice issued a joint pastoral letter in which they exhorted theiT faithful to make a pilgrimage to Velehrad, where, according to tradition, St. Methodius was buried. During the height of the celebrations, honoring the l,OOOth anniversary of the death of St. Methodius, an article relevant to the death of St. Methodius, written by the Ruthenian Canon Petrusevic of r..vov, reacted like a bombshell. He told the people of Moravia to look for the grave of St. Methodius not at Velehrad, but at Mosburg across the Danube. 1 Matej Procha~ of Moravia angrily expressed his dissent and vituperated Canon Petrusevic, telling him that only by a magic wand could he change Modoblll'lgus into Mosruburg. 2 In his book, which was published a bit later, Prochazka descri-b ed the last farewell of St. Methodius in the Velehrad Cathedral to his priests and people, and to Arch-Prince Svatopluk, but does not have anything to say about the grave of St. Methodius. 3 Morie Kraemer, writing a·b out St. Methodius's grave, first sought his grave in Rome, where, of course, he did not find it, and then, following the Bulgarian legend (by Konsnantm Galejdovic) and fragmentary reports from the book "About the Conversion of the Corutanians," he sought it in Moravia. 4 Kraemer thought the "great Moravian Cathedral," mentioned in Dobrovsky's: '\Mahrische Legende" (Moravian Legends), referred to Velehrad. But the fact is that no one can prove that St. Methodius's grave was there either in 1885 or is located there even now. Snopek fared no better with the question: "Where is St. Methodius, the Slovanic Apostole, buried ?" 5 He mentions the Bulgarian manuscript, discovered by Viktor J. Grigorovic, which describes the labors of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This manuscript, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, refers to an inhabitant of Velehrad as a "velegraidanin". But even if we allow that it does, we still cannot definitely claim that the Velehrad referred to is the one in Moravia, ,b ecause in the ninth and tenth centuries there were many "Velehrads" - and we know that �SLOVAKIA 15 the Velehrad in Moravia. did not exist either in the ninth or the tenth century, inasmuch as historical records mention nothing a:bout it until the thirteenth century. But the "Velehradists" are stubborn and proud people; they still claim, without being able to offer any proof, that St. Methodius is buried at Velehrad in Moravia. Dudik was another of those who sought the grave of St. Methodius in Rome, but could not find it there. 6 Alexander Bruckner looked for his remains in the mighty fortress of Rastislav at "Grossburg" but did not indicate •t he exact location. 7 Anton Sin8 claims that Rab was the seat of government for Rastislav and Mojmir I, and that there, too, rest the remains of St. Methodius. His claim, however, is not supported by historical and archeological proofs. Dr. Robenek wrote that St. Methodi'llS is buried in Ostrihom.9 In 1822, when the foundations were being dug for the present basilica. there, a stone grave was uncovered which is still unidentified. Robenek thought it might be the grave of St. Methodius. Now we know definitely that St. Methodius labored for the most part in Slovakia and in Traru!.J)anubia, in former P8lll.Ilonia. Why then should we not assume that he could be buried in the territory inha,bited by the ancient Slovaks? History tells us that St. Methodius was in western Slovakia, in Nitra, where he installed his suffragan, Bishop Wiching. We also know that, in the ninth century, Devin was the impregnaible fortress of both Rastislav and Svatopluk. This fortress secured the independence of Grea;t Moravia and terrorized the F1:ranko-Germans. Devin, near Bratislava, was the subject of ma.ny historical and archeological treatises, some of which were even authored by Czechs. 10 Professor Dr. Jan Eisner came upon a huge Slov,anic burial ground in the vicinity of Devin which dates baok to the 6th or 7th century and contained many valuable archeological and historical relics. The excavations showed that Slovans (the ancient Slovaks) and Ava.rs were buried in individual graves with full armor and many other objects. 1He uncovered several hundred graves which indicated that the dead were buried according to pagan fashion, that is, before the Christian era in :Slovakia. These discoveries proved that this fortress must have existed long before �SLOVAKIA 16 Great Moravia and, therefore, had to exist during the life of the Great Moravian :IDmpire. Dr. Eisner also uncovered a Christian burial ground in the vicinity of Devin, where the dead were buried next to each other and on top of one another, just as they were in the cemetery near the Nitra church. So we can claim that there must have been a church cemetery at Devin. We must assume, on the basis of what history and archeology have uncovered thus far, that St. Methodius is buried either at Nitra or Devin, in the heart of the Great Moravia which was inhabited by the ancient Slovaks. REFERENCES 1. "Bohemia" No. 83, March 25, 1885; and "Hist. Blatter," Vol. 97, pp. 120-. 2. ••C•aaopia Katolickeho Duchovenstva," 1885, !ILi, p. 156; and "Blahovest," 1885, p . 156. 3. ·Matej Prochazka: "Zivot sv. Methoda," Brno, 1885, p. 208. 4. In "Cech," 188'5, No. 148 amd following ,numbers. 5. In "Obzor," Vol. XV1I, No. 7. 1893; P'P- 97-100. 6. J). Dudik: "lter Romanum," Vienna, 18'5'5, Vol. I, p. 63. 7. "Die Wahrhelt iiber die Slavenapostel," TiiJbill!gen, 1913, ii. 101. 8. A. !§In: "Omyl Dejin," Kyjov, 1926, p. 223. 9. In "H lidka," 1928, NO. 3. 10. J. L. Cervinka: "Devin a Velehrad," Kromefiz, 1902; Jozef Zavadil: "Devin a Nitra," Kromefiz, 1912; Dr. Em. l§i,mek: ''Devin," Pa•m atky archeologickt:5, 1920, Vols. 1, 2. 11. Jan Eisner: "Slovensko v praveku," Bratislava, 1933. RED CZECHS win another first: recenUy they alllllounced making tJhe firs,t gadget to jam TV programs, especially from Vienna, that does a ,real jamming job. They'•r e not doing 'badly for Castro, either - and the Reds of Laos, Africa, Vietnam, etc. Jamming and killing real demQcracy has been th e i r business si!nce 1918! 3(! 3(! 3(! awairded a doctora,te in Ecclesiastical and Civil Law, and the fo/1Iowi,n g ye-air a '<H•ploma for successfully concluding bis study on the Law of the Ela.stern Oburc'b.. In December, 1961, Father Faltin became a CQunsellor for ,t he Sacred Roman Rota. 3(! lit! 3(! Americans of Slovak descent will be in Rome, Italy, for the dedica- Rev. Daniel Faltin, 0.F.M.Conv., tion o'f the Institute of SS. Cyril wa,s named a,ssistant secretary of Mld Methodius on Sept. 15, 1963. the Papal Commission !or the Co- A delegartion of several hundred, dification of EcclesLastical Law for the Eastern Church. Father Faltin was born April 21, 1927, oi.n Kurimjany, near Levo-ca, Slovakia. He studiw hi Rome since 19-50 and received his doctorate in rtheology in 1955. In 1959, Father Fa!ltin wrus led by tile Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, Bi-shop of Gary, Ind., will be i-n Roane from Sept. 11-1'5 to commemora,te the 1100.th annivers,airy of the advent or the Slovak Apost-Les to the ancient homeland of ,t he Slovaks, Great Moravia. � SLOVAKIA n ffiHE)RE DID ST. METHODIUS DIE? P.A. H'ROBAK All attempts to ascertain just exactly where St. Methodius breathed his last and where he was buried have thus far failed. However, we do know that he died on April 6, 885. It seems that at the time of his death it was generally known where St. Methodius, the apostle of the Slova;ks, had his Archbishopric, but no one thought it necessary to note the exact location. St. Methodius, according to historical sources, died i,n Great Moravia, where he was also buried. The center or nucleus of that empire was Slovakia, which included at that time Trans-.Danubian Pannonia. The question of the location of St. Method's grave came out in the open in 1885, when the millenium of his death was commemorated. At that time many historians and theologians, particularly those of Mora;via, claimed that Velehrad in Moravia was the place where Methodius not only died, but also was the seat of his ecclesiastical province. His Eminence, Fridrich Cardinal Furstenberg, Archbishop of Olomouc, issued a pastoral letter on December 25, 1884, on the occasion of the l,000th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius in which he said: "However, visit and this your Archbishop requests - the place where, according to tradition, the holy body of your apostle is hidden: make a visit to Velehrad in 1885 ... " In the pastoral letter, issued by the Bishop of Brno on December 115, 1884, we find the statement: ",S t. Methodius died and was buried in Moravia." The exact place of his grave, however, is not given; Velehrad is not even mentiooed. Quite underatandably, the community of Velehrad had its "Central Jubilee Committee" which issued a call to all people to come to Velehrad "where our Apostle parted with world." The ,p roclamation was signed by over two hundred individuals. On February 22, 1885, the Cardinal-Arch1bishop of �14 SLOVAKIA Prague, the Bishop of Kralovy Hradec, the Bishop of Litomerice, and the Bishop of Budejovice issued a joint pastoral letter in which they exhorted theiT faithful to make a pilgrimage to Velehrad, where, according to tradition, St. Methodius was buried. During the height of the celebrations, honoring the l,OOOth anniversary of the death of St. Methodius, an article relevant to the death of St. Methodius, written by the Ruthenian Canon Petrusevic of r..vov, reacted like a bombshell. He told the people of Moravia to look for the grave of St. Methodius not at Velehrad, but at Mosburg across the Danube. 1 Matej Procha~ of Moravia angrily expressed his dissent and vituperated Canon Petrusevic, telling him that only by a magic wand could he change Modoblll'lgus into Mosruburg. 2 In his book, which was published a bit later, Prochazka descri-b ed the last farewell of St. Methodius in the Velehrad Cathedral to his priests and people, and to Arch-Prince Svatopluk, but does not have anything to say about the grave of St. Methodius. 3 Morie Kraemer, writing a·b out St. Methodius's grave, first sought his grave in Rome, where, of course, he did not find it, and then, following the Bulgarian legend (by Konsnantm Galejdovic) and fragmentary reports from the book "About the Conversion of the Corutanians," he sought it in Moravia. 4 Kraemer thought the "great Moravian Cathedral," mentioned in Dobrovsky's: '\Mahrische Legende" (Moravian Legends), referred to Velehrad. But the fact is that no one can prove that St. Methodius's grave was there either in 1885 or is located there even now. Snopek fared no better with the question: "Where is St. Methodius, the Slovanic Apostole, buried ?" 5 He mentions the Bulgarian manuscript, discovered by Viktor J. Grigorovic, which describes the labors of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This manuscript, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, refers to an inhabitant of Velehrad as a "velegraidanin". But even if we allow that it does, we still cannot definitely claim that the Velehrad referred to is the one in Moravia, ,b ecause in the ninth and tenth centuries there were many "Velehrads" - and we know that �SLOVAKIA 15 the Velehrad in Moravia. did not exist either in the ninth or the tenth century, inasmuch as historical records mention nothing a:bout it until the thirteenth century. But the "Velehradists" are stubborn and proud people; they still claim, without being able to offer any proof, that St. Methodius is buried at Velehrad in Moravia. Dudik was another of those who sought the grave of St. Methodius in Rome, but could not find it there. 6 Alexander Bruckner looked for his remains in the mighty fortress of Rastislav at "Grossburg" but did not indicate •t he exact location. 7 Anton Sin8 claims that Rab was the seat of government for Rastislav and Mojmir I, and that there, too, rest the remains of St. Methodius. His claim, however, is not supported by historical and archeological proofs. Dr. Robenek wrote that St. Methodi'llS is buried in Ostrihom.9 In 1822, when the foundations were being dug for the present basilica. there, a stone grave was uncovered which is still unidentified. Robenek thought it might be the grave of St. Methodius. Now we know definitely that St. Methodius labored for the most part in Slovakia and in Traru!.J)anubia, in former P8lll.Ilonia. Why then should we not assume that he could be buried in the territory inha,bited by the ancient Slovaks? History tells us that St. Methodius was in western Slovakia, in Nitra, where he installed his suffragan, Bishop Wiching. We also know that, in the ninth century, Devin was the impregnaible fortress of both Rastislav and Svatopluk. This fortress secured the independence of Grea;t Moravia and terrorized the F1:ranko-Germans. Devin, near Bratislava, was the subject of ma.ny historical and archeological treatises, some of which were even authored by Czechs. 10 Professor Dr. Jan Eisner came upon a huge Slov,anic burial ground in the vicinity of Devin which dates baok to the 6th or 7th century and contained many valuable archeological and historical relics. The excavations showed that Slovans (the ancient Slovaks) and Ava.rs were buried in individual graves with full armor and many other objects. 1He uncovered several hundred graves which indicated that the dead were buried according to pagan fashion, that is, before the Christian era in :Slovakia. These discoveries proved that this fortress must have existed long before �SLOVAKIA 16 Great Moravia and, therefore, had to exist during the life of the Great Moravian :IDmpire. Dr. Eisner also uncovered a Christian burial ground in the vicinity of Devin, where the dead were buried next to each other and on top of one another, just as they were in the cemetery near the Nitra church. So we can claim that there must have been a church cemetery at Devin. We must assume, on the basis of what history and archeology have uncovered thus far, that St. Methodius is buried either at Nitra or Devin, in the heart of the Great Moravia which was inhabited by the ancient Slovaks. REFERENCES 1. "Bohemia" No. 83, March 25, 1885; and "Hist. Blatter," Vol. 97, pp. 120-. 2. ••C•aaopia Katolickeho Duchovenstva," 1885, !ILi, p. 156; and "Blahovest," 1885, p . 156. 3. ·Matej Prochazka: "Zivot sv. Methoda," Brno, 1885, p. 208. 4. In "Cech," 188'5, No. 148 amd following ,numbers. 5. In "Obzor," Vol. XV1I, No. 7. 1893; P'P- 97-100. 6. J). Dudik: "lter Romanum," Vienna, 18'5'5, Vol. I, p. 63. 7. "Die Wahrhelt iiber die Slavenapostel," TiiJbill!gen, 1913, ii. 101. 8. A. !§In: "Omyl Dejin," Kyjov, 1926, p. 223. 9. In "H lidka," 1928, NO. 3. 10. J. L. Cervinka: "Devin a Velehrad," Kromefiz, 1902; Jozef Zavadil: "Devin a Nitra," Kromefiz, 1912; Dr. Em. l§i,mek: ''Devin," Pa•m atky archeologickt:5, 1920, Vols. 1, 2. 11. Jan Eisner: "Slovensko v praveku," Bratislava, 1933. RED CZECHS win another first: recenUy they alllllounced making tJhe firs,t gadget to jam TV programs, especially from Vienna, that does a ,real jamming job. They'•r e not doing 'badly for Castro, either - and the Reds of Laos, Africa, Vietnam, etc. Jamming and killing real demQcracy has been th e i r business si!nce 1918! 3(! 3(! 3(! awairded a doctora,te in Ecclesiastical and Civil Law, and the fo/1Iowi,n g ye-air a '<H•ploma for successfully concluding bis study on the Law of the Ela.stern Oburc'b.. In December, 1961, Father Faltin became a CQunsellor for ,t he Sacred Roman Rota. 3(! lit! 3(! Americans of Slovak descent will be in Rome, Italy, for the dedica- Rev. Daniel Faltin, 0.F.M.Conv., tion o'f the Institute of SS. Cyril wa,s named a,ssistant secretary of Mld Methodius on Sept. 15, 1963. the Papal Commission !or the Co- A delegartion of several hundred, dification of EcclesLastical Law for the Eastern Church. Father Faltin was born April 21, 1927, oi.n Kurimjany, near Levo-ca, Slovakia. He studiw hi Rome since 19-50 and received his doctorate in rtheology in 1955. In 1959, Father Fa!ltin wrus led by tile Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, Bi-shop of Gary, Ind., will be i-n Roane from Sept. 11-1'5 to commemora,te the 1100.th annivers,airy of the advent or the Slovak Apost-Les to the ancient homeland of ,t he Slovaks, Great Moravia. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1963, Vol. 13 Description An account of the resource Issue 1 (No. 36), March 1963. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1963 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA n ffiHE)RE DID ST. METHODIUS DIE? P.A. H'ROBAK All attempts to ascertain just exactly where St. Methodius breathed his last and where he was buried have thus far failed. However, we do know that he died on April 6, 885. It seems that at the time of his death it was generally known where St. Methodius, the apostle of the Slova;ks, had his Archbishopric, but no one thought it necessary to note the exact location. St. Methodius, according to historical sources, died i,n Great Moravia, where he was also buried. The center or nucleus of that empire was Slovakia, which included at that time Trans-.Danubian Pannonia. The question of the location of St. Method's grave came out in the open in 1885, when the millenium of his death was commemorated. At that time many historians and theologians, particularly those of Mora;via, claimed that Velehrad in Moravia was the place where Methodius not only died, but also was the seat of his ecclesiastical province. His Eminence, Fridrich Cardinal Furstenberg, Archbishop of Olomouc, issued a pastoral letter on December 25, 1884, on the occasion of the l,000th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius in which he said: "However, visit and this your Archbishop requests - the place where, according to tradition, the holy body of your apostle is hidden: make a visit to Velehrad in 1885 ... " In the pastoral letter, issued by the Bishop of Brno on December 115, 1884, we find the statement: ",S t. Methodius died and was buried in Moravia." The exact place of his grave, however, is not given; Velehrad is not even mentiooed. Quite underatandably, the community of Velehrad had its "Central Jubilee Committee" which issued a call to all people to come to Velehrad "where our Apostle parted with world." The ,p roclamation was signed by over two hundred individuals. On February 22, 1885, the Cardinal-Arch1bishop of 14 SLOVAKIA Prague, the Bishop of Kralovy Hradec, the Bishop of Litomerice, and the Bishop of Budejovice issued a joint pastoral letter in which they exhorted theiT faithful to make a pilgrimage to Velehrad, where, according to tradition, St. Methodius was buried. During the height of the celebrations, honoring the l,OOOth anniversary of the death of St. Methodius, an article relevant to the death of St. Methodius, written by the Ruthenian Canon Petrusevic of r..vov, reacted like a bombshell. He told the people of Moravia to look for the grave of St. Methodius not at Velehrad, but at Mosburg across the Danube. 1 Matej Procha~ of Moravia angrily expressed his dissent and vituperated Canon Petrusevic, telling him that only by a magic wand could he change Modoblll'lgus into Mosruburg. 2 In his book, which was published a bit later, Prochazka descri-b ed the last farewell of St. Methodius in the Velehrad Cathedral to his priests and people, and to Arch-Prince Svatopluk, but does not have anything to say about the grave of St. Methodius. 3 Morie Kraemer, writing a·b out St. Methodius's grave, first sought his grave in Rome, where, of course, he did not find it, and then, following the Bulgarian legend (by Konsnantm Galejdovic) and fragmentary reports from the book "About the Conversion of the Corutanians," he sought it in Moravia. 4 Kraemer thought the "great Moravian Cathedral," mentioned in Dobrovsky's: '\Mahrische Legende" (Moravian Legends), referred to Velehrad. But the fact is that no one can prove that St. Methodius's grave was there either in 1885 or is located there even now. Snopek fared no better with the question: "Where is St. Methodius, the Slovanic Apostole, buried ?" 5 He mentions the Bulgarian manuscript, discovered by Viktor J. Grigorovic, which describes the labors of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This manuscript, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, refers to an inhabitant of Velehrad as a "velegraidanin". But even if we allow that it does, we still cannot definitely claim that the Velehrad referred to is the one in Moravia, ,b ecause in the ninth and tenth centuries there were many "Velehrads" - and we know that SLOVAKIA 15 the Velehrad in Moravia. did not exist either in the ninth or the tenth century, inasmuch as historical records mention nothing a:bout it until the thirteenth century. But the "Velehradists" are stubborn and proud people; they still claim, without being able to offer any proof, that St. Methodius is buried at Velehrad in Moravia. Dudik was another of those who sought the grave of St. Methodius in Rome, but could not find it there. 6 Alexander Bruckner looked for his remains in the mighty fortress of Rastislav at "Grossburg" but did not indicate •t he exact location. 7 Anton Sin8 claims that Rab was the seat of government for Rastislav and Mojmir I, and that there, too, rest the remains of St. Methodius. His claim, however, is not supported by historical and archeological proofs. Dr. Robenek wrote that St. Methodi'llS is buried in Ostrihom.9 In 1822, when the foundations were being dug for the present basilica. there, a stone grave was uncovered which is still unidentified. Robenek thought it might be the grave of St. Methodius. Now we know definitely that St. Methodius labored for the most part in Slovakia and in Traru!.J)anubia, in former P8lll.Ilonia. Why then should we not assume that he could be buried in the territory inha,bited by the ancient Slovaks? History tells us that St. Methodius was in western Slovakia, in Nitra, where he installed his suffragan, Bishop Wiching. We also know that, in the ninth century, Devin was the impregnaible fortress of both Rastislav and Svatopluk. This fortress secured the independence of Grea;t Moravia and terrorized the F1:ranko-Germans. Devin, near Bratislava, was the subject of ma.ny historical and archeological treatises, some of which were even authored by Czechs. 10 Professor Dr. Jan Eisner came upon a huge Slov,anic burial ground in the vicinity of Devin which dates baok to the 6th or 7th century and contained many valuable archeological and historical relics. The excavations showed that Slovans (the ancient Slovaks) and Ava.rs were buried in individual graves with full armor and many other objects. 1He uncovered several hundred graves which indicated that the dead were buried according to pagan fashion, that is, before the Christian era in :Slovakia. These discoveries proved that this fortress must have existed long before SLOVAKIA 16 Great Moravia and, therefore, had to exist during the life of the Great Moravian :IDmpire. Dr. Eisner also uncovered a Christian burial ground in the vicinity of Devin, where the dead were buried next to each other and on top of one another, just as they were in the cemetery near the Nitra church. So we can claim that there must have been a church cemetery at Devin. We must assume, on the basis of what history and archeology have uncovered thus far, that St. Methodius is buried either at Nitra or Devin, in the heart of the Great Moravia which was inhabited by the ancient Slovaks. REFERENCES 1. "Bohemia" No. 83, March 25, 1885; and "Hist. Blatter," Vol. 97, pp. 120-. 2. ••C•aaopia Katolickeho Duchovenstva," 1885, !ILi, p. 156; and "Blahovest," 1885, p . 156. 3. ·Matej Prochazka: "Zivot sv. Methoda," Brno, 1885, p. 208. 4. In "Cech," 188'5, No. 148 amd following ,numbers. 5. In "Obzor," Vol. XV1I, No. 7. 1893; P'P- 97-100. 6. J). Dudik: "lter Romanum," Vienna, 18'5'5, Vol. I, p. 63. 7. "Die Wahrhelt iiber die Slavenapostel," TiiJbill!gen, 1913, ii. 101. 8. A. !§In: "Omyl Dejin," Kyjov, 1926, p. 223. 9. In "H lidka," 1928, NO. 3. 10. J. L. Cervinka: "Devin a Velehrad," Kromefiz, 1902; Jozef Zavadil: "Devin a Nitra," Kromefiz, 1912; Dr. Em. l§i,mek: ''Devin," Pa•m atky archeologickt:5, 1920, Vols. 1, 2. 11. Jan Eisner: "Slovensko v praveku," Bratislava, 1933. RED CZECHS win another first: recenUy they alllllounced making tJhe firs,t gadget to jam TV programs, especially from Vienna, that does a ,real jamming job. They'•r e not doing 'badly for Castro, either - and the Reds of Laos, Africa, Vietnam, etc. Jamming and killing real demQcracy has been th e i r business si!nce 1918! 3(! 3(! 3(! awairded a doctora,te in Ecclesiastical and Civil Law, and the fo/1Iowi,n g ye-air a '<H•ploma for successfully concluding bis study on the Law of the Ela.stern Oburc'b.. In December, 1961, Father Faltin became a CQunsellor for ,t he Sacred Roman Rota. 3(! lit! 3(! Americans of Slovak descent will be in Rome, Italy, for the dedica- Rev. Daniel Faltin, 0.F.M.Conv., tion o'f the Institute of SS. Cyril wa,s named a,ssistant secretary of Mld Methodius on Sept. 15, 1963. the Papal Commission !or the Co- A delegartion of several hundred, dification of EcclesLastical Law for the Eastern Church. Father Faltin was born April 21, 1927, oi.n Kurimjany, near Levo-ca, Slovakia. He studiw hi Rome since 19-50 and received his doctorate in rtheology in 1955. In 1959, Father Fa!ltin wrus led by tile Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, Bi-shop of Gary, Ind., will be i-n Roane from Sept. 11-1'5 to commemora,te the 1100.th annivers,airy of the advent or the Slovak Apost-Les to the ancient homeland of ,t he Slovaks, Great Moravia.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Where Did St. Methodius Die? Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobák Slovakia, Vol. 13, No. 1 (36), March 1963 pp. 13-16 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 1963 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/75da06d3d88b003d707cc28d625565bf.pdf 0d0cc54f7ec9aa3ea7c6d19961a2cf9e PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 59 who, impoverished and wrecked in body and soul, sought refuge in the West German Federal Republic, did not become the dynamite they were designed for by the mighty Stalin and the less mighty Benes. As a rule the expellees proved a valuable and constructive element in the economic and political revival of Germany. They likewise bore witness of their friendship for the Czech emigrants who came after them. It is a shabby business, indeed, when the Czechs now fifteen years after the war's end - try to further the cause of Bolshevism by demanding from the free nations, and even the German community, complete disregard for the just claim of the Sudeten German expellees . • • • WHERE ALL ROADS END The Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung gives its readers a glimpse across Austria's border into tlhe Bohemian Forest, OSSR: What would the former professor and representative to the Austro-Hungarian Reichstag in Vienna, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, say today if he could see what has become of the State he founded, 1:lhe former Czecho-Slovak Republic? A kindly fate beckoned him - in the year 1937 at 1:lhe age of 87 - to another world. He may have sensed what was to come, did not have to see the day, however, when the State, of which he was the founder and long-time president, was crushed by Hitler in 1938-39 and set up again in 1945, subsequently to be placed under the yoke of world Communism by politicians subservient to 1:lhe Kremlin. His son, Jan Masaryk, lived to see t:Jhe great tragedy of his fatherland: destruction under Hitler, resurrection in 1945 in the shadow of Russian bayonets and the expulsion of more than three million Germans living near its borders in t!he Sudeten areas, at home there for centuries. At the end of tJhis series of events came tihe final Bolshevization that gave his country the kiss of death. Was it the guilt of the father, Thomas Masaryk, who gave President Wilson in 1918 a false picture of 1:lhe population structure in the German regions claimed for the new �SLOVAKIA 60 Czecho-Slovak Republic, which took revenge on the son and his people? Jan Masaryk, son of the "father of the Czechs," foreign minister Wl 1948, committed suicide at the onset of the country's final Bolshevization. At that time the iron curtain rang down on the western and southern borders of the Czech State. 'Dhe border to West Germany and Austria was also closed off for the Czech people. The threads were cut, the contiacts severed. The expression "people's prison" was not coined in vain. The fields in the Czech border areas have been neglected for miles around; the meadows are brown and uncut. Houses and villages have been destroyed, levelled to the ground. Here all that one sees of a former house are a heap of stones; the ruins of a waM tell of a destroyed village or borough. Nowhere does one realize as keenly the deceptiveness of the system, nowhere as here -at the fronJtier does talk of coexistence become such an empty phrase, and the babble about peace and freedom the butt of scornful laughter of an inhuman world . • • • ABOUT THE AUTHORS Frances McPoyne, M.A., Ls a so- and the Slovak v Amerike, the oldciologi-st and researcher, r,e sidin•g 'I est Slovak newspaipe,r in America; in Munich. from 1'950 to the present time, he Dr. Frano Tiso, former ambas- 1is also serving as presid'ent of the sador of the Slovak Re,pwblic to Slo,v ak Lea gue of America. Moscow, is. the chairm~n. of the / Dr. Joseph M. Kirschbaum, forSlovak Na t10naJ Oou_nci,l m Ger- Ianer Chal'lge d'Alfifa.ires of Slovaman~ and the pUlb'hsher of the Ikia in Switzerland and Secre<taryM u n i c ,h "S1obodne Slovensko" 1 GeneraI of the Sloivak People's (Free Sl:ov~kia). Party, teaches at the Universi.fy of F. 0. Miksche, former Czech Montreal, Canada. His· boolk "SloArimy Oolonel and Military a,1:Jtaohe vakia - Nation at the Crossroads i•n, •P aris and• Brussels, is n,o,w a of Centra,l Europe" was pwbli-shed lecturer and free 'Lance writer. Iin 1960 by Rolbert Slpeltler and Hans Schutz, mem1ber of the Sons, New York Gennan Federa,l Parliament, is I Constantine Culen, former memalso co-chairman oif t>he Sudeten I ber of the Slo,v ak ParJiament and Sl-ovalk journalislt, one of ithe most German Oo-uncil in Muniich. Philip A. Hrobak, ediitor of Slo- prolific Slov,a k writers, now revakia, is also editor olf the Jed- sides in Fforida. nota (The Union), the oifificiaJ orKarl Kern, j-ourna.List, is chairgan of th•e First Catholic Slovak man of the Sudeten Association in Unfon, of the UStA. -a nd Can:adia, Ma1mo, Sweden. 1 1 I � SLOVAKIA 59 who, impoverished and wrecked in body and soul, sought refuge in the West German Federal Republic, did not become the dynamite they were designed for by the mighty Stalin and the less mighty Benes. As a rule the expellees proved a valuable and constructive element in the economic and political revival of Germany. They likewise bore witness of their friendship for the Czech emigrants who came after them. It is a shabby business, indeed, when the Czechs now fifteen years after the war's end - try to further the cause of Bolshevism by demanding from the free nations, and even the German community, complete disregard for the just claim of the Sudeten German expellees . • • • WHERE ALL ROADS END The Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung gives its readers a glimpse across Austria's border into tlhe Bohemian Forest, OSSR: What would the former professor and representative to the Austro-Hungarian Reichstag in Vienna, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, say today if he could see what has become of the State he founded, 1:lhe former Czecho-Slovak Republic? A kindly fate beckoned him - in the year 1937 at 1:lhe age of 87 - to another world. He may have sensed what was to come, did not have to see the day, however, when the State, of which he was the founder and long-time president, was crushed by Hitler in 1938-39 and set up again in 1945, subsequently to be placed under the yoke of world Communism by politicians subservient to 1:lhe Kremlin. His son, Jan Masaryk, lived to see t:Jhe great tragedy of his fatherland: destruction under Hitler, resurrection in 1945 in the shadow of Russian bayonets and the expulsion of more than three million Germans living near its borders in t!he Sudeten areas, at home there for centuries. At the end of tJhis series of events came tihe final Bolshevization that gave his country the kiss of death. Was it the guilt of the father, Thomas Masaryk, who gave President Wilson in 1918 a false picture of 1:lhe population structure in the German regions claimed for the new �SLOVAKIA 60 Czecho-Slovak Republic, which took revenge on the son and his people? Jan Masaryk, son of the "father of the Czechs," foreign minister Wl 1948, committed suicide at the onset of the country's final Bolshevization. At that time the iron curtain rang down on the western and southern borders of the Czech State. 'Dhe border to West Germany and Austria was also closed off for the Czech people. The threads were cut, the contiacts severed. The expression "people's prison" was not coined in vain. The fields in the Czech border areas have been neglected for miles around; the meadows are brown and uncut. Houses and villages have been destroyed, levelled to the ground. Here all that one sees of a former house are a heap of stones; the ruins of a waM tell of a destroyed village or borough. Nowhere does one realize as keenly the deceptiveness of the system, nowhere as here -at the fronJtier does talk of coexistence become such an empty phrase, and the babble about peace and freedom the butt of scornful laughter of an inhuman world . • • • ABOUT THE AUTHORS Frances McPoyne, M.A., Ls a so- and the Slovak v Amerike, the oldciologi-st and researcher, r,e sidin•g 'I est Slovak newspaipe,r in America; in Munich. from 1'950 to the present time, he Dr. Frano Tiso, former ambas- 1is also serving as presid'ent of the sador of the Slovak Re,pwblic to Slo,v ak Lea gue of America. Moscow, is. the chairm~n. of the / Dr. Joseph M. Kirschbaum, forSlovak Na t10naJ Oou_nci,l m Ger- Ianer Chal'lge d'Alfifa.ires of Slovaman~ and the pUlb'hsher of the Ikia in Switzerland and Secre<taryM u n i c ,h "S1obodne Slovensko" 1 GeneraI of the Sloivak People's (Free Sl:ov~kia). Party, teaches at the Universi.fy of F. 0. Miksche, former Czech Montreal, Canada. His· boolk "SloArimy Oolonel and Military a,1:Jtaohe vakia - Nation at the Crossroads i•n, •P aris and• Brussels, is n,o,w a of Centra,l Europe" was pwbli-shed lecturer and free 'Lance writer. Iin 1960 by Rolbert Slpeltler and Hans Schutz, mem1ber of the Sons, New York Gennan Federa,l Parliament, is I Constantine Culen, former memalso co-chairman oif t>he Sudeten I ber of the Slo,v ak ParJiament and Sl-ovalk journalislt, one of ithe most German Oo-uncil in Muniich. Philip A. Hrobak, ediitor of Slo- prolific Slov,a k writers, now revakia, is also editor olf the Jed- sides in Fforida. nota (The Union), the oifificiaJ orKarl Kern, j-ourna.List, is chairgan of th•e First Catholic Slovak man of the Sudeten Association in Unfon, of the UStA. -a nd Can:adia, Ma1mo, Sweden. 1 1 I � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1960, Vol. 10 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 6 [sic] (No. 31), March-June 1960.</li> <li>Issue 7 [sic] (No. 32), September-December 1960.</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 59 who, impoverished and wrecked in body and soul, sought refuge in the West German Federal Republic, did not become the dynamite they were designed for by the mighty Stalin and the less mighty Benes. As a rule the expellees proved a valuable and constructive element in the economic and political revival of Germany. They likewise bore witness of their friendship for the Czech emigrants who came after them. It is a shabby business, indeed, when the Czechs now fifteen years after the war's end - try to further the cause of Bolshevism by demanding from the free nations, and even the German community, complete disregard for the just claim of the Sudeten German expellees . • • • WHERE ALL ROADS END The Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung gives its readers a glimpse across Austria's border into tlhe Bohemian Forest, OSSR: What would the former professor and representative to the Austro-Hungarian Reichstag in Vienna, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, say today if he could see what has become of the State he founded, 1:lhe former Czecho-Slovak Republic? A kindly fate beckoned him - in the year 1937 at 1:lhe age of 87 - to another world. He may have sensed what was to come, did not have to see the day, however, when the State, of which he was the founder and long-time president, was crushed by Hitler in 1938-39 and set up again in 1945, subsequently to be placed under the yoke of world Communism by politicians subservient to 1:lhe Kremlin. His son, Jan Masaryk, lived to see t:Jhe great tragedy of his fatherland: destruction under Hitler, resurrection in 1945 in the shadow of Russian bayonets and the expulsion of more than three million Germans living near its borders in t!he Sudeten areas, at home there for centuries. At the end of tJhis series of events came tihe final Bolshevization that gave his country the kiss of death. Was it the guilt of the father, Thomas Masaryk, who gave President Wilson in 1918 a false picture of 1:lhe population structure in the German regions claimed for the new SLOVAKIA 60 Czecho-Slovak Republic, which took revenge on the son and his people? Jan Masaryk, son of the "father of the Czechs," foreign minister Wl 1948, committed suicide at the onset of the country's final Bolshevization. At that time the iron curtain rang down on the western and southern borders of the Czech State. 'Dhe border to West Germany and Austria was also closed off for the Czech people. The threads were cut, the contiacts severed. The expression "people's prison" was not coined in vain. The fields in the Czech border areas have been neglected for miles around; the meadows are brown and uncut. Houses and villages have been destroyed, levelled to the ground. Here all that one sees of a former house are a heap of stones; the ruins of a waM tell of a destroyed village or borough. Nowhere does one realize as keenly the deceptiveness of the system, nowhere as here -at the fronJtier does talk of coexistence become such an empty phrase, and the babble about peace and freedom the butt of scornful laughter of an inhuman world . • • • ABOUT THE AUTHORS Frances McPoyne, M.A., Ls a so- and the Slovak v Amerike, the oldciologi-st and researcher, r,e sidin•g 'I est Slovak newspaipe,r in America; in Munich. from 1'950 to the present time, he Dr. Frano Tiso, former ambas- 1is also serving as presid'ent of the sador of the Slovak Re,pwblic to Slo,v ak Lea gue of America. Moscow, is. the chairm~n. of the / Dr. Joseph M. Kirschbaum, forSlovak Na t10naJ Oou_nci,l m Ger- Ianer Chal'lge d'Alfifa.ires of Slovaman~ and the pUlb'hsher of the Ikia in Switzerland and Secre<taryM u n i c ,h "S1obodne Slovensko" 1 GeneraI of the Sloivak People's (Free Sl:ov~kia). Party, teaches at the Universi.fy of F. 0. Miksche, former Czech Montreal, Canada. His· boolk "SloArimy Oolonel and Military a,1:Jtaohe vakia - Nation at the Crossroads i•n, •P aris and• Brussels, is n,o,w a of Centra,l Europe" was pwbli-shed lecturer and free 'Lance writer. Iin 1960 by Rolbert Slpeltler and Hans Schutz, mem1ber of the Sons, New York Gennan Federa,l Parliament, is I Constantine Culen, former memalso co-chairman oif t>he Sudeten I ber of the Slo,v ak ParJiament and Sl-ovalk journalislt, one of ithe most German Oo-uncil in Muniich. Philip A. Hrobak, ediitor of Slo- prolific Slov,a k writers, now revakia, is also editor olf the Jed- sides in Fforida. nota (The Union), the oifificiaJ orKarl Kern, j-ourna.List, is chairgan of th•e First Catholic Slovak man of the Sudeten Association in Unfon, of the UStA. -a nd Can:adia, Ma1mo, Sweden. 1 1 I  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Where All Roads End Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 10, No. 7 (32), September-December 1960 pp. 59-60 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1960 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d30e6d7dd5f8d711753576fe2f105984.pdf e38c890cc26110e84f610292af06c7a2 PDF Text Text DECEMBEJIR, 1952 SLOVAKIA 1 What Led to the PROCLAMATION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC KAROL SIDOR ( Former Ambassador of Slovakia to the Vatican) Our greait Svetozár Hurban Vajanský once wrote the following encouraglng words: " . . . fear not the proximity of events and do not be afrald of too small a perspective. Our elders sinned grievously dn that respect. In folio form, they published the war of the divine Titan against the Jews; they wrote enormous volumes about America and Palestine; and hístories about the cavalry units of Cracow and water nymphs. But they left us practically nothing about themselves and about their times; that is, they ddd not leave us thelr views and opin!ons so tha.t we, their successors, now stand before a dark corner, a:bout wh-lch we know only that in lt our natlon breathed, worked, suffered, bied, sinned, performed good works, quarreled and harmoniously formed associatlons, hated and loved. We - the unfortunate heirs of indolent fathers - have nothing in our hands'" So that a similar verdlct be not rendered agalnst us in the (uture, we must wrlte about everything - about everything that we authoTed or at least were witnesses of, about everything we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. Such a testimony, of course, cannot be anythlng but subjective. But after a gre.ater lapse of bime, future historians will be able to form from various such subjective testimonies an objectlve picture about the events and the people of that particular tlme. The question of Slovak s,tatehood was dealt w-ith in a speech dellvered on February 21, -1939, by the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph Tiso, who said: "After a pause of a thousand years, after long years of fighting for its national rights, the Slovak natňon has its own government, its own paTUament, and is itself building its own state. Here on the floor of our own p.arliament, we -are buHding our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State. The Slovak natlon is bullding its own State, which is the organ of its soveraignty, the executor of its will and the defender of its interests. Never again must it happen that the Slovak nation be pla.ced in oppos!tion to its own State. Being a Slovak patriot and an idea! nationalist means b~ng a Joyal buUder of the Slovak State. Love for the Slovak nat!on 1s demonstrated conc.retely by loyalty and devotlon to the Slovak State. We do not uphold ťhe State just for the sake of having a State, but because, and only as long as, the nation needs it." In these words Dr. Tiso lndicated only the road we were to travel in bullding our own Slovak State In the future. "Here on the floor of our own parliament we are buildlng our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State" - that was the directive for tbe future. Wben Dr. Joseph 'I'lso delivered bis speech in tbe Slovak Assembly on February 21, 1939, he was well aware of the fact tha:t we s,till clid not have a Slovak State. There did exist an autonomous Slovak Government and a Slovak parliament, hut that was not enough to al- �2 SLOVAKIA low us to speak about the Slovak State aa an already &X.isting formatlon. There was still lacking the proclamation of the State, lts recognition by foreign powers, and we also lacked that which makes a Sbate a State: our own army and our own representatives in other countries. The Slova.ks who uoted the number of times the words "Slovak State" were mentioned dn Tiso's speech before the Slovak Parliament oould be completely satisfied. And the Slovaks were saitlsfied, but the Cz.echs became dlscontented. Czech dissatisfactiou was demonstrated not only •in newspapers, but also in the sessions of the Centra! Government in Prague. In the sessions of thait government, as a State Minister, I urged the Czechs to fulfill everything t hey had bound themselves to fulfill by para~raphs of the Constltutlional Document wh!ch was adopted in the P11ague Parliament on November 22, 1938. The Slovak Government had entrusted me to concern myself with common problems in Prague, <the question of foreign affairs, finances and the army. I made concrete the Slovak demands and requested the Centra! Government to take a stand on them, app.rove them and hasten the.i!r rool!zation. On Wednesday, Maroh 1, 1939, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the Counc!l of Ministers was in session in Pr.ague. Present were the Czechs: Rudolph Beran, the Premier of the Government, and m!ndsters Chvalkov.s'ký, Syrový, Kalfus, Havell~a. Krejči, and Fischer. The Slovaks were represented by Karol ,stdor, Stephen Haššík (for mllitary affalrs) and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (for flnancial affairs). I pre-sented our demands in the military and financial departments. 'l'he first to reply was Premier Rudolph Beran. He said that two matters were involved: fundamental questions and partia! demands. 'ľhe entire Czeoll public, according to Beran, 1s condemning Tiso's speech in the Slovak Parllament in which he proclaimed that the Slovaks are building their ovm State, their own Slovak State, on the floor of parliament, and completely neglected to mention the Czech<rSlovak Republic even once. Beran demanded the Slovak Government to pubhloize its loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, otherwise it would not be possil:ile to act on the partia! demands which were presented to ,h !m by me. "We must elther come to an ~greement," said Beran, "or part." We cannot circumvent this question on tiptoes as we would a cotpse. We cannot deny that a dangerous s:ltuation e:x:ists, added Beran, 'because !t could overwhelm not only the Czech Government, but the Slovak Government as well. When I waa permitted to reply to Premier Beran, I said: "We are not going to publish any fundamental manifestations about our loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Czechs and the Slovaks have accepted the law ,a bout the autonomy of Slovak!a, and that law mus,t not be neglected by the Czeohs. The Slovak party is fultilling wihat is in that law, because we, too, voted for that law, -as we also voted for the joint State budget for the yeiar 1939. The Slova.k Government !s responsible for the State in Slovakia, and the Czech Government cannot have guardlanship over !t. That we should continually have to e:x:press ourselves for the Czecho•Slovak !te• public !s nauseous particula.rly to me, because even dul'ing the Flrst Republlc I did not have to keep glving testlmony of my loyalty to the State and, as far a~ I am <'Oncernerl, 1 am not wllllng to do so even �SLOVAKIA 3 now. During the life of the Flrst Republic, Slovaks In Government wanted to galn the trust of the Czechs and they s,tressed thei'ľ rellabllity iin such a manner that they never sald the words "Slovak" and "Slovakia" separately. but always added, when they sald Slovakia: and our beloved Czecho,Slovak 'Republic. And when tbey used tbe word "Slovaks," tbey lmmedlately added: and our derurly loved bretbrnn, t he Czecb.s. The bealtby reactlon to tbls unnatural status ls what is happening In Slovakla today, l.e. tbat only Slovakia and the Slovaks are stressed. We shall mentdon the Republlc ·a nd the Czechs only after tbe Republic and the Czecbs accept everythlng they have boun<l themselves to d-0 by the law pertalnlng <to the autonomy of Slovakla. I must say that slnce October 6~h nothlng has changed as far as the wlll of the Czechs is concerned." After I sald these words, a bitter debate followed. Most important were those spoken by Chvalkovský, Minister of Forelgn Af• fair;;. He said: "Whatever we have done thus far, we have not done well neither you, nor we. We stand before ,the questlon: Shall we stlll stay together, or shall we part. An EngHs,h st-ate&man once sa1d: a door must be either opened or closed. Every breeze cannot play ,vith lt. I was shocked by what Sldor has sald, that trom October &t-h nothlng has changed SlovakJa. Never in history did Slovakla have a Slov-ak Government. She has one slnce Ootober 6th, and that in ltself means tbat since October 6th much has changed In Slovakia. Slnce October 6th we ddd not have t!me enough to look eacb other in the eye. We had to worry about our relat!onsblp wlth our nelghbors, there were armies of tbree States on tbe terrltory ot the Republlc, and we could not resolve our interna) relatlons,blp speedlly. We, too, ha.ve a dlscon<tented mass of people, wbich 1s demanding tbat we correct the mlstakes of the past and avoid mlstakes In the present. I am not respons,ible for the past regime, but nelther ls Sldor. I am dolng wha.tever I can do. In the hlstory of forelgn mlnlsters, nowhere w!ll you find a minister who had received 27 ultimatums wlthln such a shoz,t time. Most of them are from the Magyars and the Poles decrylng the conduct of the Slovak and Ruthenlan Governments. Thus, it 1s very dlf~lcult for me to make order abroad, when these Governments, contrary to the Constituliona.1 Document, also lntervene in forelgn affalrs. Every week, with dispasslona.te perststence, I am Io Hltler's offlce seeklng recognitloo of Cz(lcbo-Slovakla's boundaries, and all I get ls an evaslve answer along wttb polntlng to tbe unsettled Interna) affairs of the State. The deputies trom Prague are saying that the question of ,the partlog of the Slovaks and tbe Czechs is only a matter of weeks, and at most one of montbs. The effe,ct abroad is tbat we are oot recognlzed as a subject of lnteroa.tlonal law, but only as an object. I demand that tbe Slovak Government state officlally that lt 1s for tbe Czecho·Slovak Republlc. It the Slovak Government decldes otherwise, we shall part. Tbe Czech nation shall not stand in the way of your procilalm1ng the lndependence or Slo• vakia. lt ls better lf this ha,ppens voluntarlly." Agalo I aoswered that the Slovak Government wlll not make any manlfestation of loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republlc as long as all the Slovak demands. emanatlng from the agreement between the Czechs and the Slovaks, are not fulfilled. �4 SLOVAKIA Premier Beran closed the J<ively meeting of the Mlnisterial Councll wlth the remark that the following week the plenum of the Centra! Government, of which the Slovak ministers headed by Dr. Tiso are also members, shaJI meet to definJtely resolve fundamental questlons and partia! programs, "since this could not be done through Sidor." The situation developed rapidly. I returned horne to Bratislava and requested the President of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph 'Nso, to call a joint meeting of the Slovak Government, the Executive Committee of the Slovak Assembly and the Executive Com mittee of Hllnka's Slovak Peoples Party. T hat meeting was held in Bratislava, on Monday, March 6, 1939. There I reported what had transpired thus (ar in Prague and requested that we clearly style the question of the Slovak State for ourselves and also decide on the manner of proclaimlng !t, because, according to my conviction, the situatlon in Prague was already such that we could no longer reckon with a new reconc!liation and further negotlation with the Czechs. After a lengthy <lebate, the stand unanimously accepted was given form by the president of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tlso, as follows: "To continue the bullding of the Slovak State in an evolutionary way and at this time not to proclaim tbe establishment immediately." That stand was proper and reasonable. Every natlon desires to have its own State, to build it in !ts own way. The Slovaks were building theirs on the floor of the Slovak Parliament and would proclaim lt when the Slovak deputies, the duly elected representatives of the Slovak nation, deemed !t proper to do so. Tbe followlng day, March 7, 1939, Dr. Artbur Seiss-Inquart came from Vlenna to pay me a "social call." Ht> told me tbat on this orcasion ·he would like to talk wlth Dr. Josepb Tlso. I called Dr. Tiso to my resldence, bence both or us were present durlng the conversat!on with Seiss-Jnquart. After a few social formalities, Selss-Jnquart turned to politics and remarked that the foreign sltuation was becomlng very dangerous lor the Slovak natlon. Adolph Hitler, he said, was ready to act severely against the entire Czech o-Slovak Hepublic. It is in the interest or the Slovaks not to become vlctlms along wlth the Czechs, but to save themselves by establish!ng thelr own Slovak State. T hereul)On, Dr. J osepb Tiso explalned wbat he had decided upon yesterday, tbat is, that we wanted to build the Slovak State ln an evolutlonary manner and dld not w"ish to proclaim lt rlght now. "To Slovak State independence," Dr. Joseph Tlso said, "we would like to come by a peaceful march toward our goal, pos$lbly by runn!ng toward it." "It is no longer enough," answered Seiss-Inquar t, "to march peacefully toward the goal, or even runn!ng loward lt. You must jump, because only by doing so will you attain your goal." The joint conference wlth the Czecbs was suppoaed to take place Marcb 9th. I had agreed witb prem!er Dr. Tlso that I would go to Prague afone and would let bim know by p-hone whether it would stlll be nec&SSary for bim and also tbe rest of the Slovak Jllllnlsters to come to P rague. �SLOVAKIA 5 I arrived in Prague in the evenlng of March 8th. I a.scertained how the situation there sharpened against the Slovak.s and, therefore, that same evenlng I phoned to Bratislava, telling Dr. Tiso to stay horne and not to come to Pmgue. On March 9, at 4 p. m., the Mlnlsterlal Councll held a meeting in Prague. Present with me were all three delegates of the Slova.k Government: Dr. Joseph Zvrškovec (,l<'ore!lgn Affail'S). Stephen Hašš[k, (Milltary Affairs). and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (Financlal Af· fairs). At the staTt of tbe session, Premier Beran suddenly announced that a secret meeting of the Mlnisterial Council was ahout to take place ,and requested all three delegates of the Sloivak Government to leave the assembly room. I remalne·d •In the room with Minister Paul Teplánsky. In an angered tone Beran said that in all the embassies of Prague the exact time of the proclamation of the independent State of Slovakla was known and that only the Prague Government knew nothing about it. I replled t!hat such rumors were inundatlng the whole of Slovakia, hut that we had not come to Prague to establish the truth or ialsehood of such rumors. We had come to present the Slovak tlemands and have the Centra! Government accept and approve them. We must talk abou t the concrete matters; these the delegates of the Slovak Government have prepared and, therefore, I asked that they be lnvited to the conference. My request was heard. In an atmosphere that threatened to explode, the three delegates of the Slovak Government and I presented the Slovak demands. Delegate Stephen Raššlk was so overwrought that Beran had to remind bim to compose himself when he began to pound the groon table sharply with bis f,ist. Such a thlng, he sald, had never before happened in the MinisteriaJ Council. When the tension was highest, a messenger came from the foyer to teli me that Minister Dr. Havelka wanted me on °the r,hone. Dr. Havelka was an aide to President Rácha al the Hrad (Oastle). He requested me to come to the Hrad at once; President Rácha urgently wished to speak with me. I returned to the conference room and said to Stephen Haššík: "Here is my briefcase; take it horne with you if I do not return. Presldent Rácha has called for me, and I sense that lt may be nothing good.'' Informing Beran that I was summoned to the Castle. I left the .Ministerial Council a little before midnight. On the ground floor of the building a police officer told me that 1 was to be held. I protested against this S-O vociferously that the whole bll'ilding of the Ministerial Council resounded wlth my protest. :'dy delention, however, was soon explalned, and I hurried to the Castle. After greetlng Presldent Rácha with a "good evening," l protested to him against the violation of my congressional immunity. Rácha knew nothlng about it and palnfully grasped his head. He was an old, overworked man, hut an honest and good man. Catching his breath, he sa~d stutterlngly: "Several moments ago I performed a very unpleasant task. I dismissed the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tiso, and three �6 SLOVAKIA other min.!sters from their posts. I had to do lt, because the consoli• dation of conditions in Slovakia demanded it." I looped trom my chair and replied: "Mr. Presldent, I cannot agree w'ith the step you have taken. I am jo!n!ng wlth the dls• missed ministers and, here and now, tender you my reslgnat!on. I have nothing more to do in Prague." The President wias quite moved as he stood up and begged me not to resign and not let myself be overcome by hasty anger. "With full knowledge of what may happen to me here in Prague for my statement," I said quietly and seriously, "l repeat that I do not agree with what you have done; I protest agalnst lt and hereby tender you my reslgnatlon. I am golng home to Slovakla on the very next traln." :Aresident Rácha mopped bis forehead and head wlth both hands and in a voice completely broken asked me agaln not to resign, because, he said, -it would result In lm.mense harm for Slovakia. "I have nothlng to add to what I have sald," I replled and began walking toward the door. The Presldent caught up W'ith me, grasped my arm, and pleaded that I tarry a bit longer. "Beran will soon be here," he said. And at that very moment, the door burst open and Beran walked In hurrjedly. Stlll standing near the door, I related to Beran what I had told Rácha: 1 was resign.!ng and going home. Rácha and Beran, bowever, entreated me to stay on. They were convinced, they sald, with regard to condltions In Sloviakia, that I was not doing the right úhlng. I gave in to them to the extent that I would announce my reslgnatlon to them from Bratislava after I had consulted with my frlends. As I lett the Presldenťs oftice, in the corridor I met Peter Pridavok, who at that Ume wa.s head of the press department of the Slovak Government, also Dr. Dobrovský, my secretary, and my aMe, Lt. Fratrič. With my three ~rlends I rode to my Prague resldence. In the mornlng of the next day, l\farch 10th, I asked to get c onnected wlth the edltorlal office of the SLOVÁK in Bratislava. No one answered there. Then I tried to get connected wlth the General Secretariate of the Rllnka Slovak People's Party, but no one answered even there. Finally, they connected me with the Government Building -in Bratislava. Dr. Karol Kllnovský, Chlef of the Securlty Service In Slovakia, ,ans,wered tbe phone. I dlctated a rePort to bim to publlsh In the SLOVÁK. to wít, that "Sldor wa3 placed before an accompllshed fact In Prague In the matter of the dlsmissal of the Slovak mlnlsters; he dld not agree with the dlsmissal and protested against it to Presldent Rácha." The report was then p\tbllshed in the SLOVÁK that very day, In the issue berurlng the datellne of March 11, 1939. At that time Dr. Kllnovský told me that Martlal Law was proclalmed in Slovakla without the knowledge of the Slovak Government. The Bratiislava offlces, edltorlal and secretarlal, as well as the offlces of the Hlinka Guard were occupled by the Czech Army and police. Over 250 Slovaks had been arrested, hundreds of offl· clals were suspended, many GHards were taken lnto Moravla and hundreds of Slovaks had fled to Vienna to avold arrest. Somethlng wlthin me snapped. I could not belleve tha.t Rácha �SLOVAil..lA 7 and Beran were as faithless as T. G. Masaryk and Bene!í and their adherents when it came to keeping agreements, solemn signatures and promises w!Jth the Slov.ak.s. I really respected Hácha and Beran and believed that whatever they would promlse and sign, they would aJso keep honorably and fulfill. But, Io and behold, they were overthrowlng the Slovak Governm~nt in Bratislava without the knowledge and behlnd the backs of the duly authorized representatlves of the Slovak Government and lts three delegates. Without the knowledge of the Slovak Government, they proclaímed Martlal Law in Slovakla, occupied the territory of autonomous Slovak1a with soldiers and gendarmes, arrested Slovak Deputies and hauled people to Moravia, wh!le they were telling• me that they were doing a very unpleasant duty in the "lnterest" ot Slovakia. Anti-Slovak elements In Slovalcta, encouraged by such mOO-'lures. ralsed tbeir beads on tbe streets and barked at tbe autonomlsts: "Now, we'll give you autonomy!" While I was thlnking about wbat was happening, the Czech Mln•lster Feierabend came to my resldence. He had a considerable understandlng for Slovak matters. He told me tbat Beran had flent him to teli me to vlslt Mm at once. "No!" I Teplled to Feierabend. "After yesterday'e events in Prague ano those that are happening In Slovakia now, I do not wlsh to speak wlth any one In Prague. Not even with you. or Beran." I remained in my resldence with my frlends. I wa!ted for Dr. Martin Sokol, president of the Slovak Assembly, who had suddenly been called to Prague, to flnlsh bis audience with Presldent Hácha. Wben he arrlved, I traveled wlth bim to Bt>atislava on the afternoon express. I arrlved In B!'atlslava at 9 P. M., March 10. A strong d!Vflslon ot the Hlinka Guard awalted me at the station; also a stronger one of the Czech army, Jed by a Colonel. Masses of people cllmbed aboard the engine and thousands upon thousands mllled around Nie s quare around the station. They sang maTches ot the Guard and acclalmed me voclferously. At the request ot the Czech Colonel, on the way to the edltorial offlce of the SLOVÁK, I stopped at the o!fice of the General Voyta, Commander of the National Army In Slo• vakla. He was a tough soJd.ier. But he saw the sltuatlon clearly and, lt seemed to me, dld not like lt at all. When I complalned that the army was shooting into the unarmed crowd In Bratislava, he replied that no one shot at the people, but a few salvos were fired into the aiT to frlghten them. Later, I ascertalned for myself that the Czech army In Bratislava really dld not shoot any one. Anthony Kopal, the only Slovak who was felled by a bullet, was shot by a Czecb gendarme. When I asked who had orderd the army and the tanks lnto the streets ot Branislava, Voyta told me that he personally was called to Prague by Syrový, Minister ot Natlonal Defense, who ordered bim to do so. I requested Voyta to free all prlsoners in Bratislava taken by bis men. Voyta replied that he would as soon as he found ou.t if· a.ny one was arrested in Bratislava.; and that he would notity me. Havlng appraised the sltuatlon at its source, I hurrled to my car and contlnued on my way to the SLOVÁK, whlle a masa ot 7000- �8 SLúVAKIA 8000 people, gathered about Voyta's office, cheered and sang robustly. When I arri ved at the SLOVÁK, I found the higher officials of the Hlinka Party, headed by Dr. Tis-0, already waiting for me. The entire executive body of the Assembly arrived and a lengthy deliberation began. Dr. Tiso, vice-president of the Party, presided at the session. He told about the situation that had developed in Bratislava, while Dr. Sokol and I related our experiences in Prague. I said that I would not go to Prague any more and requested that my resignatlon as State Minister be accepted by the conference. And forthwith, I proposed that the new Slovak Government be made up as follows: Dr. Joseph Tiso, president of the Slovak Government; Dr. Martin Sokol, Minister of Interior; Joseph Sivák, Minister of Education; Julius Stano, Minister of Transportation; Dr. Peter Zaťko, Minister of Agriculture; Dr. Alex Hrnčár, Minister of Finance, and Dr. Gejza Fritz, Minister of Jusbice. The conference decided - wit,h only one dissenting vote, my own - that I shoulct not resign, but continue in the office of State Minister. Dr. Joseph Tiso t hen announced that he could not assent to accept the office offered him. He stated that here he was not <:oncerned aboQt himself personally - all such thoughts must now be secondary - but that he did not want to place President Rácha int-0 an unpleasant situation: he did not want Rácha pressed today to name as president of the Slovak Government that Tiso, whom he had yesterday dism1ssed from that office. 'I\he situation 1s šerious - said Dr. Tiso - and we must not use the Slovak pľO'blem to enha,nce our persona! interests and prestige. Slovakia needs a government, Tiso concluded, so that greater confusion and chaos would not ensue. Thereupon, the conference authorized Dr. Martin Sokol to proceed as follows: If Dr. Joseph Tiso were not acceptable in Prague, then Karol Sidor should be proposed as president of the Slovak Government. The next day, Saturday, March 11, 1939, the praesidium of the Slovak Assembly, presented the names of the new Slovak Government to President Rácha in Prague. This had to be done, because paragraph V, Article 4, of the Constitution of November 22, 1938, demanded it. It states: The members of the autonomous Slovak Gov• ernment, forming a com-ponent part of the Centra! Government, shaII be apointed by the Pr-esiident of the Republic on the motion of the praesidium of the Assembly of Slovakia. President Dr. Emil Hácha approved the second alternatíve and r.amed the new Slovak Government with me as lts president. The other members of my government were: Sivák, Sokol, Stano, Zaťko, Rrnčár and Fritz. This, then, was the !ega! Slovak Government created according to the Constitutlonal Document which was valid at the tíme. The very day that the news carried the names of the men constituting the new Slovak Government, I had several German vlsltors: editor Goldbach, then Carbus; later that night, close to mldnight of March 11, Wr. William Kepler, special deputy of Adolph Hitler and Assistant Secrebary of State for Foreign Affalrs, Dr. Selss- �SLOVAKIA 9 Inquart, G-Overnor of Austria, and Joseph Biirckel, Austrian gauIeiter, who demanded that I 1mmediately proclaim the independence of the Slovak State by radlo either through the station in Bratislav•a or the one in Vienna. I replied that responsible factors of the Hlinka Party aind the Slovak Assembly had decided "to continue to build the Slovak State by an evolutionary process and not to proclaim its establishment right now." I explasined that I, too, was bound by that declslon and could not violate it without the assent of the Party and the Assembly. If lhe Assembly and the Party change thelr previous stand and on the floor of the .A;ssembly, now decide to P'ľOClaim an independent Slovak State "right now," I would comply wlth that changed attitude. My actions were governed, I said, not by expedl· ency or my persona! fancies, but by the policy of the nation according to the diirectives which I had from competent Slovak organs. I take my orders only from them, I concluded, and I will not execute the orders and commands given me by representatives of another natlon. Natura1'1y, the Germans were not satisfied with my answer. And they demonstrated their dissatisfaction in a very concrete fashion. On March 13, they vented thelr hatred of me by placlng a bomb under my horne in Bratislava to ktill me and my whole family. I thanked God that it was discovered in Ume and rendered harmless. Another bomb was placed under the Jesuit monastery in Brati!>lava where Dr. Joseph Tiso resided. That bomb actually exploded and caused quite a bit of damage to the walls and windows of the structure. No one, however, was killed. As soon as I took over the presidency of the Slovak Government all military regulations and orders, especla!ly the proclamation of Martial Law, were revoked and rendered invalid. The putsch of the Czech generals, ord8'l'ed by President Rácha and Premier Be1,an of the Centra! G-Overnment and executed by Syrový, Minister of NatiOJ1al Defense, was thus liquidated. I liberated Slovak prlsoners in Slovakia, returned all suspended persona to thelr jobs, and made certain mi!itary provisiions to pre-vent any new putsches. The orders provided for the placement of Slovak officers as supervlsors of the Slovak Government in all milltary formatlons which were headed !Jy Czeoh generals and colonels. Simultaneously, President Rácha and General Syrový ordered all commanders of the army in Slovakla not to undertake any ventures wlthout my knowlodge or wlthout the knowledge of the appointed Slovak offlcers. This provision of mine I considered most lmportant. It was thus that the Slovaks took over the command of the army in Slovakia before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State. That meant that the Slovaks took possession of one of the symbols of State sovereignty. How !mpo!'tant was this provision was demonstT,ated soon after the !ndependence of the Slovak State was proolaimed, when the Magyars a,ttacked the eastern borders of Slovakia, and our dlsciplined army, under the command of Lt. Colonel Augustine Malar, effectively resisted them. Without our mil!tary resistance, the Ma• gyars would have occupled the eastern area of Slovakla even beyond �10 SLOVAKIA Prešov, just as they had occupied the whole of Ruthenia. which offered no military reslstance. But even before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State, the knowledge that Slovak offlcers were in command of every m!llta.ry garrison In Slovakia evoked a remarkable satisfaction in the ranka of the Slovaks, who no longer had to fea.r that the barracks would agaln unload a host of soldiers who would fight agalnst the people and lts !nterests. On Monday, March 13, 1939, at 6:00 .A. M., Dr. Tiso arrlved in Bro.tňslava from Banovce to visit me. He told me that he had received an "lnv!tatlon" to vis!t Adolph Hitler in Berlin and asked me whether I would agree that he go. I answered h!m that I d!d, but wanted it approved by my whole government as well as the praesidlum of the Party and the A.ssembly. Thereupon, the Slovak Government, the praes!dium of the Assembly and the Party were called to meet In the offlce of the SLOVÁK. The conference lasted unb!l 12:30 P. M. The unanlmous decislon was: Dr. Joseph Tlso was to go to Berlin. After the conference. I issued the followlng off-icial statement for the Bratislava press and radlo: "We announce to the Slovak public that today, Monday morning, the praesldium of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party had a meeting in Bratislava. At thls meeting of the praesldlum of the Party, Dr. Joseph Tiso, former Presldent of the Slovak Government, announced that he had recefved au offlcial summons from the Relch Ohancellor, Adolph Hitler, to vis!t him at once In Berlin. The pra.esld<lum of the Party has acknowledged thls lnv!tation, and so has the Government of Karol Sldor. Consequently, Dr. Joseph Tiso crossed the border at Bratislava at noon today accompanled by the German Consul In Bratislava, deputy Stephen Danlhel and deputy Ing. Karmasin. The purpose of Dr. Joseph Tiso's trip to Berlin 1s a olarlfllcation of the present situat!on." In the instructions, which the conference gave to Dr. Joseph Tiso for hls trip to Berlin, he was told: to hear what Hitler had to say, but not to glve hlm any kind of blndlng statement; then to return to Brátlslava and report on h!s vlslt to competent Slovak factors and await the deflnite decislon of the Assembly, the Government and the Party. Dr. Joseph Tiso visited Rlbbentrop and Hitler in Berlin. After converslng w<lth them, he went to the Czecho-,Slovak embassy in llerlln, whence he phoned me and requested me to call the Slovak Assembly together. Thls telephon;, conversation took place with Tlso at 7: 30 P. M. on March 13, 1939. I lmmedlately got in touch with Presldent Hácha who, actlng in accord with Paragraph V of the ConB'titutlon of November 22, 1938, called a meeting of the Slovak Assembly on March 14, 1939. The Slovak Assembly, therefore, was convened Iegally, In the manner prescribed by the Const!tution of the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. Tuesday, March 14, 1939, at 9: 00 A. M. the Slovak Government, the praesldium of the Assembly and the Hlinka Party convened In the Government Buildlng at Bratislava. Dr. Joseph Tlso gave an exhaustlve report about hls trip to Berlin. The meeting approved h!s report enthus!ast!cally; he had done the task he was asked to do. After the meeting, the Slovak Assembly convened In 1ts quarters �SLOVAKIA 11 for the session oa.Ued by the President of the Republ1c, Dr. En:(11 Rácha. Thls memorable meetlng of the Slovak A.ssembly opened at 10: 57 A. M., March 14, 1939, by the Vlce-Presldent of the Assembly, Dr. Karol Mederly. After golng through the rormallties, Dr. Mederly, in accordance to Paragraph 37 of the order or business, moved that the remaining buslness or the Assembly be conMdential. Therefore, only Deput!es of the Assemb!y and members of the Slovak Government remained in the assembly ha.11. Of the 63 duly elected representatives of the Slovak Assembly, 57 were present at this hlstorical session of the Slovak leglslature. T·h e secret session began at 11:10 A. M. The flrst order or business was my spe,ech, in wbich I deplcted events as they had developed in Slova.kla and recounted a.II that my Government had accomplished withln so short a time. In my name and in the name or the other mJnisters, I announced the reslgnation of my government. I concluded my speech In this manner: " . . . in the name of the ent.ire Government I tender our resignatione to this solemn Assembly. At thls very moment, this my decision is being ma.de kno,w n also to the constitutional factor.s in Prague and, with this, I proclaim the bTief act!v!J.ty of my Government at an end. Sir Deputles, I I)Tay that you be unlted, selt-conscious and mutually trustworthy, because only thus shall we be able to get our Slovak nation out of the present dlfficult situation and establlsh order and stablllity and a solid front. I want to assure you, gentlemen, that I sha.11 support with my whole strength and will everythlng that you sha.11 decide. Long live the Slovak natlon! Long live free Slova.kla!" Dr. Joseph Tiso then presented an extenslve report on hls trip to Berlin. In hls introduct.ion, Dr. Tlso stated that he ma.de the trip to BerMn, because the conference of March 13th had declded that he do so. In Berlin, Dr. 1'1so told forelgn minister · Joachim von Rlbbentrop: " . . . by lnltlatlve we Slova.ks will never glve the lmpulse to liquidat-e tbe Czecho-.Slovak Republic. But !! we see that the course of events ls developlng in such a way that it m!ght be more beneflclal to us, we s-hall consider it our duty to choose a suitable tlme to separate (from the Czeohs). lf our people see that events are tending In a dlrectlon lndicatlng that the only w·ay out fs to make otrrselves independent, then every Slovak wlll tlghten bis belt, live more frugally, wflll know how to bear up even under lesseT advantages, and shall say to hlmself: under the glven clrcumstances, t here was natblng else we could do. Rlbbentrop fully recognlzed and understod our posltlon." Then Dr. Tlso told about hls vlsit wlth Adolph Hitler. The iatter told hlm directly that the Magya.rs were preparing to occupy t he whole of Slovak.ia at that Ume. "And you must declare yourself agaJ!ns.t lt," sa!d Hitler ... "and declare yourself wlth llghtn1ng speed. This declaratáon must be ma.de to proper factors so that they would know that t.he Slovak natlon has lts own State, its own territory and that, therefore, it must prevent any one from ma.king clalms to enter Slovak terrltory and to the Slovak populatlon. There 1s no Ume for waiting. Not days, but hours shall declde the lssue." �12 SLOVAKIA Dr. 'l'iso thought for a moment, repeated the decision of the conference of March 13th, and ad ded: "You will pardon me, if I cannot say anything else more concrete." In short, Dr. Tiso followed the directlves given by the representatives of the Slovak nation: to un<lertake no obligatiollll, to promise nothlng In Berlin. Dr. 'l'iso concluded his repoi,t to the Assembly with the words: "Here, before the Assembly, I place the dry material gatbered in Berlin durlng my visit tb ere, the report which you •b ave just bearo, and I beg you to ponder over it and then ren der a decision !" Dr. Joseph Tlso made no proposal either for separating from the Czechs or for proclaiming an independent Slovak State. After Tiso completed his report, Dr. Martin Sokol, pres1dent of the Slovak A:ssembly, recessed the session for a few mlnutes. Durlng the recess, tbe deputles considered and d1scussed what they had hearo. When the meeting was called to order again at 12: 06 P. M., Dr. Sokol said: "You have heard the manlfestatlon of t-he President of the Slovak Government, Karol Sidor, and tbe report of Mr. Deputy Dr. Joseph Tiso about !)!!s conversaitlon with •Reich Chancellor Adolph Hitler and Reich Minister of Forelgn Affaiirs von Ribbentrop. No~v we are suppose<l to decide by voting whether the Assembly of Slovakia is for an indepen-dent Slovak State or not. We shall declare our vote by arlsing. Those In favor of proolaiming the in<lependence of the Slovak State, please rise!" lt was 12:07 P. M., March 14, 1939, when all 57 members of bhe Slovak Assembly arose from their seats and, thus, unanimously voted for the establishment of t•h e independent State of Slovakia. Thereupon, Dr. Sokol announced: "I flnd that the Assembly of Slovakia, as the only competent organ of the polltlcal will of the sovereign Slovak nation, has decided in favor of an independent Slovak State." &tm standing, the depu,ties sang t-he Slovak hymn "Hej, Slováci" (Yeah, Ye Slovaks), wMch later became the National Anthem of the Slovak State. ľt was thus that the .independence of fäe Slovak State was proclaimed. After a thousand years the Slovaks again became masters of their !and and their destiny. The hidden yearning of the natlon for its own State had come to life. Even here the words of Svetozar Hurban Vajanský are applicable: "To ascribe characteristics to the masses of people which they do not possess would be folly, indeed. But to rouse and develop the chara.cteristlcs ,..,,hfoh the native mass does possess, even though they are hi<lden, thrut is our fatal obligrution." This "fatal obUgation" was performed by the Slovak Deputies who proclaimed the independence of the Slovak State of March 14, 1939. They -had awakened the desire that was hidden in the soul of the nation, brought it out lnto the open and made lt real. And from 1939 to 1945, that Mdden desire, translated lnto reality, grew and prospered in the heart of every self-conscious and loyal Slovak. No one on this earth shall ever be able to stifle or kill this holy yearning of the Slovak nation for a new and more lasting State of its own - an Independent Slovakia. • • • � DECEMBEJIR, 1952 SLOVAKIA 1 What Led to the PROCLAMATION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC KAROL SIDOR ( Former Ambassador of Slovakia to the Vatican) Our greait Svetozár Hurban Vajanský once wrote the following encouraglng words: " . . . fear not the proximity of events and do not be afrald of too small a perspective. Our elders sinned grievously dn that respect. In folio form, they published the war of the divine Titan against the Jews; they wrote enormous volumes about America and Palestine; and hístories about the cavalry units of Cracow and water nymphs. But they left us practically nothing about themselves and about their times; that is, they ddd not leave us thelr views and opin!ons so tha.t we, their successors, now stand before a dark corner, a:bout wh-lch we know only that in lt our natlon breathed, worked, suffered, bied, sinned, performed good works, quarreled and harmoniously formed associatlons, hated and loved. We - the unfortunate heirs of indolent fathers - have nothing in our hands'" So that a similar verdlct be not rendered agalnst us in the (uture, we must wrlte about everything - about everything that we authoTed or at least were witnesses of, about everything we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. Such a testimony, of course, cannot be anythlng but subjective. But after a gre.ater lapse of bime, future historians will be able to form from various such subjective testimonies an objectlve picture about the events and the people of that particular tlme. The question of Slovak s,tatehood was dealt w-ith in a speech dellvered on February 21, -1939, by the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph Tiso, who said: "After a pause of a thousand years, after long years of fighting for its national rights, the Slovak natňon has its own government, its own paTUament, and is itself building its own state. Here on the floor of our own p.arliament, we -are buHding our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State. The Slovak natlon is bullding its own State, which is the organ of its soveraignty, the executor of its will and the defender of its interests. Never again must it happen that the Slovak nation be pla.ced in oppos!tion to its own State. Being a Slovak patriot and an idea! nationalist means b~ng a Joyal buUder of the Slovak State. Love for the Slovak nat!on 1s demonstrated conc.retely by loyalty and devotlon to the Slovak State. We do not uphold ťhe State just for the sake of having a State, but because, and only as long as, the nation needs it." In these words Dr. Tiso lndicated only the road we were to travel in bullding our own Slovak State In the future. "Here on the floor of our own parliament we are buildlng our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State" - that was the directive for tbe future. Wben Dr. Joseph 'I'lso delivered bis speech in tbe Slovak Assembly on February 21, 1939, he was well aware of the fact tha:t we s,till clid not have a Slovak State. There did exist an autonomous Slovak Government and a Slovak parliament, hut that was not enough to al- �2 SLOVAKIA low us to speak about the Slovak State aa an already &X.isting formatlon. There was still lacking the proclamation of the State, lts recognition by foreign powers, and we also lacked that which makes a Sbate a State: our own army and our own representatives in other countries. The Slova.ks who uoted the number of times the words "Slovak State" were mentioned dn Tiso's speech before the Slovak Parliament oould be completely satisfied. And the Slovaks were saitlsfied, but the Cz.echs became dlscontented. Czech dissatisfactiou was demonstrated not only •in newspapers, but also in the sessions of the Centra! Government in Prague. In the sessions of thait government, as a State Minister, I urged the Czechs to fulfill everything t hey had bound themselves to fulfill by para~raphs of the Constltutlional Document wh!ch was adopted in the P11ague Parliament on November 22, 1938. The Slovak Government had entrusted me to concern myself with common problems in Prague, <the question of foreign affairs, finances and the army. I made concrete the Slovak demands and requested the Centra! Government to take a stand on them, app.rove them and hasten the.i!r rool!zation. On Wednesday, Maroh 1, 1939, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the Counc!l of Ministers was in session in Pr.ague. Present were the Czechs: Rudolph Beran, the Premier of the Government, and m!ndsters Chvalkov.s'ký, Syrový, Kalfus, Havell~a. Krejči, and Fischer. The Slovaks were represented by Karol ,stdor, Stephen Haššík (for mllitary affalrs) and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (for flnancial affairs). I pre-sented our demands in the military and financial departments. 'l'he first to reply was Premier Rudolph Beran. He said that two matters were involved: fundamental questions and partia! demands. 'ľhe entire Czeoll public, according to Beran, 1s condemning Tiso's speech in the Slovak Parllament in which he proclaimed that the Slovaks are building their ovm State, their own Slovak State, on the floor of parliament, and completely neglected to mention the Czech<rSlovak Republic even once. Beran demanded the Slovak Government to pubhloize its loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, otherwise it would not be possil:ile to act on the partia! demands which were presented to ,h !m by me. "We must elther come to an ~greement," said Beran, "or part." We cannot circumvent this question on tiptoes as we would a cotpse. We cannot deny that a dangerous s:ltuation e:x:ists, added Beran, 'because !t could overwhelm not only the Czech Government, but the Slovak Government as well. When I waa permitted to reply to Premier Beran, I said: "We are not going to publish any fundamental manifestations about our loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Czechs and the Slovaks have accepted the law ,a bout the autonomy of Slovak!a, and that law mus,t not be neglected by the Czeohs. The Slovak party is fultilling wihat is in that law, because we, too, voted for that law, -as we also voted for the joint State budget for the yeiar 1939. The Slova.k Government !s responsible for the State in Slovakia, and the Czech Government cannot have guardlanship over !t. That we should continually have to e:x:press ourselves for the Czecho•Slovak !te• public !s nauseous particula.rly to me, because even dul'ing the Flrst Republlc I did not have to keep glving testlmony of my loyalty to the State and, as far a~ I am <'Oncernerl, 1 am not wllllng to do so even �SLOVAKIA 3 now. During the life of the Flrst Republic, Slovaks In Government wanted to galn the trust of the Czechs and they s,tressed thei'ľ rellabllity iin such a manner that they never sald the words "Slovak" and "Slovakia" separately. but always added, when they sald Slovakia: and our beloved Czecho,Slovak 'Republic. And when tbey used tbe word "Slovaks," tbey lmmedlately added: and our derurly loved bretbrnn, t he Czecb.s. The bealtby reactlon to tbls unnatural status ls what is happening In Slovakla today, l.e. tbat only Slovakia and the Slovaks are stressed. We shall mentdon the Republlc ·a nd the Czechs only after tbe Republic and the Czecbs accept everythlng they have boun<l themselves to d-0 by the law pertalnlng <to the autonomy of Slovakla. I must say that slnce October 6~h nothlng has changed as far as the wlll of the Czechs is concerned." After I sald these words, a bitter debate followed. Most important were those spoken by Chvalkovský, Minister of Forelgn Af• fair;;. He said: "Whatever we have done thus far, we have not done well neither you, nor we. We stand before ,the questlon: Shall we stlll stay together, or shall we part. An EngHs,h st-ate&man once sa1d: a door must be either opened or closed. Every breeze cannot play ,vith lt. I was shocked by what Sldor has sald, that trom October &t-h nothlng has changed SlovakJa. Never in history did Slovakla have a Slov-ak Government. She has one slnce Ootober 6th, and that in ltself means tbat since October 6th much has changed In Slovakia. Slnce October 6th we ddd not have t!me enough to look eacb other in the eye. We had to worry about our relat!onsblp wlth our nelghbors, there were armies of tbree States on tbe terrltory ot the Republlc, and we could not resolve our interna) relatlons,blp speedlly. We, too, ha.ve a dlscon<tented mass of people, wbich 1s demanding tbat we correct the mlstakes of the past and avoid mlstakes In the present. I am not respons,ible for the past regime, but nelther ls Sldor. I am dolng wha.tever I can do. In the hlstory of forelgn mlnlsters, nowhere w!ll you find a minister who had received 27 ultimatums wlthln such a shoz,t time. Most of them are from the Magyars and the Poles decrylng the conduct of the Slovak and Ruthenlan Governments. Thus, it 1s very dlf~lcult for me to make order abroad, when these Governments, contrary to the Constituliona.1 Document, also lntervene in forelgn affalrs. Every week, with dispasslona.te perststence, I am Io Hltler's offlce seeklng recognitloo of Cz(lcbo-Slovakla's boundaries, and all I get ls an evaslve answer along wttb polntlng to tbe unsettled Interna) affairs of the State. The deputies trom Prague are saying that the question of ,the partlog of the Slovaks and tbe Czechs is only a matter of weeks, and at most one of montbs. The effe,ct abroad is tbat we are oot recognlzed as a subject of lnteroa.tlonal law, but only as an object. I demand that tbe Slovak Government state officlally that lt 1s for tbe Czecho·Slovak Republlc. It the Slovak Government decldes otherwise, we shall part. Tbe Czech nation shall not stand in the way of your procilalm1ng the lndependence or Slo• vakia. lt ls better lf this ha,ppens voluntarlly." Agalo I aoswered that the Slovak Government wlll not make any manlfestation of loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republlc as long as all the Slovak demands. emanatlng from the agreement between the Czechs and the Slovaks, are not fulfilled. �4 SLOVAKIA Premier Beran closed the J<ively meeting of the Mlnisterial Councll wlth the remark that the following week the plenum of the Centra! Government, of which the Slovak ministers headed by Dr. Tiso are also members, shaJI meet to definJtely resolve fundamental questlons and partia! programs, "since this could not be done through Sidor." The situation developed rapidly. I returned horne to Bratislava and requested the President of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph 'Nso, to call a joint meeting of the Slovak Government, the Executive Committee of the Slovak Assembly and the Executive Com mittee of Hllnka's Slovak Peoples Party. T hat meeting was held in Bratislava, on Monday, March 6, 1939. There I reported what had transpired thus (ar in Prague and requested that we clearly style the question of the Slovak State for ourselves and also decide on the manner of proclaimlng !t, because, according to my conviction, the situatlon in Prague was already such that we could no longer reckon with a new reconc!liation and further negotlation with the Czechs. After a lengthy <lebate, the stand unanimously accepted was given form by the president of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tlso, as follows: "To continue the bullding of the Slovak State in an evolutionary way and at this time not to proclaim tbe establishment immediately." That stand was proper and reasonable. Every natlon desires to have its own State, to build it in !ts own way. The Slovaks were building theirs on the floor of the Slovak Parliament and would proclaim lt when the Slovak deputies, the duly elected representatives of the Slovak nation, deemed !t proper to do so. Tbe followlng day, March 7, 1939, Dr. Artbur Seiss-Inquart came from Vlenna to pay me a "social call." Ht> told me tbat on this orcasion ·he would like to talk wlth Dr. Josepb Tlso. I called Dr. Tiso to my resldence, bence both or us were present durlng the conversat!on with Seiss-Jnquart. After a few social formalities, Selss-Jnquart turned to politics and remarked that the foreign sltuation was becomlng very dangerous lor the Slovak natlon. Adolph Hitler, he said, was ready to act severely against the entire Czech o-Slovak Hepublic. It is in the interest or the Slovaks not to become vlctlms along wlth the Czechs, but to save themselves by establish!ng thelr own Slovak State. T hereul)On, Dr. J osepb Tiso explalned wbat he had decided upon yesterday, tbat is, that we wanted to build the Slovak State ln an evolutlonary manner and dld not w"ish to proclaim lt rlght now. "To Slovak State independence," Dr. Joseph Tlso said, "we would like to come by a peaceful march toward our goal, pos$lbly by runn!ng toward it." "It is no longer enough," answered Seiss-Inquar t, "to march peacefully toward the goal, or even runn!ng loward lt. You must jump, because only by doing so will you attain your goal." The joint conference wlth the Czecbs was suppoaed to take place Marcb 9th. I had agreed witb prem!er Dr. Tlso that I would go to Prague afone and would let bim know by p-hone whether it would stlll be nec&SSary for bim and also tbe rest of the Slovak Jllllnlsters to come to P rague. �SLOVAKIA 5 I arrived in Prague in the evenlng of March 8th. I a.scertained how the situation there sharpened against the Slovak.s and, therefore, that same evenlng I phoned to Bratislava, telling Dr. Tiso to stay horne and not to come to Pmgue. On March 9, at 4 p. m., the Mlnlsterlal Councll held a meeting in Prague. Present with me were all three delegates of the Slova.k Government: Dr. Joseph Zvrškovec (,l<'ore!lgn Affail'S). Stephen Hašš[k, (Milltary Affairs). and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (Financlal Af· fairs). At the staTt of tbe session, Premier Beran suddenly announced that a secret meeting of the Mlnisterial Council was ahout to take place ,and requested all three delegates of the Sloivak Government to leave the assembly room. I remalne·d •In the room with Minister Paul Teplánsky. In an angered tone Beran said that in all the embassies of Prague the exact time of the proclamation of the independent State of Slovakla was known and that only the Prague Government knew nothing about it. I replled t!hat such rumors were inundatlng the whole of Slovakia, hut that we had not come to Prague to establish the truth or ialsehood of such rumors. We had come to present the Slovak tlemands and have the Centra! Government accept and approve them. We must talk abou t the concrete matters; these the delegates of the Slovak Government have prepared and, therefore, I asked that they be lnvited to the conference. My request was heard. In an atmosphere that threatened to explode, the three delegates of the Slovak Government and I presented the Slovak demands. Delegate Stephen Raššlk was so overwrought that Beran had to remind bim to compose himself when he began to pound the groon table sharply with bis f,ist. Such a thlng, he sald, had never before happened in the MinisteriaJ Council. When the tension was highest, a messenger came from the foyer to teli me that Minister Dr. Havelka wanted me on °the r,hone. Dr. Havelka was an aide to President Rácha al the Hrad (Oastle). He requested me to come to the Hrad at once; President Rácha urgently wished to speak with me. I returned to the conference room and said to Stephen Haššík: "Here is my briefcase; take it horne with you if I do not return. Presldent Rácha has called for me, and I sense that lt may be nothing good.'' Informing Beran that I was summoned to the Castle. I left the .Ministerial Council a little before midnight. On the ground floor of the building a police officer told me that 1 was to be held. I protested against this S-O vociferously that the whole bll'ilding of the Ministerial Council resounded wlth my protest. :'dy delention, however, was soon explalned, and I hurried to the Castle. After greetlng Presldent Rácha with a "good evening," l protested to him against the violation of my congressional immunity. Rácha knew nothlng about it and palnfully grasped his head. He was an old, overworked man, hut an honest and good man. Catching his breath, he sa~d stutterlngly: "Several moments ago I performed a very unpleasant task. I dismissed the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tiso, and three �6 SLOVAKIA other min.!sters from their posts. I had to do lt, because the consoli• dation of conditions in Slovakia demanded it." I looped trom my chair and replied: "Mr. Presldent, I cannot agree w'ith the step you have taken. I am jo!n!ng wlth the dls• missed ministers and, here and now, tender you my reslgnat!on. I have nothing more to do in Prague." The President wias quite moved as he stood up and begged me not to resign and not let myself be overcome by hasty anger. "With full knowledge of what may happen to me here in Prague for my statement," I said quietly and seriously, "l repeat that I do not agree with what you have done; I protest agalnst lt and hereby tender you my reslgnatlon. I am golng home to Slovakla on the very next traln." :Aresident Rácha mopped bis forehead and head wlth both hands and in a voice completely broken asked me agaln not to resign, because, he said, -it would result In lm.mense harm for Slovakia. "I have nothlng to add to what I have sald," I replled and began walking toward the door. The Presldent caught up W'ith me, grasped my arm, and pleaded that I tarry a bit longer. "Beran will soon be here," he said. And at that very moment, the door burst open and Beran walked In hurrjedly. Stlll standing near the door, I related to Beran what I had told Rácha: 1 was resign.!ng and going home. Rácha and Beran, bowever, entreated me to stay on. They were convinced, they sald, with regard to condltions In Sloviakia, that I was not doing the right úhlng. I gave in to them to the extent that I would announce my reslgnatlon to them from Bratislava after I had consulted with my frlends. As I lett the Presldenťs oftice, in the corridor I met Peter Pridavok, who at that Ume wa.s head of the press department of the Slovak Government, also Dr. Dobrovský, my secretary, and my aMe, Lt. Fratrič. With my three ~rlends I rode to my Prague resldence. In the mornlng of the next day, l\farch 10th, I asked to get c onnected wlth the edltorlal office of the SLOVÁK in Bratislava. No one answered there. Then I tried to get connected wlth the General Secretariate of the Rllnka Slovak People's Party, but no one answered even there. Finally, they connected me with the Government Building -in Bratislava. Dr. Karol Kllnovský, Chlef of the Securlty Service In Slovakia, ,ans,wered tbe phone. I dlctated a rePort to bim to publlsh In the SLOVÁK. to wít, that "Sldor wa3 placed before an accompllshed fact In Prague In the matter of the dlsmissal of the Slovak mlnlsters; he dld not agree with the dlsmissal and protested against it to Presldent Rácha." The report was then p\tbllshed in the SLOVÁK that very day, In the issue berurlng the datellne of March 11, 1939. At that time Dr. Kllnovský told me that Martlal Law was proclalmed in Slovakla without the knowledge of the Slovak Government. The Bratiislava offlces, edltorlal and secretarlal, as well as the offlces of the Hlinka Guard were occupled by the Czech Army and police. Over 250 Slovaks had been arrested, hundreds of offl· clals were suspended, many GHards were taken lnto Moravla and hundreds of Slovaks had fled to Vienna to avold arrest. Somethlng wlthin me snapped. I could not belleve tha.t Rácha �SLOVAil..lA 7 and Beran were as faithless as T. G. Masaryk and Bene!í and their adherents when it came to keeping agreements, solemn signatures and promises w!Jth the Slov.ak.s. I really respected Hácha and Beran and believed that whatever they would promlse and sign, they would aJso keep honorably and fulfill. But, Io and behold, they were overthrowlng the Slovak Governm~nt in Bratislava without the knowledge and behlnd the backs of the duly authorized representatlves of the Slovak Government and lts three delegates. Without the knowledge of the Slovak Government, they proclaímed Martlal Law in Slovakla, occupied the territory of autonomous Slovak1a with soldiers and gendarmes, arrested Slovak Deputies and hauled people to Moravia, wh!le they were telling• me that they were doing a very unpleasant duty in the "lnterest" ot Slovakia. Anti-Slovak elements In Slovalcta, encouraged by such mOO-'lures. ralsed tbeir beads on tbe streets and barked at tbe autonomlsts: "Now, we'll give you autonomy!" While I was thlnking about wbat was happening, the Czech Mln•lster Feierabend came to my resldence. He had a considerable understandlng for Slovak matters. He told me tbat Beran had flent him to teli me to vlslt Mm at once. "No!" I Teplled to Feierabend. "After yesterday'e events in Prague ano those that are happening In Slovakia now, I do not wlsh to speak wlth any one In Prague. Not even with you. or Beran." I remained in my resldence with my frlends. I wa!ted for Dr. Martin Sokol, president of the Slovak Assembly, who had suddenly been called to Prague, to flnlsh bis audience with Presldent Hácha. Wben he arrlved, I traveled wlth bim to Bt>atislava on the afternoon express. I arrlved In B!'atlslava at 9 P. M., March 10. A strong d!Vflslon ot the Hlinka Guard awalted me at the station; also a stronger one of the Czech army, Jed by a Colonel. Masses of people cllmbed aboard the engine and thousands upon thousands mllled around Nie s quare around the station. They sang maTches ot the Guard and acclalmed me voclferously. At the request ot the Czech Colonel, on the way to the edltorial offlce of the SLOVÁK, I stopped at the o!fice of the General Voyta, Commander of the National Army In Slo• vakla. He was a tough soJd.ier. But he saw the sltuatlon clearly and, lt seemed to me, dld not like lt at all. When I complalned that the army was shooting into the unarmed crowd In Bratislava, he replied that no one shot at the people, but a few salvos were fired into the aiT to frlghten them. Later, I ascertalned for myself that the Czech army In Bratislava really dld not shoot any one. Anthony Kopal, the only Slovak who was felled by a bullet, was shot by a Czecb gendarme. When I asked who had orderd the army and the tanks lnto the streets ot Branislava, Voyta told me that he personally was called to Prague by Syrový, Minister ot Natlonal Defense, who ordered bim to do so. I requested Voyta to free all prlsoners in Bratislava taken by bis men. Voyta replied that he would as soon as he found ou.t if· a.ny one was arrested in Bratislava.; and that he would notity me. Havlng appraised the sltuatlon at its source, I hurrled to my car and contlnued on my way to the SLOVÁK, whlle a masa ot 7000- �8 SLúVAKIA 8000 people, gathered about Voyta's office, cheered and sang robustly. When I arri ved at the SLOVÁK, I found the higher officials of the Hlinka Party, headed by Dr. Tis-0, already waiting for me. The entire executive body of the Assembly arrived and a lengthy deliberation began. Dr. Tiso, vice-president of the Party, presided at the session. He told about the situation that had developed in Bratislava, while Dr. Sokol and I related our experiences in Prague. I said that I would not go to Prague any more and requested that my resignatlon as State Minister be accepted by the conference. And forthwith, I proposed that the new Slovak Government be made up as follows: Dr. Joseph Tiso, president of the Slovak Government; Dr. Martin Sokol, Minister of Interior; Joseph Sivák, Minister of Education; Julius Stano, Minister of Transportation; Dr. Peter Zaťko, Minister of Agriculture; Dr. Alex Hrnčár, Minister of Finance, and Dr. Gejza Fritz, Minister of Jusbice. The conference decided - wit,h only one dissenting vote, my own - that I shoulct not resign, but continue in the office of State Minister. Dr. Joseph Tiso t hen announced that he could not assent to accept the office offered him. He stated that here he was not <:oncerned aboQt himself personally - all such thoughts must now be secondary - but that he did not want to place President Rácha int-0 an unpleasant situation: he did not want Rácha pressed today to name as president of the Slovak Government that Tiso, whom he had yesterday dism1ssed from that office. 'I\he situation 1s šerious - said Dr. Tiso - and we must not use the Slovak pľO'blem to enha,nce our persona! interests and prestige. Slovakia needs a government, Tiso concluded, so that greater confusion and chaos would not ensue. Thereupon, the conference authorized Dr. Martin Sokol to proceed as follows: If Dr. Joseph Tiso were not acceptable in Prague, then Karol Sidor should be proposed as president of the Slovak Government. The next day, Saturday, March 11, 1939, the praesidium of the Slovak Assembly, presented the names of the new Slovak Government to President Rácha in Prague. This had to be done, because paragraph V, Article 4, of the Constitution of November 22, 1938, demanded it. It states: The members of the autonomous Slovak Gov• ernment, forming a com-ponent part of the Centra! Government, shaII be apointed by the Pr-esiident of the Republic on the motion of the praesidium of the Assembly of Slovakia. President Dr. Emil Hácha approved the second alternatíve and r.amed the new Slovak Government with me as lts president. The other members of my government were: Sivák, Sokol, Stano, Zaťko, Rrnčár and Fritz. This, then, was the !ega! Slovak Government created according to the Constitutlonal Document which was valid at the tíme. The very day that the news carried the names of the men constituting the new Slovak Government, I had several German vlsltors: editor Goldbach, then Carbus; later that night, close to mldnight of March 11, Wr. William Kepler, special deputy of Adolph Hitler and Assistant Secrebary of State for Foreign Affalrs, Dr. Selss- �SLOVAKIA 9 Inquart, G-Overnor of Austria, and Joseph Biirckel, Austrian gauIeiter, who demanded that I 1mmediately proclaim the independence of the Slovak State by radlo either through the station in Bratislav•a or the one in Vienna. I replied that responsible factors of the Hlinka Party aind the Slovak Assembly had decided "to continue to build the Slovak State by an evolutionary process and not to proclaim its establishment right now." I explasined that I, too, was bound by that declslon and could not violate it without the assent of the Party and the Assembly. If lhe Assembly and the Party change thelr previous stand and on the floor of the .A;ssembly, now decide to P'ľOClaim an independent Slovak State "right now," I would comply wlth that changed attitude. My actions were governed, I said, not by expedl· ency or my persona! fancies, but by the policy of the nation according to the diirectives which I had from competent Slovak organs. I take my orders only from them, I concluded, and I will not execute the orders and commands given me by representatives of another natlon. Natura1'1y, the Germans were not satisfied with my answer. And they demonstrated their dissatisfaction in a very concrete fashion. On March 13, they vented thelr hatred of me by placlng a bomb under my horne in Bratislava to ktill me and my whole family. I thanked God that it was discovered in Ume and rendered harmless. Another bomb was placed under the Jesuit monastery in Brati!>lava where Dr. Joseph Tiso resided. That bomb actually exploded and caused quite a bit of damage to the walls and windows of the structure. No one, however, was killed. As soon as I took over the presidency of the Slovak Government all military regulations and orders, especla!ly the proclamation of Martial Law, were revoked and rendered invalid. The putsch of the Czech generals, ord8'l'ed by President Rácha and Premier Be1,an of the Centra! G-Overnment and executed by Syrový, Minister of NatiOJ1al Defense, was thus liquidated. I liberated Slovak prlsoners in Slovakia, returned all suspended persona to thelr jobs, and made certain mi!itary provisiions to pre-vent any new putsches. The orders provided for the placement of Slovak officers as supervlsors of the Slovak Government in all milltary formatlons which were headed !Jy Czeoh generals and colonels. Simultaneously, President Rácha and General Syrový ordered all commanders of the army in Slovakla not to undertake any ventures wlthout my knowlodge or wlthout the knowledge of the appointed Slovak offlcers. This provision of mine I considered most lmportant. It was thus that the Slovaks took over the command of the army in Slovakia before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State. That meant that the Slovaks took possession of one of the symbols of State sovereignty. How !mpo!'tant was this provision was demonstT,ated soon after the !ndependence of the Slovak State was proolaimed, when the Magyars a,ttacked the eastern borders of Slovakia, and our dlsciplined army, under the command of Lt. Colonel Augustine Malar, effectively resisted them. Without our mil!tary resistance, the Ma• gyars would have occupled the eastern area of Slovakla even beyond �10 SLOVAKIA Prešov, just as they had occupied the whole of Ruthenia. which offered no military reslstance. But even before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State, the knowledge that Slovak offlcers were in command of every m!llta.ry garrison In Slovakia evoked a remarkable satisfaction in the ranka of the Slovaks, who no longer had to fea.r that the barracks would agaln unload a host of soldiers who would fight agalnst the people and lts !nterests. On Monday, March 13, 1939, at 6:00 .A. M., Dr. Tiso arrlved in Bro.tňslava from Banovce to visit me. He told me that he had received an "lnv!tatlon" to vis!t Adolph Hitler in Berlin and asked me whether I would agree that he go. I answered h!m that I d!d, but wanted it approved by my whole government as well as the praesidlum of the Party and the A.ssembly. Thereupon, the Slovak Government, the praes!dium of the Assembly and the Party were called to meet In the offlce of the SLOVÁK. The conference lasted unb!l 12:30 P. M. The unanlmous decislon was: Dr. Joseph Tlso was to go to Berlin. After the conference. I issued the followlng off-icial statement for the Bratislava press and radlo: "We announce to the Slovak public that today, Monday morning, the praesldium of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party had a meeting in Bratislava. At thls meeting of the praesldlum of the Party, Dr. Joseph Tiso, former Presldent of the Slovak Government, announced that he had recefved au offlcial summons from the Relch Ohancellor, Adolph Hitler, to vis!t him at once In Berlin. The pra.esld<lum of the Party has acknowledged thls lnv!tation, and so has the Government of Karol Sldor. Consequently, Dr. Joseph Tiso crossed the border at Bratislava at noon today accompanled by the German Consul In Bratislava, deputy Stephen Danlhel and deputy Ing. Karmasin. The purpose of Dr. Joseph Tiso's trip to Berlin 1s a olarlfllcation of the present situat!on." In the instructions, which the conference gave to Dr. Joseph Tiso for hls trip to Berlin, he was told: to hear what Hitler had to say, but not to glve hlm any kind of blndlng statement; then to return to Brátlslava and report on h!s vlslt to competent Slovak factors and await the deflnite decislon of the Assembly, the Government and the Party. Dr. Joseph Tiso visited Rlbbentrop and Hitler in Berlin. After converslng w<lth them, he went to the Czecho-,Slovak embassy in llerlln, whence he phoned me and requested me to call the Slovak Assembly together. Thls telephon;, conversation took place with Tlso at 7: 30 P. M. on March 13, 1939. I lmmedlately got in touch with Presldent Hácha who, actlng in accord with Paragraph V of the ConB'titutlon of November 22, 1938, called a meeting of the Slovak Assembly on March 14, 1939. The Slovak Assembly, therefore, was convened Iegally, In the manner prescribed by the Const!tution of the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. Tuesday, March 14, 1939, at 9: 00 A. M. the Slovak Government, the praesldium of the Assembly and the Hlinka Party convened In the Government Buildlng at Bratislava. Dr. Joseph Tlso gave an exhaustlve report about hls trip to Berlin. The meeting approved h!s report enthus!ast!cally; he had done the task he was asked to do. After the meeting, the Slovak Assembly convened In 1ts quarters �SLOVAKIA 11 for the session oa.Ued by the President of the Republ1c, Dr. En:(11 Rácha. Thls memorable meetlng of the Slovak A.ssembly opened at 10: 57 A. M., March 14, 1939, by the Vlce-Presldent of the Assembly, Dr. Karol Mederly. After golng through the rormallties, Dr. Mederly, in accordance to Paragraph 37 of the order or business, moved that the remaining buslness or the Assembly be conMdential. Therefore, only Deput!es of the Assemb!y and members of the Slovak Government remained in the assembly ha.11. Of the 63 duly elected representatives of the Slovak Assembly, 57 were present at this hlstorical session of the Slovak leglslature. T·h e secret session began at 11:10 A. M. The flrst order or business was my spe,ech, in wbich I deplcted events as they had developed in Slova.kla and recounted a.II that my Government had accomplished withln so short a time. In my name and in the name or the other mJnisters, I announced the reslgnation of my government. I concluded my speech In this manner: " . . . in the name of the ent.ire Government I tender our resignatione to this solemn Assembly. At thls very moment, this my decision is being ma.de kno,w n also to the constitutional factor.s in Prague and, with this, I proclaim the bTief act!v!J.ty of my Government at an end. Sir Deputles, I I)Tay that you be unlted, selt-conscious and mutually trustworthy, because only thus shall we be able to get our Slovak nation out of the present dlfficult situation and establlsh order and stablllity and a solid front. I want to assure you, gentlemen, that I sha.11 support with my whole strength and will everythlng that you sha.11 decide. Long live the Slovak natlon! Long live free Slova.kla!" Dr. Joseph Tiso then presented an extenslve report on hls trip to Berlin. In hls introduct.ion, Dr. Tlso stated that he ma.de the trip to BerMn, because the conference of March 13th had declded that he do so. In Berlin, Dr. 1'1so told forelgn minister · Joachim von Rlbbentrop: " . . . by lnltlatlve we Slova.ks will never glve the lmpulse to liquidat-e tbe Czecho-.Slovak Republic. But !! we see that the course of events ls developlng in such a way that it m!ght be more beneflclal to us, we s-hall consider it our duty to choose a suitable tlme to separate (from the Czeohs). lf our people see that events are tending In a dlrectlon lndicatlng that the only w·ay out fs to make otrrselves independent, then every Slovak wlll tlghten bis belt, live more frugally, wflll know how to bear up even under lesseT advantages, and shall say to hlmself: under the glven clrcumstances, t here was natblng else we could do. Rlbbentrop fully recognlzed and understod our posltlon." Then Dr. Tlso told about hls vlsit wlth Adolph Hitler. The iatter told hlm directly that the Magya.rs were preparing to occupy t he whole of Slovak.ia at that Ume. "And you must declare yourself agaJ!ns.t lt," sa!d Hitler ... "and declare yourself wlth llghtn1ng speed. This declaratáon must be ma.de to proper factors so that they would know that t.he Slovak natlon has lts own State, its own territory and that, therefore, it must prevent any one from ma.king clalms to enter Slovak terrltory and to the Slovak populatlon. There 1s no Ume for waiting. Not days, but hours shall declde the lssue." �12 SLOVAKIA Dr. 'l'iso thought for a moment, repeated the decision of the conference of March 13th, and ad ded: "You will pardon me, if I cannot say anything else more concrete." In short, Dr. Tiso followed the directlves given by the representatives of the Slovak nation: to un<lertake no obligatiollll, to promise nothlng In Berlin. Dr. 'l'iso concluded his repoi,t to the Assembly with the words: "Here, before the Assembly, I place the dry material gatbered in Berlin durlng my visit tb ere, the report which you •b ave just bearo, and I beg you to ponder over it and then ren der a decision !" Dr. Joseph Tlso made no proposal either for separating from the Czechs or for proclaiming an independent Slovak State. After Tiso completed his report, Dr. Martin Sokol, pres1dent of the Slovak A:ssembly, recessed the session for a few mlnutes. Durlng the recess, tbe deputles considered and d1scussed what they had hearo. When the meeting was called to order again at 12: 06 P. M., Dr. Sokol said: "You have heard the manlfestatlon of t-he President of the Slovak Government, Karol Sidor, and tbe report of Mr. Deputy Dr. Joseph Tiso about !)!!s conversaitlon with •Reich Chancellor Adolph Hitler and Reich Minister of Forelgn Affaiirs von Ribbentrop. No~v we are suppose<l to decide by voting whether the Assembly of Slovakia is for an indepen-dent Slovak State or not. We shall declare our vote by arlsing. Those In favor of proolaiming the in<lependence of the Slovak State, please rise!" lt was 12:07 P. M., March 14, 1939, when all 57 members of bhe Slovak Assembly arose from their seats and, thus, unanimously voted for the establishment of t•h e independent State of Slovakia. Thereupon, Dr. Sokol announced: "I flnd that the Assembly of Slovakia, as the only competent organ of the polltlcal will of the sovereign Slovak nation, has decided in favor of an independent Slovak State." &tm standing, the depu,ties sang t-he Slovak hymn "Hej, Slováci" (Yeah, Ye Slovaks), wMch later became the National Anthem of the Slovak State. ľt was thus that the .independence of fäe Slovak State was proclaimed. After a thousand years the Slovaks again became masters of their !and and their destiny. The hidden yearning of the natlon for its own State had come to life. Even here the words of Svetozar Hurban Vajanský are applicable: "To ascribe characteristics to the masses of people which they do not possess would be folly, indeed. But to rouse and develop the chara.cteristlcs ,..,,hfoh the native mass does possess, even though they are hi<lden, thrut is our fatal obligrution." This "fatal obUgation" was performed by the Slovak Deputies who proclaimed the independence of the Slovak State of March 14, 1939. They -had awakened the desire that was hidden in the soul of the nation, brought it out lnto the open and made lt real. And from 1939 to 1945, that Mdden desire, translated lnto reality, grew and prospered in the heart of every self-conscious and loyal Slovak. No one on this earth shall ever be able to stifle or kill this holy yearning of the Slovak nation for a new and more lasting State of its own - an Independent Slovakia. • • • � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1952, Vol. 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document DECEMBEJIR, 1952 SLOVAKIA 1 What Led to the PROCLAMATION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC KAROL SIDOR ( Former Ambassador of Slovakia to the Vatican) Our greait Svetozár Hurban Vajanský once wrote the following encouraglng words: " . . . fear not the proximity of events and do not be afrald of too small a perspective. Our elders sinned grievously dn that respect. In folio form, they published the war of the divine Titan against the Jews; they wrote enormous volumes about America and Palestine; and hístories about the cavalry units of Cracow and water nymphs. But they left us practically nothing about themselves and about their times; that is, they ddd not leave us thelr views and opin!ons so tha.t we, their successors, now stand before a dark corner, a:bout wh-lch we know only that in lt our natlon breathed, worked, suffered, bied, sinned, performed good works, quarreled and harmoniously formed associatlons, hated and loved. We - the unfortunate heirs of indolent fathers - have nothing in our hands'" So that a similar verdlct be not rendered agalnst us in the (uture, we must wrlte about everything - about everything that we authoTed or at least were witnesses of, about everything we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. Such a testimony, of course, cannot be anythlng but subjective. But after a gre.ater lapse of bime, future historians will be able to form from various such subjective testimonies an objectlve picture about the events and the people of that particular tlme. The question of Slovak s,tatehood was dealt w-ith in a speech dellvered on February 21, -1939, by the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph Tiso, who said: "After a pause of a thousand years, after long years of fighting for its national rights, the Slovak natňon has its own government, its own paTUament, and is itself building its own state. Here on the floor of our own p.arliament, we -are buHding our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State. The Slovak natlon is bullding its own State, which is the organ of its soveraignty, the executor of its will and the defender of its interests. Never again must it happen that the Slovak nation be pla.ced in oppos!tion to its own State. Being a Slovak patriot and an idea! nationalist means b~ng a Joyal buUder of the Slovak State. Love for the Slovak nat!on 1s demonstrated conc.retely by loyalty and devotlon to the Slovak State. We do not uphold ťhe State just for the sake of having a State, but because, and only as long as, the nation needs it." In these words Dr. Tiso lndicated only the road we were to travel in bullding our own Slovak State In the future. "Here on the floor of our own parliament we are buildlng our own State, our own new State, our own Slovak State" - that was the directive for tbe future. Wben Dr. Joseph 'I'lso delivered bis speech in tbe Slovak Assembly on February 21, 1939, he was well aware of the fact tha:t we s,till clid not have a Slovak State. There did exist an autonomous Slovak Government and a Slovak parliament, hut that was not enough to al- 2 SLOVAKIA low us to speak about the Slovak State aa an already &X.isting formatlon. There was still lacking the proclamation of the State, lts recognition by foreign powers, and we also lacked that which makes a Sbate a State: our own army and our own representatives in other countries. The Slova.ks who uoted the number of times the words "Slovak State" were mentioned dn Tiso's speech before the Slovak Parliament oould be completely satisfied. And the Slovaks were saitlsfied, but the Cz.echs became dlscontented. Czech dissatisfactiou was demonstrated not only •in newspapers, but also in the sessions of the Centra! Government in Prague. In the sessions of thait government, as a State Minister, I urged the Czechs to fulfill everything t hey had bound themselves to fulfill by para~raphs of the Constltutlional Document wh!ch was adopted in the P11ague Parliament on November 22, 1938. The Slovak Government had entrusted me to concern myself with common problems in Prague, <the question of foreign affairs, finances and the army. I made concrete the Slovak demands and requested the Centra! Government to take a stand on them, app.rove them and hasten the.i!r rool!zation. On Wednesday, Maroh 1, 1939, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the Counc!l of Ministers was in session in Pr.ague. Present were the Czechs: Rudolph Beran, the Premier of the Government, and m!ndsters Chvalkov.s'ký, Syrový, Kalfus, Havell~a. Krejči, and Fischer. The Slovaks were represented by Karol ,stdor, Stephen Haššík (for mllitary affalrs) and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (for flnancial affairs). I pre-sented our demands in the military and financial departments. 'l'he first to reply was Premier Rudolph Beran. He said that two matters were involved: fundamental questions and partia! demands. 'ľhe entire Czeoll public, according to Beran, 1s condemning Tiso's speech in the Slovak Parllament in which he proclaimed that the Slovaks are building their ovm State, their own Slovak State, on the floor of parliament, and completely neglected to mention the Czech<rSlovak Republic even once. Beran demanded the Slovak Government to pubhloize its loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, otherwise it would not be possil:ile to act on the partia! demands which were presented to ,h !m by me. "We must elther come to an ~greement," said Beran, "or part." We cannot circumvent this question on tiptoes as we would a cotpse. We cannot deny that a dangerous s:ltuation e:x:ists, added Beran, 'because !t could overwhelm not only the Czech Government, but the Slovak Government as well. When I waa permitted to reply to Premier Beran, I said: "We are not going to publish any fundamental manifestations about our loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Czechs and the Slovaks have accepted the law ,a bout the autonomy of Slovak!a, and that law mus,t not be neglected by the Czeohs. The Slovak party is fultilling wihat is in that law, because we, too, voted for that law, -as we also voted for the joint State budget for the yeiar 1939. The Slova.k Government !s responsible for the State in Slovakia, and the Czech Government cannot have guardlanship over !t. That we should continually have to e:x:press ourselves for the Czecho•Slovak !te• public !s nauseous particula.rly to me, because even dul'ing the Flrst Republlc I did not have to keep glving testlmony of my loyalty to the State and, as far a~ I am <'Oncernerl, 1 am not wllllng to do so even SLOVAKIA 3 now. During the life of the Flrst Republic, Slovaks In Government wanted to galn the trust of the Czechs and they s,tressed thei'ľ rellabllity iin such a manner that they never sald the words "Slovak" and "Slovakia" separately. but always added, when they sald Slovakia: and our beloved Czecho,Slovak 'Republic. And when tbey used tbe word "Slovaks," tbey lmmedlately added: and our derurly loved bretbrnn, t he Czecb.s. The bealtby reactlon to tbls unnatural status ls what is happening In Slovakla today, l.e. tbat only Slovakia and the Slovaks are stressed. We shall mentdon the Republlc ·a nd the Czechs only after tbe Republic and the Czecbs accept everythlng they have boun<l themselves to d-0 by the law pertalnlng <to the autonomy of Slovakla. I must say that slnce October 6~h nothlng has changed as far as the wlll of the Czechs is concerned." After I sald these words, a bitter debate followed. Most important were those spoken by Chvalkovský, Minister of Forelgn Af• fair;;. He said: "Whatever we have done thus far, we have not done well neither you, nor we. We stand before ,the questlon: Shall we stlll stay together, or shall we part. An EngHs,h st-ate&man once sa1d: a door must be either opened or closed. Every breeze cannot play ,vith lt. I was shocked by what Sldor has sald, that trom October &t-h nothlng has changed SlovakJa. Never in history did Slovakla have a Slov-ak Government. She has one slnce Ootober 6th, and that in ltself means tbat since October 6th much has changed In Slovakia. Slnce October 6th we ddd not have t!me enough to look eacb other in the eye. We had to worry about our relat!onsblp wlth our nelghbors, there were armies of tbree States on tbe terrltory ot the Republlc, and we could not resolve our interna) relatlons,blp speedlly. We, too, ha.ve a dlscon<tented mass of people, wbich 1s demanding tbat we correct the mlstakes of the past and avoid mlstakes In the present. I am not respons,ible for the past regime, but nelther ls Sldor. I am dolng wha.tever I can do. In the hlstory of forelgn mlnlsters, nowhere w!ll you find a minister who had received 27 ultimatums wlthln such a shoz,t time. Most of them are from the Magyars and the Poles decrylng the conduct of the Slovak and Ruthenlan Governments. Thus, it 1s very dlf~lcult for me to make order abroad, when these Governments, contrary to the Constituliona.1 Document, also lntervene in forelgn affalrs. Every week, with dispasslona.te perststence, I am Io Hltler's offlce seeklng recognitloo of Cz(lcbo-Slovakla's boundaries, and all I get ls an evaslve answer along wttb polntlng to tbe unsettled Interna) affairs of the State. The deputies trom Prague are saying that the question of ,the partlog of the Slovaks and tbe Czechs is only a matter of weeks, and at most one of montbs. The effe,ct abroad is tbat we are oot recognlzed as a subject of lnteroa.tlonal law, but only as an object. I demand that tbe Slovak Government state officlally that lt 1s for tbe Czecho·Slovak Republlc. It the Slovak Government decldes otherwise, we shall part. Tbe Czech nation shall not stand in the way of your procilalm1ng the lndependence or Slo• vakia. lt ls better lf this ha,ppens voluntarlly." Agalo I aoswered that the Slovak Government wlll not make any manlfestation of loyalty to the Czecho-Slovak Republlc as long as all the Slovak demands. emanatlng from the agreement between the Czechs and the Slovaks, are not fulfilled. 4 SLOVAKIA Premier Beran closed the J<ively meeting of the Mlnisterial Councll wlth the remark that the following week the plenum of the Centra! Government, of which the Slovak ministers headed by Dr. Tiso are also members, shaJI meet to definJtely resolve fundamental questlons and partia! programs, "since this could not be done through Sidor." The situation developed rapidly. I returned horne to Bratislava and requested the President of the Slovak Government, Dr. Joseph 'Nso, to call a joint meeting of the Slovak Government, the Executive Committee of the Slovak Assembly and the Executive Com mittee of Hllnka's Slovak Peoples Party. T hat meeting was held in Bratislava, on Monday, March 6, 1939. There I reported what had transpired thus (ar in Prague and requested that we clearly style the question of the Slovak State for ourselves and also decide on the manner of proclaimlng !t, because, according to my conviction, the situatlon in Prague was already such that we could no longer reckon with a new reconc!liation and further negotlation with the Czechs. After a lengthy <lebate, the stand unanimously accepted was given form by the president of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tlso, as follows: "To continue the bullding of the Slovak State in an evolutionary way and at this time not to proclaim tbe establishment immediately." That stand was proper and reasonable. Every natlon desires to have its own State, to build it in !ts own way. The Slovaks were building theirs on the floor of the Slovak Parliament and would proclaim lt when the Slovak deputies, the duly elected representatives of the Slovak nation, deemed !t proper to do so. Tbe followlng day, March 7, 1939, Dr. Artbur Seiss-Inquart came from Vlenna to pay me a "social call." Ht> told me tbat on this orcasion ·he would like to talk wlth Dr. Josepb Tlso. I called Dr. Tiso to my resldence, bence both or us were present durlng the conversat!on with Seiss-Jnquart. After a few social formalities, Selss-Jnquart turned to politics and remarked that the foreign sltuation was becomlng very dangerous lor the Slovak natlon. Adolph Hitler, he said, was ready to act severely against the entire Czech o-Slovak Hepublic. It is in the interest or the Slovaks not to become vlctlms along wlth the Czechs, but to save themselves by establish!ng thelr own Slovak State. T hereul)On, Dr. J osepb Tiso explalned wbat he had decided upon yesterday, tbat is, that we wanted to build the Slovak State ln an evolutlonary manner and dld not w"ish to proclaim lt rlght now. "To Slovak State independence," Dr. Joseph Tlso said, "we would like to come by a peaceful march toward our goal, pos$lbly by runn!ng toward it." "It is no longer enough," answered Seiss-Inquar t, "to march peacefully toward the goal, or even runn!ng loward lt. You must jump, because only by doing so will you attain your goal." The joint conference wlth the Czecbs was suppoaed to take place Marcb 9th. I had agreed witb prem!er Dr. Tlso that I would go to Prague afone and would let bim know by p-hone whether it would stlll be nec&SSary for bim and also tbe rest of the Slovak Jllllnlsters to come to P rague. SLOVAKIA 5 I arrived in Prague in the evenlng of March 8th. I a.scertained how the situation there sharpened against the Slovak.s and, therefore, that same evenlng I phoned to Bratislava, telling Dr. Tiso to stay horne and not to come to Pmgue. On March 9, at 4 p. m., the Mlnlsterlal Councll held a meeting in Prague. Present with me were all three delegates of the Slova.k Government: Dr. Joseph Zvrškovec (,l<'ore!lgn Affail'S). Stephen Hašš[k, (Milltary Affairs). and Dr. Alexander Hrnčár (Financlal Af· fairs). At the staTt of tbe session, Premier Beran suddenly announced that a secret meeting of the Mlnisterial Council was ahout to take place ,and requested all three delegates of the Sloivak Government to leave the assembly room. I remalne·d •In the room with Minister Paul Teplánsky. In an angered tone Beran said that in all the embassies of Prague the exact time of the proclamation of the independent State of Slovakla was known and that only the Prague Government knew nothing about it. I replled t!hat such rumors were inundatlng the whole of Slovakia, hut that we had not come to Prague to establish the truth or ialsehood of such rumors. We had come to present the Slovak tlemands and have the Centra! Government accept and approve them. We must talk abou t the concrete matters; these the delegates of the Slovak Government have prepared and, therefore, I asked that they be lnvited to the conference. My request was heard. In an atmosphere that threatened to explode, the three delegates of the Slovak Government and I presented the Slovak demands. Delegate Stephen Raššlk was so overwrought that Beran had to remind bim to compose himself when he began to pound the groon table sharply with bis f,ist. Such a thlng, he sald, had never before happened in the MinisteriaJ Council. When the tension was highest, a messenger came from the foyer to teli me that Minister Dr. Havelka wanted me on °the r,hone. Dr. Havelka was an aide to President Rácha al the Hrad (Oastle). He requested me to come to the Hrad at once; President Rácha urgently wished to speak with me. I returned to the conference room and said to Stephen Haššík: "Here is my briefcase; take it horne with you if I do not return. Presldent Rácha has called for me, and I sense that lt may be nothing good.'' Informing Beran that I was summoned to the Castle. I left the .Ministerial Council a little before midnight. On the ground floor of the building a police officer told me that 1 was to be held. I protested against this S-O vociferously that the whole bll'ilding of the Ministerial Council resounded wlth my protest. :'dy delention, however, was soon explalned, and I hurried to the Castle. After greetlng Presldent Rácha with a "good evening," l protested to him against the violation of my congressional immunity. Rácha knew nothlng about it and palnfully grasped his head. He was an old, overworked man, hut an honest and good man. Catching his breath, he sa~d stutterlngly: "Several moments ago I performed a very unpleasant task. I dismissed the premier of the Slovak Government, Dr. Tiso, and three 6 SLOVAKIA other min.!sters from their posts. I had to do lt, because the consoli• dation of conditions in Slovakia demanded it." I looped trom my chair and replied: "Mr. Presldent, I cannot agree w'ith the step you have taken. I am jo!n!ng wlth the dls• missed ministers and, here and now, tender you my reslgnat!on. I have nothing more to do in Prague." The President wias quite moved as he stood up and begged me not to resign and not let myself be overcome by hasty anger. "With full knowledge of what may happen to me here in Prague for my statement," I said quietly and seriously, "l repeat that I do not agree with what you have done; I protest agalnst lt and hereby tender you my reslgnatlon. I am golng home to Slovakla on the very next traln." :Aresident Rácha mopped bis forehead and head wlth both hands and in a voice completely broken asked me agaln not to resign, because, he said, -it would result In lm.mense harm for Slovakia. "I have nothlng to add to what I have sald," I replled and began walking toward the door. The Presldent caught up W'ith me, grasped my arm, and pleaded that I tarry a bit longer. "Beran will soon be here," he said. And at that very moment, the door burst open and Beran walked In hurrjedly. Stlll standing near the door, I related to Beran what I had told Rácha: 1 was resign.!ng and going home. Rácha and Beran, bowever, entreated me to stay on. They were convinced, they sald, with regard to condltions In Sloviakia, that I was not doing the right úhlng. I gave in to them to the extent that I would announce my reslgnatlon to them from Bratislava after I had consulted with my frlends. As I lett the Presldenťs oftice, in the corridor I met Peter Pridavok, who at that Ume wa.s head of the press department of the Slovak Government, also Dr. Dobrovský, my secretary, and my aMe, Lt. Fratrič. With my three ~rlends I rode to my Prague resldence. In the mornlng of the next day, l\farch 10th, I asked to get c onnected wlth the edltorlal office of the SLOVÁK in Bratislava. No one answered there. Then I tried to get connected wlth the General Secretariate of the Rllnka Slovak People's Party, but no one answered even there. Finally, they connected me with the Government Building -in Bratislava. Dr. Karol Kllnovský, Chlef of the Securlty Service In Slovakia, ,ans,wered tbe phone. I dlctated a rePort to bim to publlsh In the SLOVÁK. to wít, that "Sldor wa3 placed before an accompllshed fact In Prague In the matter of the dlsmissal of the Slovak mlnlsters; he dld not agree with the dlsmissal and protested against it to Presldent Rácha." The report was then p\tbllshed in the SLOVÁK that very day, In the issue berurlng the datellne of March 11, 1939. At that time Dr. Kllnovský told me that Martlal Law was proclalmed in Slovakla without the knowledge of the Slovak Government. The Bratiislava offlces, edltorlal and secretarlal, as well as the offlces of the Hlinka Guard were occupled by the Czech Army and police. Over 250 Slovaks had been arrested, hundreds of offl· clals were suspended, many GHards were taken lnto Moravla and hundreds of Slovaks had fled to Vienna to avold arrest. Somethlng wlthin me snapped. I could not belleve tha.t Rácha SLOVAil..lA 7 and Beran were as faithless as T. G. Masaryk and Bene!í and their adherents when it came to keeping agreements, solemn signatures and promises w!Jth the Slov.ak.s. I really respected Hácha and Beran and believed that whatever they would promlse and sign, they would aJso keep honorably and fulfill. But, Io and behold, they were overthrowlng the Slovak Governm~nt in Bratislava without the knowledge and behlnd the backs of the duly authorized representatlves of the Slovak Government and lts three delegates. Without the knowledge of the Slovak Government, they proclaímed Martlal Law in Slovakla, occupied the territory of autonomous Slovak1a with soldiers and gendarmes, arrested Slovak Deputies and hauled people to Moravia, wh!le they were telling• me that they were doing a very unpleasant duty in the "lnterest" ot Slovakia. Anti-Slovak elements In Slovalcta, encouraged by such mOO-'lures. ralsed tbeir beads on tbe streets and barked at tbe autonomlsts: "Now, we'll give you autonomy!" While I was thlnking about wbat was happening, the Czech Mln•lster Feierabend came to my resldence. He had a considerable understandlng for Slovak matters. He told me tbat Beran had flent him to teli me to vlslt Mm at once. "No!" I Teplled to Feierabend. "After yesterday'e events in Prague ano those that are happening In Slovakia now, I do not wlsh to speak wlth any one In Prague. Not even with you. or Beran." I remained in my resldence with my frlends. I wa!ted for Dr. Martin Sokol, president of the Slovak Assembly, who had suddenly been called to Prague, to flnlsh bis audience with Presldent Hácha. Wben he arrlved, I traveled wlth bim to Bt>atislava on the afternoon express. I arrlved In B!'atlslava at 9 P. M., March 10. A strong d!Vflslon ot the Hlinka Guard awalted me at the station; also a stronger one of the Czech army, Jed by a Colonel. Masses of people cllmbed aboard the engine and thousands upon thousands mllled around Nie s quare around the station. They sang maTches ot the Guard and acclalmed me voclferously. At the request ot the Czech Colonel, on the way to the edltorial offlce of the SLOVÁK, I stopped at the o!fice of the General Voyta, Commander of the National Army In Slo• vakla. He was a tough soJd.ier. But he saw the sltuatlon clearly and, lt seemed to me, dld not like lt at all. When I complalned that the army was shooting into the unarmed crowd In Bratislava, he replied that no one shot at the people, but a few salvos were fired into the aiT to frlghten them. Later, I ascertalned for myself that the Czech army In Bratislava really dld not shoot any one. Anthony Kopal, the only Slovak who was felled by a bullet, was shot by a Czecb gendarme. When I asked who had orderd the army and the tanks lnto the streets ot Branislava, Voyta told me that he personally was called to Prague by Syrový, Minister ot Natlonal Defense, who ordered bim to do so. I requested Voyta to free all prlsoners in Bratislava taken by bis men. Voyta replied that he would as soon as he found ou.t if· a.ny one was arrested in Bratislava.; and that he would notity me. Havlng appraised the sltuatlon at its source, I hurrled to my car and contlnued on my way to the SLOVÁK, whlle a masa ot 7000- 8 SLúVAKIA 8000 people, gathered about Voyta's office, cheered and sang robustly. When I arri ved at the SLOVÁK, I found the higher officials of the Hlinka Party, headed by Dr. Tis-0, already waiting for me. The entire executive body of the Assembly arrived and a lengthy deliberation began. Dr. Tiso, vice-president of the Party, presided at the session. He told about the situation that had developed in Bratislava, while Dr. Sokol and I related our experiences in Prague. I said that I would not go to Prague any more and requested that my resignatlon as State Minister be accepted by the conference. And forthwith, I proposed that the new Slovak Government be made up as follows: Dr. Joseph Tiso, president of the Slovak Government; Dr. Martin Sokol, Minister of Interior; Joseph Sivák, Minister of Education; Julius Stano, Minister of Transportation; Dr. Peter Zaťko, Minister of Agriculture; Dr. Alex Hrnčár, Minister of Finance, and Dr. Gejza Fritz, Minister of Jusbice. The conference decided - wit,h only one dissenting vote, my own - that I shoulct not resign, but continue in the office of State Minister. Dr. Joseph Tiso t hen announced that he could not assent to accept the office offered him. He stated that here he was not <:oncerned aboQt himself personally - all such thoughts must now be secondary - but that he did not want to place President Rácha int-0 an unpleasant situation: he did not want Rácha pressed today to name as president of the Slovak Government that Tiso, whom he had yesterday dism1ssed from that office. 'I\he situation 1s šerious - said Dr. Tiso - and we must not use the Slovak pľO'blem to enha,nce our persona! interests and prestige. Slovakia needs a government, Tiso concluded, so that greater confusion and chaos would not ensue. Thereupon, the conference authorized Dr. Martin Sokol to proceed as follows: If Dr. Joseph Tiso were not acceptable in Prague, then Karol Sidor should be proposed as president of the Slovak Government. The next day, Saturday, March 11, 1939, the praesidium of the Slovak Assembly, presented the names of the new Slovak Government to President Rácha in Prague. This had to be done, because paragraph V, Article 4, of the Constitution of November 22, 1938, demanded it. It states: The members of the autonomous Slovak Gov• ernment, forming a com-ponent part of the Centra! Government, shaII be apointed by the Pr-esiident of the Republic on the motion of the praesidium of the Assembly of Slovakia. President Dr. Emil Hácha approved the second alternatíve and r.amed the new Slovak Government with me as lts president. The other members of my government were: Sivák, Sokol, Stano, Zaťko, Rrnčár and Fritz. This, then, was the !ega! Slovak Government created according to the Constitutlonal Document which was valid at the tíme. The very day that the news carried the names of the men constituting the new Slovak Government, I had several German vlsltors: editor Goldbach, then Carbus; later that night, close to mldnight of March 11, Wr. William Kepler, special deputy of Adolph Hitler and Assistant Secrebary of State for Foreign Affalrs, Dr. Selss- SLOVAKIA 9 Inquart, G-Overnor of Austria, and Joseph Biirckel, Austrian gauIeiter, who demanded that I 1mmediately proclaim the independence of the Slovak State by radlo either through the station in Bratislav•a or the one in Vienna. I replied that responsible factors of the Hlinka Party aind the Slovak Assembly had decided "to continue to build the Slovak State by an evolutionary process and not to proclaim its establishment right now." I explasined that I, too, was bound by that declslon and could not violate it without the assent of the Party and the Assembly. If lhe Assembly and the Party change thelr previous stand and on the floor of the .A;ssembly, now decide to P'ľOClaim an independent Slovak State "right now," I would comply wlth that changed attitude. My actions were governed, I said, not by expedl· ency or my persona! fancies, but by the policy of the nation according to the diirectives which I had from competent Slovak organs. I take my orders only from them, I concluded, and I will not execute the orders and commands given me by representatives of another natlon. Natura1'1y, the Germans were not satisfied with my answer. And they demonstrated their dissatisfaction in a very concrete fashion. On March 13, they vented thelr hatred of me by placlng a bomb under my horne in Bratislava to ktill me and my whole family. I thanked God that it was discovered in Ume and rendered harmless. Another bomb was placed under the Jesuit monastery in Brati!>lava where Dr. Joseph Tiso resided. That bomb actually exploded and caused quite a bit of damage to the walls and windows of the structure. No one, however, was killed. As soon as I took over the presidency of the Slovak Government all military regulations and orders, especla!ly the proclamation of Martial Law, were revoked and rendered invalid. The putsch of the Czech generals, ord8'l'ed by President Rácha and Premier Be1,an of the Centra! G-Overnment and executed by Syrový, Minister of NatiOJ1al Defense, was thus liquidated. I liberated Slovak prlsoners in Slovakia, returned all suspended persona to thelr jobs, and made certain mi!itary provisiions to pre-vent any new putsches. The orders provided for the placement of Slovak officers as supervlsors of the Slovak Government in all milltary formatlons which were headed !Jy Czeoh generals and colonels. Simultaneously, President Rácha and General Syrový ordered all commanders of the army in Slovakla not to undertake any ventures wlthout my knowlodge or wlthout the knowledge of the appointed Slovak offlcers. This provision of mine I considered most lmportant. It was thus that the Slovaks took over the command of the army in Slovakia before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State. That meant that the Slovaks took possession of one of the symbols of State sovereignty. How !mpo!'tant was this provision was demonstT,ated soon after the !ndependence of the Slovak State was proolaimed, when the Magyars a,ttacked the eastern borders of Slovakia, and our dlsciplined army, under the command of Lt. Colonel Augustine Malar, effectively resisted them. Without our mil!tary resistance, the Ma• gyars would have occupled the eastern area of Slovakla even beyond 10 SLOVAKIA Prešov, just as they had occupied the whole of Ruthenia. which offered no military reslstance. But even before the proclamation of the independence of the Slovak State, the knowledge that Slovak offlcers were in command of every m!llta.ry garrison In Slovakia evoked a remarkable satisfaction in the ranka of the Slovaks, who no longer had to fea.r that the barracks would agaln unload a host of soldiers who would fight agalnst the people and lts !nterests. On Monday, March 13, 1939, at 6:00 .A. M., Dr. Tiso arrlved in Bro.tňslava from Banovce to visit me. He told me that he had received an "lnv!tatlon" to vis!t Adolph Hitler in Berlin and asked me whether I would agree that he go. I answered h!m that I d!d, but wanted it approved by my whole government as well as the praesidlum of the Party and the A.ssembly. Thereupon, the Slovak Government, the praes!dium of the Assembly and the Party were called to meet In the offlce of the SLOVÁK. The conference lasted unb!l 12:30 P. M. The unanlmous decislon was: Dr. Joseph Tlso was to go to Berlin. After the conference. I issued the followlng off-icial statement for the Bratislava press and radlo: "We announce to the Slovak public that today, Monday morning, the praesldium of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party had a meeting in Bratislava. At thls meeting of the praesldlum of the Party, Dr. Joseph Tiso, former Presldent of the Slovak Government, announced that he had recefved au offlcial summons from the Relch Ohancellor, Adolph Hitler, to vis!t him at once In Berlin. The pra.esld<lum of the Party has acknowledged thls lnv!tation, and so has the Government of Karol Sldor. Consequently, Dr. Joseph Tiso crossed the border at Bratislava at noon today accompanled by the German Consul In Bratislava, deputy Stephen Danlhel and deputy Ing. Karmasin. The purpose of Dr. Joseph Tiso's trip to Berlin 1s a olarlfllcation of the present situat!on." In the instructions, which the conference gave to Dr. Joseph Tiso for hls trip to Berlin, he was told: to hear what Hitler had to say, but not to glve hlm any kind of blndlng statement; then to return to Brátlslava and report on h!s vlslt to competent Slovak factors and await the deflnite decislon of the Assembly, the Government and the Party. Dr. Joseph Tiso visited Rlbbentrop and Hitler in Berlin. After converslng w<lth them, he went to the Czecho-,Slovak embassy in llerlln, whence he phoned me and requested me to call the Slovak Assembly together. Thls telephon;, conversation took place with Tlso at 7: 30 P. M. on March 13, 1939. I lmmedlately got in touch with Presldent Hácha who, actlng in accord with Paragraph V of the ConB'titutlon of November 22, 1938, called a meeting of the Slovak Assembly on March 14, 1939. The Slovak Assembly, therefore, was convened Iegally, In the manner prescribed by the Const!tution of the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. Tuesday, March 14, 1939, at 9: 00 A. M. the Slovak Government, the praesldium of the Assembly and the Hlinka Party convened In the Government Buildlng at Bratislava. Dr. Joseph Tlso gave an exhaustlve report about hls trip to Berlin. The meeting approved h!s report enthus!ast!cally; he had done the task he was asked to do. After the meeting, the Slovak Assembly convened In 1ts quarters SLOVAKIA 11 for the session oa.Ued by the President of the Republ1c, Dr. En:(11 Rácha. Thls memorable meetlng of the Slovak A.ssembly opened at 10: 57 A. M., March 14, 1939, by the Vlce-Presldent of the Assembly, Dr. Karol Mederly. After golng through the rormallties, Dr. Mederly, in accordance to Paragraph 37 of the order or business, moved that the remaining buslness or the Assembly be conMdential. Therefore, only Deput!es of the Assemb!y and members of the Slovak Government remained in the assembly ha.11. Of the 63 duly elected representatives of the Slovak Assembly, 57 were present at this hlstorical session of the Slovak leglslature. T·h e secret session began at 11:10 A. M. The flrst order or business was my spe,ech, in wbich I deplcted events as they had developed in Slova.kla and recounted a.II that my Government had accomplished withln so short a time. In my name and in the name or the other mJnisters, I announced the reslgnation of my government. I concluded my speech In this manner: " . . . in the name of the ent.ire Government I tender our resignatione to this solemn Assembly. At thls very moment, this my decision is being ma.de kno,w n also to the constitutional factor.s in Prague and, with this, I proclaim the bTief act!v!J.ty of my Government at an end. Sir Deputles, I I)Tay that you be unlted, selt-conscious and mutually trustworthy, because only thus shall we be able to get our Slovak nation out of the present dlfficult situation and establlsh order and stablllity and a solid front. I want to assure you, gentlemen, that I sha.11 support with my whole strength and will everythlng that you sha.11 decide. Long live the Slovak natlon! Long live free Slova.kla!" Dr. Joseph Tiso then presented an extenslve report on hls trip to Berlin. In hls introduct.ion, Dr. Tlso stated that he ma.de the trip to BerMn, because the conference of March 13th had declded that he do so. In Berlin, Dr. 1'1so told forelgn minister · Joachim von Rlbbentrop: " . . . by lnltlatlve we Slova.ks will never glve the lmpulse to liquidat-e tbe Czecho-.Slovak Republic. But !! we see that the course of events ls developlng in such a way that it m!ght be more beneflclal to us, we s-hall consider it our duty to choose a suitable tlme to separate (from the Czeohs). lf our people see that events are tending In a dlrectlon lndicatlng that the only w·ay out fs to make otrrselves independent, then every Slovak wlll tlghten bis belt, live more frugally, wflll know how to bear up even under lesseT advantages, and shall say to hlmself: under the glven clrcumstances, t here was natblng else we could do. Rlbbentrop fully recognlzed and understod our posltlon." Then Dr. Tlso told about hls vlsit wlth Adolph Hitler. The iatter told hlm directly that the Magya.rs were preparing to occupy t he whole of Slovak.ia at that Ume. "And you must declare yourself agaJ!ns.t lt," sa!d Hitler ... "and declare yourself wlth llghtn1ng speed. This declaratáon must be ma.de to proper factors so that they would know that t.he Slovak natlon has lts own State, its own territory and that, therefore, it must prevent any one from ma.king clalms to enter Slovak terrltory and to the Slovak populatlon. There 1s no Ume for waiting. Not days, but hours shall declde the lssue." 12 SLOVAKIA Dr. 'l'iso thought for a moment, repeated the decision of the conference of March 13th, and ad ded: "You will pardon me, if I cannot say anything else more concrete." In short, Dr. Tiso followed the directlves given by the representatives of the Slovak nation: to un<lertake no obligatiollll, to promise nothlng In Berlin. Dr. 'l'iso concluded his repoi,t to the Assembly with the words: "Here, before the Assembly, I place the dry material gatbered in Berlin durlng my visit tb ere, the report which you •b ave just bearo, and I beg you to ponder over it and then ren der a decision !" Dr. Joseph Tlso made no proposal either for separating from the Czechs or for proclaiming an independent Slovak State. After Tiso completed his report, Dr. Martin Sokol, pres1dent of the Slovak A:ssembly, recessed the session for a few mlnutes. Durlng the recess, tbe deputles considered and d1scussed what they had hearo. When the meeting was called to order again at 12: 06 P. M., Dr. Sokol said: "You have heard the manlfestatlon of t-he President of the Slovak Government, Karol Sidor, and tbe report of Mr. Deputy Dr. Joseph Tiso about !)!!s conversaitlon with •Reich Chancellor Adolph Hitler and Reich Minister of Forelgn Affaiirs von Ribbentrop. No~v we are suppose<l to decide by voting whether the Assembly of Slovakia is for an indepen-dent Slovak State or not. We shall declare our vote by arlsing. Those In favor of proolaiming the in<lependence of the Slovak State, please rise!" lt was 12:07 P. M., March 14, 1939, when all 57 members of bhe Slovak Assembly arose from their seats and, thus, unanimously voted for the establishment of t•h e independent State of Slovakia. Thereupon, Dr. Sokol announced: "I flnd that the Assembly of Slovakia, as the only competent organ of the polltlcal will of the sovereign Slovak nation, has decided in favor of an independent Slovak State." &tm standing, the depu,ties sang t-he Slovak hymn "Hej, Slováci" (Yeah, Ye Slovaks), wMch later became the National Anthem of the Slovak State. ľt was thus that the .independence of fäe Slovak State was proclaimed. After a thousand years the Slovaks again became masters of their !and and their destiny. The hidden yearning of the natlon for its own State had come to life. Even here the words of Svetozar Hurban Vajanský are applicable: "To ascribe characteristics to the masses of people which they do not possess would be folly, indeed. But to rouse and develop the chara.cteristlcs ,..,,hfoh the native mass does possess, even though they are hi<lden, thrut is our fatal obligrution." This "fatal obUgation" was performed by the Slovak Deputies who proclaimed the independence of the Slovak State of March 14, 1939. They -had awakened the desire that was hidden in the soul of the nation, brought it out lnto the open and made lt real. And from 1939 to 1945, that Mdden desire, translated lnto reality, grew and prospered in the heart of every self-conscious and loyal Slovak. No one on this earth shall ever be able to stifle or kill this holy yearning of the Slovak nation for a new and more lasting State of its own - an Independent Slovakia. • • •  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource What Led to the Proclamation of the Slovak Republic Description An account of the resource Karol Sidor Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 3 (5), December 1952 pp. 1-12 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sidor, Karol, 1901-1953 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1952 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/4158c1b37feed48334f6b3974afaa39e.pdf d021647b2206e32781612172f4cb5cfe PDF Text Text 41 SLOVAKIA (13) See Waclaw Lednicki, Life and Culture of Poland (New York: Ray Publishers, 1944), p. 176 etc. (14) See Roman Dyboski, Poland in World Civilization (New York, 1950), p. 213. (15) See J . Nechon's essay on Stefan Zeronski in Harvard Slavic Studies, Vol. II, (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 323-324. • • • WF, MUST QUIT HELPING RED REGIMES (Address By Hon. William F. Knowland Before Inaugural Nationalities Banquet, January 20, 1957) It is most fitting that this banquet, held on the eve of the public inaugural ceremonies of the President and Vice President of the United States, should be under the sponsorship of the Nationalities Advisory Committee and the Inaugural Nationalities committee. Firstly, with the exception of American Indians, in this new world all of us ourse1ves or our parents, grandparent.a, or more distant forebears, came front the old worlds of Europe, Asia, or Africa. While as citizens of the United States our loyalty is to this great ·r epublic it is also natural that there remain ties of historic interests, family or racial connections, and religious beliefs, together with our natural humanitarian instincts, that makes what happens in Budapest, Berlin, London, Peiping, Cairo, or any other city large or small more than just newspaper datelines. Secondly, the naJtiona:lities groups throughout our country made notable contriibutions to the reelection of our great president Dwight D. Eisenhower a:nd our able and effective Vice President Rihard M. Nixon. Not only are you entitled to be here to witness the culmination of your individual and •c ollective constructive labors in the last campaign but you have earned the right to a respectful hearing to your recommendations. There are many great problems confronting our country domestic and foreign. The President in his address on the Middle East resolution, in his staite of ,t he Union message, in his inaugural address tomorrow, or in future special messaiges to the Congress will discuss them. �42 SLOVAKIA To me the greatest issue of the day is human freedom. Under either Republican or Democratic administra tions our foreign policy should be based 1.11pon it. What advances freedom we should surpport and what retards or endangers it we should oppose. There are principles that cannot be compromis ed without fatal effects on the compriser or on the sacrificial victim Czecho-Slovakia was a casualty of such a deal. Munich should have taught the world that appeaseme nt is not the road to peace but is only surrender on the installment plan. Communism is an evil thing. It is destructive of religion, freedom, family life, and other hum,a n rights that f.ree men honor and hold dear. Dare we forget the admonition in Second Corinthian s : "Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers . For what has justice in common with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" Kadar, Khrushche v, Gomulka, Chou en Lai are not to be trusted. The rpolicy of internation al communism has been, is, and will remain the destruction of freedom and national sovereignty . Any notion in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East that ignores this basic fact will do so at its peril. A propaganda barrage is developing here and ahroiad to give eCOIJlomic aid to the communist states of Eastern Europe. For what purpose? To lessen the drain on the Soviet Union so it will have more economic resources to use against the nations of the free world or to suibvert the uncommitte d countrit's outside the Iron Curtain? To sustain godless local communist chieftains who would not last a month were it not for the support of Soviet bayonets within their borders? To give character and prestige to men whose hands a:re red witih the blood of those patriots whose love of freedom for their countryme n was greater than their love of life? Are we to bolster sagging communim economies whose own workers by strikes, slow downs, or srubotage in rthe face of death penalties and pri.. ~on terms have contributed to the weakening of an important segment of the communist regime? �SLOVAKIA 43 None of these things make sense to me. I shall oppose the taking of a single, dollar from the over'burdened American ta~payer to build the economic strength of any communist coUJil.try behind the Soviet Tron Curtain or to give military aid to any communist state anywhere in the wodd. If the Sovielt Union wants peace there is an honm·aible proposal that could be made to that Government. Withdraw all Soviet forces from Poland, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria and ,gua•r antee free elections under United Nations supervision. Let the people decide, free from the farce of Gomulka counterfeit elections such as Poland was insulted with on Sunday, J ,a nuary 20, while Soviet troops still occupy that restless country. Let the great powers and the United Nations guarantee the neutrality of all of these eastern European states after the withdrawal of all Soviet troops and after the free elections under United Nati'Ons auspices have been held. Both the Soviet Union and the West could then be assured that these free states would ibe similar to the neutral position which is today existing in Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden. They could not ibe used as a springboard for invasion against the free world or against the Soviet Union. The free world has no quarrel with the people of Russia. They were the first victims of Communist aggression. It is not the Russian people ibut the Soviet Communist regime which has broken aU of its international agreements with non-Comrmunist powers and which has been a distur.. ber of the peace of the world and still threatens it. With such a settlement in Eastern Euro.pe the 'burdens of armaments could be lifted to a considerable extent from the backs of the people of the free world and the Soviet Union as well. 'l'hen the people of Russia who do not have the privileges of the small but relatively well off Communist Party hierarchy would 'be a:ble to enjoy during this lifetime better housing, more consumer goods and a certain amount of luxuries which are now enjoyed by urban and rural wo'I'kers in the free world. But let us not as a great Republic ever compromise �44 SLOVAKIA the basic principle of human freedom. Let us never give our moral or legal blessing to the enslavement oif millions behind the J.ron Curtain who long to be free. Nor should we permit any international organization of which we are a member to compromise us in this regard. How can any nation ignore the moral issue involved in Roviet destruction of freedom in Hungary and subsequently want sanctions applied in the case of trouble in the Middle East? What organization can survive such a double standard? Either we have a system of law and order or the doctrine of might makes right is recognized. Communism cannot 1b e allowed to place itself above international law or God-gi,v en moral law. Our first Republican President Abraham Lincoln, said: "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. • • • The fiery trial thvough which we pass will light us down to the latest generation. • • * We, yes even we, have the power and bear the responsibility. • • * In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. * * • We shall nobly save or meanly lose this last best ho.p e on earth." • • • INDEPENDENCE AN D THE SLOVAK PAST ,Joseph Kirschbaum, LL. D., Ph. D. The question of the national existence of the Slovak nation, the efforts expended by the Slovaks for national and state independence, are treated in various works of political writers. In their analysis of the problems of Central Europe, writers try to be objective, but their literary efforts demonstrate that they answer the question only partially and usually incorr-ectly. Not taking into account the use of tendencious sources, it appears that the fault lies particularly in the approach to the problem of Slovak efforts for independence from the downfall of the first state of the Slovaks, Great Moravia. !Many political writers identify creations of dynasties with creations of nations, especially in multi--national states, and overlooik the universalistir tendencies of Europe in the early centuries of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. � 41 SLOVAKIA (13) See Waclaw Lednicki, Life and Culture of Poland (New York: Ray Publishers, 1944), p. 176 etc. (14) See Roman Dyboski, Poland in World Civilization (New York, 1950), p. 213. (15) See J . Nechon's essay on Stefan Zeronski in Harvard Slavic Studies, Vol. II, (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 323-324. • • • WF, MUST QUIT HELPING RED REGIMES (Address By Hon. William F. Knowland Before Inaugural Nationalities Banquet, January 20, 1957) It is most fitting that this banquet, held on the eve of the public inaugural ceremonies of the President and Vice President of the United States, should be under the sponsorship of the Nationalities Advisory Committee and the Inaugural Nationalities committee. Firstly, with the exception of American Indians, in this new world all of us ourse1ves or our parents, grandparent.a, or more distant forebears, came front the old worlds of Europe, Asia, or Africa. While as citizens of the United States our loyalty is to this great ·r epublic it is also natural that there remain ties of historic interests, family or racial connections, and religious beliefs, together with our natural humanitarian instincts, that makes what happens in Budapest, Berlin, London, Peiping, Cairo, or any other city large or small more than just newspaper datelines. Secondly, the naJtiona:lities groups throughout our country made notable contriibutions to the reelection of our great president Dwight D. Eisenhower a:nd our able and effective Vice President Rihard M. Nixon. Not only are you entitled to be here to witness the culmination of your individual and •c ollective constructive labors in the last campaign but you have earned the right to a respectful hearing to your recommendations. There are many great problems confronting our country domestic and foreign. The President in his address on the Middle East resolution, in his staite of ,t he Union message, in his inaugural address tomorrow, or in future special messaiges to the Congress will discuss them. �42 SLOVAKIA To me the greatest issue of the day is human freedom. Under either Republican or Democratic administra tions our foreign policy should be based 1.11pon it. What advances freedom we should surpport and what retards or endangers it we should oppose. There are principles that cannot be compromis ed without fatal effects on the compriser or on the sacrificial victim Czecho-Slovakia was a casualty of such a deal. Munich should have taught the world that appeaseme nt is not the road to peace but is only surrender on the installment plan. Communism is an evil thing. It is destructive of religion, freedom, family life, and other hum,a n rights that f.ree men honor and hold dear. Dare we forget the admonition in Second Corinthian s : "Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers . For what has justice in common with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" Kadar, Khrushche v, Gomulka, Chou en Lai are not to be trusted. The rpolicy of internation al communism has been, is, and will remain the destruction of freedom and national sovereignty . Any notion in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East that ignores this basic fact will do so at its peril. A propaganda barrage is developing here and ahroiad to give eCOIJlomic aid to the communist states of Eastern Europe. For what purpose? To lessen the drain on the Soviet Union so it will have more economic resources to use against the nations of the free world or to suibvert the uncommitte d countrit's outside the Iron Curtain? To sustain godless local communist chieftains who would not last a month were it not for the support of Soviet bayonets within their borders? To give character and prestige to men whose hands a:re red witih the blood of those patriots whose love of freedom for their countryme n was greater than their love of life? Are we to bolster sagging communim economies whose own workers by strikes, slow downs, or srubotage in rthe face of death penalties and pri.. ~on terms have contributed to the weakening of an important segment of the communist regime? �SLOVAKIA 43 None of these things make sense to me. I shall oppose the taking of a single, dollar from the over'burdened American ta~payer to build the economic strength of any communist coUJil.try behind the Soviet Tron Curtain or to give military aid to any communist state anywhere in the wodd. If the Sovielt Union wants peace there is an honm·aible proposal that could be made to that Government. Withdraw all Soviet forces from Poland, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria and ,gua•r antee free elections under United Nations supervision. Let the people decide, free from the farce of Gomulka counterfeit elections such as Poland was insulted with on Sunday, J ,a nuary 20, while Soviet troops still occupy that restless country. Let the great powers and the United Nations guarantee the neutrality of all of these eastern European states after the withdrawal of all Soviet troops and after the free elections under United Nati'Ons auspices have been held. Both the Soviet Union and the West could then be assured that these free states would ibe similar to the neutral position which is today existing in Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden. They could not ibe used as a springboard for invasion against the free world or against the Soviet Union. The free world has no quarrel with the people of Russia. They were the first victims of Communist aggression. It is not the Russian people ibut the Soviet Communist regime which has broken aU of its international agreements with non-Comrmunist powers and which has been a distur.. ber of the peace of the world and still threatens it. With such a settlement in Eastern Euro.pe the 'burdens of armaments could be lifted to a considerable extent from the backs of the people of the free world and the Soviet Union as well. 'l'hen the people of Russia who do not have the privileges of the small but relatively well off Communist Party hierarchy would 'be a:ble to enjoy during this lifetime better housing, more consumer goods and a certain amount of luxuries which are now enjoyed by urban and rural wo'I'kers in the free world. But let us not as a great Republic ever compromise �44 SLOVAKIA the basic principle of human freedom. Let us never give our moral or legal blessing to the enslavement oif millions behind the J.ron Curtain who long to be free. Nor should we permit any international organization of which we are a member to compromise us in this regard. How can any nation ignore the moral issue involved in Roviet destruction of freedom in Hungary and subsequently want sanctions applied in the case of trouble in the Middle East? What organization can survive such a double standard? Either we have a system of law and order or the doctrine of might makes right is recognized. Communism cannot 1b e allowed to place itself above international law or God-gi,v en moral law. Our first Republican President Abraham Lincoln, said: "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. • • • The fiery trial thvough which we pass will light us down to the latest generation. • • * We, yes even we, have the power and bear the responsibility. • • * In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. * * • We shall nobly save or meanly lose this last best ho.p e on earth." • • • INDEPENDENCE AN D THE SLOVAK PAST ,Joseph Kirschbaum, LL. D., Ph. D. The question of the national existence of the Slovak nation, the efforts expended by the Slovaks for national and state independence, are treated in various works of political writers. In their analysis of the problems of Central Europe, writers try to be objective, but their literary efforts demonstrate that they answer the question only partially and usually incorr-ectly. Not taking into account the use of tendencious sources, it appears that the fault lies particularly in the approach to the problem of Slovak efforts for independence from the downfall of the first state of the Slovaks, Great Moravia. !Many political writers identify creations of dynasties with creations of nations, especially in multi--national states, and overlooik the universalistir tendencies of Europe in the early centuries of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 41 SLOVAKIA (13) See Waclaw Lednicki, Life and Culture of Poland (New York: Ray Publishers, 1944), p. 176 etc. (14) See Roman Dyboski, Poland in World Civilization (New York, 1950), p. 213. (15) See J . Nechon's essay on Stefan Zeronski in Harvard Slavic Studies, Vol. II, (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 323-324. • • • WF, MUST QUIT HELPING RED REGIMES (Address By Hon. William F. Knowland Before Inaugural Nationalities Banquet, January 20, 1957) It is most fitting that this banquet, held on the eve of the public inaugural ceremonies of the President and Vice President of the United States, should be under the sponsorship of the Nationalities Advisory Committee and the Inaugural Nationalities committee. Firstly, with the exception of American Indians, in this new world all of us ourse1ves or our parents, grandparent.a, or more distant forebears, came front the old worlds of Europe, Asia, or Africa. While as citizens of the United States our loyalty is to this great ·r epublic it is also natural that there remain ties of historic interests, family or racial connections, and religious beliefs, together with our natural humanitarian instincts, that makes what happens in Budapest, Berlin, London, Peiping, Cairo, or any other city large or small more than just newspaper datelines. Secondly, the naJtiona:lities groups throughout our country made notable contriibutions to the reelection of our great president Dwight D. Eisenhower a:nd our able and effective Vice President Rihard M. Nixon. Not only are you entitled to be here to witness the culmination of your individual and •c ollective constructive labors in the last campaign but you have earned the right to a respectful hearing to your recommendations. There are many great problems confronting our country domestic and foreign. The President in his address on the Middle East resolution, in his staite of ,t he Union message, in his inaugural address tomorrow, or in future special messaiges to the Congress will discuss them. 42 SLOVAKIA To me the greatest issue of the day is human freedom. Under either Republican or Democratic administra tions our foreign policy should be based 1.11pon it. What advances freedom we should surpport and what retards or endangers it we should oppose. There are principles that cannot be compromis ed without fatal effects on the compriser or on the sacrificial victim Czecho-Slovakia was a casualty of such a deal. Munich should have taught the world that appeaseme nt is not the road to peace but is only surrender on the installment plan. Communism is an evil thing. It is destructive of religion, freedom, family life, and other hum,a n rights that f.ree men honor and hold dear. Dare we forget the admonition in Second Corinthian s : "Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers . For what has justice in common with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" Kadar, Khrushche v, Gomulka, Chou en Lai are not to be trusted. The rpolicy of internation al communism has been, is, and will remain the destruction of freedom and national sovereignty . Any notion in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East that ignores this basic fact will do so at its peril. A propaganda barrage is developing here and ahroiad to give eCOIJlomic aid to the communist states of Eastern Europe. For what purpose? To lessen the drain on the Soviet Union so it will have more economic resources to use against the nations of the free world or to suibvert the uncommitte d countrit's outside the Iron Curtain? To sustain godless local communist chieftains who would not last a month were it not for the support of Soviet bayonets within their borders? To give character and prestige to men whose hands a:re red witih the blood of those patriots whose love of freedom for their countryme n was greater than their love of life? Are we to bolster sagging communim economies whose own workers by strikes, slow downs, or srubotage in rthe face of death penalties and pri.. ~on terms have contributed to the weakening of an important segment of the communist regime? SLOVAKIA 43 None of these things make sense to me. I shall oppose the taking of a single, dollar from the over'burdened American ta~payer to build the economic strength of any communist coUJil.try behind the Soviet Tron Curtain or to give military aid to any communist state anywhere in the wodd. If the Sovielt Union wants peace there is an honm·aible proposal that could be made to that Government. Withdraw all Soviet forces from Poland, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria and ,gua•r antee free elections under United Nations supervision. Let the people decide, free from the farce of Gomulka counterfeit elections such as Poland was insulted with on Sunday, J ,a nuary 20, while Soviet troops still occupy that restless country. Let the great powers and the United Nations guarantee the neutrality of all of these eastern European states after the withdrawal of all Soviet troops and after the free elections under United Nati'Ons auspices have been held. Both the Soviet Union and the West could then be assured that these free states would ibe similar to the neutral position which is today existing in Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden. They could not ibe used as a springboard for invasion against the free world or against the Soviet Union. The free world has no quarrel with the people of Russia. They were the first victims of Communist aggression. It is not the Russian people ibut the Soviet Communist regime which has broken aU of its international agreements with non-Comrmunist powers and which has been a distur.. ber of the peace of the world and still threatens it. With such a settlement in Eastern Euro.pe the 'burdens of armaments could be lifted to a considerable extent from the backs of the people of the free world and the Soviet Union as well. 'l'hen the people of Russia who do not have the privileges of the small but relatively well off Communist Party hierarchy would 'be a:ble to enjoy during this lifetime better housing, more consumer goods and a certain amount of luxuries which are now enjoyed by urban and rural wo'I'kers in the free world. But let us not as a great Republic ever compromise 44 SLOVAKIA the basic principle of human freedom. Let us never give our moral or legal blessing to the enslavement oif millions behind the J.ron Curtain who long to be free. Nor should we permit any international organization of which we are a member to compromise us in this regard. How can any nation ignore the moral issue involved in Roviet destruction of freedom in Hungary and subsequently want sanctions applied in the case of trouble in the Middle East? What organization can survive such a double standard? Either we have a system of law and order or the doctrine of might makes right is recognized. Communism cannot 1b e allowed to place itself above international law or God-gi,v en moral law. Our first Republican President Abraham Lincoln, said: "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. • • • The fiery trial thvough which we pass will light us down to the latest generation. • • * We, yes even we, have the power and bear the responsibility. • • * In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. * * • We shall nobly save or meanly lose this last best ho.p e on earth." • • • INDEPENDENCE AN D THE SLOVAK PAST ,Joseph Kirschbaum, LL. D., Ph. D. The question of the national existence of the Slovak nation, the efforts expended by the Slovaks for national and state independence, are treated in various works of political writers. In their analysis of the problems of Central Europe, writers try to be objective, but their literary efforts demonstrate that they answer the question only partially and usually incorr-ectly. Not taking into account the use of tendencious sources, it appears that the fault lies particularly in the approach to the problem of Slovak efforts for independence from the downfall of the first state of the Slovaks, Great Moravia. !Many political writers identify creations of dynasties with creations of nations, especially in multi--national states, and overlooik the universalistir tendencies of Europe in the early centuries of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource We Must Quit Helping Red Regimes Description An account of the resource Address by Hon. William F. Knowland Before Inaugural Nationalities Banquet, January 20, 1957 Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), March 1957 pp. 41-44 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1957 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/3517a517ce57bab4b876f2fdea21c860.pdf c08cf7a50d76a857a2102c20249c84b1 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 WAST. G. MASARYK OF SLOVAK ORIGIN? P. A. Hrobak Many volumes have been written about Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, hi'S life, his concepts of r~lig,ion, history, philosophy, morals, etc. I1t is significant, however, that little has been written, even by Czechs themselves. about Masa,,ryk's ethnic origin. To be sure, tihe Czechs claim him as one of their greatest men. Accor<ling to what has been written about T. G. Masaryk, even by himself, he was, we are supposed to believe, aJt one and the same time, a Czech, a Slovak, and a "Czechoslovak." Then there is the story t!hat he wais of Jewish origin. The Slovak people did not regard Masaryk as their political or spiritual leader; he simply was not one of their kind. He did not believe in what tihe Sloviak people, as a who'le, believed in. That is why they did not !trust him. And when Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, whlch he himse•l f drafted and Sligned - an agreement that was supposed to guarantee "states' rights" to Slovakia - rtihey were through wi!th him. When the Slovaks criticized Masaryk, most severely and harshly on occasions, leading Cze~hs and the several Slovaks m their pay would rebuke them for doing so to one of their own countrymen, Masaryk, who was, they said, born a Sloviak. Nevertheless, this did not make Masaryk •a Slovak, not even a renegade Slovak, as far as the Slovaks were concerned. What then was the ethnic origin of Thomas Ga11rigue MaJSaryk? Strange as it might seem, the truth is that Masaryk himself never cleared up the question. Lecturing in Geneva, July 6, 1915, with Professor Ernest Denis, T. G. Masaryk said: "Our struggle ,i s being waged in t!he spirit of our Hussite forefathers and has not ,o nly political but also mora1 justification" (1). Toi his book "Svetova Revoluce" (the English translation of which was titled "The Making of a State"), we find 1Jhe following statements rel,a ting to Masaryk's ethnic origin: '"11he Slovaks a,nd Czechs knew that J moisel!f always had been ifor Slovakia; by origin and lby tra,d~tions a Slovak, I feel �8 SLOVAKIA S~ova!k a,n d I ai1ways not on]iy feLt a wa[lffith for SlolWl'ki:a, but woriked for it ... . I know Sloivaikia and the people dn Sl-0vadcia quite welil" (2). "Prapa,ganda, as everywtb.ere, so in America, iwas aimed to .acqua1nrt AIIIlerica with our politica,l and oul-turail tb.is't:or:y; rpeople knew a,bouit the Czechs -and the former Czech kingdoon, bwt we h,a,d· t•rouible wiith 1Jhe Slovaks; they were unilmOWU'll and Americans found iit diffiouH to understand that they forun a part of our nat,ion"(3). "From childhood I d'e~t my Czech nature concretely in the und'er•s tandinig of 'the character, the vdews and ,Hfe of my COl\lllllt,e ymen i,n S!Jovacko (Slovalk ian Moravia and hn, Slovakia)) aind wi1h 1Jhe coUTse of time in Moravia and Bohemia. . . . I feel my Czech and Slovak nature, I would saiy, l'IUsbroailly, dia•l ectically; phi'liosQll)hicailliy I feel with Hus, Chelcicky, Zifilc•a, etc., UJP to Ha·vlicek"(4). But the same Masaryk also salid: "Our policy must be above all else Czech, in truth Czech, then it wiU be in truth a world policy and therefore also Slovanic" (5). And despite his many •a ssurances to the Slovaks during World WaJr I lthat he was a Slovak by birth ('he needed them to establish the Czecho.,Slovak State), T. G. Masaryk nevertheless declared at the Baris Peace Conference: "The Slovaks are Czechs and their language is but a dialect of the Czech language!" Dr. E·dward Benes supported Masa,ryk'is statement. Accoroing to the Czec.fu newspaper "Narod" (6), Masaryk had this to say about his mother rund father: "Mly father was a native of ~opcany ... my mother was from Hostopec, a Geriman coomnunity. . . . I think that I am a1C1C-0rd ing to blood a pure Slovak, withowt admi<lctu'l'es of Maigy,ar or German, even, though j_n my youth my matJher cO'U!ld SDeark better in Ger,marn than in Czech ... we pr~ed ,in German." 0 Professor Hans Kohn, generally regarded as a reliable historian, tells us that T.he greatest statesman of latter-<fa~ Aiustria, ·t he Czech ptb.ilosopher ThOm"as G. Masany{k, h-adi a foHowin,g of onJy a, .few int~lilectual's amo'lllg his own !PeQll)le. Born at the Czecho•S'llovak _b order, he tried to lbud·l d -a ,b ridge ifroon the progressive Czechs, who made foH use of the OIPIJOrtunHrl.es of free dev,elopprrnenlt in Austri'a, to the backward Slovaks to whom, under Malgy,air d-omlina,ti-on, n-0 such opportwni1ti,es were given"(7). "Thomas G. MasaJrY'k, a Moravian Slovak" ... "the s•o n of a Slovak terumster on an ,ilmperiial estate in Eastern Slovakia, Masa,cyk was born (11850)"(8) ... "The Czechs were able to build 1Jheir existence, UJruder the leadership of Paladky's diroiipl,e, Masacy,k, the liberaitor of the Czech nation, on these principles .... �SLOVAKIA AH of Ma,sacyk's wr1tmgs atbou,t the Czech proiblean, his 9 CESKA O'I'A2KA, and his bookls on Hus and on Karel Ha!V'licek are indebted to Plal!acky's conception of Czech histoey (9). Professor S. Harrison Thomson of Colorado University, whose book "Czechoslovakia in European History" (10) won him 1Jhe Czecho-Slovak State prize for li,tJerature in 1944 - ait a ti'me when that State did not faduaHy exist also had some difficulty in esta:blishing Masaryk's ethnic idenltity: ''Thomas Garr.itgue Masaicyk was ibor:n in t850 in Moravia, the son of a Slovak .futher and a Moravian mother"(lll). . . " By b1ood and tem'Perament Masaryk was as much Slovak as Czech'~(12) ... "To Masaryk, himself perhaps more Slovak than Czech, ,s uch a united effort (of Slova'1~s and Ozechs) .had been a self-evident neeessi-ty from the begiJming of the war"{13). Otto's Encyclopedia(14), pulblished eighteen years before Czecho-Slovalda was created, finds nothing Sfovak or "Czechoslovak" a'b out T. G. Masaryk, stating simply that he was :a "Czech philosopher." Robert J. Kerner, of Czech origin and a 'Sather Professor of Hrstory ,ait the Ull!iversli.ty of California, remarked that "Masaryk, himself of Slovak parentage, inspired Slovak youth a't the (Prague) University" (15). And on one ocoasion, Masaryk told Capek bluntly: "For us Czechs, Catholicism is ,a n impossible doctrine" ( 16). Dr. Joseph S. Roucek, professor at the Univwsity of Bridgeport, however, had a bit more to say: 1 "Mlasary{k, Tho1mas Garr.rilgiue (1~19371), Czechoslovak philosopher and statesmain, born on March 7. 1850, in tHodonliln on the Miorarvian-Slovakian border, of a Slovak father and a Czech mother'' . . . ''Afread,y as a stmd!ent e~pressed Ms strong Czec•h patriotism and h1is 01PPosition to soone of the db~s of the Oatholic Church into which he ,was born" . . . "The next yea.r (i:8'19, he) •beicame Pr,ivat-d!ozerut at the University of Vrienna and professor of philo'sophy at the Czech uruiversit:y Olf Prague (1882)" ... ''Turned to the great poiritilool and sooiJa,l problems of his da,y and became the naitionail ediuciat·OT Olf the Young Czech intelli!gents~ai" ... 'IHi:s cru&ad-e for truth led him to oppose the Czech romaintic nationaliSllll".. . ''Increased hi:s unpoipulacicy when he took uip the defense of mlsner, a Jew ,aiccused, of 'ritual murder', aigain!lt the emotiona•l anti-semitism of the Czech masses (11900)"~17). After the death of Masaryk, in September 1937, the Bratislava newspaper "Slovak" noted: "Masacyk was born in Hodonin, Moravia, March 7, 1850. !Es fuJtfuer, Joseph Masaryk, was a coach-<lriver on one of the Habsburg estates. Theresa Kropacek was his mother." �10 SLOVAKIA When Dr. Alice G. Masaryk, T. G. M.'s daughter, came ito Amerfoa in 1939 - her first visit here in twenltyeight years - she declined to describe herself as an ex,He, declaring "I am a Czech and Prague is my home" (18). Dr. W. Preston Warren, professor of phi1osophy rut Furman University in South Carolina, published his book "Masaryk's Democracy" in 1941 (19). Wit!h it he established himself as one of the foremost eulogists of Masaryk and his "Czechoslovakian" concept. That is understandable to informed people, because Dr. Warren is a charter member of the Masaryk Institute of America which, we are told, was founded "to promote cultural interchange between the Czechoslovak Republic and the United States." The fact remains, however, t!h at the Masaryk Institute promoted and still promotes the fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation and the personal philosophy and pa:rt'icu1ar in!terests of Thomas Ga:ririgue Masaryk and Dr. Edwaro Benes and their socialistic political entourage. 1 T. G. Masaryk, Dr. Warren teHs us, was "Born, 1850, in Hodonin, Moravia" (p. 3) .... "His father was a coachman with the background of a serf; his mother was a former Austrian household servant" (p. 4). That is alt Emil Ludwig published his book "Spirit and Time" (Oonvemations with Masaryk) in 1935, the 270-page book being read and approved before publication by Masaryk himself. In the book Ludwig tells us that Masaryk descends from Czechs and Slovaks and was born "in southern Moravia, near the border of both tribes." To Ludwig, Masaryk's character appears to be "typically Slovak" (p.14) and Masaryk himself told 1hirm: "Already as a child I was l>Hingual. My father was Slovak, my mother spoke German, but also Czech. Her parents were from Hana. I prayed in German, because my mother used to pray in Germ1a n from her German prayerbook" (p. 105). On the oocasion of -t he twen'bie!th anniversary of the death of T. G. Masaryk (Sept. 14, 1957) the Austri1an journals "Furche" and "Oberosterreichische" had this to say about the ethnic origin of Masaryk: �SLOVAKIA 11 "A nahve of Hana, Moravia, Masaryk's mother worked for sev,e ra·l years in Vienna before she became -a cook for a wea,l thy family in Hodonin. At fiirst she knew p,r,a~tiicaili!Jy nothing LI!; Czech and spoke with her chi1dren in the beginning only in Gerunan. Masaryk was recorded as a Geruna.n, in his ourrio1.11l'lllIIl v-itae orf ,1 875, which he hiim1selif wr.ote before attaindn•g his doctorate od' philosop'h'y at the University olf Vienna. '"Ilwo foicts are usua1.Jiy omdtted in the biographies of the president, and these he hlmselif, in his conversation with Oharles Capek, fails to menition: where his mother worked! as a cook in Hodonin., and, secondly, on w.hat day she was married dn 1849. It is easy to ascertain Wh\Y these facts are not mentioned, since the Hodonin Register shows !!hat she was imar-ried on Augiust 15, 18419, and that Mas.aryftc ,wa,g born on March 7', 18'50: between t:he marriage of the pa,re'I1its and the birth of yowng 'I1hiomas there are not even seven months. The mention of the,se dates coruld ea,sitly prolil/Pt the bhowght that the ,p res,i dent w,as born out of wedilock. ' 1On the other .hand a,ga,in, it is easy to ascertain just why the faimi)Jy for whom -Masaryk's mother ,coolked is never mentioned: The fact is that Masaryik's mother worked as a cook for a certa·Ll'a wealthy meflchant of Hodonin who owned ihl,s own miU and quite a ,piece of land. This merchant was the graindfabher of the world •r enowned Austrian historian and politician Joseph :Riedl1ich, F1niance Minister in the Emperor's last government. Tihis merclhant of Hodonin was a11legedily the natura•l father of T. G. MasaJ.'IY(k, later the President of Ozeicho-Slovakia. '"l1he RedJicll fami!Jy was ,expelled duTinig the time of Maniie Theresa, as ,were a11 the J ,ewis'h families of Hodonin. Many of the ex,pelees went to Hungary, wlhile some settled in Moraivilan towns . The departure ,o f "the Jewish famiihes ca,used the little town of Hodonin serious economic daimaige and, therefore, .the •Elmiperor allow,e d thi.rteen J,ewish d'amrlies to return J•n 1783. Among the returnees was also one Lazar Redilich, to whom a son, Nathan, was born in I803, who a'lso ;became a merclh-an't. "Was the ,grandifather of Joseph Redlich also the niatura,l father of Thomas Garriigue Masaryk? T.he story is very pla,us~ble and explains why Thcxllllas G. Masaryk excelled over the rest orf the members of ihis family, ipart-iculady his brofoers. It was Redi.i,ch money that ,gave hilill the opportunity to an education; and it exip]:lllins why Masaryik fav,ored the cause o.f the Jews. If t he grandfather of Joseph Red'1ioh was a1liso the ,grandfather orf Miaisacyk',s child.ren, b'hen it is understandable why Jian Masaeyk, the president's son, pa-rtioul>ady his daiugMer, Alke Masal"yik, have definite Jewish facial characteristics." This story of Masaryk being of Jewish origin I had heard many years .ago from Czechs themselves, 1!he last time from the Czech paJtriot, the Rt. Rev. Monsignor V. F. Mikolasek, a short time before he died. It is significant that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was very favorably received and generously supported by leadling Jewish per- �12 SLOVAKIA sonalities and organizations, the Jewish press, as well as other institutions which were influenced or dominated by them, wherever ihe travelled during World War I to gain suppott for his proposed Czecho-Slovak State. In return, Masaryk and Benes placed many Jews in the vianious departmenits of tJhe Czecho-Slovak Government as a token of their appreciation for services rendered. In fact the Jews were always more fuvored than the SiJ.ovaks. As late as 1949, at a special press conference ca:lled at the CzechoSlovak Embassy by Dr. Francis Weisskopf, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy, and Ernest Polak, alternate executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Yugoslawa and Finland, they denied reports that Jews were subject,ed to growing pressures in Czecho-Sfovakia. They stat.ed that they themselves and many leading members of their government were Jews. Mr. Polak added th'at "today there are many, many Jews in the highest positions in Czechoslovakia, not only in politics but in economics and the professions." (20). Significant, too, is the item on Jan Masaryk, the son of President Thomas G. Masairyk, when he visarted the United States in 1939, as reported by TIME magazine: "Last week Jan Masaryk was in the U. S .... to work not for the Czechs ... but for Democracy and persecuted Jews in particular. ... He shed no t.ears for his lost land . ... The Jan Masaryks are now divorced(21). And no less significant is tJhe item whicih appeared in the CHICAGO AMERICAN (22) under the heading of "Deaths Elsewhere" and read: "Antonin Masaryk, nephew of the late first president of Czechosllovakia and export manager of a brewery in Israel, aboard the vessel Egyptian Prince, Dec. 16 enroute from Britain to Israel." Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was not a fool. He was a brilliant man. Masaryk knew what he was and what he wanted. He came among the Slovaks in America, in 1918, because he needed them for his Czecho-Slovak propaganda. After that he ignored them completley. So did his son Jan and his daughter Alice. 'I'he Slovaks wm never be- �SLOVAKIA 13 lieve that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was a Slovak. And the sooner the Czechs give up their crazy game of trying to make a "Czechoslovak" nation by the simple formula Slovak = Czechoslovak," the better for all con"Czech cerned. + REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. H. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 1'9. 20. 21. 22. T. G. Masaryk: SVETOVA REVOLUCE, Or,bis, Prague, 1925; p. 75. Jlbidlem, p . 263. ]bidem, p. 320. Jlbidem, p. 395. ]bidem, p. 51'l.3. NMtOD, Aug. 7, 1953; Chicago, Ill. CE1NT'R.6.L-E ASTERN EUROPE (Crucible of World Wars), by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., and Associates; !Pren1;,roe-,Hal!l, Inc., 19416; .p p. !13-54. N>idem, p. 83. CZECHOSLOVAKIA, ed!ited by 'ROlbert J. Kerner; Unwversi-ty of California Press, Beiikcley and Los Angeles, 194!9; p. 105. Pdnceton University Press, 1944. p . .191. p. 231. p. 252. OTTUV SLOVNIK N AUCNY, Praigue, 1900; VoJ. 16, p. 934. CZECHOSLOVAKIA (vd. albove); p. 4'9. Charles Caipek: MASARYK TELLS HIS STORY, Ahlen and UI11Wiin, Ltd., London, 1934; p. 209. SLAVONIC ENCYCLOPIEDIA, edited by J'OSeph s. !Roucek, PhJD., Universi-ty of Bridigeport; BhHosopll'ica'l Libracy, New Yoiik, li9419; p. 7'45. THE NEW YORK TIME'S, June 9, 1939. The Uniiversity .o,f N,ort.h Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1941. THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 5, 1949. Jan. 25, 19'J9. Dec. 27, 1957. 1 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are deeply convinced that this alliance (with the USSR) is to the benefit of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and that it also is a contribution to international understanding. Whosoever among us does not want to acknowledge this supra-partisan and national character of the Czechoslovak-Soviet alliance, he is undermining this alliance and working against his very own aims." - (Dr. Peter Zenk!, chairman "Council of Free Czechoslovakia," Karlove Vary, July 20, 1947, according to CAS, 7-25-47). � SLOVAKIA 7 WAST. G. MASARYK OF SLOVAK ORIGIN? P. A. Hrobak Many volumes have been written about Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, hi'S life, his concepts of r~lig,ion, history, philosophy, morals, etc. I1t is significant, however, that little has been written, even by Czechs themselves. about Masa,,ryk's ethnic origin. To be sure, tihe Czechs claim him as one of their greatest men. Accor<ling to what has been written about T. G. Masaryk, even by himself, he was, we are supposed to believe, aJt one and the same time, a Czech, a Slovak, and a "Czechoslovak." Then there is the story t!hat he wais of Jewish origin. The Slovak people did not regard Masaryk as their political or spiritual leader; he simply was not one of their kind. He did not believe in what tihe Sloviak people, as a who'le, believed in. That is why they did not !trust him. And when Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, whlch he himse•l f drafted and Sligned - an agreement that was supposed to guarantee "states' rights" to Slovakia - rtihey were through wi!th him. When the Slovaks criticized Masaryk, most severely and harshly on occasions, leading Cze~hs and the several Slovaks m their pay would rebuke them for doing so to one of their own countrymen, Masaryk, who was, they said, born a Sloviak. Nevertheless, this did not make Masaryk •a Slovak, not even a renegade Slovak, as far as the Slovaks were concerned. What then was the ethnic origin of Thomas Ga11rigue MaJSaryk? Strange as it might seem, the truth is that Masaryk himself never cleared up the question. Lecturing in Geneva, July 6, 1915, with Professor Ernest Denis, T. G. Masaryk said: "Our struggle ,i s being waged in t!he spirit of our Hussite forefathers and has not ,o nly political but also mora1 justification" (1). Toi his book "Svetova Revoluce" (the English translation of which was titled "The Making of a State"), we find 1Jhe following statements rel,a ting to Masaryk's ethnic origin: '"11he Slovaks a,nd Czechs knew that J moisel!f always had been ifor Slovakia; by origin and lby tra,d~tions a Slovak, I feel �8 SLOVAKIA S~ova!k a,n d I ai1ways not on]iy feLt a wa[lffith for SlolWl'ki:a, but woriked for it ... . I know Sloivaikia and the people dn Sl-0vadcia quite welil" (2). "Prapa,ganda, as everywtb.ere, so in America, iwas aimed to .acqua1nrt AIIIlerica with our politica,l and oul-turail tb.is't:or:y; rpeople knew a,bouit the Czechs -and the former Czech kingdoon, bwt we h,a,d· t•rouible wiith 1Jhe Slovaks; they were unilmOWU'll and Americans found iit diffiouH to understand that they forun a part of our nat,ion"(3). "From childhood I d'e~t my Czech nature concretely in the und'er•s tandinig of 'the character, the vdews and ,Hfe of my COl\lllllt,e ymen i,n S!Jovacko (Slovalk ian Moravia and hn, Slovakia)) aind wi1h 1Jhe coUTse of time in Moravia and Bohemia. . . . I feel my Czech and Slovak nature, I would saiy, l'IUsbroailly, dia•l ectically; phi'liosQll)hicailliy I feel with Hus, Chelcicky, Zifilc•a, etc., UJP to Ha·vlicek"(4). But the same Masaryk also salid: "Our policy must be above all else Czech, in truth Czech, then it wiU be in truth a world policy and therefore also Slovanic" (5). And despite his many •a ssurances to the Slovaks during World WaJr I lthat he was a Slovak by birth ('he needed them to establish the Czecho.,Slovak State), T. G. Masaryk nevertheless declared at the Baris Peace Conference: "The Slovaks are Czechs and their language is but a dialect of the Czech language!" Dr. E·dward Benes supported Masa,ryk'is statement. Accoroing to the Czec.fu newspaper "Narod" (6), Masaryk had this to say about his mother rund father: "Mly father was a native of ~opcany ... my mother was from Hostopec, a Geriman coomnunity. . . . I think that I am a1C1C-0rd ing to blood a pure Slovak, withowt admi<lctu'l'es of Maigy,ar or German, even, though j_n my youth my matJher cO'U!ld SDeark better in Ger,marn than in Czech ... we pr~ed ,in German." 0 Professor Hans Kohn, generally regarded as a reliable historian, tells us that T.he greatest statesman of latter-<fa~ Aiustria, ·t he Czech ptb.ilosopher ThOm"as G. Masany{k, h-adi a foHowin,g of onJy a, .few int~lilectual's amo'lllg his own !PeQll)le. Born at the Czecho•S'llovak _b order, he tried to lbud·l d -a ,b ridge ifroon the progressive Czechs, who made foH use of the OIPIJOrtunHrl.es of free dev,elopprrnenlt in Austri'a, to the backward Slovaks to whom, under Malgy,air d-omlina,ti-on, n-0 such opportwni1ti,es were given"(7). "Thomas G. MasaJrY'k, a Moravian Slovak" ... "the s•o n of a Slovak terumster on an ,ilmperiial estate in Eastern Slovakia, Masa,cyk was born (11850)"(8) ... "The Czechs were able to build 1Jheir existence, UJruder the leadership of Paladky's diroiipl,e, Masacy,k, the liberaitor of the Czech nation, on these principles .... �SLOVAKIA AH of Ma,sacyk's wr1tmgs atbou,t the Czech proiblean, his 9 CESKA O'I'A2KA, and his bookls on Hus and on Karel Ha!V'licek are indebted to Plal!acky's conception of Czech histoey (9). Professor S. Harrison Thomson of Colorado University, whose book "Czechoslovakia in European History" (10) won him 1Jhe Czecho-Slovak State prize for li,tJerature in 1944 - ait a ti'me when that State did not faduaHy exist also had some difficulty in esta:blishing Masaryk's ethnic idenltity: ''Thomas Garr.itgue Masaicyk was ibor:n in t850 in Moravia, the son of a Slovak .futher and a Moravian mother"(lll). . . " By b1ood and tem'Perament Masaryk was as much Slovak as Czech'~(12) ... "To Masaryk, himself perhaps more Slovak than Czech, ,s uch a united effort (of Slova'1~s and Ozechs) .had been a self-evident neeessi-ty from the begiJming of the war"{13). Otto's Encyclopedia(14), pulblished eighteen years before Czecho-Slovalda was created, finds nothing Sfovak or "Czechoslovak" a'b out T. G. Masaryk, stating simply that he was :a "Czech philosopher." Robert J. Kerner, of Czech origin and a 'Sather Professor of Hrstory ,ait the Ull!iversli.ty of California, remarked that "Masaryk, himself of Slovak parentage, inspired Slovak youth a't the (Prague) University" (15). And on one ocoasion, Masaryk told Capek bluntly: "For us Czechs, Catholicism is ,a n impossible doctrine" ( 16). Dr. Joseph S. Roucek, professor at the Univwsity of Bridgeport, however, had a bit more to say: 1 "Mlasary{k, Tho1mas Garr.rilgiue (1~19371), Czechoslovak philosopher and statesmain, born on March 7. 1850, in tHodonliln on the Miorarvian-Slovakian border, of a Slovak father and a Czech mother'' . . . ''Afread,y as a stmd!ent e~pressed Ms strong Czec•h patriotism and h1is 01PPosition to soone of the db~s of the Oatholic Church into which he ,was born" . . . "The next yea.r (i:8'19, he) •beicame Pr,ivat-d!ozerut at the University of Vrienna and professor of philo'sophy at the Czech uruiversit:y Olf Prague (1882)" ... ''Turned to the great poiritilool and sooiJa,l problems of his da,y and became the naitionail ediuciat·OT Olf the Young Czech intelli!gents~ai" ... 'IHi:s cru&ad-e for truth led him to oppose the Czech romaintic nationaliSllll".. . ''Increased hi:s unpoipulacicy when he took uip the defense of mlsner, a Jew ,aiccused, of 'ritual murder', aigain!lt the emotiona•l anti-semitism of the Czech masses (11900)"~17). After the death of Masaryk, in September 1937, the Bratislava newspaper "Slovak" noted: "Masacyk was born in Hodonin, Moravia, March 7, 1850. !Es fuJtfuer, Joseph Masaryk, was a coach-<lriver on one of the Habsburg estates. Theresa Kropacek was his mother." �10 SLOVAKIA When Dr. Alice G. Masaryk, T. G. M.'s daughter, came ito Amerfoa in 1939 - her first visit here in twenltyeight years - she declined to describe herself as an ex,He, declaring "I am a Czech and Prague is my home" (18). Dr. W. Preston Warren, professor of phi1osophy rut Furman University in South Carolina, published his book "Masaryk's Democracy" in 1941 (19). Wit!h it he established himself as one of the foremost eulogists of Masaryk and his "Czechoslovakian" concept. That is understandable to informed people, because Dr. Warren is a charter member of the Masaryk Institute of America which, we are told, was founded "to promote cultural interchange between the Czechoslovak Republic and the United States." The fact remains, however, t!h at the Masaryk Institute promoted and still promotes the fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation and the personal philosophy and pa:rt'icu1ar in!terests of Thomas Ga:ririgue Masaryk and Dr. Edwaro Benes and their socialistic political entourage. 1 T. G. Masaryk, Dr. Warren teHs us, was "Born, 1850, in Hodonin, Moravia" (p. 3) .... "His father was a coachman with the background of a serf; his mother was a former Austrian household servant" (p. 4). That is alt Emil Ludwig published his book "Spirit and Time" (Oonvemations with Masaryk) in 1935, the 270-page book being read and approved before publication by Masaryk himself. In the book Ludwig tells us that Masaryk descends from Czechs and Slovaks and was born "in southern Moravia, near the border of both tribes." To Ludwig, Masaryk's character appears to be "typically Slovak" (p.14) and Masaryk himself told 1hirm: "Already as a child I was l>Hingual. My father was Slovak, my mother spoke German, but also Czech. Her parents were from Hana. I prayed in German, because my mother used to pray in Germ1a n from her German prayerbook" (p. 105). On the oocasion of -t he twen'bie!th anniversary of the death of T. G. Masaryk (Sept. 14, 1957) the Austri1an journals "Furche" and "Oberosterreichische" had this to say about the ethnic origin of Masaryk: �SLOVAKIA 11 "A nahve of Hana, Moravia, Masaryk's mother worked for sev,e ra·l years in Vienna before she became -a cook for a wea,l thy family in Hodonin. At fiirst she knew p,r,a~tiicaili!Jy nothing LI!; Czech and spoke with her chi1dren in the beginning only in Gerunan. Masaryk was recorded as a Geruna.n, in his ourrio1.11l'lllIIl v-itae orf ,1 875, which he hiim1selif wr.ote before attaindn•g his doctorate od' philosop'h'y at the University olf Vienna. '"Ilwo foicts are usua1.Jiy omdtted in the biographies of the president, and these he hlmselif, in his conversation with Oharles Capek, fails to menition: where his mother worked! as a cook in Hodonin., and, secondly, on w.hat day she was married dn 1849. It is easy to ascertain Wh\Y these facts are not mentioned, since the Hodonin Register shows !!hat she was imar-ried on Augiust 15, 18419, and that Mas.aryftc ,wa,g born on March 7', 18'50: between t:he marriage of the pa,re'I1its and the birth of yowng 'I1hiomas there are not even seven months. The mention of the,se dates coruld ea,sitly prolil/Pt the bhowght that the ,p res,i dent w,as born out of wedilock. ' 1On the other .hand a,ga,in, it is easy to ascertain just why the faimi)Jy for whom -Masaryk's mother ,coolked is never mentioned: The fact is that Masaryik's mother worked as a cook for a certa·Ll'a wealthy meflchant of Hodonin who owned ihl,s own miU and quite a ,piece of land. This merchant was the graindfabher of the world •r enowned Austrian historian and politician Joseph :Riedl1ich, F1niance Minister in the Emperor's last government. Tihis merclhant of Hodonin was a11legedily the natura•l father of T. G. MasaJ.'IY(k, later the President of Ozeicho-Slovakia. '"l1he RedJicll fami!Jy was ,expelled duTinig the time of Maniie Theresa, as ,were a11 the J ,ewis'h families of Hodonin. Many of the ex,pelees went to Hungary, wlhile some settled in Moraivilan towns . The departure ,o f "the Jewish famiihes ca,used the little town of Hodonin serious economic daimaige and, therefore, .the •Elmiperor allow,e d thi.rteen J,ewish d'amrlies to return J•n 1783. Among the returnees was also one Lazar Redilich, to whom a son, Nathan, was born in I803, who a'lso ;became a merclh-an't. "Was the ,grandifather of Joseph Redlich also the niatura,l father of Thomas Garriigue Masaryk? T.he story is very pla,us~ble and explains why Thcxllllas G. Masaryk excelled over the rest orf the members of ihis family, ipart-iculady his brofoers. It was Redi.i,ch money that ,gave hilill the opportunity to an education; and it exip]:lllins why Masaryik fav,ored the cause o.f the Jews. If t he grandfather of Joseph Red'1ioh was a1liso the ,grandfather orf Miaisacyk',s child.ren, b'hen it is understandable why Jian Masaeyk, the president's son, pa-rtioul>ady his daiugMer, Alke Masal"yik, have definite Jewish facial characteristics." This story of Masaryk being of Jewish origin I had heard many years .ago from Czechs themselves, 1!he last time from the Czech paJtriot, the Rt. Rev. Monsignor V. F. Mikolasek, a short time before he died. It is significant that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was very favorably received and generously supported by leadling Jewish per- �12 SLOVAKIA sonalities and organizations, the Jewish press, as well as other institutions which were influenced or dominated by them, wherever ihe travelled during World War I to gain suppott for his proposed Czecho-Slovak State. In return, Masaryk and Benes placed many Jews in the vianious departmenits of tJhe Czecho-Slovak Government as a token of their appreciation for services rendered. In fact the Jews were always more fuvored than the SiJ.ovaks. As late as 1949, at a special press conference ca:lled at the CzechoSlovak Embassy by Dr. Francis Weisskopf, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy, and Ernest Polak, alternate executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Yugoslawa and Finland, they denied reports that Jews were subject,ed to growing pressures in Czecho-Sfovakia. They stat.ed that they themselves and many leading members of their government were Jews. Mr. Polak added th'at "today there are many, many Jews in the highest positions in Czechoslovakia, not only in politics but in economics and the professions." (20). Significant, too, is the item on Jan Masaryk, the son of President Thomas G. Masairyk, when he visarted the United States in 1939, as reported by TIME magazine: "Last week Jan Masaryk was in the U. S .... to work not for the Czechs ... but for Democracy and persecuted Jews in particular. ... He shed no t.ears for his lost land . ... The Jan Masaryks are now divorced(21). And no less significant is tJhe item whicih appeared in the CHICAGO AMERICAN (22) under the heading of "Deaths Elsewhere" and read: "Antonin Masaryk, nephew of the late first president of Czechosllovakia and export manager of a brewery in Israel, aboard the vessel Egyptian Prince, Dec. 16 enroute from Britain to Israel." Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was not a fool. He was a brilliant man. Masaryk knew what he was and what he wanted. He came among the Slovaks in America, in 1918, because he needed them for his Czecho-Slovak propaganda. After that he ignored them completley. So did his son Jan and his daughter Alice. 'I'he Slovaks wm never be- �SLOVAKIA 13 lieve that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was a Slovak. And the sooner the Czechs give up their crazy game of trying to make a "Czechoslovak" nation by the simple formula Slovak = Czechoslovak," the better for all con"Czech cerned. + REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. H. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 1'9. 20. 21. 22. T. G. Masaryk: SVETOVA REVOLUCE, Or,bis, Prague, 1925; p. 75. Jlbidlem, p . 263. ]bidem, p. 320. Jlbidem, p. 395. ]bidem, p. 51'l.3. NMtOD, Aug. 7, 1953; Chicago, Ill. CE1NT'R.6.L-E ASTERN EUROPE (Crucible of World Wars), by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., and Associates; !Pren1;,roe-,Hal!l, Inc., 19416; .p p. !13-54. N>idem, p. 83. CZECHOSLOVAKIA, ed!ited by 'ROlbert J. Kerner; Unwversi-ty of California Press, Beiikcley and Los Angeles, 194!9; p. 105. Pdnceton University Press, 1944. p . .191. p. 231. p. 252. OTTUV SLOVNIK N AUCNY, Praigue, 1900; VoJ. 16, p. 934. CZECHOSLOVAKIA (vd. albove); p. 4'9. Charles Caipek: MASARYK TELLS HIS STORY, Ahlen and UI11Wiin, Ltd., London, 1934; p. 209. SLAVONIC ENCYCLOPIEDIA, edited by J'OSeph s. !Roucek, PhJD., Universi-ty of Bridigeport; BhHosopll'ica'l Libracy, New Yoiik, li9419; p. 7'45. THE NEW YORK TIME'S, June 9, 1939. The Uniiversity .o,f N,ort.h Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1941. THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 5, 1949. Jan. 25, 19'J9. Dec. 27, 1957. 1 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are deeply convinced that this alliance (with the USSR) is to the benefit of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and that it also is a contribution to international understanding. Whosoever among us does not want to acknowledge this supra-partisan and national character of the Czechoslovak-Soviet alliance, he is undermining this alliance and working against his very own aims." - (Dr. Peter Zenk!, chairman "Council of Free Czechoslovakia," Karlove Vary, July 20, 1947, according to CAS, 7-25-47). � 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 1960, Vol. 10 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 6 [sic] (No. 31), March-June 1960.</li> <li>Issue 7 [sic] (No. 32), September-December 1960.</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 7 WAST. G. MASARYK OF SLOVAK ORIGIN? P. A. Hrobak Many volumes have been written about Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, hi'S life, his concepts of r~lig,ion, history, philosophy, morals, etc. I1t is significant, however, that little has been written, even by Czechs themselves. about Masa,,ryk's ethnic origin. To be sure, tihe Czechs claim him as one of their greatest men. Accor<ling to what has been written about T. G. Masaryk, even by himself, he was, we are supposed to believe, aJt one and the same time, a Czech, a Slovak, and a "Czechoslovak." Then there is the story t!hat he wais of Jewish origin. The Slovak people did not regard Masaryk as their political or spiritual leader; he simply was not one of their kind. He did not believe in what tihe Sloviak people, as a who'le, believed in. That is why they did not !trust him. And when Masaryk repudiated the Pittsburgh Pact of May 30, 1918, whlch he himse•l f drafted and Sligned - an agreement that was supposed to guarantee "states' rights" to Slovakia - rtihey were through wi!th him. When the Slovaks criticized Masaryk, most severely and harshly on occasions, leading Cze~hs and the several Slovaks m their pay would rebuke them for doing so to one of their own countrymen, Masaryk, who was, they said, born a Sloviak. Nevertheless, this did not make Masaryk •a Slovak, not even a renegade Slovak, as far as the Slovaks were concerned. What then was the ethnic origin of Thomas Ga11rigue MaJSaryk? Strange as it might seem, the truth is that Masaryk himself never cleared up the question. Lecturing in Geneva, July 6, 1915, with Professor Ernest Denis, T. G. Masaryk said: "Our struggle ,i s being waged in t!he spirit of our Hussite forefathers and has not ,o nly political but also mora1 justification" (1). Toi his book "Svetova Revoluce" (the English translation of which was titled "The Making of a State"), we find 1Jhe following statements rel,a ting to Masaryk's ethnic origin: '"11he Slovaks a,nd Czechs knew that J moisel!f always had been ifor Slovakia; by origin and lby tra,d~tions a Slovak, I feel 8 SLOVAKIA S~ova!k a,n d I ai1ways not on]iy feLt a wa[lffith for SlolWl'ki:a, but woriked for it ... . I know Sloivaikia and the people dn Sl-0vadcia quite welil" (2). "Prapa,ganda, as everywtb.ere, so in America, iwas aimed to .acqua1nrt AIIIlerica with our politica,l and oul-turail tb.is't:or:y; rpeople knew a,bouit the Czechs -and the former Czech kingdoon, bwt we h,a,d· t•rouible wiith 1Jhe Slovaks; they were unilmOWU'll and Americans found iit diffiouH to understand that they forun a part of our nat,ion"(3). "From childhood I d'e~t my Czech nature concretely in the und'er•s tandinig of 'the character, the vdews and ,Hfe of my COl\lllllt,e ymen i,n S!Jovacko (Slovalk ian Moravia and hn, Slovakia)) aind wi1h 1Jhe coUTse of time in Moravia and Bohemia. . . . I feel my Czech and Slovak nature, I would saiy, l'IUsbroailly, dia•l ectically; phi'liosQll)hicailliy I feel with Hus, Chelcicky, Zifilc•a, etc., UJP to Ha·vlicek"(4). But the same Masaryk also salid: "Our policy must be above all else Czech, in truth Czech, then it wiU be in truth a world policy and therefore also Slovanic" (5). And despite his many •a ssurances to the Slovaks during World WaJr I lthat he was a Slovak by birth ('he needed them to establish the Czecho.,Slovak State), T. G. Masaryk nevertheless declared at the Baris Peace Conference: "The Slovaks are Czechs and their language is but a dialect of the Czech language!" Dr. E·dward Benes supported Masa,ryk'is statement. Accoroing to the Czec.fu newspaper "Narod" (6), Masaryk had this to say about his mother rund father: "Mly father was a native of ~opcany ... my mother was from Hostopec, a Geriman coomnunity. . . . I think that I am a1C1C-0rd ing to blood a pure Slovak, withowt admi<lctu'l'es of Maigy,ar or German, even, though j_n my youth my matJher cO'U!ld SDeark better in Ger,marn than in Czech ... we pr~ed ,in German." 0 Professor Hans Kohn, generally regarded as a reliable historian, tells us that T.he greatest statesman of latter-<fa~ Aiustria, ·t he Czech ptb.ilosopher ThOm"as G. Masany{k, h-adi a foHowin,g of onJy a, .few int~lilectual's amo'lllg his own !PeQll)le. Born at the Czecho•S'llovak _b order, he tried to lbud·l d -a ,b ridge ifroon the progressive Czechs, who made foH use of the OIPIJOrtunHrl.es of free dev,elopprrnenlt in Austri'a, to the backward Slovaks to whom, under Malgy,air d-omlina,ti-on, n-0 such opportwni1ti,es were given"(7). "Thomas G. MasaJrY'k, a Moravian Slovak" ... "the s•o n of a Slovak terumster on an ,ilmperiial estate in Eastern Slovakia, Masa,cyk was born (11850)"(8) ... "The Czechs were able to build 1Jheir existence, UJruder the leadership of Paladky's diroiipl,e, Masacy,k, the liberaitor of the Czech nation, on these principles .... SLOVAKIA AH of Ma,sacyk's wr1tmgs atbou,t the Czech proiblean, his 9 CESKA O'I'A2KA, and his bookls on Hus and on Karel Ha!V'licek are indebted to Plal!acky's conception of Czech histoey (9). Professor S. Harrison Thomson of Colorado University, whose book "Czechoslovakia in European History" (10) won him 1Jhe Czecho-Slovak State prize for li,tJerature in 1944 - ait a ti'me when that State did not faduaHy exist also had some difficulty in esta:blishing Masaryk's ethnic idenltity: ''Thomas Garr.itgue Masaicyk was ibor:n in t850 in Moravia, the son of a Slovak .futher and a Moravian mother"(lll). . . " By b1ood and tem'Perament Masaryk was as much Slovak as Czech'~(12) ... "To Masaryk, himself perhaps more Slovak than Czech, ,s uch a united effort (of Slova'1~s and Ozechs) .had been a self-evident neeessi-ty from the begiJming of the war"{13). Otto's Encyclopedia(14), pulblished eighteen years before Czecho-Slovalda was created, finds nothing Sfovak or "Czechoslovak" a'b out T. G. Masaryk, stating simply that he was :a "Czech philosopher." Robert J. Kerner, of Czech origin and a 'Sather Professor of Hrstory ,ait the Ull!iversli.ty of California, remarked that "Masaryk, himself of Slovak parentage, inspired Slovak youth a't the (Prague) University" (15). And on one ocoasion, Masaryk told Capek bluntly: "For us Czechs, Catholicism is ,a n impossible doctrine" ( 16). Dr. Joseph S. Roucek, professor at the Univwsity of Bridgeport, however, had a bit more to say: 1 "Mlasary{k, Tho1mas Garr.rilgiue (1~19371), Czechoslovak philosopher and statesmain, born on March 7. 1850, in tHodonliln on the Miorarvian-Slovakian border, of a Slovak father and a Czech mother'' . . . ''Afread,y as a stmd!ent e~pressed Ms strong Czec•h patriotism and h1is 01PPosition to soone of the db~s of the Oatholic Church into which he ,was born" . . . "The next yea.r (i:8'19, he) •beicame Pr,ivat-d!ozerut at the University of Vrienna and professor of philo'sophy at the Czech uruiversit:y Olf Prague (1882)" ... ''Turned to the great poiritilool and sooiJa,l problems of his da,y and became the naitionail ediuciat·OT Olf the Young Czech intelli!gents~ai" ... 'IHi:s cru&ad-e for truth led him to oppose the Czech romaintic nationaliSllll".. . ''Increased hi:s unpoipulacicy when he took uip the defense of mlsner, a Jew ,aiccused, of 'ritual murder', aigain!lt the emotiona•l anti-semitism of the Czech masses (11900)"~17). After the death of Masaryk, in September 1937, the Bratislava newspaper "Slovak" noted: "Masacyk was born in Hodonin, Moravia, March 7, 1850. !Es fuJtfuer, Joseph Masaryk, was a coach-<lriver on one of the Habsburg estates. Theresa Kropacek was his mother." 10 SLOVAKIA When Dr. Alice G. Masaryk, T. G. M.'s daughter, came ito Amerfoa in 1939 - her first visit here in twenltyeight years - she declined to describe herself as an ex,He, declaring "I am a Czech and Prague is my home" (18). Dr. W. Preston Warren, professor of phi1osophy rut Furman University in South Carolina, published his book "Masaryk's Democracy" in 1941 (19). Wit!h it he established himself as one of the foremost eulogists of Masaryk and his "Czechoslovakian" concept. That is understandable to informed people, because Dr. Warren is a charter member of the Masaryk Institute of America which, we are told, was founded "to promote cultural interchange between the Czechoslovak Republic and the United States." The fact remains, however, t!h at the Masaryk Institute promoted and still promotes the fiction of an ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation and the personal philosophy and pa:rt'icu1ar in!terests of Thomas Ga:ririgue Masaryk and Dr. Edwaro Benes and their socialistic political entourage. 1 T. G. Masaryk, Dr. Warren teHs us, was "Born, 1850, in Hodonin, Moravia" (p. 3) .... "His father was a coachman with the background of a serf; his mother was a former Austrian household servant" (p. 4). That is alt Emil Ludwig published his book "Spirit and Time" (Oonvemations with Masaryk) in 1935, the 270-page book being read and approved before publication by Masaryk himself. In the book Ludwig tells us that Masaryk descends from Czechs and Slovaks and was born "in southern Moravia, near the border of both tribes." To Ludwig, Masaryk's character appears to be "typically Slovak" (p.14) and Masaryk himself told 1hirm: "Already as a child I was l>Hingual. My father was Slovak, my mother spoke German, but also Czech. Her parents were from Hana. I prayed in German, because my mother used to pray in Germ1a n from her German prayerbook" (p. 105). On the oocasion of -t he twen'bie!th anniversary of the death of T. G. Masaryk (Sept. 14, 1957) the Austri1an journals "Furche" and "Oberosterreichische" had this to say about the ethnic origin of Masaryk: SLOVAKIA 11 "A nahve of Hana, Moravia, Masaryk's mother worked for sev,e ra·l years in Vienna before she became -a cook for a wea,l thy family in Hodonin. At fiirst she knew p,r,a~tiicaili!Jy nothing LI!; Czech and spoke with her chi1dren in the beginning only in Gerunan. Masaryk was recorded as a Geruna.n, in his ourrio1.11l'lllIIl v-itae orf ,1 875, which he hiim1selif wr.ote before attaindn•g his doctorate od' philosop'h'y at the University olf Vienna. '"Ilwo foicts are usua1.Jiy omdtted in the biographies of the president, and these he hlmselif, in his conversation with Oharles Capek, fails to menition: where his mother worked! as a cook in Hodonin., and, secondly, on w.hat day she was married dn 1849. It is easy to ascertain Wh\Y these facts are not mentioned, since the Hodonin Register shows !!hat she was imar-ried on Augiust 15, 18419, and that Mas.aryftc ,wa,g born on March 7', 18'50: between t:he marriage of the pa,re'I1its and the birth of yowng 'I1hiomas there are not even seven months. The mention of the,se dates coruld ea,sitly prolil/Pt the bhowght that the ,p res,i dent w,as born out of wedilock. ' 1On the other .hand a,ga,in, it is easy to ascertain just why the faimi)Jy for whom -Masaryk's mother ,coolked is never mentioned: The fact is that Masaryik's mother worked as a cook for a certa·Ll'a wealthy meflchant of Hodonin who owned ihl,s own miU and quite a ,piece of land. This merchant was the graindfabher of the world •r enowned Austrian historian and politician Joseph :Riedl1ich, F1niance Minister in the Emperor's last government. Tihis merclhant of Hodonin was a11legedily the natura•l father of T. G. MasaJ.'IY(k, later the President of Ozeicho-Slovakia. '"l1he RedJicll fami!Jy was ,expelled duTinig the time of Maniie Theresa, as ,were a11 the J ,ewis'h families of Hodonin. Many of the ex,pelees went to Hungary, wlhile some settled in Moraivilan towns . The departure ,o f "the Jewish famiihes ca,used the little town of Hodonin serious economic daimaige and, therefore, .the •Elmiperor allow,e d thi.rteen J,ewish d'amrlies to return J•n 1783. Among the returnees was also one Lazar Redilich, to whom a son, Nathan, was born in I803, who a'lso ;became a merclh-an't. "Was the ,grandifather of Joseph Redlich also the niatura,l father of Thomas Garriigue Masaryk? T.he story is very pla,us~ble and explains why Thcxllllas G. Masaryk excelled over the rest orf the members of ihis family, ipart-iculady his brofoers. It was Redi.i,ch money that ,gave hilill the opportunity to an education; and it exip]:lllins why Masaryik fav,ored the cause o.f the Jews. If t he grandfather of Joseph Red'1ioh was a1liso the ,grandfather orf Miaisacyk',s child.ren, b'hen it is understandable why Jian Masaeyk, the president's son, pa-rtioul>ady his daiugMer, Alke Masal"yik, have definite Jewish facial characteristics." This story of Masaryk being of Jewish origin I had heard many years .ago from Czechs themselves, 1!he last time from the Czech paJtriot, the Rt. Rev. Monsignor V. F. Mikolasek, a short time before he died. It is significant that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was very favorably received and generously supported by leadling Jewish per- 12 SLOVAKIA sonalities and organizations, the Jewish press, as well as other institutions which were influenced or dominated by them, wherever ihe travelled during World War I to gain suppott for his proposed Czecho-Slovak State. In return, Masaryk and Benes placed many Jews in the vianious departmenits of tJhe Czecho-Slovak Government as a token of their appreciation for services rendered. In fact the Jews were always more fuvored than the SiJ.ovaks. As late as 1949, at a special press conference ca:lled at the CzechoSlovak Embassy by Dr. Francis Weisskopf, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy, and Ernest Polak, alternate executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Yugoslawa and Finland, they denied reports that Jews were subject,ed to growing pressures in Czecho-Sfovakia. They stat.ed that they themselves and many leading members of their government were Jews. Mr. Polak added th'at "today there are many, many Jews in the highest positions in Czechoslovakia, not only in politics but in economics and the professions." (20). Significant, too, is the item on Jan Masaryk, the son of President Thomas G. Masairyk, when he visarted the United States in 1939, as reported by TIME magazine: "Last week Jan Masaryk was in the U. S .... to work not for the Czechs ... but for Democracy and persecuted Jews in particular. ... He shed no t.ears for his lost land . ... The Jan Masaryks are now divorced(21). And no less significant is tJhe item whicih appeared in the CHICAGO AMERICAN (22) under the heading of "Deaths Elsewhere" and read: "Antonin Masaryk, nephew of the late first president of Czechosllovakia and export manager of a brewery in Israel, aboard the vessel Egyptian Prince, Dec. 16 enroute from Britain to Israel." Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was not a fool. He was a brilliant man. Masaryk knew what he was and what he wanted. He came among the Slovaks in America, in 1918, because he needed them for his Czecho-Slovak propaganda. After that he ignored them completley. So did his son Jan and his daughter Alice. 'I'he Slovaks wm never be- SLOVAKIA 13 lieve that Thomas Garrigue Masaryk was a Slovak. And the sooner the Czechs give up their crazy game of trying to make a "Czechoslovak" nation by the simple formula Slovak = Czechoslovak," the better for all con"Czech cerned. + REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. H. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 1'9. 20. 21. 22. T. G. Masaryk: SVETOVA REVOLUCE, Or,bis, Prague, 1925; p. 75. Jlbidlem, p . 263. ]bidem, p. 320. Jlbidem, p. 395. ]bidem, p. 51'l.3. NMtOD, Aug. 7, 1953; Chicago, Ill. CE1NT'R.6.L-E ASTERN EUROPE (Crucible of World Wars), by Joseph S. Roucek, Ph.D., and Associates; !Pren1;,roe-,Hal!l, Inc., 19416; .p p. !13-54. N>idem, p. 83. CZECHOSLOVAKIA, ed!ited by 'ROlbert J. Kerner; Unwversi-ty of California Press, Beiikcley and Los Angeles, 194!9; p. 105. Pdnceton University Press, 1944. p . .191. p. 231. p. 252. OTTUV SLOVNIK N AUCNY, Praigue, 1900; VoJ. 16, p. 934. CZECHOSLOVAKIA (vd. albove); p. 4'9. Charles Caipek: MASARYK TELLS HIS STORY, Ahlen and UI11Wiin, Ltd., London, 1934; p. 209. SLAVONIC ENCYCLOPIEDIA, edited by J'OSeph s. !Roucek, PhJD., Universi-ty of Bridigeport; BhHosopll'ica'l Libracy, New Yoiik, li9419; p. 7'45. THE NEW YORK TIME'S, June 9, 1939. The Uniiversity .o,f N,ort.h Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1941. THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 5, 1949. Jan. 25, 19'J9. Dec. 27, 1957. 1 1 • • • WHO SAID IT? "We are deeply convinced that this alliance (with the USSR) is to the benefit of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and that it also is a contribution to international understanding. Whosoever among us does not want to acknowledge this supra-partisan and national character of the Czechoslovak-Soviet alliance, he is undermining this alliance and working against his very own aims." - (Dr. Peter Zenk!, chairman "Council of Free Czechoslovakia," Karlove Vary, July 20, 1947, according to CAS, 7-25-47).  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 Was T. G. Masaryk of Slovak Origin? Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 10, No. 7 (32), September-December 1960 pp. 7-13 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 1960 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/49499471653b0ae34bb29ad85de401a0.pdf 0b7385f1831145e9c99e09d87a7bbd09 PDF Text Text SEPT~MBER, 1953 SLOVAKIA 1 WAS CZEOHO-SWVAK IA A DEMOCRACY? Dr. Arved Grebert The wo.r ld at large has become aiccustomed to regarding the first Ozecho..Slovruk Republic as an exemplary democratk state, a real "isle of democracy" in Central Europe. From the beginnmg o,f this state in 1918, official Czech propaganda exipended large SJUms of money to convince the world pulblic that such actually was the case. On the other hand, however, aibout a haiif of the total rpotpulation of Czecho~lovakia (The Slo1Vaiks, Germans, Po-les, Magyars, Ruthenians) continually protested this erroneous view and judgement oif conditions in the RepUlblic, ibut little came of it. In view Olf what has ha:pperned in Ozecho-iSlo,va)kia sinc 2 1938 - the ease with which it colla:psed in 1939 and laiter, in 1945, accepted the hegemony of communistic Moscow, it may be interesting to loo!k a .bit closer at the kind o.f democracy the: first Ozecho-'Sloivak Re.public actuaHy was. The Right of Self-Determinatlon and Czecho-Slovakia T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes set aJbout to break up the Austro-Hungarian Monarichy during World War I in the nrume od: and with the aid of the right of self-determination of nations. They evoiked this basic principle con~ sistenUy and consitantliy. This is attested to .by the literature they pro,pagated, as well as the "Memoirs" they placed before the Peace Conference, wherein they -c laimed the right of self-detemnination of nations in the interests of Czech independence. As soon as the war ended, however, and AUJstria-Hungary lay in ashes, Masaryk and Benes very quickly and conveniently forgot 8J'bout the democratilc princilple oif the right of selif--detemnination of nations and labored to create a state which in suibstance became only a small and bad copy of the old monarehy they had helped to destroy. This newly created and artificial state, which never existed before that time, was first called ib;y the Czechs under Masaryk a.ind Benes "Ozeoho.;Slovrukia" - a synthetic n ame 1 �2 SLOV.AKil u111kn0,wn in the history of either the Czech nation or the Slovak nation before World War . At the ,v ery outset, this synthetic State rol)bed approximately 4,500,000 (3,700,000 Germans, 800,000 Magyars and aJbout 100,000 Poles) of their basic democratic right, the right of self-determination. The Germans, Magyars and Poles were forced within the framework of this artificial State against their eX!pressed will. And three million S1ova:ks and aJbout a ha1f million SUJb-CaI"pathian Ukrainians (the Ruthenians) favored the State only conditionally, that is, on1y if they enjoyed full autonomy within the Repulblk ; when this condition remained unfulfilled they found themselves in opposition to the existence of this :State. A political state is supposed to be the exipression oif the free will of the peoiple the existence of a state is SUIPposed to be in accoro with the will of its inhaJbitants. But Ozecho-lSlova!kia was not such a state; the Prague government, once it was set Uip in ,power, repudiated the basic democratic ,principle of the right of self-deter- . mination of nations - the very principle which brought it into being. We must not forget that the occupation of non-Czech lands took place with wea:pons in hand against the will of the native ,p opulation. Manifestations for the realization of the right of self-determination were bloodily suppressed by the Ozech army. For examiple, in a. single day, on March 4, 1919, the Czech arm,y killed 57 Gemnans and wounded over 100 more, when they demonstrated in German towns for their right to self-determination. Uip to 1921 there were 130 GeI"mans killed during street demonstrations iby the Ozech occupation for,ces. The same situation prevailed in territories inhaJbited iby the Magyars and Poles. Aocording to 1923 statistics, the newly created Czech~lovaJkia was inhabited by some 6,400,000 Czechs and a!bout 7,000,000 non-Czechs. The latter felt that they we,r e roM>ed of their democratirc right to self-determination, when Masaryk and Benes repudiated the promises and agreements made 1b y them when the ReipUJblic was in a state of formation. This was all the more grave and momentous, since the principle of the right of self-determination was a,pplied �SLOVAKIA 3 practkally in the case of Estonia (1,200,000 pop.), Lithuania (2,500,000), Latvia (2,000,000) Finland (3,800,000), M))ania (1,000,000), Nonway (3,000,000), Iceland (110,000), Denmark (3,800,000), etc. - states of wthich the entire popufation numbered less or 8Jpproximately the S3Jllle as, for example, there were Slovaks or Germans in the OzechoSlovaik Repulblfo. So that we might have some idea of the extent oif these realities, we must recall that at that very same time when Ozecho-iSlo1Vakia originated, there originated three small independent states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a far more threatened territory, on the !b orders of the UISISR (160,000,000), without the protection of natural borders or synthetic fortiifreations; eaoh one of these states h!!Jd less inhaibitants than Ozecho-;Slo.vaJkia had Slovaiks or Germans who weTe .r obbed ()If their right to selif-.deternnination. And on the borders od' the Soviet colossus there originated Finland, which at that time had only alb out 4,000,000 inhabitants and, therefore, much less than the non-Ozech na tionalities of Ozecho.Slorvalkia who were deprived of their right to se.J.lf-deter.min•a tion. In the case of the A]banians, who inhabit the dangerous Balkan crossroads orf the interests of Italy, Greece and Yugoslaivia, their right to state independence was recognized an,d respected. But the Sudeten Germans were not permitted to join either Austria or Ge:rttnany in 11919, as they h!!Jd desired to, do. And the will of the Slovak nation (3,000,000) was not respected when it decided to join the Ozechs in a common state only on condition that it would enjoy full autonomy within the framework of the Republic. Once in ,p ower, the government of Masaryik and Benes also refosed -to respect the rights of the Ruthenians and the Polish and Magyar minorities. From this standpoint, "Czecho-Slovak" democraicy for the 7,000,000 inhaJbitants of that State was only an empty phrase, a propaganda tenn devoid of content and foundation. A Dict.at.ed Constitution The foundations oif the political structure of every state are represented iby its constitution. The basic prin- �SLOVAKIA ci:ple of every genuine democratic state is that its constitution is the exipression oif the will o!f its inhaJbJ.tants. It is quite ohvious to asslli!lle, where a multinational state is concerned, that all strata of the population, all regions of the state, and all nationalities are properly and duly rep resented when the constitution is created. In Ozecho-.SlO!Vakia, however, the Constitution of Febmary 29, 1920, was exclusively a Czech product, and the Czechs under Masaryk and Benes simply dktated it and forced it upon the majority of the non-Czech population of the State In the so-called Constitutional National Assemibly there was not a single representative of the 3,700,000 Germans, not a single representative of the 800,000 Magyars, and not a single representative of the 100,000 Poles. And the representatives of the Slo,vak nation were not ele ~ted by the people, but simply ~pointed by Prague, and this was done in such a way that ,w ould ibest satisfy Prague: the overwhelming majority of them were proponents of "Czeohoslovalk ism" - the opponents of Slovak autonomy - even though the vast majority of Slo,vaiks were proiponents oif SloiVak autonomy within the framework of the OzechoS1ovak Repulblic. The representatives o.f Czech imperialism and "progressiveness" went so far as to name Czechs as re,presentatiives of Sl01VaJkia , as, for example, Dr. Edward Benes, Dr. Alice .Masaryk, Ing. Joseph Rotnagl, Dr. Aloysius Kolisek, and Ing. Joseph Zaruiba-,P:fofifermann. When Ozecho'-lSlo:vakia was ,b orn not more than 5000 Czechs lived in Slovakia, hence these, Ozechs could hardly be considered as repres enta.tilves of their pec;ple in Slc,v akia. In the twentieth century, when the solution or the granting od' sel!f..,manageiment or independence to some colonial nation of Africa or Asia is debated and negotiated, it is cus tomary that representatives oif the native population spealk in their name. Hut the Czech imperialists under Masaryk and Benes thought otherwise. They prolbaJbly regarded the Slo,vaJks as a nation beneath the level of colonial nations, because they named also five Czechs to, represent it on the Constitutional National Assembly Czechs who were practically ,unknown to the vast majority of the Slovak 1 �SLOVAKIA 5 peoiple. For example, up to that time, Dr. Edward Benes had never been in Slovakia. In this ha:ndpi'oked "parliament" there were 204 Czech, but only 56 Sl()!Valk deputies, and this number included five :C zechs mentioned albo1Ve. Furthermore, there weTe only eight Slovak deputies from the autonomdst bloc in that ruppointed Constitutional National Assem1bly. And it was significant, indeed, that on the very day that the Prague parliament voted for this Constitution, the leader of the Slovak nation and undoubtedly the most eminent polit1cal figure o.f the Slov8!k struggle against Magyarism, Andrew Hlinlka, was beihind bars in a Ozech prison. 1 The Slo;vaik r€ipresentation in that assembly was so unjust that eiven such a notorious adherent of "Ozechoslovaikism" as Dr. Juraj Slavik - now a member of the socalloo "Council cd' Free Ozechoslovakia" which operates out of New Yo,I'lk and Washi.Il!gton - protested at that time that the Slovaks did not hav e sufficient and ,proper representation. The Ozechs reiplie-0. that an adjustment would be made, but nothing hrupipene<l. Because Mr . .SlaiVik did not continue protesting against the injustice, Prague rewarded him for it. In a very short time he ibe1came a minister in the Czech goivernment in Prague. Even Seton-Watson, a close a:nd loyal .friend of T. G. Mas,a,ryk, noted that Sl0vak seats in the legislative assembly were to a certain extent filled by arnitrary a,ppointments (Sloivakia Then And Now" - ipg. 12). Under sU!ch undemocratic conditions the Constitution that emerged enthroned: a regime of Oz~h hegemony in the Czecho-iSloivaJk State. The entire Ozecho-Slova>k politi,cal system rested on this Constitution which is dictated iby the Czechs . And since the Constituiton was diotated, therefore dicfated was also the entire system in its relationshi1p to the 7,000,000 non-CzeiCh citizens. Where a state is foriced on a half of its, ,poipulation, where a Constitution is dictated to half the ;poipulation and against its most elementary political, economic and ooltUTal interests, where 7,000,000 'people are overruled and made a minority od', there can be no serious talk aibout a democratic state. In Czecho-rS'lovakia the �G SLOVAKIA Czechs sought to realize the very thing they had fought against so furiously in Austria. And realize it they did, even if eventually it did mean the utter ruin of the, State they had created under Masa.ryik and Benes. Centralism vs. Federalism The dictated Ozech Constitution installed a rugged centralistic sy,stem in Ozecho-Sloivakia; ,p ractically all key political positions and all power rested in Czech hands. Among the fundamental :principles of democratic states belongs tihe principle that multinational or multilingual states should .be origaruzed on a federalistic basis, that is, with the aid of aiutonomy of the indirvidrual minorities, since it is only in this manner that the ,p rinciples of . justice in a mutual relationshtp of the individual nationalities of the state can be realized in pra,,ctiice. But the great "Czech,oslovaJk Democrats" rapudiated this prin'Ciiple and instituted a strong centralistic regime. By so doing they not only failed to keep the -promises made and given the Slovaks and, Ruthenians and the minorities, but also instituted a regime which was in sulbstance a profanation and mookery of democracy. Behind the mask of democratic phrases they installed a regime of Ozech national imperialism. To safeguard their hegemony, the Czechs dictated into the Constitution paragrruphs which in practice prevented a change of the Constitution (the enactments about the- necessity of a 3/ 5 and 2/ 3 ,majority). Ozech hegemony was thus secured, because representatives of the non-Czech p01pulation could never attain this required majority in the Prag;ue Parliament without the Ozechs and, hence, could never uipset Czech hegemony in the State in constitutional or parliamentary manner. The dictated constitution and the Ozech hegemony emanating therefrom were then safeguarded by the notorious "law for the protection of the Republic" (No. 50) of March 23, 1923, which made the 7,000,000 non-Czech citizens of the various nationalities liaible to rprosecution on the grounds of anti...state a;ctivities, if they rpersisted in their rightful demands for the recognition of and respect for their �SLOVAKIA 7 right to sehf-detemrination , the 1principle upon which the Republic was sU1pposed to ha,ve 'b een founded. The Czech Communists ,wsed this law to advantage when they got hold af the key .p ositions in the State in 1945 and, later, in 1948, had practically no trouible at all in seizing a1l power in the Reipulblitc in a "legal and constitutional" way. Another laJW, the law regarding political parties (No. 201 of Octolber 25, 1953) , provided for the outlawing and dissolution of any political ,p arty if its arctivity seriously endangered the "constitutional unity" - and "constitutional unity'' in practice simply :meant Ozech rule oiver the nonCzech citizens. On the basis of this law, the ,political demand for the territorial legislatiive autonomy of SlovaJkia the -c ondition under which the .Slovak,s decided to form a joint state with the Czechs - was cause for prooecution by the State. Dr. Ivan Derer, who sold his Slovak birthright for a mess Olf Ozech pottage, as Minister of Justice demanded on various occasions to use this law against the Hlin!ka Sloivak Poople's Party, because it persistently demanded the f.uilifillment olf the Pittsburgh ·P act of May 30, 1918 - that is, states, rights or foll aiutonoony for Slovakia. Prague, however, ordered Derer to withhold action; the centralists were not entirely ,bl.ind to the development olf the internationaJl situation, and the consequencoo of such action: the RepuibUc would have undoUibtedly collapsed 10\Il!g before 1939 if Derer was not overruled. Ozech centralism. pulled in its horns a little _and attempted to show the Slovaks that it favored them by not aipplying the law. Of course, the Slova;ks, by that time, .were wise to the Czech centn1.lists. The Anti-Democratic Regrme of Czech Hegemony . Czech hegemony was also protected b~ a whole series of la.ws and regulations which emanated from the undemocratic' Constitution which was forced on the non-Ozech popuiation. The Constitution, for example, "legalized" the notorious fiction - better said the international fraud oif the i•Ozechoslovak nation" in the political · and ethnic sense·, a nation which had never existed and, in the end, from the ·existence of which even its creators and propaga~ �SLOVAKIA tors fled with their notorious Kosice .Agreement with the Communists in 1'946. With the he1p of this fraud, the fiction of a national state was ipromo.ted against the reality of a nationa,listic state. On this dictated Constituti:on rested also the language, law with its notorious monstrosity - the "CzechoslovaJk languruge" - which was legali1zed and given a special status even though no such tongue ever existed. In prad1ce this ructualliy meant the hegemony o;f the Ozech languruge on the territo,r.y oif the entire state, including the lands inhabited tby the 7,000,000 non-Ozech inhrubitants, a part o;f whom, for example the Sudeten Germans, had a higher level o;f culture and ciivili,z ation than the "ruling" Czech nation. While the o,ld Austrian Constitution issued from the prin:ciiple of language equality, the CZeiCiho~lovak language law introduced the iprindple oif the .p rivileged position od' the non-existent "Ozechoslovaik" language in the Reiplllblic. Regional, county and loca1 se1f-ad!Ininistration was maimed lby legal regulations, which gaive the Prague government the dght to ruppoint one~third of the members of these "se1f-administering" organs.. SinJCe the government nrumed 33 per cent of the officials, it only needed to gain 18 ver cent o;f the electorate so that it could continue to rule "democratically'' with the hel•p of such an artificial majority against the actual majority oif inhaibitants olf Slovakia, Ruthenia and the territories inhalbited by the Gemnans. In Slovakia this 18 .p er cent was not too difficult to attain, with the aid {)If Czech oifficia:ls under Prague, who :placed thousands of Ozechs in Slovakia in various capacities, and the help oif the entire iprnpaganda aipparatus of the state, and ·political corruption, as well as 1police pressure. With the helip of a bit o.f "political geometry" in the Czech lands, for example, in the Prague voting district, only about 22,000 voters were needed to elect one deputy to pM'liament, whereas in many SlovaJk, Magyar, Ruthenian and German districts almost 30,000 votes were needed for one minister. This evidently helped the Czech minority to attain a ma;jority in the Prag,ue parliament. Here we had an actual case where the "largest minority ruled as a state �SLOVAKIA 9 nation over the other :minorities, which together numbered more adherents than the ruling nation" - as Dr. Hassinger of the university o;f Basel claimed. Czech bureaucratic officials censored the non-Czech press ruthlessly; .protests against the existing order were squashed. For examrple, in 1922 alone 1498 editions of newspapers were confiscated by the Ozech censor; instances of deletions of words, sentences, whole para,graphs and entire arUcles were more Il/UmerOUS. In harmony with the stmcture and the sipirit of this regime in so-called "Czechoslovak" governments, the Czechs as a rule held 7'5-------80 1per cent of the ministershirps and the maijority in parliament, so that the Ozech minority in the State, contrary to the most fundamental princiJples of democracy, US1Urt1ped ipractically al,l power of government and absolute control in the issuance of iaws. How the Slovaks, for example, regarded the "Slo1Va;k" ministers in the Prague Government, iwas prOibalbly best described. by d~uty Martin Ra:zus, a Protestant minister and the president of the Slovalk National Party, when on November 4, 1932, in the Prague ,p arliament, he said: "Yes, by obligation we do have two Slo1Vak ministers. But the sad .part aibout it is the fact we do have ministers; but these ministers, however, are not the ministers of the Slovak nation; they are the ministers of the present Herrenvolk, but not the ministers of the SlovaJk nation." OriginaHy, by the peace ~greements, the name of the country created lb y the Czechs and the Slovaks 1w,as spelled with a h~hen: Czecho-Slovakia. Therelby the federaUve character of that State was supposed to be stressed; also that the Ozechs and and the Slo,vaiks were regarded as equal partners in the administration of the joint Republic; f,urtheI1II1ore., it was SUIPP<>sed to indicate that the Czechs would rule in Czech lands and the Slovaks would rule in Slovakia, that is, states riights, of each would be fully enjoyed and respected by ·both nations. AU the ;peace agreements where:by this State was created designated the State in such a manner as a matter of principle; the hyphen prevailed. But as soon as the Czechs gained and consolidated �10 SLOVAKIA their hegemOilJY, the tetirn "Czecho,SlO!Vakia" was, changed to "Czechosl()IV'ahla." From 1923 the law declared thi.$ rup-pelation leg,a lly proper and correct, and any one using the hyiphen was lialble to ,p rosecution by the State. Thereby in a symbolic manner was SIUlppOsed to ,b e demonstrated the thesis rega'I'd:ing the fusion, or better said, the ~bsorption of the SlovaJks by the C?,eehs, so that Czech supremacy in the State could ibe guaranteed even numerically. Official statistics told the world how many Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ruthenians and Jews there were in Ozecho.SlovaJda, but not the nurmlber of Sloivaiks; how many seats were held _in parliament biy the Gernnans, Poles, Magyars and Ruthe~ µians, but not how many were h~d lby the SlOIVaJks. And it was with alil statistics. The Slovaks,. however,. stubborn.ly resisted the spelling of the name of the R~1mlbli:c without the hyphen. · so Rights of Minorities Repudiated The regime of Czech ,hegemony in the Repulblic had ruinous conseque~es not only for the ,Slo;vruks, .but the other nationalities as welt The Germans, Magyars, Poles and Ruthenians complained albout injustices as mlllch as the Slovaiks did. It was not on:ly Slo,vakia that was flooded .with ~ h officials and workers, but also the lands inhabited' by the Ruthenians, Poles, Mrugyars and Germans. ·F or example1 between 191·8 and 1938 there emigrated into Slova,kia more than 200,000 ~ h officials, businessmen and entrepreneurs: During that same time more than 200,000 Slovalks, lacking woy,king opportunities in their homeland, had to emigrate to. Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, the United States, Bra:zil, Franice and Belgium. In that same ,p eriod rupproximately 150,000 Czechs moved into the territoriy inhabited by the Germans. Simi~ larly, the territories of the Magyars, Po.les and ·Ruthenians were also flooded with Ozechs,. The Ge'.Mlails, for example, who represented 22.3 iper cent of the- population .o f the Republic, held on1y 12.2 per cent official posts on the railmads, 14.4 ,p er cent in the Post Office, in _the state :ii.<}; ministration only 13.1 per cent, and in the · Officers Coi,p·s· only 5.1 per cent were in ructive service. �SLOVAKIA 11 In the central offices, ministries, the highest control offices, etc., the Slovaks represented only 1.3 rper cent of the o!fficials, ibut even these were subordinate and insignificant positions. All the citizens of the Repulblirc, regardless of their nationality, were bound by the same obligations, but the Czechs alone enjoyed special prirvileges and better opportunities. The centralisti'c Prague government was in the hands of Czeichs who regarded their nation as the ruling nation, their people as first-r.a te citizens, while the other nationalities were regarded. as ~ond..,rate. The Ozech government cried that Sl01Valkia ,w as just so. much economic ballast, but fought tooth and nail to keep it in hand at all costs. "Ozechosl01Va!k" democracy as propagandized by the Oooohs and ,p aid iProlfessional non..,Ozerch ipro.paga:.ndists was one thing, while the •b rand actually prevailing in Czecho-'Slovalkia something entirely different. A repetition of history: the Magyars, too, used to ,p roclaim iblatantl;y that the democratic system prevailed in Hungary, while at the same time they were ibr.uWly s,uppre.ssing and exploiting all non-Magyar elements in the country. In the light of these facts, any reference to "Ozechoslovak " democracy evoked a strong revulsion in the hearts of the millions of non-OLech inhabitants who were .burdened with it. They knew in their hearts that it was fraud, even though the Cz~hs presented it to. the world- as the ultimate in democratk systems. The non..,Czerch nationalities were burdened with the same civic obligations as the Czechs were, ibut they did not enjoy equal rights and ;privileges and, therei:fore, it is quite understandruble that at the first opportune moment - and that came in 1938-1939 - they did everything rpossi.lble to escape from the emlbrace of this "isle of, demorcracy." .. "Czechoslovak'! Democracy W.a s a Fraud In this !brief review o!f the "dettnocracy" that was Czecho-Slovakia, the reader will not find details of all the aspects oif the politics oif Czech hegemony in the Republic. That would require a voluminous wo:nk. And practical~ nothing was said regarding the conditions after 1945, inasmuch the trampling upon the most :fundamental rights of �12 SLOVAKIA man, carried out by the Benes-Communist coalition, was so general that many pruges would be needed to delineate only the most important of its aspocts. The mass deportation of millions Olf ,p eople from their homeland, the outlawing and prevention of politica,l ,parties, the limitation of the freedom of the 1press and assemlbly, tens of thousands of political ,p risoners, hundreds of the executed, the many unconstitutional decrees af Benes, etc. - all this had happened with the cooperation of the Czech 1p oliticians, who to<lay pose as champions of democracy. It is regrettable that some .p eople in the West even today do not IOOJke any noticeable effort to imonn themselves of the true nature otf so~called "Czechoslovalk dem<X:ra<cy" and its representatives. It is regrettruble, indeed, that responsible people otf western democracies stiU continue to recognize and favor the ipr~agators of "Czechoslovaikism" former members of the Communist-dominated "National Front" government oif Bene-s and Gottwald, who Slllpiported the proJSoviet poli:cy oif Benes and, hence, ·a re in a great measure responsible for the present terrible plight of the Czech and Slovaik nations. Ozecho-Slo:vakia was not a true democracy, but a fraud and a mockery orf democracy. That was proved by the inhaJbitants Olf the State when the first grea;t crisis struclc and Czecho-Slovakia colla_psed completely. No one, not even the Czechs themsel,ves, fired a single shot to preserve it. Why should any western democratic gcwernment endeawor to preseI1Ve it a;gainst the will of the Sl01Va;ks and others of ~ho-SlovaJkia who are kept in that .State only by force? There must be an answer S01Ineiwhere! • • • WHO SAID IT? The Czechs and .Slovaks had their .State but not for longer than .twenty years. What now remains is infinite!~ worse .than what existed before. . . The politic,a[ theories of (T. G.) Masaryk and Benes collapsed because they could not beair the pra<dtioal test of the times." (·S KUTECNOST, review of the Ozach refugees, London, Vot III, No. 2, p. 33, Feib. 1951). � SEPT~MBER, 1953 SLOVAKIA 1 WAS CZEOHO-SWVAK IA A DEMOCRACY? Dr. Arved Grebert The wo.r ld at large has become aiccustomed to regarding the first Ozecho..Slovruk Republic as an exemplary democratk state, a real "isle of democracy" in Central Europe. From the beginnmg o,f this state in 1918, official Czech propaganda exipended large SJUms of money to convince the world pulblic that such actually was the case. On the other hand, however, aibout a haiif of the total rpotpulation of Czecho~lovakia (The Slo1Vaiks, Germans, Po-les, Magyars, Ruthenians) continually protested this erroneous view and judgement oif conditions in the RepUlblic, ibut little came of it. In view Olf what has ha:pperned in Ozecho-iSlo,va)kia sinc 2 1938 - the ease with which it colla:psed in 1939 and laiter, in 1945, accepted the hegemony of communistic Moscow, it may be interesting to loo!k a .bit closer at the kind o.f democracy the: first Ozecho-'Sloivak Re.public actuaHy was. The Right of Self-Determinatlon and Czecho-Slovakia T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes set aJbout to break up the Austro-Hungarian Monarichy during World War I in the nrume od: and with the aid of the right of self-determination of nations. They evoiked this basic principle con~ sistenUy and consitantliy. This is attested to .by the literature they pro,pagated, as well as the "Memoirs" they placed before the Peace Conference, wherein they -c laimed the right of self-detemnination of nations in the interests of Czech independence. As soon as the war ended, however, and AUJstria-Hungary lay in ashes, Masaryk and Benes very quickly and conveniently forgot 8J'bout the democratilc princilple oif the right of selif--detemnination of nations and labored to create a state which in suibstance became only a small and bad copy of the old monarehy they had helped to destroy. This newly created and artificial state, which never existed before that time, was first called ib;y the Czechs under Masaryk a.ind Benes "Ozeoho.;Slovrukia" - a synthetic n ame 1 �2 SLOV.AKil u111kn0,wn in the history of either the Czech nation or the Slovak nation before World War . At the ,v ery outset, this synthetic State rol)bed approximately 4,500,000 (3,700,000 Germans, 800,000 Magyars and aJbout 100,000 Poles) of their basic democratic right, the right of self-determination. The Germans, Magyars and Poles were forced within the framework of this artificial State against their eX!pressed will. And three million S1ova:ks and aJbout a ha1f million SUJb-CaI"pathian Ukrainians (the Ruthenians) favored the State only conditionally, that is, on1y if they enjoyed full autonomy within the Repulblk ; when this condition remained unfulfilled they found themselves in opposition to the existence of this :State. A political state is supposed to be the exipression oif the free will of the peoiple the existence of a state is SUIPposed to be in accoro with the will of its inhaJbitants. But Ozecho-lSlova!kia was not such a state; the Prague government, once it was set Uip in ,power, repudiated the basic democratic ,principle of the right of self-deter- . mination of nations - the very principle which brought it into being. We must not forget that the occupation of non-Czech lands took place with wea:pons in hand against the will of the native ,p opulation. Manifestations for the realization of the right of self-determination were bloodily suppressed by the Ozech army. For examiple, in a. single day, on March 4, 1919, the Czech arm,y killed 57 Gemnans and wounded over 100 more, when they demonstrated in German towns for their right to self-determination. Uip to 1921 there were 130 GeI"mans killed during street demonstrations iby the Ozech occupation for,ces. The same situation prevailed in territories inhaJbited iby the Magyars and Poles. Aocording to 1923 statistics, the newly created Czech~lovaJkia was inhabited by some 6,400,000 Czechs and a!bout 7,000,000 non-Czechs. The latter felt that they we,r e roM>ed of their democratirc right to self-determination, when Masaryk and Benes repudiated the promises and agreements made 1b y them when the ReipUJblic was in a state of formation. This was all the more grave and momentous, since the principle of the right of self-determination was a,pplied �SLOVAKIA 3 practkally in the case of Estonia (1,200,000 pop.), Lithuania (2,500,000), Latvia (2,000,000) Finland (3,800,000), M))ania (1,000,000), Nonway (3,000,000), Iceland (110,000), Denmark (3,800,000), etc. - states of wthich the entire popufation numbered less or 8Jpproximately the S3Jllle as, for example, there were Slovaks or Germans in the OzechoSlovaik Repulblfo. So that we might have some idea of the extent oif these realities, we must recall that at that very same time when Ozecho-iSlo1Vakia originated, there originated three small independent states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a far more threatened territory, on the !b orders of the UISISR (160,000,000), without the protection of natural borders or synthetic fortiifreations; eaoh one of these states h!!Jd less inhaibitants than Ozecho-;Slo.vaJkia had Slovaiks or Germans who weTe .r obbed ()If their right to selif-.deternnination. And on the borders od' the Soviet colossus there originated Finland, which at that time had only alb out 4,000,000 inhabitants and, therefore, much less than the non-Ozech na tionalities of Ozecho.Slorvalkia who were deprived of their right to se.J.lf-deter.min•a tion. In the case of the A]banians, who inhabit the dangerous Balkan crossroads orf the interests of Italy, Greece and Yugoslaivia, their right to state independence was recognized an,d respected. But the Sudeten Germans were not permitted to join either Austria or Ge:rttnany in 11919, as they h!!Jd desired to, do. And the will of the Slovak nation (3,000,000) was not respected when it decided to join the Ozechs in a common state only on condition that it would enjoy full autonomy within the framework of the Republic. Once in ,p ower, the government of Masaryik and Benes also refosed -to respect the rights of the Ruthenians and the Polish and Magyar minorities. From this standpoint, "Czecho-Slovak" democraicy for the 7,000,000 inhaJbitants of that State was only an empty phrase, a propaganda tenn devoid of content and foundation. A Dict.at.ed Constitution The foundations oif the political structure of every state are represented iby its constitution. The basic prin- �SLOVAKIA ci:ple of every genuine democratic state is that its constitution is the exipression oif the will o!f its inhaJbJ.tants. It is quite ohvious to asslli!lle, where a multinational state is concerned, that all strata of the population, all regions of the state, and all nationalities are properly and duly rep resented when the constitution is created. In Ozecho-.SlO!Vakia, however, the Constitution of Febmary 29, 1920, was exclusively a Czech product, and the Czechs under Masaryk and Benes simply dktated it and forced it upon the majority of the non-Czech population of the State In the so-called Constitutional National Assemibly there was not a single representative of the 3,700,000 Germans, not a single representative of the 800,000 Magyars, and not a single representative of the 100,000 Poles. And the representatives of the Slo,vak nation were not ele ~ted by the people, but simply ~pointed by Prague, and this was done in such a way that ,w ould ibest satisfy Prague: the overwhelming majority of them were proponents of "Czeohoslovalk ism" - the opponents of Slovak autonomy - even though the vast majority of Slo,vaiks were proiponents oif SloiVak autonomy within the framework of the OzechoS1ovak Repulblic. The representatives o.f Czech imperialism and "progressiveness" went so far as to name Czechs as re,presentatiives of Sl01VaJkia , as, for example, Dr. Edward Benes, Dr. Alice .Masaryk, Ing. Joseph Rotnagl, Dr. Aloysius Kolisek, and Ing. Joseph Zaruiba-,P:fofifermann. When Ozecho'-lSlo:vakia was ,b orn not more than 5000 Czechs lived in Slovakia, hence these, Ozechs could hardly be considered as repres enta.tilves of their pec;ple in Slc,v akia. In the twentieth century, when the solution or the granting od' sel!f..,manageiment or independence to some colonial nation of Africa or Asia is debated and negotiated, it is cus tomary that representatives oif the native population spealk in their name. Hut the Czech imperialists under Masaryk and Benes thought otherwise. They prolbaJbly regarded the Slo,vaJks as a nation beneath the level of colonial nations, because they named also five Czechs to, represent it on the Constitutional National Assembly Czechs who were practically ,unknown to the vast majority of the Slovak 1 �SLOVAKIA 5 peoiple. For example, up to that time, Dr. Edward Benes had never been in Slovakia. In this ha:ndpi'oked "parliament" there were 204 Czech, but only 56 Sl()!Valk deputies, and this number included five :C zechs mentioned albo1Ve. Furthermore, there weTe only eight Slovak deputies from the autonomdst bloc in that ruppointed Constitutional National Assem1bly. And it was significant, indeed, that on the very day that the Prague parliament voted for this Constitution, the leader of the Slovak nation and undoubtedly the most eminent polit1cal figure o.f the Slov8!k struggle against Magyarism, Andrew Hlinlka, was beihind bars in a Ozech prison. 1 The Slo;vaik r€ipresentation in that assembly was so unjust that eiven such a notorious adherent of "Ozechoslovaikism" as Dr. Juraj Slavik - now a member of the socalloo "Council cd' Free Ozechoslovakia" which operates out of New Yo,I'lk and Washi.Il!gton - protested at that time that the Slovaks did not hav e sufficient and ,proper representation. The Ozechs reiplie-0. that an adjustment would be made, but nothing hrupipene<l. Because Mr . .SlaiVik did not continue protesting against the injustice, Prague rewarded him for it. In a very short time he ibe1came a minister in the Czech goivernment in Prague. Even Seton-Watson, a close a:nd loyal .friend of T. G. Mas,a,ryk, noted that Sl0vak seats in the legislative assembly were to a certain extent filled by arnitrary a,ppointments (Sloivakia Then And Now" - ipg. 12). Under sU!ch undemocratic conditions the Constitution that emerged enthroned: a regime of Oz~h hegemony in the Czecho-iSloivaJk State. The entire Ozecho-Slova>k politi,cal system rested on this Constitution which is dictated iby the Czechs . And since the Constituiton was diotated, therefore dicfated was also the entire system in its relationshi1p to the 7,000,000 non-CzeiCh citizens. Where a state is foriced on a half of its, ,poipulation, where a Constitution is dictated to half the ;poipulation and against its most elementary political, economic and ooltUTal interests, where 7,000,000 'people are overruled and made a minority od', there can be no serious talk aibout a democratic state. In Czecho-rS'lovakia the �G SLOVAKIA Czechs sought to realize the very thing they had fought against so furiously in Austria. And realize it they did, even if eventually it did mean the utter ruin of the, State they had created under Masa.ryik and Benes. Centralism vs. Federalism The dictated Ozech Constitution installed a rugged centralistic sy,stem in Ozecho-Sloivakia; ,p ractically all key political positions and all power rested in Czech hands. Among the fundamental :principles of democratic states belongs tihe principle that multinational or multilingual states should .be origaruzed on a federalistic basis, that is, with the aid of aiutonomy of the indirvidrual minorities, since it is only in this manner that the ,p rinciples of . justice in a mutual relationshtp of the individual nationalities of the state can be realized in pra,,ctiice. But the great "Czech,oslovaJk Democrats" rapudiated this prin'Ciiple and instituted a strong centralistic regime. By so doing they not only failed to keep the -promises made and given the Slovaks and, Ruthenians and the minorities, but also instituted a regime which was in sulbstance a profanation and mookery of democracy. Behind the mask of democratic phrases they installed a regime of Ozech national imperialism. To safeguard their hegemony, the Czechs dictated into the Constitution paragrruphs which in practice prevented a change of the Constitution (the enactments about the- necessity of a 3/ 5 and 2/ 3 ,majority). Ozech hegemony was thus secured, because representatives of the non-Czech p01pulation could never attain this required majority in the Prag;ue Parliament without the Ozechs and, hence, could never uipset Czech hegemony in the State in constitutional or parliamentary manner. The dictated constitution and the Ozech hegemony emanating therefrom were then safeguarded by the notorious "law for the protection of the Republic" (No. 50) of March 23, 1923, which made the 7,000,000 non-Czech citizens of the various nationalities liaible to rprosecution on the grounds of anti...state a;ctivities, if they rpersisted in their rightful demands for the recognition of and respect for their �SLOVAKIA 7 right to sehf-detemrination , the 1principle upon which the Republic was sU1pposed to ha,ve 'b een founded. The Czech Communists ,wsed this law to advantage when they got hold af the key .p ositions in the State in 1945 and, later, in 1948, had practically no trouible at all in seizing a1l power in the Reipulblitc in a "legal and constitutional" way. Another laJW, the law regarding political parties (No. 201 of Octolber 25, 1953) , provided for the outlawing and dissolution of any political ,p arty if its arctivity seriously endangered the "constitutional unity" - and "constitutional unity'' in practice simply :meant Ozech rule oiver the nonCzech citizens. On the basis of this law, the ,political demand for the territorial legislatiive autonomy of SlovaJkia the -c ondition under which the .Slovak,s decided to form a joint state with the Czechs - was cause for prooecution by the State. Dr. Ivan Derer, who sold his Slovak birthright for a mess Olf Ozech pottage, as Minister of Justice demanded on various occasions to use this law against the Hlin!ka Sloivak Poople's Party, because it persistently demanded the f.uilifillment olf the Pittsburgh ·P act of May 30, 1918 - that is, states, rights or foll aiutonoony for Slovakia. Prague, however, ordered Derer to withhold action; the centralists were not entirely ,bl.ind to the development olf the internationaJl situation, and the consequencoo of such action: the RepuibUc would have undoUibtedly collapsed 10\Il!g before 1939 if Derer was not overruled. Ozech centralism. pulled in its horns a little _and attempted to show the Slovaks that it favored them by not aipplying the law. Of course, the Slova;ks, by that time, .were wise to the Czech centn1.lists. The Anti-Democratic Regrme of Czech Hegemony . Czech hegemony was also protected b~ a whole series of la.ws and regulations which emanated from the undemocratic' Constitution which was forced on the non-Ozech popuiation. The Constitution, for example, "legalized" the notorious fiction - better said the international fraud oif the i•Ozechoslovak nation" in the political · and ethnic sense·, a nation which had never existed and, in the end, from the ·existence of which even its creators and propaga~ �SLOVAKIA tors fled with their notorious Kosice .Agreement with the Communists in 1'946. With the he1p of this fraud, the fiction of a national state was ipromo.ted against the reality of a nationa,listic state. On this dictated Constituti:on rested also the language, law with its notorious monstrosity - the "CzechoslovaJk languruge" - which was legali1zed and given a special status even though no such tongue ever existed. In prad1ce this ructualliy meant the hegemony o;f the Ozech languruge on the territo,r.y oif the entire state, including the lands inhabited tby the 7,000,000 non-Ozech inhrubitants, a part o;f whom, for example the Sudeten Germans, had a higher level o;f culture and ciivili,z ation than the "ruling" Czech nation. While the o,ld Austrian Constitution issued from the prin:ciiple of language equality, the CZeiCiho~lovak language law introduced the iprindple oif the .p rivileged position od' the non-existent "Ozechoslovaik" language in the Reiplllblic. Regional, county and loca1 se1f-ad!Ininistration was maimed lby legal regulations, which gaive the Prague government the dght to ruppoint one~third of the members of these "se1f-administering" organs.. SinJCe the government nrumed 33 per cent of the officials, it only needed to gain 18 ver cent o;f the electorate so that it could continue to rule "democratically'' with the hel•p of such an artificial majority against the actual majority oif inhaibitants olf Slovakia, Ruthenia and the territories inhalbited by the Gemnans. In Slovakia this 18 .p er cent was not too difficult to attain, with the aid {)If Czech oifficia:ls under Prague, who :placed thousands of Ozechs in Slovakia in various capacities, and the help oif the entire iprnpaganda aipparatus of the state, and ·political corruption, as well as 1police pressure. With the helip of a bit o.f "political geometry" in the Czech lands, for example, in the Prague voting district, only about 22,000 voters were needed to elect one deputy to pM'liament, whereas in many SlovaJk, Magyar, Ruthenian and German districts almost 30,000 votes were needed for one minister. This evidently helped the Czech minority to attain a ma;jority in the Prag,ue parliament. Here we had an actual case where the "largest minority ruled as a state �SLOVAKIA 9 nation over the other :minorities, which together numbered more adherents than the ruling nation" - as Dr. Hassinger of the university o;f Basel claimed. Czech bureaucratic officials censored the non-Czech press ruthlessly; .protests against the existing order were squashed. For examrple, in 1922 alone 1498 editions of newspapers were confiscated by the Ozech censor; instances of deletions of words, sentences, whole para,graphs and entire arUcles were more Il/UmerOUS. In harmony with the stmcture and the sipirit of this regime in so-called "Czechoslovak" governments, the Czechs as a rule held 7'5-------80 1per cent of the ministershirps and the maijority in parliament, so that the Ozech minority in the State, contrary to the most fundamental princiJples of democracy, US1Urt1ped ipractically al,l power of government and absolute control in the issuance of iaws. How the Slovaks, for example, regarded the "Slo1Va;k" ministers in the Prague Government, iwas prOibalbly best described. by d~uty Martin Ra:zus, a Protestant minister and the president of the Slovalk National Party, when on November 4, 1932, in the Prague ,p arliament, he said: "Yes, by obligation we do have two Slo1Vak ministers. But the sad .part aibout it is the fact we do have ministers; but these ministers, however, are not the ministers of the Slovak nation; they are the ministers of the present Herrenvolk, but not the ministers of the SlovaJk nation." OriginaHy, by the peace ~greements, the name of the country created lb y the Czechs and the Slovaks 1w,as spelled with a h~hen: Czecho-Slovakia. Therelby the federaUve character of that State was supposed to be stressed; also that the Ozechs and and the Slo,vaiks were regarded as equal partners in the administration of the joint Republic; f,urtheI1II1ore., it was SUIPP<>sed to indicate that the Czechs would rule in Czech lands and the Slovaks would rule in Slovakia, that is, states riights, of each would be fully enjoyed and respected by ·both nations. AU the ;peace agreements where:by this State was created designated the State in such a manner as a matter of principle; the hyphen prevailed. But as soon as the Czechs gained and consolidated �10 SLOVAKIA their hegemOilJY, the tetirn "Czecho,SlO!Vakia" was, changed to "Czechosl()IV'ahla." From 1923 the law declared thi.$ rup-pelation leg,a lly proper and correct, and any one using the hyiphen was lialble to ,p rosecution by the State. Thereby in a symbolic manner was SIUlppOsed to ,b e demonstrated the thesis rega'I'd:ing the fusion, or better said, the ~bsorption of the SlovaJks by the C?,eehs, so that Czech supremacy in the State could ibe guaranteed even numerically. Official statistics told the world how many Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ruthenians and Jews there were in Ozecho.SlovaJda, but not the nurmlber of Sloivaiks; how many seats were held _in parliament biy the Gernnans, Poles, Magyars and Ruthe~ µians, but not how many were h~d lby the SlOIVaJks. And it was with alil statistics. The Slovaks,. however,. stubborn.ly resisted the spelling of the name of the R~1mlbli:c without the hyphen. · so Rights of Minorities Repudiated The regime of Czech ,hegemony in the Repulblic had ruinous conseque~es not only for the ,Slo;vruks, .but the other nationalities as welt The Germans, Magyars, Poles and Ruthenians complained albout injustices as mlllch as the Slovaiks did. It was not on:ly Slo,vakia that was flooded .with ~ h officials and workers, but also the lands inhabited' by the Ruthenians, Poles, Mrugyars and Germans. ·F or example1 between 191·8 and 1938 there emigrated into Slova,kia more than 200,000 ~ h officials, businessmen and entrepreneurs: During that same time more than 200,000 Slovalks, lacking woy,king opportunities in their homeland, had to emigrate to. Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, the United States, Bra:zil, Franice and Belgium. In that same ,p eriod rupproximately 150,000 Czechs moved into the territoriy inhabited by the Germans. Simi~ larly, the territories of the Magyars, Po.les and ·Ruthenians were also flooded with Ozechs,. The Ge'.Mlails, for example, who represented 22.3 iper cent of the- population .o f the Republic, held on1y 12.2 per cent official posts on the railmads, 14.4 ,p er cent in the Post Office, in _the state :ii.<}; ministration only 13.1 per cent, and in the · Officers Coi,p·s· only 5.1 per cent were in ructive service. �SLOVAKIA 11 In the central offices, ministries, the highest control offices, etc., the Slovaks represented only 1.3 rper cent of the o!fficials, ibut even these were subordinate and insignificant positions. All the citizens of the Repulblirc, regardless of their nationality, were bound by the same obligations, but the Czechs alone enjoyed special prirvileges and better opportunities. The centralisti'c Prague government was in the hands of Czeichs who regarded their nation as the ruling nation, their people as first-r.a te citizens, while the other nationalities were regarded. as ~ond..,rate. The Ozech government cried that Sl01Valkia ,w as just so. much economic ballast, but fought tooth and nail to keep it in hand at all costs. "Ozechosl01Va!k" democracy as propagandized by the Oooohs and ,p aid iProlfessional non..,Ozerch ipro.paga:.ndists was one thing, while the •b rand actually prevailing in Czecho-'Slovalkia something entirely different. A repetition of history: the Magyars, too, used to ,p roclaim iblatantl;y that the democratic system prevailed in Hungary, while at the same time they were ibr.uWly s,uppre.ssing and exploiting all non-Magyar elements in the country. In the light of these facts, any reference to "Ozechoslovak " democracy evoked a strong revulsion in the hearts of the millions of non-OLech inhabitants who were .burdened with it. They knew in their hearts that it was fraud, even though the Cz~hs presented it to. the world- as the ultimate in democratk systems. The non..,Czerch nationalities were burdened with the same civic obligations as the Czechs were, ibut they did not enjoy equal rights and ;privileges and, therei:fore, it is quite understandruble that at the first opportune moment - and that came in 1938-1939 - they did everything rpossi.lble to escape from the emlbrace of this "isle of, demorcracy." .. "Czechoslovak'! Democracy W.a s a Fraud In this !brief review o!f the "dettnocracy" that was Czecho-Slovakia, the reader will not find details of all the aspects oif the politics oif Czech hegemony in the Republic. That would require a voluminous wo:nk. And practical~ nothing was said regarding the conditions after 1945, inasmuch the trampling upon the most :fundamental rights of �12 SLOVAKIA man, carried out by the Benes-Communist coalition, was so general that many pruges would be needed to delineate only the most important of its aspocts. The mass deportation of millions Olf ,p eople from their homeland, the outlawing and prevention of politica,l ,parties, the limitation of the freedom of the 1press and assemlbly, tens of thousands of political ,p risoners, hundreds of the executed, the many unconstitutional decrees af Benes, etc. - all this had happened with the cooperation of the Czech 1p oliticians, who to<lay pose as champions of democracy. It is regrettable that some .p eople in the West even today do not IOOJke any noticeable effort to imonn themselves of the true nature otf so~called "Czechoslovalk dem<X:ra<cy" and its representatives. It is regrettruble, indeed, that responsible people otf western democracies stiU continue to recognize and favor the ipr~agators of "Czechoslovaikism" former members of the Communist-dominated "National Front" government oif Bene-s and Gottwald, who Slllpiported the proJSoviet poli:cy oif Benes and, hence, ·a re in a great measure responsible for the present terrible plight of the Czech and Slovaik nations. Ozecho-Slo:vakia was not a true democracy, but a fraud and a mockery orf democracy. That was proved by the inhaJbitants Olf the State when the first grea;t crisis struclc and Czecho-Slovakia colla_psed completely. No one, not even the Czechs themsel,ves, fired a single shot to preserve it. Why should any western democratic gcwernment endeawor to preseI1Ve it a;gainst the will of the Sl01Va;ks and others of ~ho-SlovaJkia who are kept in that .State only by force? There must be an answer S01Ineiwhere! • • • WHO SAID IT? The Czechs and .Slovaks had their .State but not for longer than .twenty years. What now remains is infinite!~ worse .than what existed before. . . The politic,a[ theories of (T. G.) Masaryk and Benes collapsed because they could not beair the pra<dtioal test of the times." (·S KUTECNOST, review of the Ozach refugees, London, Vot III, No. 2, p. 33, Feib. 1951). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SEPT~MBER, 1953 SLOVAKIA 1 WAS CZEOHO-SWVAK IA A DEMOCRACY? Dr. Arved Grebert The wo.r ld at large has become aiccustomed to regarding the first Ozecho..Slovruk Republic as an exemplary democratk state, a real "isle of democracy" in Central Europe. From the beginnmg o,f this state in 1918, official Czech propaganda exipended large SJUms of money to convince the world pulblic that such actually was the case. On the other hand, however, aibout a haiif of the total rpotpulation of Czecho~lovakia (The Slo1Vaiks, Germans, Po-les, Magyars, Ruthenians) continually protested this erroneous view and judgement oif conditions in the RepUlblic, ibut little came of it. In view Olf what has ha:pperned in Ozecho-iSlo,va)kia sinc 2 1938 - the ease with which it colla:psed in 1939 and laiter, in 1945, accepted the hegemony of communistic Moscow, it may be interesting to loo!k a .bit closer at the kind o.f democracy the: first Ozecho-'Sloivak Re.public actuaHy was. The Right of Self-Determinatlon and Czecho-Slovakia T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes set aJbout to break up the Austro-Hungarian Monarichy during World War I in the nrume od: and with the aid of the right of self-determination of nations. They evoiked this basic principle con~ sistenUy and consitantliy. This is attested to .by the literature they pro,pagated, as well as the "Memoirs" they placed before the Peace Conference, wherein they -c laimed the right of self-detemnination of nations in the interests of Czech independence. As soon as the war ended, however, and AUJstria-Hungary lay in ashes, Masaryk and Benes very quickly and conveniently forgot 8J'bout the democratilc princilple oif the right of selif--detemnination of nations and labored to create a state which in suibstance became only a small and bad copy of the old monarehy they had helped to destroy. This newly created and artificial state, which never existed before that time, was first called ib;y the Czechs under Masaryk a.ind Benes "Ozeoho.;Slovrukia" - a synthetic n ame 1 2 SLOV.AKil u111kn0,wn in the history of either the Czech nation or the Slovak nation before World War . At the ,v ery outset, this synthetic State rol)bed approximately 4,500,000 (3,700,000 Germans, 800,000 Magyars and aJbout 100,000 Poles) of their basic democratic right, the right of self-determination. The Germans, Magyars and Poles were forced within the framework of this artificial State against their eX!pressed will. And three million S1ova:ks and aJbout a ha1f million SUJb-CaI"pathian Ukrainians (the Ruthenians) favored the State only conditionally, that is, on1y if they enjoyed full autonomy within the Repulblk ; when this condition remained unfulfilled they found themselves in opposition to the existence of this :State. A political state is supposed to be the exipression oif the free will of the peoiple the existence of a state is SUIPposed to be in accoro with the will of its inhaJbitants. But Ozecho-lSlova!kia was not such a state; the Prague government, once it was set Uip in ,power, repudiated the basic democratic ,principle of the right of self-deter- . mination of nations - the very principle which brought it into being. We must not forget that the occupation of non-Czech lands took place with wea:pons in hand against the will of the native ,p opulation. Manifestations for the realization of the right of self-determination were bloodily suppressed by the Ozech army. For examiple, in a. single day, on March 4, 1919, the Czech arm,y killed 57 Gemnans and wounded over 100 more, when they demonstrated in German towns for their right to self-determination. Uip to 1921 there were 130 GeI"mans killed during street demonstrations iby the Ozech occupation for,ces. The same situation prevailed in territories inhaJbited iby the Magyars and Poles. Aocording to 1923 statistics, the newly created Czech~lovaJkia was inhabited by some 6,400,000 Czechs and a!bout 7,000,000 non-Czechs. The latter felt that they we,r e roM>ed of their democratirc right to self-determination, when Masaryk and Benes repudiated the promises and agreements made 1b y them when the ReipUJblic was in a state of formation. This was all the more grave and momentous, since the principle of the right of self-determination was a,pplied SLOVAKIA 3 practkally in the case of Estonia (1,200,000 pop.), Lithuania (2,500,000), Latvia (2,000,000) Finland (3,800,000), M))ania (1,000,000), Nonway (3,000,000), Iceland (110,000), Denmark (3,800,000), etc. - states of wthich the entire popufation numbered less or 8Jpproximately the S3Jllle as, for example, there were Slovaks or Germans in the OzechoSlovaik Repulblfo. So that we might have some idea of the extent oif these realities, we must recall that at that very same time when Ozecho-iSlo1Vakia originated, there originated three small independent states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a far more threatened territory, on the !b orders of the UISISR (160,000,000), without the protection of natural borders or synthetic fortiifreations; eaoh one of these states h!!Jd less inhaibitants than Ozecho-;Slo.vaJkia had Slovaiks or Germans who weTe .r obbed ()If their right to selif-.deternnination. And on the borders od' the Soviet colossus there originated Finland, which at that time had only alb out 4,000,000 inhabitants and, therefore, much less than the non-Ozech na tionalities of Ozecho.Slorvalkia who were deprived of their right to se.J.lf-deter.min•a tion. In the case of the A]banians, who inhabit the dangerous Balkan crossroads orf the interests of Italy, Greece and Yugoslaivia, their right to state independence was recognized an,d respected. But the Sudeten Germans were not permitted to join either Austria or Ge:rttnany in 11919, as they h!!Jd desired to, do. And the will of the Slovak nation (3,000,000) was not respected when it decided to join the Ozechs in a common state only on condition that it would enjoy full autonomy within the framework of the Republic. Once in ,p ower, the government of Masaryik and Benes also refosed -to respect the rights of the Ruthenians and the Polish and Magyar minorities. From this standpoint, "Czecho-Slovak" democraicy for the 7,000,000 inhaJbitants of that State was only an empty phrase, a propaganda tenn devoid of content and foundation. A Dict.at.ed Constitution The foundations oif the political structure of every state are represented iby its constitution. The basic prin- SLOVAKIA ci:ple of every genuine democratic state is that its constitution is the exipression oif the will o!f its inhaJbJ.tants. It is quite ohvious to asslli!lle, where a multinational state is concerned, that all strata of the population, all regions of the state, and all nationalities are properly and duly rep resented when the constitution is created. In Ozecho-.SlO!Vakia, however, the Constitution of Febmary 29, 1920, was exclusively a Czech product, and the Czechs under Masaryk and Benes simply dktated it and forced it upon the majority of the non-Czech population of the State In the so-called Constitutional National Assemibly there was not a single representative of the 3,700,000 Germans, not a single representative of the 800,000 Magyars, and not a single representative of the 100,000 Poles. And the representatives of the Slo,vak nation were not ele ~ted by the people, but simply ~pointed by Prague, and this was done in such a way that ,w ould ibest satisfy Prague: the overwhelming majority of them were proponents of "Czeohoslovalk ism" - the opponents of Slovak autonomy - even though the vast majority of Slo,vaiks were proiponents oif SloiVak autonomy within the framework of the OzechoS1ovak Repulblic. The representatives o.f Czech imperialism and "progressiveness" went so far as to name Czechs as re,presentatiives of Sl01VaJkia , as, for example, Dr. Edward Benes, Dr. Alice .Masaryk, Ing. Joseph Rotnagl, Dr. Aloysius Kolisek, and Ing. Joseph Zaruiba-,P:fofifermann. When Ozecho'-lSlo:vakia was ,b orn not more than 5000 Czechs lived in Slovakia, hence these, Ozechs could hardly be considered as repres enta.tilves of their pec;ple in Slc,v akia. In the twentieth century, when the solution or the granting od' sel!f..,manageiment or independence to some colonial nation of Africa or Asia is debated and negotiated, it is cus tomary that representatives oif the native population spealk in their name. Hut the Czech imperialists under Masaryk and Benes thought otherwise. They prolbaJbly regarded the Slo,vaJks as a nation beneath the level of colonial nations, because they named also five Czechs to, represent it on the Constitutional National Assembly Czechs who were practically ,unknown to the vast majority of the Slovak 1 SLOVAKIA 5 peoiple. For example, up to that time, Dr. Edward Benes had never been in Slovakia. In this ha:ndpi'oked "parliament" there were 204 Czech, but only 56 Sl()!Valk deputies, and this number included five :C zechs mentioned albo1Ve. Furthermore, there weTe only eight Slovak deputies from the autonomdst bloc in that ruppointed Constitutional National Assem1bly. And it was significant, indeed, that on the very day that the Prague parliament voted for this Constitution, the leader of the Slovak nation and undoubtedly the most eminent polit1cal figure o.f the Slov8!k struggle against Magyarism, Andrew Hlinlka, was beihind bars in a Ozech prison. 1 The Slo;vaik r€ipresentation in that assembly was so unjust that eiven such a notorious adherent of "Ozechoslovaikism" as Dr. Juraj Slavik - now a member of the socalloo "Council cd' Free Ozechoslovakia" which operates out of New Yo,I'lk and Washi.Il!gton - protested at that time that the Slovaks did not hav e sufficient and ,proper representation. The Ozechs reiplie-0. that an adjustment would be made, but nothing hrupipene<l. Because Mr . .SlaiVik did not continue protesting against the injustice, Prague rewarded him for it. In a very short time he ibe1came a minister in the Czech goivernment in Prague. Even Seton-Watson, a close a:nd loyal .friend of T. G. Mas,a,ryk, noted that Sl0vak seats in the legislative assembly were to a certain extent filled by arnitrary a,ppointments (Sloivakia Then And Now" - ipg. 12). Under sU!ch undemocratic conditions the Constitution that emerged enthroned: a regime of Oz~h hegemony in the Czecho-iSloivaJk State. The entire Ozecho-Slova>k politi,cal system rested on this Constitution which is dictated iby the Czechs . And since the Constituiton was diotated, therefore dicfated was also the entire system in its relationshi1p to the 7,000,000 non-CzeiCh citizens. Where a state is foriced on a half of its, ,poipulation, where a Constitution is dictated to half the ;poipulation and against its most elementary political, economic and ooltUTal interests, where 7,000,000 'people are overruled and made a minority od', there can be no serious talk aibout a democratic state. In Czecho-rS'lovakia the G SLOVAKIA Czechs sought to realize the very thing they had fought against so furiously in Austria. And realize it they did, even if eventually it did mean the utter ruin of the, State they had created under Masa.ryik and Benes. Centralism vs. Federalism The dictated Ozech Constitution installed a rugged centralistic sy,stem in Ozecho-Sloivakia; ,p ractically all key political positions and all power rested in Czech hands. Among the fundamental :principles of democratic states belongs tihe principle that multinational or multilingual states should .be origaruzed on a federalistic basis, that is, with the aid of aiutonomy of the indirvidrual minorities, since it is only in this manner that the ,p rinciples of . justice in a mutual relationshtp of the individual nationalities of the state can be realized in pra,,ctiice. But the great "Czech,oslovaJk Democrats" rapudiated this prin'Ciiple and instituted a strong centralistic regime. By so doing they not only failed to keep the -promises made and given the Slovaks and, Ruthenians and the minorities, but also instituted a regime which was in sulbstance a profanation and mookery of democracy. Behind the mask of democratic phrases they installed a regime of Ozech national imperialism. To safeguard their hegemony, the Czechs dictated into the Constitution paragrruphs which in practice prevented a change of the Constitution (the enactments about the- necessity of a 3/ 5 and 2/ 3 ,majority). Ozech hegemony was thus secured, because representatives of the non-Czech p01pulation could never attain this required majority in the Prag;ue Parliament without the Ozechs and, hence, could never uipset Czech hegemony in the State in constitutional or parliamentary manner. The dictated constitution and the Ozech hegemony emanating therefrom were then safeguarded by the notorious "law for the protection of the Republic" (No. 50) of March 23, 1923, which made the 7,000,000 non-Czech citizens of the various nationalities liaible to rprosecution on the grounds of anti...state a;ctivities, if they rpersisted in their rightful demands for the recognition of and respect for their SLOVAKIA 7 right to sehf-detemrination , the 1principle upon which the Republic was sU1pposed to ha,ve 'b een founded. The Czech Communists ,wsed this law to advantage when they got hold af the key .p ositions in the State in 1945 and, later, in 1948, had practically no trouible at all in seizing a1l power in the Reipulblitc in a "legal and constitutional" way. Another laJW, the law regarding political parties (No. 201 of Octolber 25, 1953) , provided for the outlawing and dissolution of any political ,p arty if its arctivity seriously endangered the "constitutional unity" - and "constitutional unity'' in practice simply :meant Ozech rule oiver the nonCzech citizens. On the basis of this law, the ,political demand for the territorial legislatiive autonomy of SlovaJkia the -c ondition under which the .Slovak,s decided to form a joint state with the Czechs - was cause for prooecution by the State. Dr. Ivan Derer, who sold his Slovak birthright for a mess Olf Ozech pottage, as Minister of Justice demanded on various occasions to use this law against the Hlin!ka Sloivak Poople's Party, because it persistently demanded the f.uilifillment olf the Pittsburgh ·P act of May 30, 1918 - that is, states, rights or foll aiutonoony for Slovakia. Prague, however, ordered Derer to withhold action; the centralists were not entirely ,bl.ind to the development olf the internationaJl situation, and the consequencoo of such action: the RepuibUc would have undoUibtedly collapsed 10\Il!g before 1939 if Derer was not overruled. Ozech centralism. pulled in its horns a little _and attempted to show the Slovaks that it favored them by not aipplying the law. Of course, the Slova;ks, by that time, .were wise to the Czech centn1.lists. The Anti-Democratic Regrme of Czech Hegemony . Czech hegemony was also protected b~ a whole series of la.ws and regulations which emanated from the undemocratic' Constitution which was forced on the non-Ozech popuiation. The Constitution, for example, "legalized" the notorious fiction - better said the international fraud oif the i•Ozechoslovak nation" in the political · and ethnic sense·, a nation which had never existed and, in the end, from the ·existence of which even its creators and propaga~ SLOVAKIA tors fled with their notorious Kosice .Agreement with the Communists in 1'946. With the he1p of this fraud, the fiction of a national state was ipromo.ted against the reality of a nationa,listic state. On this dictated Constituti:on rested also the language, law with its notorious monstrosity - the "CzechoslovaJk languruge" - which was legali1zed and given a special status even though no such tongue ever existed. In prad1ce this ructualliy meant the hegemony o;f the Ozech languruge on the territo,r.y oif the entire state, including the lands inhabited tby the 7,000,000 non-Ozech inhrubitants, a part o;f whom, for example the Sudeten Germans, had a higher level o;f culture and ciivili,z ation than the "ruling" Czech nation. While the o,ld Austrian Constitution issued from the prin:ciiple of language equality, the CZeiCiho~lovak language law introduced the iprindple oif the .p rivileged position od' the non-existent "Ozechoslovaik" language in the Reiplllblic. Regional, county and loca1 se1f-ad!Ininistration was maimed lby legal regulations, which gaive the Prague government the dght to ruppoint one~third of the members of these "se1f-administering" organs.. SinJCe the government nrumed 33 per cent of the officials, it only needed to gain 18 ver cent o;f the electorate so that it could continue to rule "democratically'' with the hel•p of such an artificial majority against the actual majority oif inhaibitants olf Slovakia, Ruthenia and the territories inhalbited by the Gemnans. In Slovakia this 18 .p er cent was not too difficult to attain, with the aid {)If Czech oifficia:ls under Prague, who :placed thousands of Ozechs in Slovakia in various capacities, and the help oif the entire iprnpaganda aipparatus of the state, and ·political corruption, as well as 1police pressure. With the helip of a bit o.f "political geometry" in the Czech lands, for example, in the Prague voting district, only about 22,000 voters were needed to elect one deputy to pM'liament, whereas in many SlovaJk, Magyar, Ruthenian and German districts almost 30,000 votes were needed for one minister. This evidently helped the Czech minority to attain a ma;jority in the Prag,ue parliament. Here we had an actual case where the "largest minority ruled as a state SLOVAKIA 9 nation over the other :minorities, which together numbered more adherents than the ruling nation" - as Dr. Hassinger of the university o;f Basel claimed. Czech bureaucratic officials censored the non-Czech press ruthlessly; .protests against the existing order were squashed. For examrple, in 1922 alone 1498 editions of newspapers were confiscated by the Ozech censor; instances of deletions of words, sentences, whole para,graphs and entire arUcles were more Il/UmerOUS. In harmony with the stmcture and the sipirit of this regime in so-called "Czechoslovak" governments, the Czechs as a rule held 7'5-------80 1per cent of the ministershirps and the maijority in parliament, so that the Ozech minority in the State, contrary to the most fundamental princiJples of democracy, US1Urt1ped ipractically al,l power of government and absolute control in the issuance of iaws. How the Slovaks, for example, regarded the "Slo1Va;k" ministers in the Prague Government, iwas prOibalbly best described. by d~uty Martin Ra:zus, a Protestant minister and the president of the Slovalk National Party, when on November 4, 1932, in the Prague ,p arliament, he said: "Yes, by obligation we do have two Slo1Vak ministers. But the sad .part aibout it is the fact we do have ministers; but these ministers, however, are not the ministers of the Slovak nation; they are the ministers of the present Herrenvolk, but not the ministers of the SlovaJk nation." OriginaHy, by the peace ~greements, the name of the country created lb y the Czechs and the Slovaks 1w,as spelled with a h~hen: Czecho-Slovakia. Therelby the federaUve character of that State was supposed to be stressed; also that the Ozechs and and the Slo,vaiks were regarded as equal partners in the administration of the joint Republic; f,urtheI1II1ore., it was SUIPP<>sed to indicate that the Czechs would rule in Czech lands and the Slovaks would rule in Slovakia, that is, states riights, of each would be fully enjoyed and respected by ·both nations. AU the ;peace agreements where:by this State was created designated the State in such a manner as a matter of principle; the hyphen prevailed. But as soon as the Czechs gained and consolidated 10 SLOVAKIA their hegemOilJY, the tetirn "Czecho,SlO!Vakia" was, changed to "Czechosl()IV'ahla." From 1923 the law declared thi.$ rup-pelation leg,a lly proper and correct, and any one using the hyiphen was lialble to ,p rosecution by the State. Thereby in a symbolic manner was SIUlppOsed to ,b e demonstrated the thesis rega'I'd:ing the fusion, or better said, the ~bsorption of the SlovaJks by the C?,eehs, so that Czech supremacy in the State could ibe guaranteed even numerically. Official statistics told the world how many Germans, Magyars, Poles, Ruthenians and Jews there were in Ozecho.SlovaJda, but not the nurmlber of Sloivaiks; how many seats were held _in parliament biy the Gernnans, Poles, Magyars and Ruthe~ µians, but not how many were h~d lby the SlOIVaJks. And it was with alil statistics. The Slovaks,. however,. stubborn.ly resisted the spelling of the name of the R~1mlbli:c without the hyphen. · so Rights of Minorities Repudiated The regime of Czech ,hegemony in the Repulblic had ruinous conseque~es not only for the ,Slo;vruks, .but the other nationalities as welt The Germans, Magyars, Poles and Ruthenians complained albout injustices as mlllch as the Slovaiks did. It was not on:ly Slo,vakia that was flooded .with ~ h officials and workers, but also the lands inhabited' by the Ruthenians, Poles, Mrugyars and Germans. ·F or example1 between 191·8 and 1938 there emigrated into Slova,kia more than 200,000 ~ h officials, businessmen and entrepreneurs: During that same time more than 200,000 Slovalks, lacking woy,king opportunities in their homeland, had to emigrate to. Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, the United States, Bra:zil, Franice and Belgium. In that same ,p eriod rupproximately 150,000 Czechs moved into the territoriy inhabited by the Germans. Simi~ larly, the territories of the Magyars, Po.les and ·Ruthenians were also flooded with Ozechs,. The Ge'.Mlails, for example, who represented 22.3 iper cent of the- population .o f the Republic, held on1y 12.2 per cent official posts on the railmads, 14.4 ,p er cent in the Post Office, in _the state :ii.<}; ministration only 13.1 per cent, and in the · Officers Coi,p·s· only 5.1 per cent were in ructive service. SLOVAKIA 11 In the central offices, ministries, the highest control offices, etc., the Slovaks represented only 1.3 rper cent of the o!fficials, ibut even these were subordinate and insignificant positions. All the citizens of the Repulblirc, regardless of their nationality, were bound by the same obligations, but the Czechs alone enjoyed special prirvileges and better opportunities. The centralisti'c Prague government was in the hands of Czeichs who regarded their nation as the ruling nation, their people as first-r.a te citizens, while the other nationalities were regarded. as ~ond..,rate. The Ozech government cried that Sl01Valkia ,w as just so. much economic ballast, but fought tooth and nail to keep it in hand at all costs. "Ozechosl01Va!k" democracy as propagandized by the Oooohs and ,p aid iProlfessional non..,Ozerch ipro.paga:.ndists was one thing, while the •b rand actually prevailing in Czecho-'Slovalkia something entirely different. A repetition of history: the Magyars, too, used to ,p roclaim iblatantl;y that the democratic system prevailed in Hungary, while at the same time they were ibr.uWly s,uppre.ssing and exploiting all non-Magyar elements in the country. In the light of these facts, any reference to "Ozechoslovak " democracy evoked a strong revulsion in the hearts of the millions of non-OLech inhabitants who were .burdened with it. They knew in their hearts that it was fraud, even though the Cz~hs presented it to. the world- as the ultimate in democratk systems. The non..,Czerch nationalities were burdened with the same civic obligations as the Czechs were, ibut they did not enjoy equal rights and ;privileges and, therei:fore, it is quite understandruble that at the first opportune moment - and that came in 1938-1939 - they did everything rpossi.lble to escape from the emlbrace of this "isle of, demorcracy." .. "Czechoslovak'! Democracy W.a s a Fraud In this !brief review o!f the "dettnocracy" that was Czecho-Slovakia, the reader will not find details of all the aspects oif the politics oif Czech hegemony in the Republic. That would require a voluminous wo:nk. And practical~ nothing was said regarding the conditions after 1945, inasmuch the trampling upon the most :fundamental rights of 12 SLOVAKIA man, carried out by the Benes-Communist coalition, was so general that many pruges would be needed to delineate only the most important of its aspocts. The mass deportation of millions Olf ,p eople from their homeland, the outlawing and prevention of politica,l ,parties, the limitation of the freedom of the 1press and assemlbly, tens of thousands of political ,p risoners, hundreds of the executed, the many unconstitutional decrees af Benes, etc. - all this had happened with the cooperation of the Czech 1p oliticians, who to<lay pose as champions of democracy. It is regrettable that some .p eople in the West even today do not IOOJke any noticeable effort to imonn themselves of the true nature otf so~called "Czechoslovalk dem<X:ra<cy" and its representatives. It is regrettruble, indeed, that responsible people otf western democracies stiU continue to recognize and favor the ipr~agators of "Czechoslovaikism" former members of the Communist-dominated "National Front" government oif Bene-s and Gottwald, who Slllpiported the proJSoviet poli:cy oif Benes and, hence, ·a re in a great measure responsible for the present terrible plight of the Czech and Slovaik nations. Ozecho-Slo:vakia was not a true democracy, but a fraud and a mockery orf democracy. That was proved by the inhaJbitants Olf the State when the first grea;t crisis struclc and Czecho-Slovakia colla_psed completely. No one, not even the Czechs themsel,ves, fired a single shot to preserve it. Why should any western democratic gcwernment endeawor to preseI1Ve it a;gainst the will of the Sl01Va;ks and others of ~ho-SlovaJkia who are kept in that .State only by force? There must be an answer S01Ineiwhere! • • • WHO SAID IT? The Czechs and .Slovaks had their .State but not for longer than .twenty years. What now remains is infinite!~ worse .than what existed before. . . The politic,a[ theories of (T. G.) Masaryk and Benes collapsed because they could not beair the pra<dtioal test of the times." (·S KUTECNOST, review of the Ozach refugees, London, Vot III, No. 2, p. 33, Feib. 1951).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Was Czecho-Slovakia a Democracy? Description An account of the resource Dr. Arvéd Grébert Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 3 (8), September 1953 pp. 1-12 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grébert, Arvéd, 1915-2001 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/0464996abeca82de4c8feeb05af912a5.pdf 4995937ff4152d7aa386146fa0962741 PDF Text Text 36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars. �SLOVAKIA 37 Over the years several "authorities" and "eminent" scholars and journalists have repeated the distortions, false claims, and deliberate untruths of the propagandists, perhaps harboring the thought that time will eventually transform them into truths. Citing the works of such "experts" another genera:tion of scholars and journalists and researchers will arise, quoting these highly questionable "eminent" historians. Thus are errors, distortions, halftruths, and outright falsehoods propagated, while their authors blatantly proclaim that "truth prevails" (pravda vitezi). According to Jaroslav Vlcek, accepted authority on Slovak and Czech literature, the Czech language was the medium of Slova:k literature for over 300 years. The claim is made in his "Dejiny Literatury Slovenskej" (History of Slovak literature) which was published by the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) of Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1923. Vlcek came from a Czech family that had settled in Slova:kia. He was a follower of T. G. Masaryk and his socatlled Hlasists, the men associated with the periodical "Hlas" (Voice) which promoted the Czech fiction of a united ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation. This claim, which cannot stand up under historical criticism because it has no basis in historical fact, is a favorite of Prague regimes and Czech propagandists. Vlcek himself refutes the claim in his work, but this fact has strangely escaped the notice of practically all English writers of Czecho-Slovak or Czech-Slovak history. In Vlcek's "Dejiny" we read: ''The Hussites brought to u s not onty the din of savage battle, but also a new faith, a new communal language. . . . The Czech language made itsellf at home amo:rJJg the Slorvaks as their literary language ... The exclusive reign of the Czech language lasts for three hundred years from the first Hussite colonization" Cl). "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth cent ury, Hussitism and Pl'otestantism connect Slovak literary creations formaHy with Czech literature. It is not until the end of the eighteerrth century that Bernola!k, and in the middle of the nineteenth cent ury Stur, Hiodza, and Hurlban lay the origins and foundat ions of an independent Slovak literature" (2). "Material, which would clari£y the position of the Czech langua,ge in our midst in the fifteent h century, is thus far for �38 SLOVAKIA the most part laying in the dust of arohives. But even fr.om that bit that has been brought to light, it is safe to say that the Czech language from the second half of the fifteenth cenury is the Ian• guage of the autonomous Slovak authorities and later even the language of the counties and castles" (3). The "Dejiny" even proclaim Czech as the national language in Slovakia : "From the beginning of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century the national language in Slovakia flows in a threefold current: 1. Printed works, for the most part religious books, and here again for the most part Evangelical (Lutheran), hold to the language of the Kralice Bible; 2. Documents, records, municipal and private books, therefore the written word, more or less including native (Slovak) words and forms in place of the literary Czech forms; 3. The common uneducated people ait home, in the field and in their family circles, converse by means of the inherited, live language of their forefathers - in Slovak" ( 4). Now then, the first current of the "national language in Slovakia" - according to Vlcek's "Dejiny" - is the language of the Kra1ice Bible, i.e., pure Czech and nothing else; the second current is Czech again, interspersed with Slovak words and phrases; and only the third current of this national language is made up of the "live" language of the common people. Informed persons, Slovaks in particular, know that such statements and claims tend to serve especially the political interests of those who claim there is no Slovak nation and, consequently, no Slovak language. We know that they served the interests of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where they claimed that the Slovak nation was the invention of the Magyars and the Slovaks and the Czechs were the same. Vlcek, an authority on Slovak and Czech literature, was also a follower of Masaryk and his '" Hlasists." After the estaiblishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Vlcek was named director of the Matica Slovenska. It was under his directorship that an attempt was made to remake the Slovak language into Czech. When he died, the Czech Anton Stefanek, Minister of Education, wrote these significant words about Vlcek: �SLOVAKIA 39 "Very few people knO!W, particularly fNlllll the young gener.ation, that along,side Ma-sacytk it wa,s he (Week) who was the spirit of the 'Hla,s' (the or,g,a n of the Slovak Pan-Czechists, 1008·1004. - ed. note) and molded, so to 51Peak, the young 'Hlasists' .... J . Vlcek is not an ordinary historiain, who mechanically collects scientific matertial to compile new 'boak,s. Into e·v ery one of his works he inserts a certain tendency to seriv,e his nation (the Czech nation - ed.). Along,side his strict s!Cien•tific dbjectiv1ty and his serious respect for Slovaik sentiments he al,ways knew h-OIW to include in his boo~ and h1s articles the eDfort to unite a'Ild not to further divide the Slovaks and Czechs" (5). Let us now research the period of 300 years during which the Czech language reigned exclusively in Slovakia. History teMs us that the Hussites came to Slovakia the first time in 1421; up to 1440 their visits were predatory excursions. They did not come to Slovakia to settle down. The power of the Hussites was broken with their defeat near Lipjariy in 1434. They remained in Slovakia a longer time when Jiskra came to power. On a mandate from Queen Elizarbeth, in the defense of Ladislaus the Posthumous, Jiskra ruled the greater pa:rt of Slovakia from the end of 1439 to the death of Ladislaus in 1457. Mathias, newly elected King of Hungary, began to wage war against Jiskra in 1458, defeating him in 1461. Jiskra was in power in Slovakia from 1440. Let us, then, begin our research of Vlcek's "three hundred years." Vlcek tells us in his "Dejiny" that "with the death of Matthew Cak of Trencin, called Dominus Vagi et Tatrae, at the begi,n ning of the fourteerrtJh century, falls even this monument of Slavalk independence. The g11ant priruc1pa-lity of Nitra (Matyas foldje") bl-end·s into a close po!Hical union with the kingdom ·of Hungary, and our natiorral life loses itself in the common diplomatic ton1gue, the organ of the Ghureh and state, literature ~md society .... "(6). It is generaHy known that Latin was the official language of the Church and state, literature and society, not only during Matthew Ca.k's time, not only during the 300 years of the imagined "exclusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia," but even many years after those 300, when German and Magyar finally replaced it in the Bohemian and Hungarian kingdoms respectively. Joseph Dobrovsky, the "father of modern Czech literature," wrote his main work in Latin in 1822. In Trnava, Slovakia, records were kept in Latin up to 1848 (7). �40 SLOVAKIA According to Vlcek, it was not only in official and church circles that Czech took hold in S4ovakia, but even in popular literature of the fifteenth century: "In popular literature Czech is perhaps forcing its way with the same success, even though there exist no positive examples of this." But what kind of "exclusive reign of the Czech language" can that be when it "perhaps" was forcing its way in popular literature for which there exist "no positive examples"? The activities of the Hussites and the influence of Jiskra in Slovakia may have prompted Vlcek to say what he did. Then, however, we would have to assume that Vlcek was not very well informed on the Hussites. We know, as Vlcek must have known, that Jiskra's army, including only the "remnanits" of Hussites, was made up of for the most part of adventurers of many nationalities (8). Furthe:vmore, the Hussite expeditions into Slovakia could not have any influence on the literary language of the Slovaks because of their very nature. There were long intervals between expeditions and the Hussites held Trnava and Skalica only two years (9). The Hussites came to rob, and rob they did, leaving with their plunder. The Czech author Kulhanek adds that Jiskra's plunderers were a despicable lot which, six wears after Lipany, was composed of "those depredatory bands" which had plundered the Czech lands. Vlcek refutes his own statement about the "exclusive reign of Czech" when he tells us that "the sixteenth century extended the field of the Czech language still more. There came the Lutheran Reformation, the national churches and schools" (10). If the Czech language was the exclusive vehicle of Slovak literature in the fifteenth century, how could it possibly spread even more in the sixteenth? Vlcek would want us to believe that Czech even invaded the "national churches and schools" with Luther's Reformation and yet, on the same page, he tells us that these schools were "Latin-Slovak!" The fact is that they were not even Slovak, because, excepting religion, everything else was taught in Latin. Vlcek himself gives evidence of this (11). The Reformation of the sixteenth century did not help the "national churches and schools" in Bohemia and Slovakia. V. Flajshans, noted Czech author and professor of �SLOVAKIA 41 Czech literature at the Prague Charles University, deplored Luther's Reformation for the very fact that everywhere it took hold in Bohemia, the German language did too (12). At the beginning of the sixteenth century not Czech but German came to Slovakia; it took hold almost exclusively on~y in the German towns and only in the second half of the sixteenth century did it begin to spread to Slovak settlements. Vlcek himself names many authors who wrote in Latin in the seventeenth century, saying that Protestantism was "shattering the shackles of Latin" (13). Moreover, the end of the eighteenth century, he tells us, "brings to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition" (14). Since, according to Vlcek, Latin, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, had become the linguistic medium of "the Church and state, literature and society in Hungary," and then that "the end of the eighteeDlth century brought to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition," we must conclude that his statement in regard to the "e~clusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia for 300 years" is irresponsible if not an outright fabrication. After the disastrous Battle of White Mountain (1620), the Czech language was dying in its own homeland, as stated by Vlcek(15). On the other hand, according to Skultety, Latin was dulling the Slovaks nationally from the sixteenth century for almost 200 years (16). "The Hussites brought us (the Slovaks) a new communal language," which became domesticated or was quickly adopted by the Silovaks as their literary medium, according to Vlcek. But the very fact that the Czech language was a "new" language, it must have been foreign to the .Slovaks and, hence, could not have become domesticated in the land of the Slovaks. H. Marczali tells us, for example, that very few land barons (magnates) could read and write at that time: "Of the Hungarian magnates only the Primate of Hungary, Thomas Bakac, knew how to sign his name to the Bratislava Peace Agreement (Nov. 7, 1491) with Maximilian, the German Emperor; Stephen Bathori, Ladisllaus Guthi, Ladislaus Rozgoni - all members of the higher nobility - could not write" (17). History tells us that Hun- �42 SLOVAKIA gary was in a chaotic, rebellious ferment during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - a condition which could not possibly favor the progress of literature and culture of the nationaJlities of Hungary. The fact is that there was no Slovak literature, and, under the circumstances, could not be during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Rebellions and wars usually disrupt literary activity and cultural life. Vlcek could not have reported the fact that at that time only priests and monks did any writing and even then only when they hadl no sword in hand. The fact that he did not leads us to the conclusion that Vlcek was interested in promoting the fable about "the exclusive reign of Czech as the literary medium of the Slovaks for 300 years." Chauvinistic Czechs and pro-Czech historians and journalists still propagate Vlcek's fable to "prove" that the Slovaks and Czechs at one time were ethnically one nation. In his "Dejiny" the author devotes the first 18 lines to record superficially the general history of the fifteenth century, and then a total of 27 lines to the entire literary activity of that period. This in itself ought to be sufficient for us to form an idea of the veracity of Vlcek's statement in regard to the "exdusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia.'' The Prague University, founded by Charles IV in 1348, is credited by Vlcek for the "refreshening of Slovak spiritual life" (18). It had practically no effect on the spiritual or national life of the Czechs themselves, hence it is highly questionable that the university had any great influence on Slovak national life of the fourteenth century. The nationality concept at that time was entirely foreign, unknown(19). National consciousness is usually intimately connected with the fate of a language, and the fate of the Czech language in the fourteent h and previous centuries was indeed very; sad(20). History tells us that the last Premyslide rulers (1253i 1306) unified the Bohemian kingdom, but these very kings cared the least for the Czech language and for Czech na.1 tional consciousness (21). German dominated at the court of Otokar II (1253-1278); the nobility and towns, following �SLOVAKIA 43 Otokar's example, also used the German language. An old saying has it tha,t Otokar warned the Czechs: "one shall not be able to see a single Czech on the Prague bridge." In the sixteenth century this warning made the rounds in this form: "A Czech on the Prague bridge will be as rare as a deer with golden antlers"! Otokar, it is recorded, threatened the Czechs in this manner as he took off to fight Rudolph in 1278 (22). Wenceslaus II (1278-1305), son of Otokar II, of all things, became a German poet. Brought up in Germany, Wenceslaus followed in the footsteps of his father, Otokar II, and his grandfather Wenceslaus I, both of whom had forced Czechs out of several towns in favor of the Germans. He could not write "in the langua,ge of the despised men, the (Czech) language in which no one wrote up to that time" (23). Such was the condition of the Czech language up to of Hus. The Czechs, we know, indulge extravaadvent the gantly in the glory of Charles IV, "the father of our country" and the founder of the Prague University. The fact is that Charles IV was a German educated in France. When he was called to occupy the throne of Bohemia he did not know a single word of Czech (24). The teaching medium of the Prague University was Latin. If the University was founded in the Czech interest, the Czech language undoubtedly would have found its way into science before 1499, i.e., 120 years after Charles !V's death. There would then be no need for Hus to fight for the equality of the Czech language in the fifteenth century. Charles was succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus IV (1378-1419), who favored Latin and German. In 1394 the Union of Nobles had him arrested and forced him to issue documents also in Czech. Hus himself, until 1413, wrote in Latin (25). Under Charles IV, the Germans controlled the University. In the heat of the Hussite battle his son and successor, Wences'laus IV, sanctioned the reorganization of the University (Decree of Kutna Hora, Jan. 18, 1409), to give the Czechs "a ruling voice in their own university" (26). The result was disastrous for the University. Losing their influence, the Germans left the University of Prague, May 16, 1409, to found their own �44 SLOVAKIA university at Leipzig. With the exodus of the Germans the university lost its European significance and the Hussite era practically ruined it, reducing everything in the Czechsettled lands in Bohemia and a great part of Moravia to dust and ashes (27). As a result no examinations were held by the university from 1420 to 1428, a situation that happened frequently until 1526, so that Czech students had to continue their studies elsewhere. Flajshans tells us that as late as 1554 all twelve professors of the Prague University did not have together the salary of one professor of the University of Paris (28). The same author begins the chapter on the overglorified "Hussite Century" (15th) with these words: "All the higher schools are Latin; all offi~ cial records and public documents were written in Latin; and Latin united all scholars of the whole world" (29). Concluding the same chapter, Flajshans says: "The cry of Viktorin cal!ling for diligent work in the field of the Czech language remained for a long time the voice of one crying in the wilderness" (30). Viktorin, who in 1495 was opposed to Czech in the law books of Prague, died in 1520. The historical truth is that Czech Hussitism was above all else a religious movement which had practically nothing in common with the "national spirit" of the Czechs. Hussitism was not supported by the Prague University, but rather persecuted. That is why the adherents of Hus' teachings turned their hatred in the first instance against the univesity which they pillaged more than once, beating and throwing out the professors and bringing ruin upon it. The Czechs, the very people who should have nurtured and elevated the "Czech national and religious spirit," turned against the university ( 31) . They developed a new "national spirit" and strived to force it on their people. If the Prague University had practically no influence on the national life of the Czechs at that time, what influence could it possibly have on Slovak national life? The historical fact is that there is not a trace of Hussite literature in Slovakia from the fifteenth century(32). Like Jaroslav Vlcek, later historians, including S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, Robert J. Ker- �SLOVAKIA ner of the University of California, Joseph R. Roucek, of Hofstra College (1946), had the opportunity of writing objectively in regard to the matter at hand by seeking out available historical facts instead of relying on chauvinistic Czech propaganda. Professor S. Harrison Thomson, perhaps unable to see the forest for the trees, said this about the SloV'aks and Czechs and their respective languages: "The two peoples were originally so closely related as to be indistiruguishlalble, but geo,g,rap'lry and distance could easily have induced a separate political existence. The Magyar conquest made any such natural development illl!possible"(i33). ''The Slovaks therefore had no opporfonity to develop their own culture, written language, political institutions or social concepts in any independent way. Their relationship with the Ozechs, their brothers to the west, had, for all practical purposes, ceased to be a reality for them. This situation lasted nine centuries" (34). ''The great similarity of the vernacular lan.guages furnished an additional bond between the peoples of Bohemia and Slovakia" (35). "Political and military prestige combined with purely linguistic flexibility to make Czech rather than Slovak the lingua franca of a considera1b le region outside Bohemia. Written, Czec·h ,b ecame the language of the educated Slovaks, particularly if they had studied at Prague, and .remained such until the end of the 18th century(36). "It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this wide acceptance of Czech as the written langua-ge of the Slovaks during a period when Bohemia was free and Slovakia was ruled by Mag,y,ars. Tihe dialectical peculiarities that appear here and ther-e in Slovak document's did not alter the fundamental fact that Czech was accepted as the basic tongue of the tw;,. peoples(37). "The end result of the sojourn of the Hussite armies was not very considerable. In the first place their stay in Slovakia was relatively short, and in the second place we have incontrovertible evidence that the organization and powe1' of the Catholic Church in Slovakia was not noticeably disturbed at any time in the fifteenth century" (138). In his foreword, Professor Thomson warns the reader that the term "Czechoslovakia" has no political significance in his book; "it is used generally to designate the geographical entity lately known by that name." The professor may be coy and naive, but he is no fool. He knew what he was doing. Whether he likes it or not, the fact is that term, with or without the hyphen, is the name of a political entity. He warns the reader further that the �46 SLOVAKIA term "Bohemia" is also geographical "and in no wise an ethnic term." Nevertheless throughout his book he generally substitutes the term "CZECH kingdom"! What justification can there be for denying, ignoring, suppressing, or falsifying established historical facts? By the way, Thomson's "Czechoslovakia in European History" was awarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize" in December 1944, at a time when that state did not factually exist, the provisional (illegal) government of Dr. Edward Benes thus showing its appreciation to the professor. Indeed, the same professor who said in another "historical gem" edited by R. J. Kerner of the University of California: "But to Premysl Otokar I (]19741230) must be assigned the responsibility for inviting the Gerlll!an immigration. En,couraged by the court, many Czech nobles had married German women ; some of the best positionis of the Church in Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; German minnesingers were in high favor t-0 the royal court and at the courts of the richer nobles"(39). Gerald Druce, "authority on Czech science," belongs in Thomson's category. In Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" he had this to say in regard to the matter at hand: "The University of Prague, the oldest in Central Europe, had been founded in 1348 by Charles IV and had been placed upon a secure footing by his successor, Vaclav IV, by the Kutna Hora decrees in 1409. During the Middle Ages the study of the natural sciences flourished in Bo'hemia, as is shown by the number of herbals and contemporary mineralogical and alchemical wol'ks in the Czech langua•ge. Indeed, toward the close of the sixteenth centry Prague was recogn,ized as an important center of learning"(40). The tendency is quite obvious. Significant it is, too, that Druce, like all other pro-Czech propagandists, finds it very convenient to offer no proof for his "historical" statements. Professor Joseph R. Roucek, being a Czech, could allow himself a bit more rope by raising the Czech banner "Pravda vitezi." Writing about the Slovaks and Czechs and their languages, he adds to the confusion ( emphasis here as elsewhere being mine. - P.A.H): "CZECH refers to the principal people or language found in Bohemia and Moravia. SL-OVAK is the name given to the eas• ternmost division of the Czech-speaking people. Protestant leaders and philologists have claimed that Slovak is merely Old �SLOVAKIA 47 Czech and have urged the use of Czech as the sole written Ian• guage"{ 41 ). "The difficulty of intercourse with the Czechs has produced a divergence in what was originally a common language. The Slovak and Czech :forms of the language dilffer in certain minor points to the present day, like two dialects of the same tongue spoken locally"(412). 'IH is eertain, at any rate, that toward the end of the Premyslid era (1'305) the Czech language was already being adQ1Pted by scholars, that it moved from the villages, towns, and castles into books, and that it even began to replace both Latin and German"(43) "The German language (in the time of Hus - the latter part of the 14th century and first quarter of lsth) was predominant both in pwblic offices and in the churches and schools throughout the country"(44). But - as a result oif the Hussrte movement - "the Czech language and literature began to predominate"(45). Nevertheless "The Slovaks remained a separate and distinct people, even though cut off from intercourse with other Slav peoples. They remained mainly Catholic and developed their language as a dialect of the Czech language"(46). Joseph Lettrich, author of a "History of Modern Slovakia," belongs in a category by himself. As a Slovak he is opposed to Slovak freedom and independence. The Slovaks, according to Lettrich, could not exist without the Czechs. Having collaborated with Benes and the Communists, Lettrich is now on vacation from politics in the United States, still serving the interests of the Czechs as a prominent member of the so-called "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" - the organization of former members of the Communistdominated National Front Government of Czecho-Slovakia (1945-1948). Blinded by his prejudices and ignorant of history, Lettrich had this to say about his own people and their language "When a university was founded in Pra•g ue by King Charle,s N in 11314!8, numerous Slovaks werut to study there, and several became prdfessors at that un,iversity. In this manner the cultural relations between Slovak'S and Czechs, which had been forcibly interrupted, were re-established. They were to play a vital role in the spiritual development of the tJwo peoples. The most powerful influence that united them was the written Czechoslovak language which continued to be common to both. In, the first half of the fi,fteenth century the armies o'f the Czech Hussite warriors penetrated into Slovakia .... The Hussite forces ... introduced a new spirit of independence from Rome. Above all, they once again strengthened the ties of a common language and culture between Czechs and Slovaks"(47). �48 SLOVAKIA Lettrich, like other Slovak renegades and pro-Czech scribes, tried to remake history in the image of "Masaryk's interpretation" of Czech history. The ancient Czechs had the motto: "The truth of God prevails" (pravda Bozi vitezi). Masaryk, following the example of the radical Hussites, threw out God and made the motto read "Truth prevai'ls." Waving Masaryk's banner high, his followers continue in his "interpretation" of the national spirit and the history of the Czechs, misrepresenting and distorting historical facts. Having abandoned Divinely imposed mandates of the moral law, they now seek refuge and justification in the counterfeit doctrine of unbridled liberalism. Whatever might be said to the contrary, the truth is that "Such phrases as 'Czechoslovak language' might be used for the benefit of the outside world and in constitutional and other state documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples (Czechs and Slovaks), the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one" (4'8). REFERENCES 1. Jaroslav Vlcek: DEJmY SLOVElNISKJEJ LITElRATURY, 192'3, 1pp. 5,6. 2. Vlcek - p. 2. 3. Vlcek - p. 6. 4. Vlcek - p. 25. 5. SLOVENSKY DENNiK, 1922, No. 17. 6. Vlcek - pp. 4-5 7. Jozef Skultety: O &LOV AKOOH, p. 59. 8. !Kulhanek: KRONIKA CESKOSILOVElNSiKA, pp. 001~62. 9. M. Misik: HUSITI NA SLOVL0NS~U, p. 37. 10. Vlcek - p . 8. t:111. Vlcek - p. 8. 1'2. V. Flajsha11s: NAS JAZYK MA'DERSKY, p. 283. '113. Vlcek - p. 1.2. 14. Vlcek - p,24 . .115. Vlcek - p. 23. 1'6. Jozef Skultety: NElHAN'DE L'UD MOJ! p. 82. 17. Henry Ma1.1czali: MAGYAIROR!SZAG TORTENIETE, Vol. l, p. 367. 18. Vlcek - pp. 5-6. 19. Skultety: 0 SLOVAKO OH, p. '170. 20. Karol Tri\.ovski: K RECOVIEJ OTAZKE SLOVArfroV, ;1.937, p. 23. 21. Flajshans, - i;>. ·1163. 22. IFlajshans - PJl,69. 23. IFlajshans - p. 170. '24. IFla,jshans - p. 209. '25. Flajshans - p. 220. '26. S. Harrison Thomson: CZEOHOSL0 VAKIA IN EUIRO!PEIA!N HliSTORY, 1M4; p. 116. 1 �SLOVAKIA 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 4Jl. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. iFlajshans - p. 259. ,F la,j shans - p. 260. [Flajshans - p. 217. Flajshans - p. 265. Flajshans - p. 259. Tri\.ovski - p. 47. Thomson p. 199. Thomson - p. 200. Thomson - p. 206. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 208. CZEJOHOSLOV.Ax;1iA, edited by Robert J. Kerner, 1'949; 02lEJOHOSLOVAK1iA, Kerner - p. 316. Joseph R. Roucek: CEJN'l1RAlrEAlSTEJRN EUROIPE, 1946; Roucek - p. 63. IRoucek - p. 64. IRoucek - p. 66. iRoucek - p. 69. Roucek - p. 81. Jozef Lettrich: HISTORY OF MOIDERN SLOVA!KIA, pp. 21,22. C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY ANiD HIE)R SUOOESSORS, 49 p . 13. p. 61. 11955; 11937 ; p. 1·26. • • • WHO SAID IT? ''However close the original bonds between the Slovaks and the Czechs) imay have been, the ten, centuries dw:ing which the Slovaks formed a part of the kingdom of Hun:gary, w:hile the Czechs were subjected to German and Austrian influences, naturally brought about a marked dififerentation between the two peoples. Even the physical stocks cannot be so closely related today as they were a thousand years ago, for the Czeohs aTe todlay inextricalbly mingled with German elements, while the Slovak mountaineers have retained their racial purity to a larger degree .... There is, h01Wever, a noti.t:ealb le doifference both in physical appearance and in character between, the dour, efificient, but somewhiat ungainly Czech, and the airy, talkative, hwppy-go-lucky Slovak." - C. A. Macartney: HUNGAIRY AND HER SUOCEJSSORIS, London, L937) . • • • ' Iif a single dynasty had united both peoples ~Czechs and Slovaks) in a permanent, or at least an enduring union, a Czechoslovak nationality would assuredly have been formed and with a Czecho•slovak language - any minor dialectal diff.erences which existed would have been smoothed out. This did not happen; and while the Slavs of Bohemia developed the ,Czech nationality and language, to which the intermed,i ate dialects of Moravila gravitated, the Slovaks under Hungarian rule, not only developed along different lines from the Czechs, but were not even able to form a single literary language with them." - CC. A. Macartney: HUNGA!RY ANlD HiElR SUCOESSORS, London, 1937). � 36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars. �SLOVAKIA 37 Over the years several "authorities" and "eminent" scholars and journalists have repeated the distortions, false claims, and deliberate untruths of the propagandists, perhaps harboring the thought that time will eventually transform them into truths. Citing the works of such "experts" another genera:tion of scholars and journalists and researchers will arise, quoting these highly questionable "eminent" historians. Thus are errors, distortions, halftruths, and outright falsehoods propagated, while their authors blatantly proclaim that "truth prevails" (pravda vitezi). According to Jaroslav Vlcek, accepted authority on Slovak and Czech literature, the Czech language was the medium of Slova:k literature for over 300 years. The claim is made in his "Dejiny Literatury Slovenskej" (History of Slovak literature) which was published by the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) of Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1923. Vlcek came from a Czech family that had settled in Slova:kia. He was a follower of T. G. Masaryk and his socatlled Hlasists, the men associated with the periodical "Hlas" (Voice) which promoted the Czech fiction of a united ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation. This claim, which cannot stand up under historical criticism because it has no basis in historical fact, is a favorite of Prague regimes and Czech propagandists. Vlcek himself refutes the claim in his work, but this fact has strangely escaped the notice of practically all English writers of Czecho-Slovak or Czech-Slovak history. In Vlcek's "Dejiny" we read: ''The Hussites brought to u s not onty the din of savage battle, but also a new faith, a new communal language. . . . The Czech language made itsellf at home amo:rJJg the Slorvaks as their literary language ... The exclusive reign of the Czech language lasts for three hundred years from the first Hussite colonization" Cl). "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth cent ury, Hussitism and Pl'otestantism connect Slovak literary creations formaHy with Czech literature. It is not until the end of the eighteerrth century that Bernola!k, and in the middle of the nineteenth cent ury Stur, Hiodza, and Hurlban lay the origins and foundat ions of an independent Slovak literature" (2). "Material, which would clari£y the position of the Czech langua,ge in our midst in the fifteent h century, is thus far for �38 SLOVAKIA the most part laying in the dust of arohives. But even fr.om that bit that has been brought to light, it is safe to say that the Czech language from the second half of the fifteenth cenury is the Ian• guage of the autonomous Slovak authorities and later even the language of the counties and castles" (3). The "Dejiny" even proclaim Czech as the national language in Slovakia : "From the beginning of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century the national language in Slovakia flows in a threefold current: 1. Printed works, for the most part religious books, and here again for the most part Evangelical (Lutheran), hold to the language of the Kralice Bible; 2. Documents, records, municipal and private books, therefore the written word, more or less including native (Slovak) words and forms in place of the literary Czech forms; 3. The common uneducated people ait home, in the field and in their family circles, converse by means of the inherited, live language of their forefathers - in Slovak" ( 4). Now then, the first current of the "national language in Slovakia" - according to Vlcek's "Dejiny" - is the language of the Kra1ice Bible, i.e., pure Czech and nothing else; the second current is Czech again, interspersed with Slovak words and phrases; and only the third current of this national language is made up of the "live" language of the common people. Informed persons, Slovaks in particular, know that such statements and claims tend to serve especially the political interests of those who claim there is no Slovak nation and, consequently, no Slovak language. We know that they served the interests of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where they claimed that the Slovak nation was the invention of the Magyars and the Slovaks and the Czechs were the same. Vlcek, an authority on Slovak and Czech literature, was also a follower of Masaryk and his '" Hlasists." After the estaiblishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Vlcek was named director of the Matica Slovenska. It was under his directorship that an attempt was made to remake the Slovak language into Czech. When he died, the Czech Anton Stefanek, Minister of Education, wrote these significant words about Vlcek: �SLOVAKIA 39 "Very few people knO!W, particularly fNlllll the young gener.ation, that along,side Ma-sacytk it wa,s he (Week) who was the spirit of the 'Hla,s' (the or,g,a n of the Slovak Pan-Czechists, 1008·1004. - ed. note) and molded, so to 51Peak, the young 'Hlasists' .... J . Vlcek is not an ordinary historiain, who mechanically collects scientific matertial to compile new 'boak,s. Into e·v ery one of his works he inserts a certain tendency to seriv,e his nation (the Czech nation - ed.). Along,side his strict s!Cien•tific dbjectiv1ty and his serious respect for Slovaik sentiments he al,ways knew h-OIW to include in his boo~ and h1s articles the eDfort to unite a'Ild not to further divide the Slovaks and Czechs" (5). Let us now research the period of 300 years during which the Czech language reigned exclusively in Slovakia. History teMs us that the Hussites came to Slovakia the first time in 1421; up to 1440 their visits were predatory excursions. They did not come to Slovakia to settle down. The power of the Hussites was broken with their defeat near Lipjariy in 1434. They remained in Slovakia a longer time when Jiskra came to power. On a mandate from Queen Elizarbeth, in the defense of Ladislaus the Posthumous, Jiskra ruled the greater pa:rt of Slovakia from the end of 1439 to the death of Ladislaus in 1457. Mathias, newly elected King of Hungary, began to wage war against Jiskra in 1458, defeating him in 1461. Jiskra was in power in Slovakia from 1440. Let us, then, begin our research of Vlcek's "three hundred years." Vlcek tells us in his "Dejiny" that "with the death of Matthew Cak of Trencin, called Dominus Vagi et Tatrae, at the begi,n ning of the fourteerrtJh century, falls even this monument of Slavalk independence. The g11ant priruc1pa-lity of Nitra (Matyas foldje") bl-end·s into a close po!Hical union with the kingdom ·of Hungary, and our natiorral life loses itself in the common diplomatic ton1gue, the organ of the Ghureh and state, literature ~md society .... "(6). It is generaHy known that Latin was the official language of the Church and state, literature and society, not only during Matthew Ca.k's time, not only during the 300 years of the imagined "exclusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia," but even many years after those 300, when German and Magyar finally replaced it in the Bohemian and Hungarian kingdoms respectively. Joseph Dobrovsky, the "father of modern Czech literature," wrote his main work in Latin in 1822. In Trnava, Slovakia, records were kept in Latin up to 1848 (7). �40 SLOVAKIA According to Vlcek, it was not only in official and church circles that Czech took hold in S4ovakia, but even in popular literature of the fifteenth century: "In popular literature Czech is perhaps forcing its way with the same success, even though there exist no positive examples of this." But what kind of "exclusive reign of the Czech language" can that be when it "perhaps" was forcing its way in popular literature for which there exist "no positive examples"? The activities of the Hussites and the influence of Jiskra in Slovakia may have prompted Vlcek to say what he did. Then, however, we would have to assume that Vlcek was not very well informed on the Hussites. We know, as Vlcek must have known, that Jiskra's army, including only the "remnanits" of Hussites, was made up of for the most part of adventurers of many nationalities (8). Furthe:vmore, the Hussite expeditions into Slovakia could not have any influence on the literary language of the Slovaks because of their very nature. There were long intervals between expeditions and the Hussites held Trnava and Skalica only two years (9). The Hussites came to rob, and rob they did, leaving with their plunder. The Czech author Kulhanek adds that Jiskra's plunderers were a despicable lot which, six wears after Lipany, was composed of "those depredatory bands" which had plundered the Czech lands. Vlcek refutes his own statement about the "exclusive reign of Czech" when he tells us that "the sixteenth century extended the field of the Czech language still more. There came the Lutheran Reformation, the national churches and schools" (10). If the Czech language was the exclusive vehicle of Slovak literature in the fifteenth century, how could it possibly spread even more in the sixteenth? Vlcek would want us to believe that Czech even invaded the "national churches and schools" with Luther's Reformation and yet, on the same page, he tells us that these schools were "Latin-Slovak!" The fact is that they were not even Slovak, because, excepting religion, everything else was taught in Latin. Vlcek himself gives evidence of this (11). The Reformation of the sixteenth century did not help the "national churches and schools" in Bohemia and Slovakia. V. Flajshans, noted Czech author and professor of �SLOVAKIA 41 Czech literature at the Prague Charles University, deplored Luther's Reformation for the very fact that everywhere it took hold in Bohemia, the German language did too (12). At the beginning of the sixteenth century not Czech but German came to Slovakia; it took hold almost exclusively on~y in the German towns and only in the second half of the sixteenth century did it begin to spread to Slovak settlements. Vlcek himself names many authors who wrote in Latin in the seventeenth century, saying that Protestantism was "shattering the shackles of Latin" (13). Moreover, the end of the eighteenth century, he tells us, "brings to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition" (14). Since, according to Vlcek, Latin, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, had become the linguistic medium of "the Church and state, literature and society in Hungary," and then that "the end of the eighteeDlth century brought to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition," we must conclude that his statement in regard to the "e~clusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia for 300 years" is irresponsible if not an outright fabrication. After the disastrous Battle of White Mountain (1620), the Czech language was dying in its own homeland, as stated by Vlcek(15). On the other hand, according to Skultety, Latin was dulling the Slovaks nationally from the sixteenth century for almost 200 years (16). "The Hussites brought us (the Slovaks) a new communal language," which became domesticated or was quickly adopted by the Silovaks as their literary medium, according to Vlcek. But the very fact that the Czech language was a "new" language, it must have been foreign to the .Slovaks and, hence, could not have become domesticated in the land of the Slovaks. H. Marczali tells us, for example, that very few land barons (magnates) could read and write at that time: "Of the Hungarian magnates only the Primate of Hungary, Thomas Bakac, knew how to sign his name to the Bratislava Peace Agreement (Nov. 7, 1491) with Maximilian, the German Emperor; Stephen Bathori, Ladisllaus Guthi, Ladislaus Rozgoni - all members of the higher nobility - could not write" (17). History tells us that Hun- �42 SLOVAKIA gary was in a chaotic, rebellious ferment during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - a condition which could not possibly favor the progress of literature and culture of the nationaJlities of Hungary. The fact is that there was no Slovak literature, and, under the circumstances, could not be during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Rebellions and wars usually disrupt literary activity and cultural life. Vlcek could not have reported the fact that at that time only priests and monks did any writing and even then only when they hadl no sword in hand. The fact that he did not leads us to the conclusion that Vlcek was interested in promoting the fable about "the exclusive reign of Czech as the literary medium of the Slovaks for 300 years." Chauvinistic Czechs and pro-Czech historians and journalists still propagate Vlcek's fable to "prove" that the Slovaks and Czechs at one time were ethnically one nation. In his "Dejiny" the author devotes the first 18 lines to record superficially the general history of the fifteenth century, and then a total of 27 lines to the entire literary activity of that period. This in itself ought to be sufficient for us to form an idea of the veracity of Vlcek's statement in regard to the "exdusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia.'' The Prague University, founded by Charles IV in 1348, is credited by Vlcek for the "refreshening of Slovak spiritual life" (18). It had practically no effect on the spiritual or national life of the Czechs themselves, hence it is highly questionable that the university had any great influence on Slovak national life of the fourteenth century. The nationality concept at that time was entirely foreign, unknown(19). National consciousness is usually intimately connected with the fate of a language, and the fate of the Czech language in the fourteent h and previous centuries was indeed very; sad(20). History tells us that the last Premyslide rulers (1253i 1306) unified the Bohemian kingdom, but these very kings cared the least for the Czech language and for Czech na.1 tional consciousness (21). German dominated at the court of Otokar II (1253-1278); the nobility and towns, following �SLOVAKIA 43 Otokar's example, also used the German language. An old saying has it tha,t Otokar warned the Czechs: "one shall not be able to see a single Czech on the Prague bridge." In the sixteenth century this warning made the rounds in this form: "A Czech on the Prague bridge will be as rare as a deer with golden antlers"! Otokar, it is recorded, threatened the Czechs in this manner as he took off to fight Rudolph in 1278 (22). Wenceslaus II (1278-1305), son of Otokar II, of all things, became a German poet. Brought up in Germany, Wenceslaus followed in the footsteps of his father, Otokar II, and his grandfather Wenceslaus I, both of whom had forced Czechs out of several towns in favor of the Germans. He could not write "in the langua,ge of the despised men, the (Czech) language in which no one wrote up to that time" (23). Such was the condition of the Czech language up to of Hus. The Czechs, we know, indulge extravaadvent the gantly in the glory of Charles IV, "the father of our country" and the founder of the Prague University. The fact is that Charles IV was a German educated in France. When he was called to occupy the throne of Bohemia he did not know a single word of Czech (24). The teaching medium of the Prague University was Latin. If the University was founded in the Czech interest, the Czech language undoubtedly would have found its way into science before 1499, i.e., 120 years after Charles !V's death. There would then be no need for Hus to fight for the equality of the Czech language in the fifteenth century. Charles was succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus IV (1378-1419), who favored Latin and German. In 1394 the Union of Nobles had him arrested and forced him to issue documents also in Czech. Hus himself, until 1413, wrote in Latin (25). Under Charles IV, the Germans controlled the University. In the heat of the Hussite battle his son and successor, Wences'laus IV, sanctioned the reorganization of the University (Decree of Kutna Hora, Jan. 18, 1409), to give the Czechs "a ruling voice in their own university" (26). The result was disastrous for the University. Losing their influence, the Germans left the University of Prague, May 16, 1409, to found their own �44 SLOVAKIA university at Leipzig. With the exodus of the Germans the university lost its European significance and the Hussite era practically ruined it, reducing everything in the Czechsettled lands in Bohemia and a great part of Moravia to dust and ashes (27). As a result no examinations were held by the university from 1420 to 1428, a situation that happened frequently until 1526, so that Czech students had to continue their studies elsewhere. Flajshans tells us that as late as 1554 all twelve professors of the Prague University did not have together the salary of one professor of the University of Paris (28). The same author begins the chapter on the overglorified "Hussite Century" (15th) with these words: "All the higher schools are Latin; all offi~ cial records and public documents were written in Latin; and Latin united all scholars of the whole world" (29). Concluding the same chapter, Flajshans says: "The cry of Viktorin cal!ling for diligent work in the field of the Czech language remained for a long time the voice of one crying in the wilderness" (30). Viktorin, who in 1495 was opposed to Czech in the law books of Prague, died in 1520. The historical truth is that Czech Hussitism was above all else a religious movement which had practically nothing in common with the "national spirit" of the Czechs. Hussitism was not supported by the Prague University, but rather persecuted. That is why the adherents of Hus' teachings turned their hatred in the first instance against the univesity which they pillaged more than once, beating and throwing out the professors and bringing ruin upon it. The Czechs, the very people who should have nurtured and elevated the "Czech national and religious spirit," turned against the university ( 31) . They developed a new "national spirit" and strived to force it on their people. If the Prague University had practically no influence on the national life of the Czechs at that time, what influence could it possibly have on Slovak national life? The historical fact is that there is not a trace of Hussite literature in Slovakia from the fifteenth century(32). Like Jaroslav Vlcek, later historians, including S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, Robert J. Ker- �SLOVAKIA ner of the University of California, Joseph R. Roucek, of Hofstra College (1946), had the opportunity of writing objectively in regard to the matter at hand by seeking out available historical facts instead of relying on chauvinistic Czech propaganda. Professor S. Harrison Thomson, perhaps unable to see the forest for the trees, said this about the SloV'aks and Czechs and their respective languages: "The two peoples were originally so closely related as to be indistiruguishlalble, but geo,g,rap'lry and distance could easily have induced a separate political existence. The Magyar conquest made any such natural development illl!possible"(i33). ''The Slovaks therefore had no opporfonity to develop their own culture, written language, political institutions or social concepts in any independent way. Their relationship with the Ozechs, their brothers to the west, had, for all practical purposes, ceased to be a reality for them. This situation lasted nine centuries" (34). ''The great similarity of the vernacular lan.guages furnished an additional bond between the peoples of Bohemia and Slovakia" (35). "Political and military prestige combined with purely linguistic flexibility to make Czech rather than Slovak the lingua franca of a considera1b le region outside Bohemia. Written, Czec·h ,b ecame the language of the educated Slovaks, particularly if they had studied at Prague, and .remained such until the end of the 18th century(36). "It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this wide acceptance of Czech as the written langua-ge of the Slovaks during a period when Bohemia was free and Slovakia was ruled by Mag,y,ars. Tihe dialectical peculiarities that appear here and ther-e in Slovak document's did not alter the fundamental fact that Czech was accepted as the basic tongue of the tw;,. peoples(37). "The end result of the sojourn of the Hussite armies was not very considerable. In the first place their stay in Slovakia was relatively short, and in the second place we have incontrovertible evidence that the organization and powe1' of the Catholic Church in Slovakia was not noticeably disturbed at any time in the fifteenth century" (138). In his foreword, Professor Thomson warns the reader that the term "Czechoslovakia" has no political significance in his book; "it is used generally to designate the geographical entity lately known by that name." The professor may be coy and naive, but he is no fool. He knew what he was doing. Whether he likes it or not, the fact is that term, with or without the hyphen, is the name of a political entity. He warns the reader further that the �46 SLOVAKIA term "Bohemia" is also geographical "and in no wise an ethnic term." Nevertheless throughout his book he generally substitutes the term "CZECH kingdom"! What justification can there be for denying, ignoring, suppressing, or falsifying established historical facts? By the way, Thomson's "Czechoslovakia in European History" was awarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize" in December 1944, at a time when that state did not factually exist, the provisional (illegal) government of Dr. Edward Benes thus showing its appreciation to the professor. Indeed, the same professor who said in another "historical gem" edited by R. J. Kerner of the University of California: "But to Premysl Otokar I (]19741230) must be assigned the responsibility for inviting the Gerlll!an immigration. En,couraged by the court, many Czech nobles had married German women ; some of the best positionis of the Church in Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; German minnesingers were in high favor t-0 the royal court and at the courts of the richer nobles"(39). Gerald Druce, "authority on Czech science," belongs in Thomson's category. In Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" he had this to say in regard to the matter at hand: "The University of Prague, the oldest in Central Europe, had been founded in 1348 by Charles IV and had been placed upon a secure footing by his successor, Vaclav IV, by the Kutna Hora decrees in 1409. During the Middle Ages the study of the natural sciences flourished in Bo'hemia, as is shown by the number of herbals and contemporary mineralogical and alchemical wol'ks in the Czech langua•ge. Indeed, toward the close of the sixteenth centry Prague was recogn,ized as an important center of learning"(40). The tendency is quite obvious. Significant it is, too, that Druce, like all other pro-Czech propagandists, finds it very convenient to offer no proof for his "historical" statements. Professor Joseph R. Roucek, being a Czech, could allow himself a bit more rope by raising the Czech banner "Pravda vitezi." Writing about the Slovaks and Czechs and their languages, he adds to the confusion ( emphasis here as elsewhere being mine. - P.A.H): "CZECH refers to the principal people or language found in Bohemia and Moravia. SL-OVAK is the name given to the eas• ternmost division of the Czech-speaking people. Protestant leaders and philologists have claimed that Slovak is merely Old �SLOVAKIA 47 Czech and have urged the use of Czech as the sole written Ian• guage"{ 41 ). "The difficulty of intercourse with the Czechs has produced a divergence in what was originally a common language. The Slovak and Czech :forms of the language dilffer in certain minor points to the present day, like two dialects of the same tongue spoken locally"(412). 'IH is eertain, at any rate, that toward the end of the Premyslid era (1'305) the Czech language was already being adQ1Pted by scholars, that it moved from the villages, towns, and castles into books, and that it even began to replace both Latin and German"(43) "The German language (in the time of Hus - the latter part of the 14th century and first quarter of lsth) was predominant both in pwblic offices and in the churches and schools throughout the country"(44). But - as a result oif the Hussrte movement - "the Czech language and literature began to predominate"(45). Nevertheless "The Slovaks remained a separate and distinct people, even though cut off from intercourse with other Slav peoples. They remained mainly Catholic and developed their language as a dialect of the Czech language"(46). Joseph Lettrich, author of a "History of Modern Slovakia," belongs in a category by himself. As a Slovak he is opposed to Slovak freedom and independence. The Slovaks, according to Lettrich, could not exist without the Czechs. Having collaborated with Benes and the Communists, Lettrich is now on vacation from politics in the United States, still serving the interests of the Czechs as a prominent member of the so-called "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" - the organization of former members of the Communistdominated National Front Government of Czecho-Slovakia (1945-1948). Blinded by his prejudices and ignorant of history, Lettrich had this to say about his own people and their language "When a university was founded in Pra•g ue by King Charle,s N in 11314!8, numerous Slovaks werut to study there, and several became prdfessors at that un,iversity. In this manner the cultural relations between Slovak'S and Czechs, which had been forcibly interrupted, were re-established. They were to play a vital role in the spiritual development of the tJwo peoples. The most powerful influence that united them was the written Czechoslovak language which continued to be common to both. In, the first half of the fi,fteenth century the armies o'f the Czech Hussite warriors penetrated into Slovakia .... The Hussite forces ... introduced a new spirit of independence from Rome. Above all, they once again strengthened the ties of a common language and culture between Czechs and Slovaks"(47). �48 SLOVAKIA Lettrich, like other Slovak renegades and pro-Czech scribes, tried to remake history in the image of "Masaryk's interpretation" of Czech history. The ancient Czechs had the motto: "The truth of God prevails" (pravda Bozi vitezi). Masaryk, following the example of the radical Hussites, threw out God and made the motto read "Truth prevai'ls." Waving Masaryk's banner high, his followers continue in his "interpretation" of the national spirit and the history of the Czechs, misrepresenting and distorting historical facts. Having abandoned Divinely imposed mandates of the moral law, they now seek refuge and justification in the counterfeit doctrine of unbridled liberalism. Whatever might be said to the contrary, the truth is that "Such phrases as 'Czechoslovak language' might be used for the benefit of the outside world and in constitutional and other state documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples (Czechs and Slovaks), the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one" (4'8). REFERENCES 1. Jaroslav Vlcek: DEJmY SLOVElNISKJEJ LITElRATURY, 192'3, 1pp. 5,6. 2. Vlcek - p. 2. 3. Vlcek - p. 6. 4. Vlcek - p. 25. 5. SLOVENSKY DENNiK, 1922, No. 17. 6. Vlcek - pp. 4-5 7. Jozef Skultety: O &LOV AKOOH, p. 59. 8. !Kulhanek: KRONIKA CESKOSILOVElNSiKA, pp. 001~62. 9. M. Misik: HUSITI NA SLOVL0NS~U, p. 37. 10. Vlcek - p . 8. t:111. Vlcek - p. 8. 1'2. V. Flajsha11s: NAS JAZYK MA'DERSKY, p. 283. '113. Vlcek - p. 1.2. 14. Vlcek - p,24 . .115. Vlcek - p. 23. 1'6. Jozef Skultety: NElHAN'DE L'UD MOJ! p. 82. 17. Henry Ma1.1czali: MAGYAIROR!SZAG TORTENIETE, Vol. l, p. 367. 18. Vlcek - pp. 5-6. 19. Skultety: 0 SLOVAKO OH, p. '170. 20. Karol Tri\.ovski: K RECOVIEJ OTAZKE SLOVArfroV, ;1.937, p. 23. 21. Flajshans, - i;>. ·1163. 22. IFlajshans - PJl,69. 23. IFlajshans - p. 170. '24. IFla,jshans - p. 209. '25. Flajshans - p. 220. '26. S. Harrison Thomson: CZEOHOSL0 VAKIA IN EUIRO!PEIA!N HliSTORY, 1M4; p. 116. 1 �SLOVAKIA 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 4Jl. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. iFlajshans - p. 259. ,F la,j shans - p. 260. [Flajshans - p. 217. Flajshans - p. 265. Flajshans - p. 259. Tri\.ovski - p. 47. Thomson p. 199. Thomson - p. 200. Thomson - p. 206. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 208. CZEJOHOSLOV.Ax;1iA, edited by Robert J. Kerner, 1'949; 02lEJOHOSLOVAK1iA, Kerner - p. 316. Joseph R. Roucek: CEJN'l1RAlrEAlSTEJRN EUROIPE, 1946; Roucek - p. 63. IRoucek - p. 64. IRoucek - p. 66. iRoucek - p. 69. Roucek - p. 81. Jozef Lettrich: HISTORY OF MOIDERN SLOVA!KIA, pp. 21,22. C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY ANiD HIE)R SUOOESSORS, 49 p . 13. p. 61. 11955; 11937 ; p. 1·26. • • • WHO SAID IT? ''However close the original bonds between the Slovaks and the Czechs) imay have been, the ten, centuries dw:ing which the Slovaks formed a part of the kingdom of Hun:gary, w:hile the Czechs were subjected to German and Austrian influences, naturally brought about a marked dififerentation between the two peoples. Even the physical stocks cannot be so closely related today as they were a thousand years ago, for the Czeohs aTe todlay inextricalbly mingled with German elements, while the Slovak mountaineers have retained their racial purity to a larger degree .... There is, h01Wever, a noti.t:ealb le doifference both in physical appearance and in character between, the dour, efificient, but somewhiat ungainly Czech, and the airy, talkative, hwppy-go-lucky Slovak." - C. A. Macartney: HUNGAIRY AND HER SUOCEJSSORIS, London, L937) . • • • ' Iif a single dynasty had united both peoples ~Czechs and Slovaks) in a permanent, or at least an enduring union, a Czechoslovak nationality would assuredly have been formed and with a Czecho•slovak language - any minor dialectal diff.erences which existed would have been smoothed out. This did not happen; and while the Slavs of Bohemia developed the ,Czech nationality and language, to which the intermed,i ate dialects of Moravila gravitated, the Slovaks under Hungarian rule, not only developed along different lines from the Czechs, but were not even able to form a single literary language with them." - CC. A. Macartney: HUNGA!RY ANlD HiElR SUCOESSORS, London, 1937). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1960, Vol. 10 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 6 [sic] (No. 31), March-June 1960.</li> <li>Issue 7 [sic] (No. 32), September-December 1960.</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 36 SLOVAKIA officials aip,pear to have been equally uncertain about this question at the time, for the Foreign, Office did not reply until November 13, 191'8, and even then did not take a clear stand. See, Foreign Relations, 1919. The Paris Peace Conference, 13 vols. (Washington, 19~1947), H, 3716°377. (3) "(Peace) cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between p01Werful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlemenit of every issue -anyiwhere invo'1ved in it .. . an"d every item oo it must be submi•tted to the cOOl111Tlon judgment .. ." Wilson's address. February '111, 19118, see Ray S. Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.); The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace, 2 vols. (N~w York, 1927), L, 180. (4) !Before the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council Wilson met Masaryk only once, on Jun,e 19, 19118, several weeks aifter he had first decided upon an antiJAUSltrian policy (see this author's article "The United States and the Dissolution oo AustriaJHunigary," Journal of Cent.ral European Affairs, X (Octolber, 1950), pp. 256-270, and two mon-ths before he suddenly considered recognition Olf the Czechoslovaks. The question was not broached in their correspondence . • • • WAS CZECH THE VEIDCLE OF SLOVAK LITERATURE? P.A. Hrobak Since the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918, a concerted, deliberate attempt on the part of certain Czechs and pro-Czechs is being made to prove the antiquity of the fiction of a united "Czechoslovak" nation. The propaganda apparatus of the political state formed by the Slovaks and the Czechs has been constantly used, even at the expense of the Slovaks, to prove that there really is no Slovak nation, that the Slovaks are but a branch of the Czech nation and the Slovak language is but a dialect of the Czech language. In the memorandum which T. G. Masaryk sent to the U. S. State Department (Lansing), on August 31, 1918, he said: "Slovakia, the southern part of the nation, was occupied by the Magyars and separated early from Bohemia and Moravia; at times, even later, the Slovaks were independent." After over forty years of the Pan-Czech propaganda, we find that the Slovaks are still around and are more determined than ever to preserve and enhance their ethnic individuality. They have successfully resisted all attempts to be made over into Czechs, as prior to 1918 they successfuHy resisted all attempts to be made into Magyars. SLOVAKIA 37 Over the years several "authorities" and "eminent" scholars and journalists have repeated the distortions, false claims, and deliberate untruths of the propagandists, perhaps harboring the thought that time will eventually transform them into truths. Citing the works of such "experts" another genera:tion of scholars and journalists and researchers will arise, quoting these highly questionable "eminent" historians. Thus are errors, distortions, halftruths, and outright falsehoods propagated, while their authors blatantly proclaim that "truth prevails" (pravda vitezi). According to Jaroslav Vlcek, accepted authority on Slovak and Czech literature, the Czech language was the medium of Slova:k literature for over 300 years. The claim is made in his "Dejiny Literatury Slovenskej" (History of Slovak literature) which was published by the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) of Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1923. Vlcek came from a Czech family that had settled in Slova:kia. He was a follower of T. G. Masaryk and his socatlled Hlasists, the men associated with the periodical "Hlas" (Voice) which promoted the Czech fiction of a united ethnic "Czechoslovak" nation. This claim, which cannot stand up under historical criticism because it has no basis in historical fact, is a favorite of Prague regimes and Czech propagandists. Vlcek himself refutes the claim in his work, but this fact has strangely escaped the notice of practically all English writers of Czecho-Slovak or Czech-Slovak history. In Vlcek's "Dejiny" we read: ''The Hussites brought to u s not onty the din of savage battle, but also a new faith, a new communal language. . . . The Czech language made itsellf at home amo:rJJg the Slorvaks as their literary language ... The exclusive reign of the Czech language lasts for three hundred years from the first Hussite colonization" Cl). "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth cent ury, Hussitism and Pl'otestantism connect Slovak literary creations formaHy with Czech literature. It is not until the end of the eighteerrth century that Bernola!k, and in the middle of the nineteenth cent ury Stur, Hiodza, and Hurlban lay the origins and foundat ions of an independent Slovak literature" (2). "Material, which would clari£y the position of the Czech langua,ge in our midst in the fifteent h century, is thus far for 38 SLOVAKIA the most part laying in the dust of arohives. But even fr.om that bit that has been brought to light, it is safe to say that the Czech language from the second half of the fifteenth cenury is the Ian• guage of the autonomous Slovak authorities and later even the language of the counties and castles" (3). The "Dejiny" even proclaim Czech as the national language in Slovakia : "From the beginning of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century the national language in Slovakia flows in a threefold current: 1. Printed works, for the most part religious books, and here again for the most part Evangelical (Lutheran), hold to the language of the Kralice Bible; 2. Documents, records, municipal and private books, therefore the written word, more or less including native (Slovak) words and forms in place of the literary Czech forms; 3. The common uneducated people ait home, in the field and in their family circles, converse by means of the inherited, live language of their forefathers - in Slovak" ( 4). Now then, the first current of the "national language in Slovakia" - according to Vlcek's "Dejiny" - is the language of the Kra1ice Bible, i.e., pure Czech and nothing else; the second current is Czech again, interspersed with Slovak words and phrases; and only the third current of this national language is made up of the "live" language of the common people. Informed persons, Slovaks in particular, know that such statements and claims tend to serve especially the political interests of those who claim there is no Slovak nation and, consequently, no Slovak language. We know that they served the interests of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where they claimed that the Slovak nation was the invention of the Magyars and the Slovaks and the Czechs were the same. Vlcek, an authority on Slovak and Czech literature, was also a follower of Masaryk and his '" Hlasists." After the estaiblishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Vlcek was named director of the Matica Slovenska. It was under his directorship that an attempt was made to remake the Slovak language into Czech. When he died, the Czech Anton Stefanek, Minister of Education, wrote these significant words about Vlcek: SLOVAKIA 39 "Very few people knO!W, particularly fNlllll the young gener.ation, that along,side Ma-sacytk it wa,s he (Week) who was the spirit of the 'Hla,s' (the or,g,a n of the Slovak Pan-Czechists, 1008·1004. - ed. note) and molded, so to 51Peak, the young 'Hlasists' .... J . Vlcek is not an ordinary historiain, who mechanically collects scientific matertial to compile new 'boak,s. Into e·v ery one of his works he inserts a certain tendency to seriv,e his nation (the Czech nation - ed.). Along,side his strict s!Cien•tific dbjectiv1ty and his serious respect for Slovaik sentiments he al,ways knew h-OIW to include in his boo~ and h1s articles the eDfort to unite a'Ild not to further divide the Slovaks and Czechs" (5). Let us now research the period of 300 years during which the Czech language reigned exclusively in Slovakia. History teMs us that the Hussites came to Slovakia the first time in 1421; up to 1440 their visits were predatory excursions. They did not come to Slovakia to settle down. The power of the Hussites was broken with their defeat near Lipjariy in 1434. They remained in Slovakia a longer time when Jiskra came to power. On a mandate from Queen Elizarbeth, in the defense of Ladislaus the Posthumous, Jiskra ruled the greater pa:rt of Slovakia from the end of 1439 to the death of Ladislaus in 1457. Mathias, newly elected King of Hungary, began to wage war against Jiskra in 1458, defeating him in 1461. Jiskra was in power in Slovakia from 1440. Let us, then, begin our research of Vlcek's "three hundred years." Vlcek tells us in his "Dejiny" that "with the death of Matthew Cak of Trencin, called Dominus Vagi et Tatrae, at the begi,n ning of the fourteerrtJh century, falls even this monument of Slavalk independence. The g11ant priruc1pa-lity of Nitra (Matyas foldje") bl-end·s into a close po!Hical union with the kingdom ·of Hungary, and our natiorral life loses itself in the common diplomatic ton1gue, the organ of the Ghureh and state, literature ~md society .... "(6). It is generaHy known that Latin was the official language of the Church and state, literature and society, not only during Matthew Ca.k's time, not only during the 300 years of the imagined "exclusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia," but even many years after those 300, when German and Magyar finally replaced it in the Bohemian and Hungarian kingdoms respectively. Joseph Dobrovsky, the "father of modern Czech literature," wrote his main work in Latin in 1822. In Trnava, Slovakia, records were kept in Latin up to 1848 (7). 40 SLOVAKIA According to Vlcek, it was not only in official and church circles that Czech took hold in S4ovakia, but even in popular literature of the fifteenth century: "In popular literature Czech is perhaps forcing its way with the same success, even though there exist no positive examples of this." But what kind of "exclusive reign of the Czech language" can that be when it "perhaps" was forcing its way in popular literature for which there exist "no positive examples"? The activities of the Hussites and the influence of Jiskra in Slovakia may have prompted Vlcek to say what he did. Then, however, we would have to assume that Vlcek was not very well informed on the Hussites. We know, as Vlcek must have known, that Jiskra's army, including only the "remnanits" of Hussites, was made up of for the most part of adventurers of many nationalities (8). Furthe:vmore, the Hussite expeditions into Slovakia could not have any influence on the literary language of the Slovaks because of their very nature. There were long intervals between expeditions and the Hussites held Trnava and Skalica only two years (9). The Hussites came to rob, and rob they did, leaving with their plunder. The Czech author Kulhanek adds that Jiskra's plunderers were a despicable lot which, six wears after Lipany, was composed of "those depredatory bands" which had plundered the Czech lands. Vlcek refutes his own statement about the "exclusive reign of Czech" when he tells us that "the sixteenth century extended the field of the Czech language still more. There came the Lutheran Reformation, the national churches and schools" (10). If the Czech language was the exclusive vehicle of Slovak literature in the fifteenth century, how could it possibly spread even more in the sixteenth? Vlcek would want us to believe that Czech even invaded the "national churches and schools" with Luther's Reformation and yet, on the same page, he tells us that these schools were "Latin-Slovak!" The fact is that they were not even Slovak, because, excepting religion, everything else was taught in Latin. Vlcek himself gives evidence of this (11). The Reformation of the sixteenth century did not help the "national churches and schools" in Bohemia and Slovakia. V. Flajshans, noted Czech author and professor of SLOVAKIA 41 Czech literature at the Prague Charles University, deplored Luther's Reformation for the very fact that everywhere it took hold in Bohemia, the German language did too (12). At the beginning of the sixteenth century not Czech but German came to Slovakia; it took hold almost exclusively on~y in the German towns and only in the second half of the sixteenth century did it begin to spread to Slovak settlements. Vlcek himself names many authors who wrote in Latin in the seventeenth century, saying that Protestantism was "shattering the shackles of Latin" (13). Moreover, the end of the eighteenth century, he tells us, "brings to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition" (14). Since, according to Vlcek, Latin, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, had become the linguistic medium of "the Church and state, literature and society in Hungary," and then that "the end of the eighteeDlth century brought to a close the era of religious intolerance and Latin erudition," we must conclude that his statement in regard to the "e~clusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia for 300 years" is irresponsible if not an outright fabrication. After the disastrous Battle of White Mountain (1620), the Czech language was dying in its own homeland, as stated by Vlcek(15). On the other hand, according to Skultety, Latin was dulling the Slovaks nationally from the sixteenth century for almost 200 years (16). "The Hussites brought us (the Slovaks) a new communal language," which became domesticated or was quickly adopted by the Silovaks as their literary medium, according to Vlcek. But the very fact that the Czech language was a "new" language, it must have been foreign to the .Slovaks and, hence, could not have become domesticated in the land of the Slovaks. H. Marczali tells us, for example, that very few land barons (magnates) could read and write at that time: "Of the Hungarian magnates only the Primate of Hungary, Thomas Bakac, knew how to sign his name to the Bratislava Peace Agreement (Nov. 7, 1491) with Maximilian, the German Emperor; Stephen Bathori, Ladisllaus Guthi, Ladislaus Rozgoni - all members of the higher nobility - could not write" (17). History tells us that Hun- 42 SLOVAKIA gary was in a chaotic, rebellious ferment during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - a condition which could not possibly favor the progress of literature and culture of the nationaJlities of Hungary. The fact is that there was no Slovak literature, and, under the circumstances, could not be during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Rebellions and wars usually disrupt literary activity and cultural life. Vlcek could not have reported the fact that at that time only priests and monks did any writing and even then only when they hadl no sword in hand. The fact that he did not leads us to the conclusion that Vlcek was interested in promoting the fable about "the exclusive reign of Czech as the literary medium of the Slovaks for 300 years." Chauvinistic Czechs and pro-Czech historians and journalists still propagate Vlcek's fable to "prove" that the Slovaks and Czechs at one time were ethnically one nation. In his "Dejiny" the author devotes the first 18 lines to record superficially the general history of the fifteenth century, and then a total of 27 lines to the entire literary activity of that period. This in itself ought to be sufficient for us to form an idea of the veracity of Vlcek's statement in regard to the "exdusive reign of the Czech language in Slovakia.'' The Prague University, founded by Charles IV in 1348, is credited by Vlcek for the "refreshening of Slovak spiritual life" (18). It had practically no effect on the spiritual or national life of the Czechs themselves, hence it is highly questionable that the university had any great influence on Slovak national life of the fourteenth century. The nationality concept at that time was entirely foreign, unknown(19). National consciousness is usually intimately connected with the fate of a language, and the fate of the Czech language in the fourteent h and previous centuries was indeed very; sad(20). History tells us that the last Premyslide rulers (1253i 1306) unified the Bohemian kingdom, but these very kings cared the least for the Czech language and for Czech na.1 tional consciousness (21). German dominated at the court of Otokar II (1253-1278); the nobility and towns, following SLOVAKIA 43 Otokar's example, also used the German language. An old saying has it tha,t Otokar warned the Czechs: "one shall not be able to see a single Czech on the Prague bridge." In the sixteenth century this warning made the rounds in this form: "A Czech on the Prague bridge will be as rare as a deer with golden antlers"! Otokar, it is recorded, threatened the Czechs in this manner as he took off to fight Rudolph in 1278 (22). Wenceslaus II (1278-1305), son of Otokar II, of all things, became a German poet. Brought up in Germany, Wenceslaus followed in the footsteps of his father, Otokar II, and his grandfather Wenceslaus I, both of whom had forced Czechs out of several towns in favor of the Germans. He could not write "in the langua,ge of the despised men, the (Czech) language in which no one wrote up to that time" (23). Such was the condition of the Czech language up to of Hus. The Czechs, we know, indulge extravaadvent the gantly in the glory of Charles IV, "the father of our country" and the founder of the Prague University. The fact is that Charles IV was a German educated in France. When he was called to occupy the throne of Bohemia he did not know a single word of Czech (24). The teaching medium of the Prague University was Latin. If the University was founded in the Czech interest, the Czech language undoubtedly would have found its way into science before 1499, i.e., 120 years after Charles !V's death. There would then be no need for Hus to fight for the equality of the Czech language in the fifteenth century. Charles was succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus IV (1378-1419), who favored Latin and German. In 1394 the Union of Nobles had him arrested and forced him to issue documents also in Czech. Hus himself, until 1413, wrote in Latin (25). Under Charles IV, the Germans controlled the University. In the heat of the Hussite battle his son and successor, Wences'laus IV, sanctioned the reorganization of the University (Decree of Kutna Hora, Jan. 18, 1409), to give the Czechs "a ruling voice in their own university" (26). The result was disastrous for the University. Losing their influence, the Germans left the University of Prague, May 16, 1409, to found their own 44 SLOVAKIA university at Leipzig. With the exodus of the Germans the university lost its European significance and the Hussite era practically ruined it, reducing everything in the Czechsettled lands in Bohemia and a great part of Moravia to dust and ashes (27). As a result no examinations were held by the university from 1420 to 1428, a situation that happened frequently until 1526, so that Czech students had to continue their studies elsewhere. Flajshans tells us that as late as 1554 all twelve professors of the Prague University did not have together the salary of one professor of the University of Paris (28). The same author begins the chapter on the overglorified "Hussite Century" (15th) with these words: "All the higher schools are Latin; all offi~ cial records and public documents were written in Latin; and Latin united all scholars of the whole world" (29). Concluding the same chapter, Flajshans says: "The cry of Viktorin cal!ling for diligent work in the field of the Czech language remained for a long time the voice of one crying in the wilderness" (30). Viktorin, who in 1495 was opposed to Czech in the law books of Prague, died in 1520. The historical truth is that Czech Hussitism was above all else a religious movement which had practically nothing in common with the "national spirit" of the Czechs. Hussitism was not supported by the Prague University, but rather persecuted. That is why the adherents of Hus' teachings turned their hatred in the first instance against the univesity which they pillaged more than once, beating and throwing out the professors and bringing ruin upon it. The Czechs, the very people who should have nurtured and elevated the "Czech national and religious spirit," turned against the university ( 31) . They developed a new "national spirit" and strived to force it on their people. If the Prague University had practically no influence on the national life of the Czechs at that time, what influence could it possibly have on Slovak national life? The historical fact is that there is not a trace of Hussite literature in Slovakia from the fifteenth century(32). Like Jaroslav Vlcek, later historians, including S. Harrison Thomson of the University of Colorado, Robert J. Ker- SLOVAKIA ner of the University of California, Joseph R. Roucek, of Hofstra College (1946), had the opportunity of writing objectively in regard to the matter at hand by seeking out available historical facts instead of relying on chauvinistic Czech propaganda. Professor S. Harrison Thomson, perhaps unable to see the forest for the trees, said this about the SloV'aks and Czechs and their respective languages: "The two peoples were originally so closely related as to be indistiruguishlalble, but geo,g,rap'lry and distance could easily have induced a separate political existence. The Magyar conquest made any such natural development illl!possible"(i33). ''The Slovaks therefore had no opporfonity to develop their own culture, written language, political institutions or social concepts in any independent way. Their relationship with the Ozechs, their brothers to the west, had, for all practical purposes, ceased to be a reality for them. This situation lasted nine centuries" (34). ''The great similarity of the vernacular lan.guages furnished an additional bond between the peoples of Bohemia and Slovakia" (35). "Political and military prestige combined with purely linguistic flexibility to make Czech rather than Slovak the lingua franca of a considera1b le region outside Bohemia. Written, Czec·h ,b ecame the language of the educated Slovaks, particularly if they had studied at Prague, and .remained such until the end of the 18th century(36). "It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this wide acceptance of Czech as the written langua-ge of the Slovaks during a period when Bohemia was free and Slovakia was ruled by Mag,y,ars. Tihe dialectical peculiarities that appear here and ther-e in Slovak document's did not alter the fundamental fact that Czech was accepted as the basic tongue of the tw;,. peoples(37). "The end result of the sojourn of the Hussite armies was not very considerable. In the first place their stay in Slovakia was relatively short, and in the second place we have incontrovertible evidence that the organization and powe1' of the Catholic Church in Slovakia was not noticeably disturbed at any time in the fifteenth century" (138). In his foreword, Professor Thomson warns the reader that the term "Czechoslovakia" has no political significance in his book; "it is used generally to designate the geographical entity lately known by that name." The professor may be coy and naive, but he is no fool. He knew what he was doing. Whether he likes it or not, the fact is that term, with or without the hyphen, is the name of a political entity. He warns the reader further that the 46 SLOVAKIA term "Bohemia" is also geographical "and in no wise an ethnic term." Nevertheless throughout his book he generally substitutes the term "CZECH kingdom"! What justification can there be for denying, ignoring, suppressing, or falsifying established historical facts? By the way, Thomson's "Czechoslovakia in European History" was awarded the "Czechoslovak State Prize" in December 1944, at a time when that state did not factually exist, the provisional (illegal) government of Dr. Edward Benes thus showing its appreciation to the professor. Indeed, the same professor who said in another "historical gem" edited by R. J. Kerner of the University of California: "But to Premysl Otokar I (]19741230) must be assigned the responsibility for inviting the Gerlll!an immigration. En,couraged by the court, many Czech nobles had married German women ; some of the best positionis of the Church in Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by German clerics; German minnesingers were in high favor t-0 the royal court and at the courts of the richer nobles"(39). Gerald Druce, "authority on Czech science," belongs in Thomson's category. In Kerner's "Czechoslovakia" he had this to say in regard to the matter at hand: "The University of Prague, the oldest in Central Europe, had been founded in 1348 by Charles IV and had been placed upon a secure footing by his successor, Vaclav IV, by the Kutna Hora decrees in 1409. During the Middle Ages the study of the natural sciences flourished in Bo'hemia, as is shown by the number of herbals and contemporary mineralogical and alchemical wol'ks in the Czech langua•ge. Indeed, toward the close of the sixteenth centry Prague was recogn,ized as an important center of learning"(40). The tendency is quite obvious. Significant it is, too, that Druce, like all other pro-Czech propagandists, finds it very convenient to offer no proof for his "historical" statements. Professor Joseph R. Roucek, being a Czech, could allow himself a bit more rope by raising the Czech banner "Pravda vitezi." Writing about the Slovaks and Czechs and their languages, he adds to the confusion ( emphasis here as elsewhere being mine. - P.A.H): "CZECH refers to the principal people or language found in Bohemia and Moravia. SL-OVAK is the name given to the eas• ternmost division of the Czech-speaking people. Protestant leaders and philologists have claimed that Slovak is merely Old SLOVAKIA 47 Czech and have urged the use of Czech as the sole written Ian• guage"{ 41 ). "The difficulty of intercourse with the Czechs has produced a divergence in what was originally a common language. The Slovak and Czech :forms of the language dilffer in certain minor points to the present day, like two dialects of the same tongue spoken locally"(412). 'IH is eertain, at any rate, that toward the end of the Premyslid era (1'305) the Czech language was already being adQ1Pted by scholars, that it moved from the villages, towns, and castles into books, and that it even began to replace both Latin and German"(43) "The German language (in the time of Hus - the latter part of the 14th century and first quarter of lsth) was predominant both in pwblic offices and in the churches and schools throughout the country"(44). But - as a result oif the Hussrte movement - "the Czech language and literature began to predominate"(45). Nevertheless "The Slovaks remained a separate and distinct people, even though cut off from intercourse with other Slav peoples. They remained mainly Catholic and developed their language as a dialect of the Czech language"(46). Joseph Lettrich, author of a "History of Modern Slovakia," belongs in a category by himself. As a Slovak he is opposed to Slovak freedom and independence. The Slovaks, according to Lettrich, could not exist without the Czechs. Having collaborated with Benes and the Communists, Lettrich is now on vacation from politics in the United States, still serving the interests of the Czechs as a prominent member of the so-called "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" - the organization of former members of the Communistdominated National Front Government of Czecho-Slovakia (1945-1948). Blinded by his prejudices and ignorant of history, Lettrich had this to say about his own people and their language "When a university was founded in Pra•g ue by King Charle,s N in 11314!8, numerous Slovaks werut to study there, and several became prdfessors at that un,iversity. In this manner the cultural relations between Slovak'S and Czechs, which had been forcibly interrupted, were re-established. They were to play a vital role in the spiritual development of the tJwo peoples. The most powerful influence that united them was the written Czechoslovak language which continued to be common to both. In, the first half of the fi,fteenth century the armies o'f the Czech Hussite warriors penetrated into Slovakia .... The Hussite forces ... introduced a new spirit of independence from Rome. Above all, they once again strengthened the ties of a common language and culture between Czechs and Slovaks"(47). 48 SLOVAKIA Lettrich, like other Slovak renegades and pro-Czech scribes, tried to remake history in the image of "Masaryk's interpretation" of Czech history. The ancient Czechs had the motto: "The truth of God prevails" (pravda Bozi vitezi). Masaryk, following the example of the radical Hussites, threw out God and made the motto read "Truth prevai'ls." Waving Masaryk's banner high, his followers continue in his "interpretation" of the national spirit and the history of the Czechs, misrepresenting and distorting historical facts. Having abandoned Divinely imposed mandates of the moral law, they now seek refuge and justification in the counterfeit doctrine of unbridled liberalism. Whatever might be said to the contrary, the truth is that "Such phrases as 'Czechoslovak language' might be used for the benefit of the outside world and in constitutional and other state documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples (Czechs and Slovaks), the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one" (4'8). REFERENCES 1. Jaroslav Vlcek: DEJmY SLOVElNISKJEJ LITElRATURY, 192'3, 1pp. 5,6. 2. Vlcek - p. 2. 3. Vlcek - p. 6. 4. Vlcek - p. 25. 5. SLOVENSKY DENNiK, 1922, No. 17. 6. Vlcek - pp. 4-5 7. Jozef Skultety: O &LOV AKOOH, p. 59. 8. !Kulhanek: KRONIKA CESKOSILOVElNSiKA, pp. 001~62. 9. M. Misik: HUSITI NA SLOVL0NS~U, p. 37. 10. Vlcek - p . 8. t:111. Vlcek - p. 8. 1'2. V. Flajsha11s: NAS JAZYK MA'DERSKY, p. 283. '113. Vlcek - p. 1.2. 14. Vlcek - p,24 . .115. Vlcek - p. 23. 1'6. Jozef Skultety: NElHAN'DE L'UD MOJ! p. 82. 17. Henry Ma1.1czali: MAGYAIROR!SZAG TORTENIETE, Vol. l, p. 367. 18. Vlcek - pp. 5-6. 19. Skultety: 0 SLOVAKO OH, p. '170. 20. Karol Tri\.ovski: K RECOVIEJ OTAZKE SLOVArfroV, ;1.937, p. 23. 21. Flajshans, - i;>. ·1163. 22. IFlajshans - PJl,69. 23. IFlajshans - p. 170. '24. IFla,jshans - p. 209. '25. Flajshans - p. 220. '26. S. Harrison Thomson: CZEOHOSL0 VAKIA IN EUIRO!PEIA!N HliSTORY, 1M4; p. 116. 1 SLOVAKIA 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 4Jl. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. iFlajshans - p. 259. ,F la,j shans - p. 260. [Flajshans - p. 217. Flajshans - p. 265. Flajshans - p. 259. Tri\.ovski - p. 47. Thomson p. 199. Thomson - p. 200. Thomson - p. 206. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 207. Thomson - p. 208. CZEJOHOSLOV.Ax;1iA, edited by Robert J. Kerner, 1'949; 02lEJOHOSLOVAK1iA, Kerner - p. 316. Joseph R. Roucek: CEJN'l1RAlrEAlSTEJRN EUROIPE, 1946; Roucek - p. 63. IRoucek - p. 64. IRoucek - p. 66. iRoucek - p. 69. Roucek - p. 81. Jozef Lettrich: HISTORY OF MOIDERN SLOVA!KIA, pp. 21,22. C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY ANiD HIE)R SUOOESSORS, 49 p . 13. p. 61. 11955; 11937 ; p. 1·26. • • • WHO SAID IT? ''However close the original bonds between the Slovaks and the Czechs) imay have been, the ten, centuries dw:ing which the Slovaks formed a part of the kingdom of Hun:gary, w:hile the Czechs were subjected to German and Austrian influences, naturally brought about a marked dififerentation between the two peoples. Even the physical stocks cannot be so closely related today as they were a thousand years ago, for the Czeohs aTe todlay inextricalbly mingled with German elements, while the Slovak mountaineers have retained their racial purity to a larger degree .... There is, h01Wever, a noti.t:ealb le doifference both in physical appearance and in character between, the dour, efificient, but somewhiat ungainly Czech, and the airy, talkative, hwppy-go-lucky Slovak." - C. A. Macartney: HUNGAIRY AND HER SUOCEJSSORIS, London, L937) . • • • ' Iif a single dynasty had united both peoples ~Czechs and Slovaks) in a permanent, or at least an enduring union, a Czechoslovak nationality would assuredly have been formed and with a Czecho•slovak language - any minor dialectal diff.erences which existed would have been smoothed out. This did not happen; and while the Slavs of Bohemia developed the ,Czech nationality and language, to which the intermed,i ate dialects of Moravila gravitated, the Slovaks under Hungarian rule, not only developed along different lines from the Czechs, but were not even able to form a single literary language with them." - CC. A. Macartney: HUNGA!RY ANlD HiElR SUCOESSORS, London, 1937).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Was Czech the Vehicle of Slovak Literature? Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 10, No. 6 (31), March-June 1960 pp. 36-49 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-June 1960 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/29df0575d66e8d9f4062768833e5c57d.pdf 81d244299cc14ebf8304bb9bf66fadb6 PDF Text Text 102 SLOVAKIA , ..., VLADIMIR MECIAR AND THE POLITICS OF PRIVATIZATION IN SLOVAKIA, 1992-1998 1 John A. Gould "A just privatization does not exist; we all know that the only criterion was loyalty. " - Vit'azoslav Morie, SNS honorary chair2 Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution put former Communist Party bureaucrats and industrial managers on the defensive. Associated with the communist past, many top managers were removed from their jobs while the middle managers that replaced them carried little political clout in broader debates over the design of economic reforms like privatization. As a result, Czechoslovak privatization architects had the freedom to offer average citizens a potential stake in state-owned companies. In return for a small administrative fee, citizens received coupons that would allow them to bid on company shares . Most participating citizens, however, chose to invest through new financial intermediaries, called investment privatization funds, which would concentrate citizens' small shares into larger stakes in privatized companies. By 1993, these intermediaries began to rival remaining communist-era managers for control of Czech and Slovak firms .3 1 This paper is adopted from John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization: Wealth and Power in Postcommunist Europe (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011), 103-32. A full list of acknowledgments can be found on pp. vii-viii of that work, but the author would like to thank the following for their comments, assistance and support: Hilary Appel, Kevin Deegan-Krause, Sharon Fisher, Zsolt Gal, Simona Gould, Timothy Haughton, Cubomira Hromkova, Darina Malova, Mikael Olsson, Marek Ryhal', Sona Szomolanyi, James Thompson and Milada Anna Vachudova. The author is responsible for any errors in logic or fact. 2 Abigail Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 200 I), 263. 3 Ed Clark and Anna Soulsby,"The Re-formation of the Managerial Elite in the Czech Republic," Europe-Asia Studies 48 :2 (1996), 285-303; Mitchell Orenstein, Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Hilary Appel, A New Capitalist Order: �SLOVAKIA 103 While the mass privatization program continued in the Czech Republic through 1995, Slovakia's industrial managers were able to derail it after independence on January 1, 1993 . They had initially suffered from the same liabilities as their Czech counterparts. 4 Yet, as debate over the sovereign status of Slovakia developed in 199192, Slovak managers found a resource in identity politics that their Czech counterparts largely lacked. 5 By fusing their interests to rising popular-nationalism, a select group gained influence with a number of Slovakia's nascent political parties, and most notably, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). The following paper examines the politics of privatization in Slovakia after independence. Slovakia's battle over privatization and its aftermath was a nasty, occasionally dangerous affair with very high stakes. At the center of this battle, initially, were the efforts of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and various industrialists to stop the highly popular citizens' "voucher" privatization program that Slovakia had inherited from the federal republic. This had little to do with the voucher program 's evident flaws . Rather, Meciar's policies sought to reorient privatization away from the new financial intermediaries which largely supported his opponents. In its place, his government operated a direct sales program that would benefit those who would support him. Yet, by attempting to replace a program that rewarded a majority of Slovak citizens with a program that only rewarded a narrow group of industrial managers and political allies, Meciar embarked on a democratically difficult project. His early efforts to gain close personal control over the privatization process contributed to the alienation of many of the key players in the HZDS, including President of Slovakia Michal Kovac. The president briefly orchestrated Meciar's Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Central Europe (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004); Peter Rutland, "Thatcherism, Czech-Style: Transition to Capitalism in the Czech Republic," Telos 94 ( I 992), I 03-130; Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 56-68. 4 Interview wi th Jozef Uhrik, Commercial Director, Volkswagen Slovakia, Devinska Nova Yes, Slovakia, January 14, 1997 ; Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povai.ske strojarne, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, Slovakia, July, 22 I 998 . 5 Hilary Appel and John Gould, " Identi ty Politics and Economic Reform: Examining Industry-State Relations in the Czech and Slovak Republics," Europe-A sia Studies 52: I (2000), 111-31. �104 SLOVAKIA removal from power in March of 1994 after he made a speech criticizing a series of legally questionable privatization decisions. When Meciar regained power in November, he acted on the knowledge that his political and economic ambitions were incompatible with the democratic institutions he had inherited. The ensuing assault on democratic norms, rules and procedures, while not entirely directed at privatization, nevertheless gave his ruling coalition the freedom to privatize as it pleased. However, by the end of Meciar' s third term, Slovakia could no longer demonstrate its democratic credentials to the European Union or NATO . Both threatened to exclude Slovakia from their next rounds of expansion. Privileged access to government was not simply important to acquiring property. Under Meciar it also became increasingly useful for securing favorable economic policies such as the allocation of credit, the regulation of capital markets, government procurement, and taxation policies. Between 1996 and 1998, such largess undermined Slovakia' s economic recovery and threw the country into an economic crisis. By 1998, both Slovakia's long term economic recovery and its European future were in danger. Slovak voters responded with an 84.4 percent electoral turnout that left the ruling coalition no choice but to accept the vote and surrender power. Privatization should produce independent economic actors who seek a profit rather than a government handout. Yet, as the Slovak experience under Meciar reminds us, privatization is first and foremost a means of acquiring wealth and power. Where easy profits can easily be had through political connections, creating private property does not necessarily go hand in hand with market democracy. For privatization to be most effective, societies must first be willing and able to police the intersection of state policy and economic activity. Voucher Privatization in Slovakia, 1992-1993. Privatization in Czechoslovakia was designed at the federal level, but it was largely carried out by the Czech and Slovak republiclevel governments. In Slovakia privatization began under the government of Prime Minister Jan Carnogursky (Christiaq Democratic Movement-KDH) and his 30 year-old neo-liberal Minister of Privatiza- �SLOVAKIA 105 tion,6 Ivan Miklos. While there was room for administrative innovation to account for local differences, in practice, Miklos administered the voucher program in an almost identical fashion to his Czech counterparts. This was no small accomplishment. Following the collapse of support for Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's first government in the spring 1991 , the new ruling coalition was deeply divided over privatization. The Carnogursky government included Jan Holcfk, and Jozef Belzak as Ministers of Industry and Economy, respectively. While both men favored a transition towards markets, both had industrial ties and favored a strong sectoral industrial policy in which firms would be restructured before privatization. In addition to Carnogursky 's ministers, industry had a strong friend in KDH member Viliam Oberhauser, a founding member of what Miklos claimed was industry's nomenklatura-controlled peak organization, the Federation of Employers Unions and Associations (AZZZ). 7 Oberhauser was a key member of the nationalist wing of the KDH and had helped author a "gradualist" economic reform scenario, challenging the market-oriented federal economic reforms that had been in place since January of 1991. 8 This created difficulties for Miklos. In the final years of the 1980s, Miklos had studied market economics at the Austrian school of Friedrich Hayek. At the time of the Revolution, he had been an economics student and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics in Bratislava. Deputy Prime Minister Jozef Kucerak brought him into the government in 1990. 9 After, the launch of strong market-oriented 6 There were three privatization ministries- one in each republic, and one at the federal level to deal with federal state property. Their formal name at the republic level was the Ministry for the Administration and Privatization of National Assets. For an explanation see, Petr Husak, Budovani kapitalismu v Cechach: Rozhovory s Tomasem Jeikem (Prague: Volvox Globatour, 1997), 111 ; John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 61. 7 lvan Miklos "Economic Transition and the Emergence of Clientalist Structures in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (Bratislava: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung/Slovak Political Science Association, 1997), 65. 8 Jvan Miklos recalls that the Ministries of Forest and Water, Agriculture and even the Environment - all run by KDH appointees - had strong gradualist leanings. Interview with Ivan Miklos, Consultant, M.E.S.A. I 0, Bratislava, April 2, 1997. 9 Miklos's first post was as Deputy Prime Minister, Jozef Kucerak's advisor, and Director of the Government's Section for Economic and Social Policy. Interview �106 SLOVAKIA reforms in January of 1991, however, Slovakia ' s economy suffered disproportionately more than the Czech Republic ' s economy. 10 Economic liberals like Kucerak increasingly became the target of colleagues seeking to distance themselves publicly from the growing pain of economic transformation. Market reforms would be managed better, they argued, if Slovak politicians were to have greater control over their own economic and political affairs where they could use state controls to moderate the pace of transition. 11 As the lead proponent of a federally brokered, rapid transformation towards a market economy, Kucerak was forced to step down after a vote of no-confidence in the spring of 1991 . Miklos was elevated to Minister of Privatization soon after and quickly replaced Kucerak as the most outspoken market liberal in the government and the strongest public supporter of federal reforms. He faced the brunt of attacks from both the opposition and the national wing of the ruling KDH. This included surviving several parliamentary votes of no-confidence. By the winter of 1991-92, it was increasingly clear that the KDH-led coalition would fare poorly in the upcoming June elections. Miklos feared that the next government would most likely slow privatization and delay the creation of private owners. He therefore sought to start the voucher program as quickly as possible- to create a fait accompli of new owners with a stake in continuing the rapid property transformation program. Miklos was responsible for convincing state-owned firms to put up shares for the voucher privatization program in Slovakia. He recalled that the threat of dismissal helped him to encourage most managers to include significant voucher components in their base privatization plans, but the pressure was bitterly resented. 12 Miklos with Ivan Miklos, Bratislava, October 1, 1996; Interview with Jozef Kucenik, Bratislava, January 13, 1997. 10 Slovakia was particularly handicapped by its reliance on heavy defense industries, among other things. See Gould, Politics of Privatization. 11 For details see Gould, Politics of Privatization , 73-79 . 12 In about sixty cases, managers called for direct sales exclusively to themselves. Assuming that the managers had failed to meet their obligations under the privatization act to make important data available to competitors, Miklos reopened the proposed submission process for an additional two months and pushed the firms to provide the necessary data to allow competitors to propose rival privatization plans for each firm, Miklos interview, October I, 1996; Ivan Miklos, "Corruption Risks in the Privatization Process: A Study of Privatization Developments in the Slovak Re- �SLOVAKIA 107 further alienated industrial elites by converting what they hoped would be a program of cheap, direct sales of enterprise shares to incumbent managers, into a transparent, competitive program in which price was the leading criterion. Prior to the June elections, the ministry sold shares in 189 firms for prices approximating and often exceeding their book value. 13 It would be another six years before the state would do as well financially in its direct sales of public property. Meanwhile, the first wave of voucher privatization began in October of 1991 with the registration of 2.59 million Slovak citizens, almost two-thirds of the adult population, through the federal Ministry of Finance. As in the Czech Republic, 14 registration for the program in Slovakia initially lagged until financial intermediaries (also referred to as investment privatization companies) began to offer a ten-fold or greater return on the voucher holder's initial registration fee within a year. Seventy-two percent of Slovak citizen-participants subsequently invested their voucher coupons with investment privatization funds in the first wave of privatization. Bidding on firms began in May of 1992 and closed in December. Shares were finally distributed to new owners in April of 1993 .15 Despite the efforts of industrial elites, the federal voucher privatization program had succeeded in providing the investment privatization funds stakes of up to forty percent in privatized firms. 16 Another wave of voucher privatization could allow fund owners to consolidate ownership of Slovakia's industrial assets. Over the next two years industrial managers, therefore, worked diligently through AZZZ to ensure a second wave of voucher privatization would not take place. 17 public," Bratislava, Klub Windsor, I 995; Interview with I.'.udovit Cemak, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 2, I 997. 13 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997; Mikael Olsson, Ownership, Reform and Corporate Governance: The Slovak Privatization Process in 1990-1996 (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University, 1999), 119. 14 For details, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, Chapter 5. 15 For more on the technical details of voucher privatization, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 63-8. 16 0Jsson, Ownership, Reform, 115-6, 219. 17 AZZZ (Federation of Employers Unions and Associations), "5. vyrocie AZZZ SR, 1991-1996," Spravodaj AZZZ Extra. Bratislava, March, 1996; Rudolf Lachovic, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie a kolektivneho investovania," Global Brokers, Bratislava, I 997, manuscript. �108 SLOVAKIA Meciar's Second Government, 1992-1994. Meciar's HZDS dominated the June 1992 elections. With the tacit support of the Slovak National Party (SNS), he became Slovak Prime Minister for the second time. In July negotiations with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, Meciar failed in his bid to form a weak confederation with the Czech Republic. Unable to reconcile Meciar's concept of a weak confederation with Klaus' concept of a strong federation, the two agreed to replace the federal state with two sovereign, independent republics. After parliamentary approval in both republican assemblies, the countries split peacefully on January 1, 1993. 18 As in the Czech Republic, voucher privatization in Slovakia became one of the more popular aspects of the federal reform program. 19 This may help to explain why the Meciar government, elected in June of 1992, completed the first wave as its predecessor had planned. Nevertheless, Meciar's Minister of Privatization, I:ubomir Dolgos, promised a shakeup in the next round. One of the new govemment' s first decisions was to indefinitely postpone the demand that firms submit second round privatization plans to the Ministry of Privatization. This necessitated at least a delay in the second round of voucher privatization. In September of 1992, the government program declaration and an associated Ministry of Privatization document spelled out a new privatization philosophy based on a more gradual state-guided economic transformation. Rather than emphasize the rapid creation of new owners, the state would now single out "strategic fields" where it would intervene to protect the national interest through the state restructuring of enterprises before, or in place of, privatization. Industrial ministries would design and coordinate restructuring plans with the assistance of the state-controlled financial sector. 18 Eric Stein, Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Innes, Czechoslo vakia. 19 Miklo~ interview, April 2, 1997; Dusan Triska recalled being surprised at the strong support for the voucher scheme in Slovakia. Dusan Triska, "Privatization: Czechoslovakia" Eastern European Economics 26 (Fall, 1991 ); DusanTl'iska, "Political , Organizational, and Legislative Aspects of Mass Privatization-Czechoslovakia," in Marko Simonetti and Andreja Bohm, eds., Privatization in Central & Eastern Europe, 1991 . (Ljubljana: Central and Eastern European Privatization Network, 1991 ). Oldfich Dedek, The Break-up of Czechoslovakia (Aldershoot: Ave bury 1996), 201 . �SLOVAKIA 109 This concept also favored direct sales to incumbent managers over voucher privatization. Price was no longer the dominant criterion in evaluating bids on the company shares that were to sold. First installments were lowered from thirty percent of the price to ten to fifteen percent, and payment could be extended over fifteen years. Another round of voucher privatization would take place, but would only be used as a residual method.20 Similarly, the threat that a manager would be dismissed diminished under the new government. Miklos asserted that Meciar and his Minister of Economy, I:udovit Cernak, reappointed many of the communist-era managers that had been pushed out by Carnogursky's government. 21 Many of these had been forced out for having collaborated with the communist secret service before the Revolution-in a process called "lustration."22 Cemak himself related that Meciar frequently paid little attention to his appointees' lustration certificates in . personne l dec1s1ons. . . 23 h1s Little privatization occurred under Dolgos in the first six months of 1993. Rather, Meciar focused his energies on consolidating control over his cabinet- pushing out co-HZDS founder Milan Kiiazko (who was a marginal threat to Meciar for party control) and Minister of Economy, Cemak. As a Kiiazko protege, Dolgos soon found himself in constant conflict with Meciar-most notably over whether vouchers should have any role in the second round when it started. Meciar felt they should not, while Dolgos asserted that he sought to put aside about a third of corporate shares for voucher privatization. 20 Dolgos stressed that any efforts to set voucher privatization timelines or the volume of assets to be voucher privatized in advance, "would ... fail to serve a purpose." Dolgos's reformulated concept even "warned" industrial managers that if their second wave base privatization plans relied too heavily on the voucher method, they would be "subjected to particularly critical and thorough evaluation." There would also be a critical "assessment of the risks derived from concentration of ownership through privatization investment funds ." Instead, Dolgos emphasized "combined methods" in which management buyouts would play an "exceedingly important role." Ministry of Administration and Privatization, SR. , "Concept of the Continuing Process of Privatization in the Slovak Republic. " Ministry of Administration and Privatization of National Property of the Slovak Republic, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1992; Interview with Cubomir Dolgos, Faculty of Management, Economics University, Bratislava, March 20, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 119-20. 21 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997. 22 Marsina interview, July, 22 1998; Uhrik interview, January 14, 1997. 2 3<'.:emak interview, April 2, 1997. �110 SLOVAKIA On June 12, 1993, Dolgos lost an HZDS-engineered vote of no confidence and stepped down.24 The departures of independent personalities like Cernak, Kiiazko and Dolgos left Meciar in more solid control over the HZDS and the government, but it also made his parliamentary majority vulnerable to future defections. Nevertheless, Meciar stepped up his efforts to replace his former colleagues with his personal loyalists-particularly in the Ministry of Privatization and the Fund for National Property (FNM). 25 At that time, the privatization ministry coordinated the privatization decision-making process while the FNM was a fully state-owned joint stock company charged with distributing shares to their new private owners. FNM appointees also represented the state's interests as a shareholder at general assemblies of corporate shareholders. In 100% state-owned companies, the FNM was on paper, at least, in complete control of the firm. Control over the FNM would give the Prime Minister control over most unprivatized and many partially privatized firms. Attempts to gain direct governmental control over the privatezation ministry and the FNM brought Meciar into sharp conflict with President Michael Kovac, another co-founder of the HZDS .26 To replace Dolgos at the privatization ministry, Meciar chose a close associate, Ivan Lexa. Having backed Meciar in the dismissal of Kiiazko, Kovac now balked. Citing Lexa's inexperience and potential conflicts of interest with his father (a communist-era central planning agency bureaucrat, recently-turned entrepreneur), the president refused to approve the appointment. Meciar responded by giving Lexa the post of State Secretary of the Ministry of Privatization (the highest ministerial position not requiring presidential approval) and assumed the responsibilities of Minister himself. One of Lexa's first privatization decisions as State Secretary in July of 1992 was to ap24 Dolgos interview, March 20, 1997; Cemak interview, April 2, 1997. Kevin Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 25 . 26 Slovakia 's President was constitutionally weak, making the need for a strong party system to check the Prime Minister's power all the more necessary. Executive power flowed from the Parliament, with limited presidential powers to check it. Kovac could and did veto legislation and appointees, but Parliament could override this with a simple majority. Later, when Parliament deadlocked over a new presidential candidate, presidenti al powers - including the power of a presidential amnesty transferred to the Prime Minister. 25 �SLOVAKIA 111 prove his father ' s participation in the privatization of Povazske mlyny a cestoviname, a.s., with a personal stake estimated at up to 1 billion Sk (then about US $30 million).27 While Meciar consolidated power over Slovakia' s privatization and property control mechanisms, financial intermediaries whose funds had done so well in the first round of privatization began to assert some clout in shareholder meetings. Enterprise managers had also established a few funds. 28 Slovakia' s largest company, Vychodoslovenske zeleziame, a.s (Eastern Slovak Steelworks- VSZ) had established Cassiovia Invest, which had the marketing clout to acquire more than ten percent of the vouchers. But most funds- and hence a large portion of corporate power- were in the hands of enterprise outsiders, a fact that was increasingly resented by the incumbent industrial managers.29 In the first wave of privatization, the funds had amassed a forty percent stake in privatized firms and from the perspective of incumbent managers, carried unwelcome clout. Battles soon emerged over which would be dominant in determining the overall strategy of the company, the shareholder-dominated Supervisory Boards or the management-controlled Boards of Directors.30 Meciar' s allies came to feel that the most influential funds were, as subsequent Fund for National Property President Stefan Gavomik put it, "owned by the opposition."31While not technically true, by the end of the year, industrial managers and fund-appointed board members began to run into sharp conflict over the day-to-day management and long-term strategy of "privatized" companies. Hoping to avoid a further erosion of corporate insider influence, AZZZ halted a 27 Anton Marcincin, Daniela Zemanovifova, and Lubos Vagac, "Privatization Methods and Development of Slovakia," Bratislava, Center for Economic Development, 1996, 17. 28 Another fi fty percent was spread across a wide range of funds and individual shareholders, leaving the FNM , with its residual 37.6 percent, effectively in charge. Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 223 . 29 AZZZ, "S.Vyrocie AZZZ SR, 199 1- 1996"; Miklos, "Corruption Risks," 64; Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 279, 283. 30 Slovak and Czech companies had a dual board structure consisting of a supervisory board that gave general strategic direction to the company and managerial oversight, and a management board- largely consisting of top corporate mana~ers- that oversaw the day-to-day operations of the firm. 1 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 11 8. �112 SLOVAKIA second round of voucher privatization. Meciar obligingly pushed back the start date for the next round of voucher privatization. In the fall of 1993, Meciar complimented his firm grasp of the Ministry of Privatization by putting personal loyalists on the board of the National Property Fund. Between December of 1993 and March of 1994, his indirect control over state shares of major firms allowed him to replace enterprise board members and managers of twentyone Slovak companies which, allegedly, failed to show sufficient loyalty to the HZDS. Meciar claimed that he was simply replacing opposition-linked managers from the VPN-KDH era with more independent managers . Indeed, he accused parliamentary opposition leaders "straight into the eye, in front of everyone, that each one of them is linked with one of the twenty-one major Slovak corporations in which we intervened. And this is the problem." 32 Meciar was possibly correct in his assessment. While in power, KDH ministers appointed people to the boards of leading Slovak state firms and other opposition leaders clearly had close industrial connections. However, it was unclear whether they were now being removed because they were acting as KDH clients or due to their reluctance to serve HZDS interests. Indeed, the KDH-era manager of the large oil refinery, Slovnaft, was allegedly replaced after he refused Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky's demands that he subcontract services to HZDS-linked firms. 33 By the winter of 1994, Meciar' s increasingly personal consoledation of party and governmental power had alienated many of his own party members. By February of 1994, a last remaining block of HZDS deputies, led by HZDS co-founder Jozef Moravcik, appeared ready to follow other former HZDS members and allies into opposition. The threat of losing power may have led to a subsequent wave of direct sales. Starting with the "midnight privatizations" of February 1, 2004, Lexa sold forty-four companies with a book value of $96 million for a final sale price of just $22 million. The decisions were notable for their lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, and advantageous terms to the purchasers-many of whom had close ties to leading government officials. Thirteen were subsequently annulled 32 Specifically, Meciar was accusing Vojtech Sugar, Jan Carnogursky, Cudovit Cernak and Peter Wiess. "Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," T ASR-Slovakia (February 6, 1994). 33 Confidential interview, Slovnaft insider, Bratislava, February, 1997. �SLOVAKIA 113 by the successor government for contravening the Large Scale Privatization Act of February 1991 , but virtually all of the privatizations were suspect. The beneficiaries included a range of politically connected individuals-from the wife of the leader of the Slovak National Party (SNS) to Meciar's own Minister of Finance, Julius T6th.34 A March 11 , 1994 report of a commission investigating the privatizations triggered the departure of the dissident-HZDS faction led by Jozef Moravcik and a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the government. In his speech before parliament, HZDS co-founder and Slovak President Michael Kovac openly accused Meciar of a lack of transparency and clientalism in the privatization process, among oth. 35 er th mgs. Meciar's and Lexa's hurried attempts to reorient Slovakia's privatization framework to favor political and economic insiders had run afoul of the opposition's effective use of liberal democratic institutions and norms. When next he gained power, Meciar' s new parliamentary majority would attack these opposition resources directly. VSZ and the Slovak Way of Privatization. One of Meciar's last acts in the1992-1994 government helps illustrate both the zero-sum nature of privatization, as well as its growing politicization. In December of 1993, the state exercised its shareholder rights to remove President Zoltan Berghauer and other top managers from the executive management of the state-owned firm VSZ, Slovakia's largest commercial entity. Berghauer had cofounded the AZZZ and was the lead author of an industry antireform petition in early 1991. 36 Meciar claimed that the top management change was a technocratic decision-made through consulta- 34 Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 121. Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 25. 36 In February of 1991 , only a month after the start of market reforms, the Slovak and Czech industrial federations delivered a joint petition to the Federal Assembly demanding "help in solving the difficult economic and financial situation of industrial companies ... [resulting from] the ill-considered restrictive fiscal , credit and monetary policy of the Federal Government. " Reforms, the industrialists continued, threatened, "the collapse of the entire national economy" and a "declining living standard for all citizens of the state." Zoltan Bergauer et al. , "Petice svaz u pnlmyslu CR a SR Federilnimu shromizdeni CSFR," Hospodafske noviny, February 29, 1991 , p. 3. 35 �114 SLOVAKIA tions with high-ranking bank and industrial managers.37 Yet he did not hide the fact that the change was to reduce the "unwarranted influence" of "opposition parties" in Slovakia's largest enterprise. 38 Berghauer and other purged VSZ managers protested the move, citing a history of political manipulation and threats by the HZDS towards VSZ management. The source of the claim directly attacked Meciar's Minister of Finance, JuliusToth. Toth had been VSZ's Vice President of Finance until he had resigned to join Meciar's government. According to Berghauer, Toth allegedly become enraged when Berghauer and VSZ's management refused to accept an HZDS member on the VSZ Board of Directors. Toth allegedly responded by demanding that the two top VSZ officials resign due to their political support for the KDH and other political opponents of the HZDS. 39 Toth later asserted that the Berghauer team had been stripping assets from the company. Through control of both the VSZ and collaboration with an independent trading company, they allegedly could siphon cash from the VSZ to the trade company by overcharging for supplies and underpaying for products.40 Perhaps to cut these alleged sales out of the revenue loop, or maybe to cut his allies in, Toth's new management team set up a new VSZ-owned sales company to oversee sales responsible for eighty percent of VSZ revenues. 4 1 As Minister of Finance, Toth and Lexa orchestrated the purchase of a 9.52 percent share of VSZ stock through a new private company, Manager a.s., established by five VSZ board members, including prominent HZDS member Alexander Rezes. The purchase was ques37 "Strong in the Saddle," T ASR-Slovakia, February 11, 1994. "Meciar Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," TASRSlovakia, February 6, 1994. 39 "Former Members of VSZ Board Lodge Complaint," CTK Business News, March 21 , 1994. 40 Despite Toth's allegations against Berghauer, no charges were ever filed . 41 Anthony Robinson, "Survey of Slovakia," The Financial Times, December 16, 1994, p. iv. It is unlikely that Toth was genuinely outraged at the allegations of corruption at VSZ. In 1993 he had allegedly used his influence as Minister of Finance to give a trading company, VSZ Selecta, a state contract to sell sugar that the Indian government provided to the Slovak government in place of its cash debt. VSZ Selecta won the contract without the required tender and then sold the sugar on the world market in violation of its contract. Toth was a member of the company's board. "Report on "Sugar Affair" to be out in January," CTK News, December 5, 1993. 38 �SLOVAKIA 115 tionable for its unsightly conflicts of interest, advantageous terms and most of all, its timing. Again, in accordance with the government program, the shares were sold to domestic entrepreneurs at a substantial discount with a generous payment schedule. The discount on the current share value of the package was $36 million.42 After a ten percent down payment, Manager would pay the rest in yearly installments over five years. Manager's members each made their down payment with an interest-free $62,000 loan from the Kosice-based Priemyselna banka (Industrial Bank) whose controlling shareholder was, in turn, the VSZ-controlled fund, Cassiovia Invest. 43 Priemyselna banka, moreover, received these funds from Banka Slovakia (Bank Slovakia), which then served as the repository and investment arm of the FNM. In short, Manager borrowed FNM funds to buy shares from the FNM that in tum benefited close associates of its directors and the man responsible for their appointment, Vladimir Meciar.44 The timing was also controversial. The Meciar government received the proposal to privatize the VSZ shares to Manager on March 7 and the government approved the request on March 11- the day on which parliament finally passed a vote no-confidence in the Meciar cabinet. The FNM and Manager signed the agreement on March 14, the day the government fell. On March 17, VSZ held a general assembly at which the now former Minister of Finance and FNM Board member, JuliusT6th, was elected Chair of VSZ's Board of Directors. Rezes would become Minister of Transportation in 42 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 22 . 0lsson, Ownership, Reform , 223 , note 39. 44 "Approach to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Meciar attempted to establish Banka Slovakia as early as 1993 in his home region of Banska Bystrica as part of his effort to develop a regional banking center. The goal was to use the bank to recycle FNM funds and provide cheap credit for small to medium sized enterprises. After the VSZ deal, however, the opposition charged that it would be used as a means of providing the politically connected with cheap capital to make down payments for privatization deals. In April of 1994, the next government suspended the bank's license to operate. With Meciar's re-election in the fall, the government pushed the National Bank of Slovakia to grant the license. But, after building a costly and elaborate headquarters in Banska Bystrica and suffering from notoriously poor lending practices, the bank had significant difficulties with capitalization. The NBS finally approved a license to begin operating on June I, 1996, but the bank- like most Slovak banks-quickly developed a problem with non-performing loans. 43 �116 SLOVAKIA Meciar's next cabinet. Supporting the vote were VSZ's investment privatization fund, Cassiovia Invest and VUE Invest, the investment company of Vseobecna uverova banka (General Credit Bank-VUB) and Slovakia's largest state owned bank. Ironically, oversight responsibility for VUB had, until four days earlier, lain primarily with T6th's Ministry of Finance.45 Meciar's Opposition Takes Power, March-November, 1993. A five-party caretaker government under the leadership of HZDS defector Jozef Moravcik was formed in mid-March. It promised to restore transparency and accountability to the privatization process and to re-launch the voucher privatization process as soon as possible. This was to be done before the scheduled new elections at the end of September. The coalition fought, however, over how to restore confidence, transparency and speed to the privatization process. Nevertheless, Kevin Deegan-Krause demonstrated how the new coalition allowed itself to be held accountable to competitive political forces. 46 The recent experience with Meciar may have taught the government coalition partners a good lesson in the dangers of overconcentration of power-particularly in the areas of property management and privatization. Yet, the new five-party coalition was fractious and ideologically incoherent. This influenced privatization. On the one hand, the formerly communist Party of the Democratic Left (SDI:) sought to maintain direct sales as the primary method of privatization. On the other hand, the coalition partners accused it of intending to use direct sales to reward its own allies amongst Slovakia's ex-communist industrialists and bureaucrats. The Ministry of Privatization, however, was now led by Milan Janicina, a lawyer from the center-right Democratic Union (DU). He sought to ensure that any direct sales would be a rule-governed, multi-party competitive process, not something to be run exclusively by SDI: dictates. 47 The SDI: did, however, secure an agreement to sub- 45 "Approac h to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Toth also became deputy chairman of Priemyselna banka, Olsson Ownership, Reform, 223, note 39. 46 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 26. 47 Interviews with Milan Janicina, Commercial Lawyer, Bratislava, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. �SLOVAKIA 117 ordinate the importance of price in the sales to employment and future investment commitments. 48 Corruption may have been possible in the final sales, but the number of competing interests in the decision making process ensured that the foxes guarding the hen house would keep each other in line. 49 Still , the program was not unimpeachable. Most of the direct privatization sales of fifty-four Slovak enterprises occurred after the elections had delivered a strong plurality to the HZDS but before Meciar had formed a government. 50 The government also conducted a public tender for the government's 24.9 percent share in VSi, attracting interest from nine companies, including the Austrian bank Creditanstalt. The coalition lost power before it could resolve internal bickering over the final buyer. 51 Throughout the summer of 1994, citizens, center-right coalition parties, brokerage firms and investment privatization funds clamored for a second wave of voucher privatization. Janicina fought with SD~'s Minister of the Economy Peter Magvasi (also an AZZZ member) to ensure that there would be enough property offered to make the project worthwhile. In preparation, the Ministry of Finance issued voucher booklets to seventy-two percent of Slovak citizens (ninety percent of those eligible). This was a significantly higher participation rate than the first wave. Janicina secured assets valued at $1.96 billion for the voucher program- making each voucher booklet potentially worth $593.00. After another aggressive campaign from financial intermediaries, fifty-eight percent of voucher holders traded their points for shares in investment privatization funds. 52 If the second wave of voucher privatization was completed, managerial insiders would cede significant additional economic power to the funds. 53 48 OIsson, Ownership, Reform , 124. Anna Grzymala-Busse, " Beyond Clientelism : Incumbent State Capture and State Formation," Comparative Political Studies 41 :4/5 (2008), 638-73 . 50 Jnterview with Rudolf Filkus, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 15, 1997; Janicina interviews, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. 51 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 222 . 52 Tbid. , 124-5. 53 Janici na interview, April I, 1997. 49 �SLOVAKIA Privatization under Meciar's Third Government, 1994-1998. The Moravcik government was short-lived. The SD:C had secured early elections and in the ensuing campaign the center-right fragmented amongst a range of competing personalities. A number of opposition parties failed to cross the five percent threshold in the September-October 1994 vote. Moravcik's Democratic Union (DU) received 8.6 percent, the KDH won 10.l percent, SD:C got 10.4 percent and the ethnic Hungarian Coalition took 10.2 percent of the votes. The HZDS, meanwhile, won a thirty-five percent plurality. This was less than in 1992. However, since thirteen percent of the electorate voted for parties that did not pass the five percent threshold, the ideological weight of the next parliament shifted sharply back towards Meciar and his national-populism. After a month of negotiations, the HZDS formed an ideologically awkward coalition with the two smallest delegations in parliament-the extreme right Slovak National Party (SNS-5.4 percent) led by the garrulous Jan Slota,54 and the extreme left Association of Slovak Workers (ZRS-7.34 percent). 55 To discipline his junior coalition partners, Meciar could use the threat of an alternative coalition with the reformed communist party, the SD:C.56 Critics speculated that the "brown-red" wings of the new ruling coalition were held together only by the promise of privatization benefits. 57 The National-Populist Privatization Concept and its Implementation. Meciar's privatization policies formally settled the long-standing ideological battle between market reformers and gradualists over privatization policy, but in reality, this conflict had stood proxy for an underlying clash of interests between enterprise outsiders and incumbent firm management. Gradualist concepts were hijacked, to an extent, and combined with clientalism and xenophobic nationa54 1n the spring of 1993, Meciar had helped Jan Slota oust Cernak from control over the SNS. Cernak left (with Janicina) to form the Democratic Union. Cernak interview, April 2, 1997. 55 Grigorij Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation of Slovakia's Party System," in Soi\a Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation , 50. 56 Innes, Czechoslo vakia, 262. 57 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 64. �SLOVAKIA 119 !ism to benefit the governing coalition and its allies at, as we shall see, a growing cost to the public. The formal theory underlying the Meciar government's privatezation program echoed the Dolgos strategy of the fall of 1992. The government would work closely with incumbent industrial managers to achieve ownership patterns that would be most appropriate to a coordinated industrial policy. The state would integrate equity transfer, credit and other policies in ways that would boost the strength of Slovak national firms on world markets and minimize transformational pain at the enterprise level. The variety of capitalism officially envisioned was thus much closer to a continental-style state-coordinated market economy than a more hands-off liberal market economy. However, Slovak industrial leaders at AZZZ also invoked Asian development models to explain what they were trying to accomplish.58 Insiders Ascendant. In practice, Meciar's coalition privatized the privatization process. It also subordinated capital markets regulation to the needs of incumbent managers at the expense of enterprise outsiders. The main target was the funds that emerged through voucher privatization. 59 Meciar's new parliamentary majority began to work even before he formed a government. In an overnight session of parliament on November 3-4, 1994, his new coalition passed legislation that secured exclusive control and oversight of privatization, the state media and the secret service. 60 An amendment to the 1991 Large Scale Privati58 Interview with Frantisek Bruckrneyer, General Director, Federation of Employers' Unions and Associations (AZZZ), Bratislava, February 6, 1997. Prior to becoming Director of AZZZ, Bruckrneyer worked for the Czechoslovak federal government after the Warsaw Pact invasion (1970-1974) and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in Moscow (1974-1980). In the 1980s, he directed the state-owned firm, Zdroj , before co-founding AZZZ in 1991 . Compiled from "Leaders.sk" database. Trend Holding Co. and The Slovak Spectator, Bratislava. http://www.leaders.sk/index.php?id=674 [accessed August 30, 2010). 59 Marcincin et al., "Privatization Methods"; Miklos, "Economic Transition,"; Ivan Miklos, "Privatizacia," in Martin Butora and Michal lvantysin, eds. Slovensko, 1997: Suhrn a sprava o stave spolocnosti a trendoch na rok 1998. (Bratislava: Institut pre verejne otazky, 1998). 60 Soi\a Szomolanyi, "Identifying Slovakia's Emerging Regime," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 10. �120 SLOVAKIA zation Act transferred the right to propose and decide direct sales from the privatization ministry to the relatively less transparent FNM (Act #369/1994). The majority then stacked the FNM's Presidium and Supervisory Board with coalition officials and cancelled Janicina's 54 direct post-election sales (Act #370/1994). In five cases, new property owners had already taken legal possession of their assets from the state. 61 This violated both international human rights law and the Slovak Constitution. 62 The transfer of power to the FNM had important implications. The Constitutional Court later ruled that, as a joint stock company, the FNM did not have to submit to government review or regulatory oversight. Hence, it was exempt from oversight by the supreme government control body that could oversee and audit state agencies. Even had it not been exempt from oversight, however, the November 3-4 "night of the long knives" removed opposition parliamentarians from the oversight committee. The ruling majority was now fully responsible for monitoring itself. 63 While extolling the virtues of a state-directed transformation, Meciar provided the new measures with a market reform cover story. He claimed that insulating the privatization process from opposition would allow the FNM to make decisions according to technocratic criteria, free from political influence. In 1998, when the damage had been done, this allowed him to claim that although he still agreed with his "concept" of privatization, he had not been responsible for its administration. 64 Meciar's "concept" ultimately excluded outsiders from privatization. He initially promised that the second wave of voucher privatization would go ahead as planned-although with less property than Janicina envisioned. In July of 1995, however, Parliament cancelled voucher privatization altogether (Act #190/1995). Voucher booklets 61 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 126. Both Article 17b of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly 217 /1948) and Protocol 1, Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe 1952) secure the right to possessions. 63 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. In the fall of 1997, Parliament finally gave into EU and opposition pressure and appointed Ivan Miklos to the supervisory board of the FNM. 64 CTK News, May 8, 1998. Meciar was never directly implicated in a privatization scandal while in power, Sharon Fisher, Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nationalist to Europeanist, (New York: Pal grave, 2006), 91. 62 �SLOVAKIA 121 could now be exchanged for a bond with a face value of l 0,000 Sk to be redeemable in 2001 or on the bearer's 65 th birthday and with an interest rate equal to the discount rate of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS). Proceeds to meet the bond obligations were to come from sales of state property- a promise that the FNM's new privatization policy of selling to domestic industrial managers at a deep discount made impossible to keep . In its public statements, AZZZ took full credit for the cancellation of vouchers.65 A Constitutional Court decision overturned parts of Act #190 in late 1996.66 By that time, however, the FNM had already privatized most of Slovakia's remaining "non-strategic" industrial enterprises. Even had the government wanted to re-launch the voucher program, it would now have had to renationalize private properties to find adequate assets to make the program work. An additional measure passed in July of 1995 enhanced the government's capabilities to coordinate a state-directed industrial policy through the Strategic Enterprises Act (# 175/ 1995). The purpose of the act was to preserve the "public interest" in crucial Slovak industries. First, twenty-nine firms would be exempt from privatization altogether. This included the fundamental sectors of the economy including telecommunications, energy and the defense-related engineering sector. The list of strategic companies, made public in the summer of 1996, also included some at least questionably "strategic" firms such as health spas. 67 All told, the Strategic Enterprises Act reduced the book value of assets remaining to be privatized by half. 68 A second, legally controversial provision of the act, forced an additional forty-five firms to transfer a "golden share" to the firm's founding ministry-in most cases, to Jan Ducky's Ministry of the Economy. The Constitutional Court overturned this prescription in April of 1996 as a clear violation of property rights, but tellingly, the owners of major pro-HZDS firms , like Slovnaft, had failed to give 65 Lachovit, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie". Katarina Zavacka, "The Development of Constitutionalism in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 164. 67 The administration may have legitimately feared that privatization would mean the services of the spas would no longer be readily available or affordable to average Slovaks through the health care system. 68 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 130. 66 �122 SLOVAKIA the state ownership rights over the golden share. Their reaction gave credence to the market reformers' expectations that privatizationeven via a highly politicized process-would produce independent agents with the potential, at least, to resist government policies that hurt their material interests. 69 In November of 1996, the Constitutional Court also annulled Parliament's transfer of privatization powers to the FNM (Act #370/1994). The court argued that the act had illegally abrogated the state's responsibility for the transformation of state property. The Court stopped short of retroactively annulling the FNM ' s actions, however. Stripped of its exclusive prerogative over direct sales, the HZDS-controlled FNM continued to serve its clients through public auctions of shares from the FNM portfolio. While share auctions are a relatively uncontroversial privatization mode, critics allege that the FNM often limited access about the time and location of the auction to all but the intended buyer. 70 Coalition Control over Direct Sales. Between January of 1994 and November of 1996, the FNM privatized at a furious pace. While Act #3 70/1994 removed privatezation from the government's portfolio of responsibilities, coalition officials and industrial insiders from AZZZ retained close control over the process. Two FNM officials, HZDS member and FNM Chairman Milan Rehak, and Co-Chair and Director of the Direct Sales Section, Jan Povraznik, were responsible for executing Presidium decisions . These were closely controlled by the ruling coalition. Junior coalition partner ZRS had formal responsibility for the privatization process . ZRS member Peter Bisak ran the Ministry of Privatization while ZRS vice-chairman Stefan Gavornik chaired the Presidium. Gavornik attested, however, that his influence was minimal: while the HZDS had no seats on the nine member Presidium, AZZZ members held six seats and hence a majority of the votesand they supported the HZDS .7 1 Understandably, now that AZZZ 69 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi , "Bridging Slovakia's Elite Chasm," Transitions, November, 1997. 70 Jnterview with Gabriel Palacka, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 18, 1997 ; Miklos, "Economic Transition," 67-8 . 71 Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Postcommunist Europe (London: Ashgate, 2005), 64. �SLOVAKIA 123 influence was secured, incumbent managers who had previously been skeptical about privatization became its strong advocates. 72 According to Sharon Fisher, regional committees of five coalition representatives determined properties to be sold and top coalition officials made final decisions at coalition meetings every Wednesday at 6:00pm. 73 Allegedly, the meetings rarely considered the business merits of the proposal-or even how the sale would further the official goal of coordinated industrial restructuring. As Gavomik recalled, "We were .... lobbying for those who were coming to us." Yet, Gavomik added, "not even a nail was sold without Meciar."74 Milan Cagala, a HZDS-appointed FNM presidium member, confirmed these allegations. 75 More broadly, members of the ruling coalition were open about clientalism. 76 As Minister of the Economy, Jan Ducky (HZDS) explained, "every government gives advantages to those groups that cooperate with them. This is not controversial." 77 Yet sales went beyond clientalism to open self-dealing-included sales to leading ruling coalition politicians and their family members. As Gavomik admitted, "Of course there are [politicians in the privatization process], and I know about them, but I won't tell. After all .. . every citizen has a right to take part in privatization." 78 Participants in the FNM's direct sales program typically received terms similar to the midnight privatizations of February 1994. Buyers-usually incumbent managers- would receive the company for 72 Ibid. , 35. Fisher, Political Change, 88-9. The regional meetings were an institutional mechanism for regionally based privatization groups to make their claims to property. In the eyes of observers, the groups became associated with leading HZDS officials and clients. For example, it was rumored that meetings in Kosice tended to be dominated by Rezes, those in Banska Bystrica by Meciar, and those in Tmava by Vladimir Poor. Interview with Valer Ostrovsky, CEO, Schultz and Ostrovsky, Bratislava, May 14, 1997. 74 Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic," Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 75 Ibid. 76 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 66-7. 77 Author's notes from "Slovak Spectator Live, Debates for Democracy Series: Brigita Schmognerova & Jan Ducky," Bratislava, 1996. An FNM spokesman shared this sentiment with the author. Interview with Oto Balogh, Press Spokesman, Fund for National Property, Bratislava, April 22, 1998. 78 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 277-8, note 26. 73 �124 SLOVAKIA as little as one third, one-fifth, or even less of its book value. In practice, the typical firm required a ten to fifteen percent down payment, often using money borrowed from a state-owned financial institution. Moreover, installments on the purchaser' s debt to the FNM were usually spread over ten years and deductible from the company' s tax bill. These terms and often the buyers themselves were also frequently kept secret. In the case of the illegal sale of the strategically listed and highly profitable oil extraction and storage company, Nafta Gbely a.s., the new owners of the company remained a matter of intense speculation among opposition politicians and the press. The official address of the purchasing company, Druha obchodna, a.s. was initially an abandoned building. Vladimir Poor, Trnava's HZDS chief and a member of the regional coalition privatization committee later admitted to being a primary beneficiary of the deal, along with a close Meciar aide.79 FNM President Gavornik later alleged that Poor was able to meet the company's 575 million Sk purchase price simply by raiding the company's 1,075 million Sk capital account. If Gavornik is right, Poor used the firm's bank account to buy the firm for himself. Prosecutors later unsuccessfully charged Poor with "tunneling" 300 million Sk out of the company, but dropped the charges. In the end, the circumstances of the company ' s privatization were never fully investigated, perhaps because Poor voluntarily returned the company to the state. 80 In another controversial case, the FNM sold a controlling stake of Slovnaft, Slovakia's oil refinery, to Slovintegra-a company owned by Slovnaft' s director, Slavomir Hatina and nineteen other managers. Hatina was a financial backer of the HZDS and bought thirty-nine percent of the company at an eighty percent discount over the currently traded price. The initial down payment, moreover, was only 1.56 percent of the sale value. The FNM soon reduced the sale price by an additional eighty-four percent to reward management for meeting its promised investment and employment targets.81 The privatization of Slovakia' s largest company, VSZ, also continued apace under Meciar's direct sales framework. In 1995, junior 79 Fisher, Political Change, 93-4; Marcincin et al. , "Privatization Methods. " Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic, Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 81 Marcincin et. al. , "Privatization Methods," 18. 80 �SLOVAKIA 125 coalition member ZRS engineered a sale of ten percent of VSZ shares to Hutnik, a company formally owned by VSZ's union members but strongly under the influence of Minister of Transport (until 1996), Alexander Rezes. Again the price was a fraction of the real value of the shares and payments were made on a generous installment plan. Hutnik then collaborated with Rezes to form Ferrimex, a company that purchased another 15.4 percent on extraordinarily generous terms.82 The deal cemented Rezes ' s control over VSZ. Rezes responded by essentially barring minority shareholder VUB kup6n (an investment company set up by Slovakia' s state-run savings bank) from receiving any information about the health and activities of the firm _sJ Nationalism in Privatization. The Meciar government employed popular economic nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric to justify its choice of a privatization program. Junior coalition partner SNS campaigned in 1994 on a promise to protect Slovakia from "impoverishment" at the hands of foreign investors.84 The subsequent 1995 government program declaration promised to privilege "domestic business subjects" over foreigners in the privatization process. National entrepreneurs would then deal with their assets as they saw fit in what Meciar correctly predicted would be a "third wave" of privatization to foreigners. 85 In practice, Slovak government officials remained deeply suspicious of foreign direct investment and often sought to block foreign partnerships. "We just want to avoid them coming in and closing [the company]," remarked one FNM official in an interview with the author. "Investors only come to misuse companies and disappear." 86 One example is notable for its senselessness: a foreign advisor to the government related that he worked with an entrepreneur to acquire a strategic foreign partner to modernize and expand production of his product line for export abroad. While the entrepreneur was not explicitly prohibited from signing the deal, he received several telephone calls from top officials in one ministry warning that he would 82 01sson, Ownership, Reform, 223 -5. lbid., 182. 84 Fisher, Political Change, 89. 85 Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 65 . 86 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997. 83 �126 SLOVAKIA be held fully accountable if even one Slovak lost his job as a result of the investment. He lost his nerve and cancelled the contract. The enterprise thus remained in debt and was unable to raise the money on its own for modernization; nor was it able to make its own marketing contacts abroad. The advisor noted that this was typical of the Meciar government's attitude towards foreign joint-ventures. 87 The combination of national capitalism and knee-jerk nationalism cost Slovakia dearly. Joint ventures with multinational corporations were at that time leading the deep industrial restrucuring of Central Europe. They had the capital, marketing networks and technology to outperform domestically privatized companies and they were far outperforming firms that remained in state hands, measured in both production increases and productivity growth. 88 Despite this growing record of success, the ruling coalition sold a mere five companies to foreigners out of a total 347. 89 On a per capita basis, by 1998, Slovakia had received half the FDI of Poland, one-third the FDI of the Czech Republic and only a tenth of the FDI of Hungary.90 This was a lost opportunity. Over the next few years, new owners would effortlessly enrich themselves by "flipping" their cheaply acquired companies to international capital-realizing for themselves gains that should have gone into the FNM accounts to meet its new privatization bond obligations. 91 Insider-Controlled Capital Markets Regulation. Having gained control over the privatization process, incumbent managers pressured the government for a favorable capital markets policy. Throughout 1994 and into 1995, investment privatization companies had clashed with incumbent managers in company board rooms. As Michael Olsson relates, the managers wanted the new ow87 Confidential interview with a foreign financial service executive, Bratislava, October 20, 1996. Most of the foreign financial service executives and consultants I sroke with had similar stories. 8 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Elite Fragmentation, Industry and the Prospects for Democracy in Slovakia: Insights from New Elite Theory" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (New York: Columbia International Affairs Online, 1997), http: //www.ciaonet.org/book/gould/ [accessed February 23, 2012]. 89 Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 133. 90 Gould and Szomolinyi, "Elite Fragmentation," 58. 91 Fisher, Political Change, 94. �SLOVAKIA 127 ners to contribute capital while they continued to control the direction of the company. The new owners of the funds, by contrast, sought to pressure the incumbent managers into improving cost efficiency, technological and organizational restructuring, and developing new- often international- marketing arrangements. It did not help that the funds with diverse portfolios did not have sufficient expertise to cover all the firms in their portfolio. Fund representtatives were often barely out of university and entirely lacking in experience. A cultural clash thus developed between the older generation of industrial managers-most of whom had their start in Slovak industry in the 1960s and 70s-and the "young men from Bratislava_ ,,92 Government actions in 1995 wrested industrial control from the funds back to the industrial managers. Incumbent managers began to use the direct sales process to tum the tables at meetings of general shareholders. Olsson writes, "[M]anagers who acquired a large chunk of shares on soft terms from the FNM all of a sudden lost all respect for other minority shareholders .... funds could only sit by [as] ... managers or other domestic industrial groups took over." 93 The government also intervened in capital markets to further tilt the balance of power towards management. Legislation in 1995 reduced the maximum stake investment privatization companies could hold in a company from twenty to ten percent. It also prohibited investment privatization companies from placing officials on a company ' s Board of Directors. This weakened the ability of fund-dominated Supervisory Boards to monitor the day-to-day actions of company managers. Parliament also passed capital markets regulation in 1996 that reduced the transparency of capital markets transacttions and all but eliminated minority shareholder rights. President Kovac returned the legislation, demanding better protection for minority shareholders. Ironically, the funds were not necessarily in favor of a better regulated market. The Slovak capital market had few of the institutional safeguards to protect minority shareholder rights and prevent insider trading that we find in more developed equity markets. Controlling owners were often able to expropriate value from minority 92 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 182. 93 fbid. �128 SLOVAKIA shareholders without penalty. This meant, ironically, that the emergence of a dominant shareholder in a firm often would lead to a decline in the value of the firms' shares. 94 The result was a loss in equity market liquidity: when one lost control over a company, one would often be unable to sell one's shares at any price. Wise investors knew that the majority shareholders could tunnel the real value of the company elsewhere. Under such conditions, a passive portfolio stake in all but a few "blue chip" companies made little sense. Funds found they could best make money by secretly acquiring a controlling share of companies in unregistered, off market trades of physical paper shares and then selling them at a profit to a strategic investor. Given that a more transparent market would actually undermine this strategy, a number of funds were somewhat ambivalent about reforms that might make passive portfolio investment safer and profitable. 95 The ruling coalition made things even worse. It sought to limit the funds to a portfolio role even as it actively undermined their minority shareholder rights. Ministry of Finance capital markets regulator Jozef Magula testified on behalf of minority shareholder rights in front of Parliament--much to the disappointment of top AZZZ managers . A better law was passed in 1997 .96 Still, the new law continued to allow controlling shares to be bought anonymously in secret off-market trades. 97 Remarked one broker philosophically, "at least we have rules."98 94 Economist Joseph Stiglitz observed this phenomenon in the Czech equity market, but the problems were quite similar in Slovakia. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Comments on 'Czech Republic: Capital Market Review Report,"' Delivered at the Ministry of Finance, Prague, Czech Republic, May 9, I 997 ; For details, see Gould, The Politics o[ Privatization, 81- 10 I. 9 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 184-5 . 96 Magula claims that, as a result of his parliamentary testimony, he came under AZZZ pressure to step down. He relented and moved to the central bank. Interview with Jozef Magula, Member of the Bank Board, General Relations Department, National Bank of Slovakia, Bratislava, July 28, 1998. 97 Magula interview, July 28, 1998 ; Interview with Rudolf Lachovic, President, Association of Investment Managers and Investment Funds of the Slovak Republic, Brati slava, June I 6, 1997; for the early market regulatory climate, see Juris, I 994. 98 Ostrovsky interview, May 14, I 997. �SLOVAKIA 129 Meaningful portfolio investment disappeared under Meciar. In addition, led by Magula, the government destroyed a rapidly growing mutual fund industry in 1996. Unlike the privatization funds, the new mutual funds gathered people's savings and invested them in the market and other assets. The pioneer was Prva slovenska investicna skupina, a.s (First Slovak Investment Company-PSIS) an open-ended fund into which citizens could deposit and withdraw like a checking account. By early 1995, the PSIS's Sporofund had over $50 million in savings. 99 It was allegedly well-run and had done a reasonable job at building shareholder value within its portfolio. But in the fall of 1994, the PSIS used its savings to invest in citizen voucher booklets issued under the Moravcik government. Vouchers, the PSIS controversially argued, were a form of state security and hence a legal investment for the mutual fund. Over 750,000 Slovaks signed up for the PSIS voucher privatization funds . Had the second wave of voucher privatization gone forward as planned, PSIS would have become the second wave's largest owner of shares in Slovak enterpnses. However, PSIS owners were also strong contributors to the Democratic Union-the party of Janicina and Moravcik. Moreover, the PSIS had a stake in the independent daily newspaper SME. Both PSIS' s political orientation and its potential economic power were a threat to the ruling coalition and its industrial allies. In the spring of 1995, the Ministry of Finance revoked PSIS 's operating license. Courts found the measure illegal and ordered that the Ministry restore the license, but the Ministry simply revoked it again and transferred control of the company's Sporofund portfolio to Harvard Investment Company. In the face of a rapid withdrawal from the Sporofund, Harvard liquidated the fund and paid off savers about half of what they had put in. 100 The Coalition Assault on Democracy, 1995-1998. Meciar's coalition could not have achieved such close control over the privatization framework without a significant attack on democratic political and civic institutions. Hence, while Slovakia's 99 Interview with Vladimir Hoffman, Broker, Delta Securities, Prague, Czech Republic, July 25 , 1997. I0°Magula interview, July 28, 1998; Ostrovsky interview, May 14, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 187-90. �130 SLOVAKIA democratic decline from 1994 to 1998 was not exclusively caused by privatization, it was certainly linked to it. Indeed, it is unlikely that the ruling coalition and its allies would have fought so hard had the nation's most lucrative assets not been available for appropriation. After ad hoc encroachments on democratic norms in 1993-94, between late 1994 and 1998, Meciar' s parliamentary majority reduced Slovakia's formal democracy to an illiberal shell verging on soft authoritarianism. One permissive cause was the majoritarian nature of the Slovak Constitution. Led by a strong executive and unhindered by a weak presidency already on the defensive, the Meciar majority sought to override the remaining checks posed by the Constitutional Court, the political opposition, civil society and regional and municipal governments. This enabled a reorientation of the privatization framework towards political and economic insiders, but it also endangered "horizontal accountability"-the country' s internal balance of institutional power. 101 Meciar' s squabble with the president was the most visible aspect of this encroachment. Kovac ' s 1993 veto over Meciar's choice of Ivan Lexa to run the privatization ministry marked the beginning of a running battle between the government and the president. The conflict took on added intensity during Meciar's third government. Kovac did not have much institutional power to start with. His repeated vetoes of parliamentary acts were quickly overridden by a simple majority- entirely in line with the Constitution. Yet, Meciar sought to further weaken and discredit the president. An important player in this campaign was the Slovak Information Service (SIS), Slovakia ' s secret service. First, Meciar had to gain control over it. In the November 3-4, 1994 session of parliament, Meciar's majority excluded opposition parties from participating on the SIS oversight committee. In the spring of 1995, parliament transferred power to appoint the head of Slovakia's intelligence agency from President Kovac to Prime Minister Meciar. Meciar then appointed his trusted protege, Ivan Lexa, to head the service. 102 Over the next two and a half years, Lexa waged a war of "dirty tricks" against the president and harassed civil society and indepen10 1 Guillenno O' Donnell, "Delegati ve Democracy," Journal of Democracy, 5: I ( 1994), 55-69; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities. 102 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. �SLOVAKIA 131 dent entrepreneurs. The war reached its climax in August of 1995 when someone- possibly Meciar, but more probably Lexa-ordered that the president' s son be kidnapped, drugged, and dumped in neighboring Austria. When Robert Remias, the confidant of an exSIS agent, implicated Lexa's SIS in discussions with the editor of the leading independent daily SME, Remias was assassinated. Meciar's government squashed the investigation into the assassinationreplacing three investigators before finding one who suspended the inquiry into the SIS link. The new investigator concealed evidence that 150-200 grams of Semtex had ignited the car's propane tank. Now on the defensive, the SIS launched a campaign to show that Kovac Jr. had arranged for his own kidnapping.103 The battle between Meciar and Kovac ended only after the president's term of office expired in 1997. As the government and opposition could not achieve the super majority needed to select a replacement under a clearly flawed constitutional provision, presidential powers fell to the Prime Minister. Meciar subsequently used his presidential powers to pardon anyone linked to the kidnapping and Remias's murder-despite the lack of any official finding that a crime had taken place. 104 The government also encroached on the rights and prerogatives of the opposition, the courts, civil society and the media. In addition to oversight of the secret service, the November 3-4, 1994 parliamentary session blocked opposition MPs from participation on all substantive committees except the environment committee. The coalition further revealed its hegemonic intentions by trying to have former Prime Minister Moravcik' s party, the Democratic Union (DU), banned from parliament and by charging President Kovac with treason. Both efforts failed. To safeguard against a repeat of the 1993-4 defections of Kovac, Moravcik, Filkus, Knazko and others, defectors from the HZDS were now treated with open disrespect for the constitution. After HZDS co-founder Frantisek Gaulider left the HZDS parliamentary club in 1996, the HZDS leadership produced a pre-signed letter of resignation that they had obtained in 1994 to ensure party discipline. The 103 Kieran Wiliams, "Slovakia Since 1993," in Kieran Williams and Dennis Deletant, eds., Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001 ), 130-140. 104 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 48-50. �132 SLOVAKIA parliamentary majority then stripped him of his parliamentary mandate, barred him from the building and replaced him in parliament with a HZDS loyalist. The Constitutional Court ruled these acts to be unconstitutional, but parliament did not reinstate him- another violation of Slovakia' s fragile system of checks and balances. Gaulider also received numerous threats to his life. 105 Media and civil society also came under intense legal and extralegal pressure from the government and allegedly the SIS. The HZDS attempted to monopolize channels for societal interest group representation by creating bureaucratic barriers to their legal operation and by establishing party-controlled interest groups that competed with independent societal interest groups in their particular field. 106 Similarly in the media, parliament' s November 1994 legislation excluded the opposition from any role in oversight over public broadcasting. The state-controlled mass media and sympathetic newspapers then justified the government's actions with a torrent of unbalanced coverage, nationalism, xenophobia, personal slurs and misdirection. 107 Things were also tough for the independent media. Following his reporting on the Kovac, Jr. case, the editor of SME found a dead cat nailed to his door and his car burned. An anonymous leafleting campaign accused two other critical journalists of pornography and pedophilia. A third journalist who looked too closely at the links between Alexander Rezes and the HZDS was beaten up in a Kosice restaurant. 108 Meanwhile, privatization beneficiaries frequently bought and attempted to control the editorial content of the independent media. When VSZ took over the business daily 105 Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation," 43 ; Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, "Preface," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 5. 06 ' Darina Malova, "The Development of Interest Representation in Slovakia after 1989: From 'Transmission Belts' to ' Party-State Corporatism?"' in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 93113 . 07 ' The Helsinki Civic Assembly and the Association for the Support for Local Democracy survey concluded that state-run Slovak Television violated the principles of fa irness more often than any other public or private media outlet during the 1998 electoral campaign. It devoted seventy-five percent of its news programs to Met iar and the HZDS, RFEIRL News line, 2: 192 (October 5, 1998), Part II . 108 Innes, Czechoslovakia, 313 , note 139. �SLOVAKIA 133 Narodna obroda, for example, the new owners fired the newspaper's independent-minded editor. Overall, while the independent media functioned effectively, it faced numerous forms of petty harassment from various government agencies. 109 Independent news sources, however, did not reach the entire population. In much of the country, the state broadcast media was the primary source of information. After the November 3-4 session of parliament, government loyalists controlled the state media and state broadcasting reflected their views, even to the point of collaborating with the SIS to fabricate "investigative reports" slandering the president. Nor did the most important independent media source-the television station Markiza-initially have the coverage capacity or willingness to acquaint Slovaks with the details of privatization or other rule of law issues. Toward the end of the 1996-1998 period, however, TV Markiza did become a crucial source of alternative information in Slovakia. 11 0 As the Meciar government came into conflict with basic liberal institutions and freedoms , the EU, NA TO, European governments and the United States all registered their displeasure. The EU, in particular, issued a series of diplomatic demarches as part of its dialogue with applicant countries. 111 In 1996, Freedom House reduced Slovakia's political rights ranking from "free" to "partially free." 112 However, the nastiest rap to the government's knuckles came in July of 1997, after the government illegally cancelled a national referendum on NATO membership. The European Commission recommended that Slovakia be excluded from the first wave of EU membership negotiations. While Slovakia was a liberal democracy in 109 Andrej Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media in the Post-Communist Transition of Slovakia" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 187-208. 110 Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media," 196. 111 Alexander Duleba, "Democratic Consolidation and the Conflict over Slovakia's International Alignment," in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 209-30; Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, l everage and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11 2 Freedom House, "Freedom in the World, 2007," Freedom House, Washington, D.C., 2007 . �134 SLOVAKIA form, the Commission opined, it operated differently in practice. 113 NATO Followed suit and excluded Slovakia from its first round of • 114 expansion. The Meciar government dismissed these external critics by questioning the objectivity of their processes and critiquing the patriotism of domestic opponents who agreed with them . Yet, the blows hurt. Slovakia's young, urban and educated citizens were deeply concerned with proving the country's western credentials and desperately wished to join Europe 's most exclusive clubs. Thus, the EU and to a lesser extent NA TO, increasingly put the government in a bind: Meciar could not comply with their "conditions" and still retain his increasingly politicized and often illegal control over political and economic life. As Milada Vachudova pointed out, "political power depended on strategies that were incompatible with the EU's re~uirements of liberal democracy and comprehensive market reform." 15 With the September/October 1998 parliamentary elections approaching, the HZDS even appeared ready to jettison free and fair elections. Parliament amended the electoral law in ways that gave the Ministry of the Interior greater influence in counting the vote; and it put ambiguous and potentially expandable limitations on the ability of the private media to cover the election. New electoral rules also shackled the ability of small parties or coalitions to participate in the election. Finally, the HZDS had the courts review the leading opposition coalition 's eligibility to participate. Many worried that should the government apply a literal interpretation of its new laws, it could eliminate a number of important institutions of liberal democracy, including the right to contestation and participation as well as the right to alternative sources of information. Opponents feared a fullfledged authoritarian turn . 116 Privatization's Half-way Reform. Meciar's privatization program produced stakeholders in dysfun113 European Commission, Agenda 2000-Commission Opinion on Slovakia's Application for Membership of the European Union , (Brussels: European Union, 1997), section I. 3. 114 Duleba, " Democratic Consolidation." 115 Vachudova, Europe Undivided, 38. 11 6 1.M. Viersma, "Sprava docasnej pozorovatelskej misie na Slovensku," Euro Report, no. I 5, 1998, pp. 22-23. �SLOVAKIA 135 ctional economic policies. This was not necessarily pre-ordained. The first two Slovak governments retained the basic elements of the market reform program inherited from the federal government. An independent National Bank of Slovakia kept the Slovak currency strong, while the first two post-independence governments restricted their fiscal expenditures and preserved a liberalized trade environment. By 1995-6, Slovakia's firms were beginning to find new markets in Western Europe. Unemployment, still high at thirteen percent, was beginning to inch down. With so much slack in the labor market, inflationary pressures remained acceptable-reflecting a sustainable increase in demand as tradable products integrated into world markets. The major problem was the deliberate coalition policy of politicized reform. 1997-8 turned out to be challenging years in the global economy. Yet, the network of industry-state-party ties shaped by an insider privatization process and illiberal politics made Slovakia even more vulnerable to a downturn. 117 Missed tax payments, uncompetitive government procurement programs, significant new government financial obligations, delayed enterprise restructuring, low foreign direct investment and a troubled banking sector all contributed to an economic crisis that would cost Slovakia the next three years of growth. Manipulation of Debt. The Slovak Republic shows that a government's capacity to protect investor property rights and enforce debt contracts is crucial to the efficiency of privatization. 118 The Meciar government's policy of direct sales led to a rapid concentration of ownership, but it did not always produce more efficient behavior. According to interviews with Western financial services experts and equity market actors, Slovak owners often rejected enterprise restructuring and instead used their insider access to cash flows and assets from privatized 117 OECD, (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), OECD Economic Surveys, 1998-1999: Slovakia, (Paris: OECD, 1999), 29-30. 11 8 Olsson, Ownership, Reform; Simon Johnson and Andrei Shleifer, "Privatization and Corporate Governance," in Takatoshi Ito and Anne 0. Krueger, eds, Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region. NBER East Asia Seminar on Economics, 12 (2001), 13-34. http://www.nber.org/chapters/cl0l82 .pdf [accessed February 23, 2012]. �136 SLOVAKIA enterprises to get rich quickly-a process known as "rent seeking." Much of the reason relates to debt and the firms' low purchase prices. Slovak firms carried a large outstanding burden of debt which they were not necessarily pressured to honor. First, Slovakia's bankruptcy law privileged debtors over creditors, reinforcing a persistent problem with overdue liabiities. 11 9 Second, the administration of the first wave of voucher privatization in Slovakia led to an initial concentration of privatized property in the state-bank owned funds . These state-owned banks often transgressed the official firewall between their lending and equity management operations and forced firms to take on more loans than they needed. 120 The percentage of nonperforming loans in the portfolios of Slovakia's three state banks skyrocketed between 1996 and 1998 from twenty-five to thirty-seven percent. 121 Third, privatization in highly discounted client or management buyouts failed to bring in new cash or debt relief to Slovak companies. Despite the often-symbolic purchase prices and favorable repayment terms, politically connected buyers would often increase debt by borrowing from state banks to make their down payment to the FNM. Privatized firms also frequently stopped paying their taxes. Between 1995 and 1998, tax arrears of private firms in Slovakia tripled to about sixteen percent of total state expenditures. Fully paid, this would have been enough to eliminate the budget deficit. 122 The scarcity of cash in the economy did not bode well for restructuring. Many managers privatized their firms only to find themselves apparently condemned to eke out a living at the margins of solvency for years on end. Facing such choices, and given lucrative 11 9 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, p. 97 . Debt loading is the practice of pushing unnecessary loans on cash rich firms at high rates as a means of extracting their funds. According to Andrew Schwartz, it was a common practice among bank-owned privatization funds in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Since debt loading siphoned off cash that should have been shared with the enterprise ownership's minority shareholders, it was a form of tunneling. Andrew Schwartz, The Politics of Greed: How Privatization Structured Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (Lanham, MD : Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 236-7; Appel, A New Capitalist Order, 64; Jarko Fidrmuc and Andreas Worgotter, "Czech Banking Sector: Reasons of Banking Crises and Prospects," Discussion Parer, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, 1998. 21 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 79. 122 Ibid., 54-55 . 120 �SLOVAKIA 137 opportunities for cash assets elsewhere, 123 it actually made sense for new owners to strip their companies and return the shells to the FNM before making the first installment payment. Another option was to consume the company slowly-meeting its minimal obligations to the FNM and tax office, defaulting on inter-enterprise debt and siphoning off the extra cash. 124 Officially, the FNM was allowed to control major asset transfers in firms with FNM debt, but in practice, it was too over-stretched to monitor all transactions. 125 Meciar's HZDS- through the government- held the ends of the long strings of debt that permeated the economy. Ideally, given its commitment to state-led industrial restructuring, these debt obligetions should have been used by the government and the Ministries of Finance and Economy to coordinate restructuring efforts. Indeed, the Ministry of the Economy's official statement on industrial policy made it clear that control over liability networks was a crucial component of its effort to engage in industrial restructuring. The Ministry also aspired to promote the development of asset networks, "by supporting groupings of enterprises into holdings," to "pool investment resources." 126 The reality was that, due to coalition permeation by privileged 123 In one example of crowding out, the author interviewed an industrial manager who had recently signed a contract to produce copper pipes for a firm in Germany. When it came time to buy scrap metal to begin production, however, the cash he had reserved for the purpose had disappeared and he had to default on the contract. He soon learned that the owners had moved the funds to a short-term security with a return far greater than that offered by the copper pipe contract. Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povazske strojame, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, July, 22 1998. 124 Indeed, one EU sponsored consultant that I spoke with actually advised his clients to engage in a similar "triage" strategy of debt management. He advised managers facing illiquidity to delay paying those creditors who were no longer essential to the firm while using scarce cash to meet obligations to those creditors who were. The understanding was that the legal framework would favor the debtor. Confidential interview, foreign financial consultant, Bratislava, April, 1997. 125 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997 . Ironically, the politicization of credit and debt may have meant that the incentives to "rip off' stakeholders and minority shareholders were greater for owners who did not enjoy close contacts with the government. Unlike their well-connected competitors, they were less likely to win any dispensations from government creditors at the state-owned banks, the FNM or the tax officials. 126 Ministry of the Economy, SR, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update." Ministry of the Economy, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1997. �138 SLOVAKIA industrial interests, it was the governing coalition's industrial clients (as well as those firms that could "arrange" for ad hoc dispensations) that often pulled the strings of Slovak industrial and privatization policy. The result was that state-business networks were used to channel present and future tax revenues into the pockets of politically important industries and individuals. Ironically, after the Meciar government fell in 1998, the successor government picked up these long strings and used them to regain control of many enterprises. Revitalization and Industrial Policy. Even inter-enterprise debt and tax arrears provided opportunities for government manipulation. As noted, the bankruptcy framework privileged debtors over creditors. As most AZZZ members were debtors, there was little incentive for the industrial lobby to support a change in policy. Yet the government also passed a controversial Revitalization Act that granted chosen firms the right to enter into a state-sponsored debt relief program. 127 The Revitalization Act was designed in conjunction with Ducky's Ministry of the Economy on behalf of Slovakia's hard-hit engineering and machinery sectors. Based largely on tax relief, in practice its use was limited to the "restructured" companies owned by the quasi-private holding company, DMD Holdings a.s., as well as a number of agricultural firms. 128 DMD, run by Meciar's former Minister of Finance JuliusT6th, was an umbrella holding company for a network of former state-run defense manufacturing firms that were most severely hit by defense cutbacks at the end of the Cold War. In addition to restructuring, DMD profited from direct Ministry of Economy support- mostly in the form of encouragement and coordination-for the development of an indigenous automobile supply network. 129 While the effects of these direct attempts at industrial policy appeared to be generally well intentioned, they had little positive effect on restructuring the 127 Ministry of the Economy, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update," 18. The government also set up a state-run arms trading company, Armex. OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, l 04-5 . 129 AZZZ 1996; Intervi ew with Ministry of Economy Plenipotentiary for the Automotive Industry in Slovakia, Alfred Richter in Samuel Bibza, "Yel'ke Plany," MOT, August, 1998, 4-8 . Interview with Jan Lesinsky, President, Slovak Society of Automoti ve Engineers, Bratis lava, August I 0, 1998 . 128 �SLOVAKIA 139 companies involved. 130 Indeed, the program virtually halted marginally successful earlier attempts at defense conversion. 131 Slovakia eventually got its automotive sector, but it took the defeat of Meciar, clear political compliance with the prerequisites of EU membership, macroeconomic stabilization and significant initial investment incentives to entice foreign automobile producers and supply companies to come to Slovakia. 132 Politicization of Bank Privatization. The FNM's insider privatization framework raised levels of conflict surrounding bank privatization. In early 1996, Meciar promised to privatize Slovakia's largest state banks to Slovakia' s leading enterprises, most notably VSZ and Slovnaft. 133 Observers quickly pointed out that the likely result of the privatizations would be to decapitalize the banks as owner-firms, like VSZ, wrote themselves checks. Hence, while opposition parties KDH, DS and DU, were officially in favor of privatizing the banks, they formed a one-time coalition with HZDS's far left wing governing partner, ZRS , to get the banks placed on the list of strategic enterprises that prevented their privatization. The ZRS had nothing against bank privatization per se, but it allegedly was upset that the HZDS had excluded ZRS clients from buying one of the banks. 134 While partially preventing the banks ' capture and potential mismanagement by industrial managers, the banks nevertheless remained undercapitalized. Deeply in need of capital, the VSZ nevertheless did secure control over Slovakia's third largest state bank, Investicna a rozvojova banka (Investment and Development Bank-IRB) through the support of the FNM at shareholder meetings. 135 IRB had a troubled portfolio 130 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 104-5 . Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 75 . 132 Sharon Fisher, John Gould and Tim Haughton, "Slovakia's Neoliberal Tum," Europe-Asia Studies 59:6 (2007), 977-98. 133 If we include the third state owned financial institution, Slovenska sporitel'na, these three banks accounted for as much as 90% of all Slovak deposits and 60% of all loans. OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, (Paris: OECD, 1998), 29; EilJ (Economist Intelligence Unit), Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, (London: Economist, 1998), 17. 134 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 258 . 135 OECD, Slo vak Country Report, 1997-8, p. 29; EilJ, Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, p. 17; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 158. 131 �140 SLOVAKIA which VSZ control did little to correct. The state had been using it to keep a nuclear power plant solvent and to provide subsidies to the construction industry to build apartments for young couples. In 1997, IRB liquidity problems worsened and the bank was forced to borrow internationally at rates driven up by the emerging global financial crisis . The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) directed the VSZ, as the primary owner, to provide a much-needed capital injection. The VSZ refused. The NBS later "suggested" that the bank's deterioration resulted from "serious illegal transgressions which negatively influenced the bank's activities ." To add to the crisis, junior coalition partner SNS refused to support a renewal of state support for the construction industry's subsidized apartment loan program. After more government infighting, the IRB failed to meet its depositors' demands, forcing the NBS to seize it in December of 1997. 136 The VSZ raid on Slovakia's financial sector was the logical culmination of insider privatization under illiberal political conditions. Tightly bound together by political necessity, Meciar's administration provided Rezes and his network of enterprises insider access to special deals in privatization, taxation, credit allocation (from state financial institutions) and almost every other area where the state intersects with economic activity. Moreover, Meciar did this despite open indications of nepotism, corruption and mismanagement. The final cost to other corporations, the taxpayers and VSZ's more than 25,000 employees was enormous. By the winter of 1998, VSZ Holdings had defaulted on its foreign obligations and was facing layoffs and bankruptcy. Meciar's successor government then used this crisis to regain control of the company and limit its growing debt. 137 In 2000, the successor government sold the VSZ to United States Steel Corporation. 136 OECD, Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, 77-8; EfU, Slovak Country Report, 1st Quarter I 998, 17. In the spring of 1998, the VSZ used its influence with the FNM and its direct and indirect shareholdings in the two other state financial institutions to provide the !RB with a costly capital injection. The VSZ again refused to contribute any cash of its own beyond the initial amount required by the NBS . Nor was there any real attempt by VSZ to find an adequate foreign buyer. Peter Laca, "Troubled !RB bank approves capital injection," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-21 , 1998. 137 "Vlada mimo hry," Pravda, November 17, I 998; See also Miklo§, 1997 . �SLOVAKIA 141 Abuse of State Property. Coalition misuse of property included firms that were not yet privatized. Perhaps the most notable case is former Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky' s abuse of the country's natural gas company, Slovensky plynarensky priemysel (Slovak Gas Industry-SPP). A key member of AZZZ and a former communist-era official, Ducky resigned his position with the government to oversee a systematic tunneling of SPP assets for personal and political use. This included financing FC Slovan- Slovakia' s most famous football team (and, ironically, the former Czechoslovak rival to Sparta Praha, a team purchased by VSZ's Alexander Rezes). Ducky would even hand out cash bonuses to reward players for stellar play. 138 The full extent of Ducky's tunneling only became clear after the government fell from power. Ducky died in a still unexplained assassination in 1999 three days after a probe was launched into his handling of the company.139 Slowing Macroeconomic Performance. It is ironic that, except for privatization, Meciar's second government largely left the federal reform package intact until 1996. 140 The resulting favorable entrepreneurial conditions and international demand produced a relatively strong recovery in 1994-1996, matching a regional trend. The tight monetary policy of the largely independent NBS was a crucial element in the strong macroeconomic performance of Slovakia. Yet, since NBS monetary discipline also signifycantly raised the cost of credit, maintained the real value of liabilities, and put constraints on fiscal policy, the NBS came under pressure from the Ministry of Finance to be "more cooperative" with Slovak industrial policy. According to Ivan Miklos, VSZ President Jan Smerek complained that the NBS's tight money policy was a form of "disliking VSZ and, apparently, disliking Slovakia's development." 14 1 Under intense industrial pressure, the NBS narrowly escaped an attempt by parliament to place it more directly under government control. 142 Heavy borrowing, low foreign investment and this attack on the NBS led major investment rating agencies to 138 Confidential interview with FC Slovan football player, Bratislava, July 1998. Fisher, Political Change, 94. 140 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 63. 141 Ibid., 71-2. 142 EIU, Slovak Country Report, r" Quarter 1998, 16-7. 139 �142 SLOVAKIA downgrade Slovak bonds to below investment-grade level in the spring of 1998. This further raised the cost of borrowing. 143 By the end of Meciar's third government, enterprise restructuring in Slovakia had also slowed. Firms that sought an injection of capital had to face among other things : poorly functioning equity markets rendering an initial public offering nearly impossible; a government that was suspicious and even hostile to foreign strategic investors; government decision-making and procurement processes that frequently violated the equal application of the rule of law; and finally , an increasingly profligate fiscal policy, capped by a costly infrastructure development program that crowded out private investment. By the spring of 1998, the Meciar government had to finance its cash-starved economy on European markets at the relatively costly rate of 3.5 percent above the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate. It also borrowed short term domestically at a nominal rate of twenty-eight percent. The high level of domestic borrowing aggravated the credit squeeze on Slovakia's already strapped enterprises. 144 Short term borrowing to meet long term debt obligations was the final nail in the Meciar government's economic coffin. By the summer of 1998 it was clear that the Slovak performance of the previous years had been financed by unsustainable fiscal spending and borrowing. Meciar's Electoral Defeat, October 1998. Parliamentary elections in late September of 1998 proved a satisfactory denouement to the regime's VSZ-led orgy of self-dealing. The government had put in place rules that looked as if it was equipping itself with the necessary tools for a full-fledged authoritarian seizure of power. No seizure occurred. It is possible that the HZDS did not even consider the possibility. Even if it had, concerted efforts from independent NGOs, regional governmental associations, and a united center-right coalition of parties and the SDI.; helped to mobilize 84.25 percent of the voting population. Many correctly interpreted the election as a test of Slovakia's Western European credentials. The HZDS won a marginal plurality, but the ZRS was in shambles 143 "Another Agency Downgrades Slovaki a's Risk Indicator," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-2 1, 1998, p. 5. 144 M. E.S.A I 0, Slovak Mo nthly Report, May 1998, p. 1-2; M. E. S.A I 0, Slovak Monthly Report, July 1998, p. 2. �SLOVAKIA 143 after its lamentable performance as a far left party in formal charge of creating capitalists from state assets. The HZDS tried, but was unable to lure the SDI: away from the opposition to form a coalition. The SDC then joined a coalition of parties (the Slovak Democratic Coalition-SOK), SMK and the new Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) to form a government united by little more than opposition to Meciar and a desire to get into the EU and NAT0. 145 Slovakia's privatization winners split deeply during the election. Most of the direct beneficiaries of Meciar's politicized economic policies remained close to the Prime Minister. Most notably, VSZ owner Alexander Rezes provided the HZDS with significant frnancial support and other perks, including flying the Prime Minister to campaign events in his private jet and even forcing his football team, Sparta Praha, to wear HZDS jerseys in a campaign-related friendly match. Rezes ' s empire was already hemorrhaging money despite having raided two of Slovakia' s leading frnancial institutions. The IRB had already been bailed out by the NBS at taxpayer expense. This was an indirect subsidy that allowed money to filter into the HZDS campaign. It must have been clear to Rezes that only continued "industrial collaboration" with his political patron would save his fortune. Yet, faced with the gathering strength of the opposition, other Meciar clients were more circumspect- even Tmava's Vladimir Poor hinted at his willingness to work with a new govemment. 146 The SOP, the new "Party of Civic Understanding" promoted itself as the voice of the independent entrepreneurial community. In interviews, its spokesman strongly critiqued the disastrous economic management of the government and promised to uphold the rule of law in economic and political dealings. It sought initially to establish a safe, pro-business middle ground between the polarized camps in Slovakia' s "Cold War. " Despite this, its founder, Rudolf Schuster, refused any prospect of cooperation with the HZDS. 147 Other entre145 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "Slovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy, I0: I (I 999), 80-95 . 146 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence," in John Higley and Gyorgy Lengyel, eds., Elites after State Socialism (Lanham: Rowm an and Littlefield, 2000), 47-70. 147 Interview with Ferdinand Petrak, Vice Chairman, Party for Civic Understanding (SOP), Bratislava, July 28, 1998; Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities, 71. �144 SLOVAKIA preneurs continued to support the SDI:, and the newly united Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SKDU). 148 Conclusion. Having privatized their enterprises through political connections, Meciar's clients went on to privatize state policy. Rather than demand the rule of law, they corrupted politicians; rather than invest resources to restructure, they stripped and tunneled them; rather than act as national champions, they preyed on the country's financial stability. By 1998, the coalition government's economic model was no longer sustainable. As the economic price of clientalism grew, the politicization of economic policy became an important additional grievance in the opposition's political arsenal. Never completely unied, many of the coalition's economic allies sat on the fence or sought accommodation with the opposition. Others proved firm HZDS supporters-particularly Rezes's VSZ, who must have seen that VSZ's financial future was closely linked to government policy. On the whole, privatization in Slovakia did not produce "market democrats," but it did succeed in providing economic agents who responded to their own logic of action. These proved to be both a boon and a curse to Meciar during his moment of greatest political crisis. Privatization' s impact on Slovakia's political liberalization, in short, was at best neutral and at worst negative. Ultimately, it was a united opposition, strategically smart NGO's and a mass mobilezation of Slovakia's voters that established market democracy in Slovakia. 148 Gould and Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence." � 102 SLOVAKIA , ..., VLADIMIR MECIAR AND THE POLITICS OF PRIVATIZATION IN SLOVAKIA, 1992-1998 1 John A. Gould "A just privatization does not exist; we all know that the only criterion was loyalty. " - Vit'azoslav Morie, SNS honorary chair2 Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution put former Communist Party bureaucrats and industrial managers on the defensive. Associated with the communist past, many top managers were removed from their jobs while the middle managers that replaced them carried little political clout in broader debates over the design of economic reforms like privatization. As a result, Czechoslovak privatization architects had the freedom to offer average citizens a potential stake in state-owned companies. In return for a small administrative fee, citizens received coupons that would allow them to bid on company shares . Most participating citizens, however, chose to invest through new financial intermediaries, called investment privatization funds, which would concentrate citizens' small shares into larger stakes in privatized companies. By 1993, these intermediaries began to rival remaining communist-era managers for control of Czech and Slovak firms .3 1 This paper is adopted from John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization: Wealth and Power in Postcommunist Europe (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011), 103-32. A full list of acknowledgments can be found on pp. vii-viii of that work, but the author would like to thank the following for their comments, assistance and support: Hilary Appel, Kevin Deegan-Krause, Sharon Fisher, Zsolt Gal, Simona Gould, Timothy Haughton, Cubomira Hromkova, Darina Malova, Mikael Olsson, Marek Ryhal', Sona Szomolanyi, James Thompson and Milada Anna Vachudova. The author is responsible for any errors in logic or fact. 2 Abigail Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 200 I), 263. 3 Ed Clark and Anna Soulsby,"The Re-formation of the Managerial Elite in the Czech Republic," Europe-Asia Studies 48 :2 (1996), 285-303; Mitchell Orenstein, Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Hilary Appel, A New Capitalist Order: �SLOVAKIA 103 While the mass privatization program continued in the Czech Republic through 1995, Slovakia's industrial managers were able to derail it after independence on January 1, 1993 . They had initially suffered from the same liabilities as their Czech counterparts. 4 Yet, as debate over the sovereign status of Slovakia developed in 199192, Slovak managers found a resource in identity politics that their Czech counterparts largely lacked. 5 By fusing their interests to rising popular-nationalism, a select group gained influence with a number of Slovakia's nascent political parties, and most notably, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). The following paper examines the politics of privatization in Slovakia after independence. Slovakia's battle over privatization and its aftermath was a nasty, occasionally dangerous affair with very high stakes. At the center of this battle, initially, were the efforts of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and various industrialists to stop the highly popular citizens' "voucher" privatization program that Slovakia had inherited from the federal republic. This had little to do with the voucher program 's evident flaws . Rather, Meciar's policies sought to reorient privatization away from the new financial intermediaries which largely supported his opponents. In its place, his government operated a direct sales program that would benefit those who would support him. Yet, by attempting to replace a program that rewarded a majority of Slovak citizens with a program that only rewarded a narrow group of industrial managers and political allies, Meciar embarked on a democratically difficult project. His early efforts to gain close personal control over the privatization process contributed to the alienation of many of the key players in the HZDS, including President of Slovakia Michal Kovac. The president briefly orchestrated Meciar's Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Central Europe (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004); Peter Rutland, "Thatcherism, Czech-Style: Transition to Capitalism in the Czech Republic," Telos 94 ( I 992), I 03-130; Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 56-68. 4 Interview wi th Jozef Uhrik, Commercial Director, Volkswagen Slovakia, Devinska Nova Yes, Slovakia, January 14, 1997 ; Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povai.ske strojarne, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, Slovakia, July, 22 I 998 . 5 Hilary Appel and John Gould, " Identi ty Politics and Economic Reform: Examining Industry-State Relations in the Czech and Slovak Republics," Europe-A sia Studies 52: I (2000), 111-31. �104 SLOVAKIA removal from power in March of 1994 after he made a speech criticizing a series of legally questionable privatization decisions. When Meciar regained power in November, he acted on the knowledge that his political and economic ambitions were incompatible with the democratic institutions he had inherited. The ensuing assault on democratic norms, rules and procedures, while not entirely directed at privatization, nevertheless gave his ruling coalition the freedom to privatize as it pleased. However, by the end of Meciar' s third term, Slovakia could no longer demonstrate its democratic credentials to the European Union or NATO . Both threatened to exclude Slovakia from their next rounds of expansion. Privileged access to government was not simply important to acquiring property. Under Meciar it also became increasingly useful for securing favorable economic policies such as the allocation of credit, the regulation of capital markets, government procurement, and taxation policies. Between 1996 and 1998, such largess undermined Slovakia' s economic recovery and threw the country into an economic crisis. By 1998, both Slovakia's long term economic recovery and its European future were in danger. Slovak voters responded with an 84.4 percent electoral turnout that left the ruling coalition no choice but to accept the vote and surrender power. Privatization should produce independent economic actors who seek a profit rather than a government handout. Yet, as the Slovak experience under Meciar reminds us, privatization is first and foremost a means of acquiring wealth and power. Where easy profits can easily be had through political connections, creating private property does not necessarily go hand in hand with market democracy. For privatization to be most effective, societies must first be willing and able to police the intersection of state policy and economic activity. Voucher Privatization in Slovakia, 1992-1993. Privatization in Czechoslovakia was designed at the federal level, but it was largely carried out by the Czech and Slovak republiclevel governments. In Slovakia privatization began under the government of Prime Minister Jan Carnogursky (Christiaq Democratic Movement-KDH) and his 30 year-old neo-liberal Minister of Privatiza- �SLOVAKIA 105 tion,6 Ivan Miklos. While there was room for administrative innovation to account for local differences, in practice, Miklos administered the voucher program in an almost identical fashion to his Czech counterparts. This was no small accomplishment. Following the collapse of support for Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's first government in the spring 1991 , the new ruling coalition was deeply divided over privatization. The Carnogursky government included Jan Holcfk, and Jozef Belzak as Ministers of Industry and Economy, respectively. While both men favored a transition towards markets, both had industrial ties and favored a strong sectoral industrial policy in which firms would be restructured before privatization. In addition to Carnogursky 's ministers, industry had a strong friend in KDH member Viliam Oberhauser, a founding member of what Miklos claimed was industry's nomenklatura-controlled peak organization, the Federation of Employers Unions and Associations (AZZZ). 7 Oberhauser was a key member of the nationalist wing of the KDH and had helped author a "gradualist" economic reform scenario, challenging the market-oriented federal economic reforms that had been in place since January of 1991. 8 This created difficulties for Miklos. In the final years of the 1980s, Miklos had studied market economics at the Austrian school of Friedrich Hayek. At the time of the Revolution, he had been an economics student and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics in Bratislava. Deputy Prime Minister Jozef Kucerak brought him into the government in 1990. 9 After, the launch of strong market-oriented 6 There were three privatization ministries- one in each republic, and one at the federal level to deal with federal state property. Their formal name at the republic level was the Ministry for the Administration and Privatization of National Assets. For an explanation see, Petr Husak, Budovani kapitalismu v Cechach: Rozhovory s Tomasem Jeikem (Prague: Volvox Globatour, 1997), 111 ; John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 61. 7 lvan Miklos "Economic Transition and the Emergence of Clientalist Structures in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (Bratislava: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung/Slovak Political Science Association, 1997), 65. 8 Jvan Miklos recalls that the Ministries of Forest and Water, Agriculture and even the Environment - all run by KDH appointees - had strong gradualist leanings. Interview with Ivan Miklos, Consultant, M.E.S.A. I 0, Bratislava, April 2, 1997. 9 Miklos's first post was as Deputy Prime Minister, Jozef Kucerak's advisor, and Director of the Government's Section for Economic and Social Policy. Interview �106 SLOVAKIA reforms in January of 1991, however, Slovakia ' s economy suffered disproportionately more than the Czech Republic ' s economy. 10 Economic liberals like Kucerak increasingly became the target of colleagues seeking to distance themselves publicly from the growing pain of economic transformation. Market reforms would be managed better, they argued, if Slovak politicians were to have greater control over their own economic and political affairs where they could use state controls to moderate the pace of transition. 11 As the lead proponent of a federally brokered, rapid transformation towards a market economy, Kucerak was forced to step down after a vote of no-confidence in the spring of 1991 . Miklos was elevated to Minister of Privatization soon after and quickly replaced Kucerak as the most outspoken market liberal in the government and the strongest public supporter of federal reforms. He faced the brunt of attacks from both the opposition and the national wing of the ruling KDH. This included surviving several parliamentary votes of no-confidence. By the winter of 1991-92, it was increasingly clear that the KDH-led coalition would fare poorly in the upcoming June elections. Miklos feared that the next government would most likely slow privatization and delay the creation of private owners. He therefore sought to start the voucher program as quickly as possible- to create a fait accompli of new owners with a stake in continuing the rapid property transformation program. Miklos was responsible for convincing state-owned firms to put up shares for the voucher privatization program in Slovakia. He recalled that the threat of dismissal helped him to encourage most managers to include significant voucher components in their base privatization plans, but the pressure was bitterly resented. 12 Miklos with Ivan Miklos, Bratislava, October 1, 1996; Interview with Jozef Kucenik, Bratislava, January 13, 1997. 10 Slovakia was particularly handicapped by its reliance on heavy defense industries, among other things. See Gould, Politics of Privatization. 11 For details see Gould, Politics of Privatization , 73-79 . 12 In about sixty cases, managers called for direct sales exclusively to themselves. Assuming that the managers had failed to meet their obligations under the privatization act to make important data available to competitors, Miklos reopened the proposed submission process for an additional two months and pushed the firms to provide the necessary data to allow competitors to propose rival privatization plans for each firm, Miklos interview, October I, 1996; Ivan Miklos, "Corruption Risks in the Privatization Process: A Study of Privatization Developments in the Slovak Re- �SLOVAKIA 107 further alienated industrial elites by converting what they hoped would be a program of cheap, direct sales of enterprise shares to incumbent managers, into a transparent, competitive program in which price was the leading criterion. Prior to the June elections, the ministry sold shares in 189 firms for prices approximating and often exceeding their book value. 13 It would be another six years before the state would do as well financially in its direct sales of public property. Meanwhile, the first wave of voucher privatization began in October of 1991 with the registration of 2.59 million Slovak citizens, almost two-thirds of the adult population, through the federal Ministry of Finance. As in the Czech Republic, 14 registration for the program in Slovakia initially lagged until financial intermediaries (also referred to as investment privatization companies) began to offer a ten-fold or greater return on the voucher holder's initial registration fee within a year. Seventy-two percent of Slovak citizen-participants subsequently invested their voucher coupons with investment privatization funds in the first wave of privatization. Bidding on firms began in May of 1992 and closed in December. Shares were finally distributed to new owners in April of 1993 .15 Despite the efforts of industrial elites, the federal voucher privatization program had succeeded in providing the investment privatization funds stakes of up to forty percent in privatized firms. 16 Another wave of voucher privatization could allow fund owners to consolidate ownership of Slovakia's industrial assets. Over the next two years industrial managers, therefore, worked diligently through AZZZ to ensure a second wave of voucher privatization would not take place. 17 public," Bratislava, Klub Windsor, I 995; Interview with I.'.udovit Cemak, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 2, I 997. 13 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997; Mikael Olsson, Ownership, Reform and Corporate Governance: The Slovak Privatization Process in 1990-1996 (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University, 1999), 119. 14 For details, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, Chapter 5. 15 For more on the technical details of voucher privatization, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 63-8. 16 0Jsson, Ownership, Reform, 115-6, 219. 17 AZZZ (Federation of Employers Unions and Associations), "5. vyrocie AZZZ SR, 1991-1996," Spravodaj AZZZ Extra. Bratislava, March, 1996; Rudolf Lachovic, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie a kolektivneho investovania," Global Brokers, Bratislava, I 997, manuscript. �108 SLOVAKIA Meciar's Second Government, 1992-1994. Meciar's HZDS dominated the June 1992 elections. With the tacit support of the Slovak National Party (SNS), he became Slovak Prime Minister for the second time. In July negotiations with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, Meciar failed in his bid to form a weak confederation with the Czech Republic. Unable to reconcile Meciar's concept of a weak confederation with Klaus' concept of a strong federation, the two agreed to replace the federal state with two sovereign, independent republics. After parliamentary approval in both republican assemblies, the countries split peacefully on January 1, 1993. 18 As in the Czech Republic, voucher privatization in Slovakia became one of the more popular aspects of the federal reform program. 19 This may help to explain why the Meciar government, elected in June of 1992, completed the first wave as its predecessor had planned. Nevertheless, Meciar's Minister of Privatization, I:ubomir Dolgos, promised a shakeup in the next round. One of the new govemment' s first decisions was to indefinitely postpone the demand that firms submit second round privatization plans to the Ministry of Privatization. This necessitated at least a delay in the second round of voucher privatization. In September of 1992, the government program declaration and an associated Ministry of Privatization document spelled out a new privatization philosophy based on a more gradual state-guided economic transformation. Rather than emphasize the rapid creation of new owners, the state would now single out "strategic fields" where it would intervene to protect the national interest through the state restructuring of enterprises before, or in place of, privatization. Industrial ministries would design and coordinate restructuring plans with the assistance of the state-controlled financial sector. 18 Eric Stein, Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Innes, Czechoslo vakia. 19 Miklo~ interview, April 2, 1997; Dusan Triska recalled being surprised at the strong support for the voucher scheme in Slovakia. Dusan Triska, "Privatization: Czechoslovakia" Eastern European Economics 26 (Fall, 1991 ); DusanTl'iska, "Political , Organizational, and Legislative Aspects of Mass Privatization-Czechoslovakia," in Marko Simonetti and Andreja Bohm, eds., Privatization in Central & Eastern Europe, 1991 . (Ljubljana: Central and Eastern European Privatization Network, 1991 ). Oldfich Dedek, The Break-up of Czechoslovakia (Aldershoot: Ave bury 1996), 201 . �SLOVAKIA 109 This concept also favored direct sales to incumbent managers over voucher privatization. Price was no longer the dominant criterion in evaluating bids on the company shares that were to sold. First installments were lowered from thirty percent of the price to ten to fifteen percent, and payment could be extended over fifteen years. Another round of voucher privatization would take place, but would only be used as a residual method.20 Similarly, the threat that a manager would be dismissed diminished under the new government. Miklos asserted that Meciar and his Minister of Economy, I:udovit Cernak, reappointed many of the communist-era managers that had been pushed out by Carnogursky's government. 21 Many of these had been forced out for having collaborated with the communist secret service before the Revolution-in a process called "lustration."22 Cemak himself related that Meciar frequently paid little attention to his appointees' lustration certificates in . personne l dec1s1ons. . . 23 h1s Little privatization occurred under Dolgos in the first six months of 1993. Rather, Meciar focused his energies on consolidating control over his cabinet- pushing out co-HZDS founder Milan Kiiazko (who was a marginal threat to Meciar for party control) and Minister of Economy, Cemak. As a Kiiazko protege, Dolgos soon found himself in constant conflict with Meciar-most notably over whether vouchers should have any role in the second round when it started. Meciar felt they should not, while Dolgos asserted that he sought to put aside about a third of corporate shares for voucher privatization. 20 Dolgos stressed that any efforts to set voucher privatization timelines or the volume of assets to be voucher privatized in advance, "would ... fail to serve a purpose." Dolgos's reformulated concept even "warned" industrial managers that if their second wave base privatization plans relied too heavily on the voucher method, they would be "subjected to particularly critical and thorough evaluation." There would also be a critical "assessment of the risks derived from concentration of ownership through privatization investment funds ." Instead, Dolgos emphasized "combined methods" in which management buyouts would play an "exceedingly important role." Ministry of Administration and Privatization, SR. , "Concept of the Continuing Process of Privatization in the Slovak Republic. " Ministry of Administration and Privatization of National Property of the Slovak Republic, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1992; Interview with Cubomir Dolgos, Faculty of Management, Economics University, Bratislava, March 20, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 119-20. 21 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997. 22 Marsina interview, July, 22 1998; Uhrik interview, January 14, 1997. 2 3<'.:emak interview, April 2, 1997. �110 SLOVAKIA On June 12, 1993, Dolgos lost an HZDS-engineered vote of no confidence and stepped down.24 The departures of independent personalities like Cernak, Kiiazko and Dolgos left Meciar in more solid control over the HZDS and the government, but it also made his parliamentary majority vulnerable to future defections. Nevertheless, Meciar stepped up his efforts to replace his former colleagues with his personal loyalists-particularly in the Ministry of Privatization and the Fund for National Property (FNM). 25 At that time, the privatization ministry coordinated the privatization decision-making process while the FNM was a fully state-owned joint stock company charged with distributing shares to their new private owners. FNM appointees also represented the state's interests as a shareholder at general assemblies of corporate shareholders. In 100% state-owned companies, the FNM was on paper, at least, in complete control of the firm. Control over the FNM would give the Prime Minister control over most unprivatized and many partially privatized firms. Attempts to gain direct governmental control over the privatezation ministry and the FNM brought Meciar into sharp conflict with President Michael Kovac, another co-founder of the HZDS .26 To replace Dolgos at the privatization ministry, Meciar chose a close associate, Ivan Lexa. Having backed Meciar in the dismissal of Kiiazko, Kovac now balked. Citing Lexa's inexperience and potential conflicts of interest with his father (a communist-era central planning agency bureaucrat, recently-turned entrepreneur), the president refused to approve the appointment. Meciar responded by giving Lexa the post of State Secretary of the Ministry of Privatization (the highest ministerial position not requiring presidential approval) and assumed the responsibilities of Minister himself. One of Lexa's first privatization decisions as State Secretary in July of 1992 was to ap24 Dolgos interview, March 20, 1997; Cemak interview, April 2, 1997. Kevin Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 25 . 26 Slovakia 's President was constitutionally weak, making the need for a strong party system to check the Prime Minister's power all the more necessary. Executive power flowed from the Parliament, with limited presidential powers to check it. Kovac could and did veto legislation and appointees, but Parliament could override this with a simple majority. Later, when Parliament deadlocked over a new presidential candidate, presidenti al powers - including the power of a presidential amnesty transferred to the Prime Minister. 25 �SLOVAKIA 111 prove his father ' s participation in the privatization of Povazske mlyny a cestoviname, a.s., with a personal stake estimated at up to 1 billion Sk (then about US $30 million).27 While Meciar consolidated power over Slovakia' s privatization and property control mechanisms, financial intermediaries whose funds had done so well in the first round of privatization began to assert some clout in shareholder meetings. Enterprise managers had also established a few funds. 28 Slovakia' s largest company, Vychodoslovenske zeleziame, a.s (Eastern Slovak Steelworks- VSZ) had established Cassiovia Invest, which had the marketing clout to acquire more than ten percent of the vouchers. But most funds- and hence a large portion of corporate power- were in the hands of enterprise outsiders, a fact that was increasingly resented by the incumbent industrial managers.29 In the first wave of privatization, the funds had amassed a forty percent stake in privatized firms and from the perspective of incumbent managers, carried unwelcome clout. Battles soon emerged over which would be dominant in determining the overall strategy of the company, the shareholder-dominated Supervisory Boards or the management-controlled Boards of Directors.30 Meciar' s allies came to feel that the most influential funds were, as subsequent Fund for National Property President Stefan Gavomik put it, "owned by the opposition."31While not technically true, by the end of the year, industrial managers and fund-appointed board members began to run into sharp conflict over the day-to-day management and long-term strategy of "privatized" companies. Hoping to avoid a further erosion of corporate insider influence, AZZZ halted a 27 Anton Marcincin, Daniela Zemanovifova, and Lubos Vagac, "Privatization Methods and Development of Slovakia," Bratislava, Center for Economic Development, 1996, 17. 28 Another fi fty percent was spread across a wide range of funds and individual shareholders, leaving the FNM , with its residual 37.6 percent, effectively in charge. Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 223 . 29 AZZZ, "S.Vyrocie AZZZ SR, 199 1- 1996"; Miklos, "Corruption Risks," 64; Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 279, 283. 30 Slovak and Czech companies had a dual board structure consisting of a supervisory board that gave general strategic direction to the company and managerial oversight, and a management board- largely consisting of top corporate mana~ers- that oversaw the day-to-day operations of the firm. 1 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 11 8. �112 SLOVAKIA second round of voucher privatization. Meciar obligingly pushed back the start date for the next round of voucher privatization. In the fall of 1993, Meciar complimented his firm grasp of the Ministry of Privatization by putting personal loyalists on the board of the National Property Fund. Between December of 1993 and March of 1994, his indirect control over state shares of major firms allowed him to replace enterprise board members and managers of twentyone Slovak companies which, allegedly, failed to show sufficient loyalty to the HZDS. Meciar claimed that he was simply replacing opposition-linked managers from the VPN-KDH era with more independent managers . Indeed, he accused parliamentary opposition leaders "straight into the eye, in front of everyone, that each one of them is linked with one of the twenty-one major Slovak corporations in which we intervened. And this is the problem." 32 Meciar was possibly correct in his assessment. While in power, KDH ministers appointed people to the boards of leading Slovak state firms and other opposition leaders clearly had close industrial connections. However, it was unclear whether they were now being removed because they were acting as KDH clients or due to their reluctance to serve HZDS interests. Indeed, the KDH-era manager of the large oil refinery, Slovnaft, was allegedly replaced after he refused Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky's demands that he subcontract services to HZDS-linked firms. 33 By the winter of 1994, Meciar' s increasingly personal consoledation of party and governmental power had alienated many of his own party members. By February of 1994, a last remaining block of HZDS deputies, led by HZDS co-founder Jozef Moravcik, appeared ready to follow other former HZDS members and allies into opposition. The threat of losing power may have led to a subsequent wave of direct sales. Starting with the "midnight privatizations" of February 1, 2004, Lexa sold forty-four companies with a book value of $96 million for a final sale price of just $22 million. The decisions were notable for their lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, and advantageous terms to the purchasers-many of whom had close ties to leading government officials. Thirteen were subsequently annulled 32 Specifically, Meciar was accusing Vojtech Sugar, Jan Carnogursky, Cudovit Cernak and Peter Wiess. "Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," T ASR-Slovakia (February 6, 1994). 33 Confidential interview, Slovnaft insider, Bratislava, February, 1997. �SLOVAKIA 113 by the successor government for contravening the Large Scale Privatization Act of February 1991 , but virtually all of the privatizations were suspect. The beneficiaries included a range of politically connected individuals-from the wife of the leader of the Slovak National Party (SNS) to Meciar's own Minister of Finance, Julius T6th.34 A March 11 , 1994 report of a commission investigating the privatizations triggered the departure of the dissident-HZDS faction led by Jozef Moravcik and a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the government. In his speech before parliament, HZDS co-founder and Slovak President Michael Kovac openly accused Meciar of a lack of transparency and clientalism in the privatization process, among oth. 35 er th mgs. Meciar's and Lexa's hurried attempts to reorient Slovakia's privatization framework to favor political and economic insiders had run afoul of the opposition's effective use of liberal democratic institutions and norms. When next he gained power, Meciar' s new parliamentary majority would attack these opposition resources directly. VSZ and the Slovak Way of Privatization. One of Meciar's last acts in the1992-1994 government helps illustrate both the zero-sum nature of privatization, as well as its growing politicization. In December of 1993, the state exercised its shareholder rights to remove President Zoltan Berghauer and other top managers from the executive management of the state-owned firm VSZ, Slovakia's largest commercial entity. Berghauer had cofounded the AZZZ and was the lead author of an industry antireform petition in early 1991. 36 Meciar claimed that the top management change was a technocratic decision-made through consulta- 34 Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 121. Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 25. 36 In February of 1991 , only a month after the start of market reforms, the Slovak and Czech industrial federations delivered a joint petition to the Federal Assembly demanding "help in solving the difficult economic and financial situation of industrial companies ... [resulting from] the ill-considered restrictive fiscal , credit and monetary policy of the Federal Government. " Reforms, the industrialists continued, threatened, "the collapse of the entire national economy" and a "declining living standard for all citizens of the state." Zoltan Bergauer et al. , "Petice svaz u pnlmyslu CR a SR Federilnimu shromizdeni CSFR," Hospodafske noviny, February 29, 1991 , p. 3. 35 �114 SLOVAKIA tions with high-ranking bank and industrial managers.37 Yet he did not hide the fact that the change was to reduce the "unwarranted influence" of "opposition parties" in Slovakia's largest enterprise. 38 Berghauer and other purged VSZ managers protested the move, citing a history of political manipulation and threats by the HZDS towards VSZ management. The source of the claim directly attacked Meciar's Minister of Finance, JuliusToth. Toth had been VSZ's Vice President of Finance until he had resigned to join Meciar's government. According to Berghauer, Toth allegedly become enraged when Berghauer and VSZ's management refused to accept an HZDS member on the VSZ Board of Directors. Toth allegedly responded by demanding that the two top VSZ officials resign due to their political support for the KDH and other political opponents of the HZDS. 39 Toth later asserted that the Berghauer team had been stripping assets from the company. Through control of both the VSZ and collaboration with an independent trading company, they allegedly could siphon cash from the VSZ to the trade company by overcharging for supplies and underpaying for products.40 Perhaps to cut these alleged sales out of the revenue loop, or maybe to cut his allies in, Toth's new management team set up a new VSZ-owned sales company to oversee sales responsible for eighty percent of VSZ revenues. 4 1 As Minister of Finance, Toth and Lexa orchestrated the purchase of a 9.52 percent share of VSZ stock through a new private company, Manager a.s., established by five VSZ board members, including prominent HZDS member Alexander Rezes. The purchase was ques37 "Strong in the Saddle," T ASR-Slovakia, February 11, 1994. "Meciar Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," TASRSlovakia, February 6, 1994. 39 "Former Members of VSZ Board Lodge Complaint," CTK Business News, March 21 , 1994. 40 Despite Toth's allegations against Berghauer, no charges were ever filed . 41 Anthony Robinson, "Survey of Slovakia," The Financial Times, December 16, 1994, p. iv. It is unlikely that Toth was genuinely outraged at the allegations of corruption at VSZ. In 1993 he had allegedly used his influence as Minister of Finance to give a trading company, VSZ Selecta, a state contract to sell sugar that the Indian government provided to the Slovak government in place of its cash debt. VSZ Selecta won the contract without the required tender and then sold the sugar on the world market in violation of its contract. Toth was a member of the company's board. "Report on "Sugar Affair" to be out in January," CTK News, December 5, 1993. 38 �SLOVAKIA 115 tionable for its unsightly conflicts of interest, advantageous terms and most of all, its timing. Again, in accordance with the government program, the shares were sold to domestic entrepreneurs at a substantial discount with a generous payment schedule. The discount on the current share value of the package was $36 million.42 After a ten percent down payment, Manager would pay the rest in yearly installments over five years. Manager's members each made their down payment with an interest-free $62,000 loan from the Kosice-based Priemyselna banka (Industrial Bank) whose controlling shareholder was, in turn, the VSZ-controlled fund, Cassiovia Invest. 43 Priemyselna banka, moreover, received these funds from Banka Slovakia (Bank Slovakia), which then served as the repository and investment arm of the FNM. In short, Manager borrowed FNM funds to buy shares from the FNM that in tum benefited close associates of its directors and the man responsible for their appointment, Vladimir Meciar.44 The timing was also controversial. The Meciar government received the proposal to privatize the VSZ shares to Manager on March 7 and the government approved the request on March 11- the day on which parliament finally passed a vote no-confidence in the Meciar cabinet. The FNM and Manager signed the agreement on March 14, the day the government fell. On March 17, VSZ held a general assembly at which the now former Minister of Finance and FNM Board member, JuliusT6th, was elected Chair of VSZ's Board of Directors. Rezes would become Minister of Transportation in 42 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 22 . 0lsson, Ownership, Reform , 223 , note 39. 44 "Approach to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Meciar attempted to establish Banka Slovakia as early as 1993 in his home region of Banska Bystrica as part of his effort to develop a regional banking center. The goal was to use the bank to recycle FNM funds and provide cheap credit for small to medium sized enterprises. After the VSZ deal, however, the opposition charged that it would be used as a means of providing the politically connected with cheap capital to make down payments for privatization deals. In April of 1994, the next government suspended the bank's license to operate. With Meciar's re-election in the fall, the government pushed the National Bank of Slovakia to grant the license. But, after building a costly and elaborate headquarters in Banska Bystrica and suffering from notoriously poor lending practices, the bank had significant difficulties with capitalization. The NBS finally approved a license to begin operating on June I, 1996, but the bank- like most Slovak banks-quickly developed a problem with non-performing loans. 43 �116 SLOVAKIA Meciar's next cabinet. Supporting the vote were VSZ's investment privatization fund, Cassiovia Invest and VUE Invest, the investment company of Vseobecna uverova banka (General Credit Bank-VUB) and Slovakia's largest state owned bank. Ironically, oversight responsibility for VUB had, until four days earlier, lain primarily with T6th's Ministry of Finance.45 Meciar's Opposition Takes Power, March-November, 1993. A five-party caretaker government under the leadership of HZDS defector Jozef Moravcik was formed in mid-March. It promised to restore transparency and accountability to the privatization process and to re-launch the voucher privatization process as soon as possible. This was to be done before the scheduled new elections at the end of September. The coalition fought, however, over how to restore confidence, transparency and speed to the privatization process. Nevertheless, Kevin Deegan-Krause demonstrated how the new coalition allowed itself to be held accountable to competitive political forces. 46 The recent experience with Meciar may have taught the government coalition partners a good lesson in the dangers of overconcentration of power-particularly in the areas of property management and privatization. Yet, the new five-party coalition was fractious and ideologically incoherent. This influenced privatization. On the one hand, the formerly communist Party of the Democratic Left (SDI:) sought to maintain direct sales as the primary method of privatization. On the other hand, the coalition partners accused it of intending to use direct sales to reward its own allies amongst Slovakia's ex-communist industrialists and bureaucrats. The Ministry of Privatization, however, was now led by Milan Janicina, a lawyer from the center-right Democratic Union (DU). He sought to ensure that any direct sales would be a rule-governed, multi-party competitive process, not something to be run exclusively by SDI: dictates. 47 The SDI: did, however, secure an agreement to sub- 45 "Approac h to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Toth also became deputy chairman of Priemyselna banka, Olsson Ownership, Reform, 223, note 39. 46 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 26. 47 Interviews with Milan Janicina, Commercial Lawyer, Bratislava, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. �SLOVAKIA 117 ordinate the importance of price in the sales to employment and future investment commitments. 48 Corruption may have been possible in the final sales, but the number of competing interests in the decision making process ensured that the foxes guarding the hen house would keep each other in line. 49 Still , the program was not unimpeachable. Most of the direct privatization sales of fifty-four Slovak enterprises occurred after the elections had delivered a strong plurality to the HZDS but before Meciar had formed a government. 50 The government also conducted a public tender for the government's 24.9 percent share in VSi, attracting interest from nine companies, including the Austrian bank Creditanstalt. The coalition lost power before it could resolve internal bickering over the final buyer. 51 Throughout the summer of 1994, citizens, center-right coalition parties, brokerage firms and investment privatization funds clamored for a second wave of voucher privatization. Janicina fought with SD~'s Minister of the Economy Peter Magvasi (also an AZZZ member) to ensure that there would be enough property offered to make the project worthwhile. In preparation, the Ministry of Finance issued voucher booklets to seventy-two percent of Slovak citizens (ninety percent of those eligible). This was a significantly higher participation rate than the first wave. Janicina secured assets valued at $1.96 billion for the voucher program- making each voucher booklet potentially worth $593.00. After another aggressive campaign from financial intermediaries, fifty-eight percent of voucher holders traded their points for shares in investment privatization funds. 52 If the second wave of voucher privatization was completed, managerial insiders would cede significant additional economic power to the funds. 53 48 OIsson, Ownership, Reform , 124. Anna Grzymala-Busse, " Beyond Clientelism : Incumbent State Capture and State Formation," Comparative Political Studies 41 :4/5 (2008), 638-73 . 50 Jnterview with Rudolf Filkus, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 15, 1997; Janicina interviews, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. 51 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 222 . 52 Tbid. , 124-5. 53 Janici na interview, April I, 1997. 49 �SLOVAKIA Privatization under Meciar's Third Government, 1994-1998. The Moravcik government was short-lived. The SD:C had secured early elections and in the ensuing campaign the center-right fragmented amongst a range of competing personalities. A number of opposition parties failed to cross the five percent threshold in the September-October 1994 vote. Moravcik's Democratic Union (DU) received 8.6 percent, the KDH won 10.l percent, SD:C got 10.4 percent and the ethnic Hungarian Coalition took 10.2 percent of the votes. The HZDS, meanwhile, won a thirty-five percent plurality. This was less than in 1992. However, since thirteen percent of the electorate voted for parties that did not pass the five percent threshold, the ideological weight of the next parliament shifted sharply back towards Meciar and his national-populism. After a month of negotiations, the HZDS formed an ideologically awkward coalition with the two smallest delegations in parliament-the extreme right Slovak National Party (SNS-5.4 percent) led by the garrulous Jan Slota,54 and the extreme left Association of Slovak Workers (ZRS-7.34 percent). 55 To discipline his junior coalition partners, Meciar could use the threat of an alternative coalition with the reformed communist party, the SD:C.56 Critics speculated that the "brown-red" wings of the new ruling coalition were held together only by the promise of privatization benefits. 57 The National-Populist Privatization Concept and its Implementation. Meciar's privatization policies formally settled the long-standing ideological battle between market reformers and gradualists over privatization policy, but in reality, this conflict had stood proxy for an underlying clash of interests between enterprise outsiders and incumbent firm management. Gradualist concepts were hijacked, to an extent, and combined with clientalism and xenophobic nationa54 1n the spring of 1993, Meciar had helped Jan Slota oust Cernak from control over the SNS. Cernak left (with Janicina) to form the Democratic Union. Cernak interview, April 2, 1997. 55 Grigorij Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation of Slovakia's Party System," in Soi\a Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation , 50. 56 Innes, Czechoslo vakia, 262. 57 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 64. �SLOVAKIA 119 !ism to benefit the governing coalition and its allies at, as we shall see, a growing cost to the public. The formal theory underlying the Meciar government's privatezation program echoed the Dolgos strategy of the fall of 1992. The government would work closely with incumbent industrial managers to achieve ownership patterns that would be most appropriate to a coordinated industrial policy. The state would integrate equity transfer, credit and other policies in ways that would boost the strength of Slovak national firms on world markets and minimize transformational pain at the enterprise level. The variety of capitalism officially envisioned was thus much closer to a continental-style state-coordinated market economy than a more hands-off liberal market economy. However, Slovak industrial leaders at AZZZ also invoked Asian development models to explain what they were trying to accomplish.58 Insiders Ascendant. In practice, Meciar's coalition privatized the privatization process. It also subordinated capital markets regulation to the needs of incumbent managers at the expense of enterprise outsiders. The main target was the funds that emerged through voucher privatization. 59 Meciar's new parliamentary majority began to work even before he formed a government. In an overnight session of parliament on November 3-4, 1994, his new coalition passed legislation that secured exclusive control and oversight of privatization, the state media and the secret service. 60 An amendment to the 1991 Large Scale Privati58 Interview with Frantisek Bruckrneyer, General Director, Federation of Employers' Unions and Associations (AZZZ), Bratislava, February 6, 1997. Prior to becoming Director of AZZZ, Bruckrneyer worked for the Czechoslovak federal government after the Warsaw Pact invasion (1970-1974) and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in Moscow (1974-1980). In the 1980s, he directed the state-owned firm, Zdroj , before co-founding AZZZ in 1991 . Compiled from "Leaders.sk" database. Trend Holding Co. and The Slovak Spectator, Bratislava. http://www.leaders.sk/index.php?id=674 [accessed August 30, 2010). 59 Marcincin et al., "Privatization Methods"; Miklos, "Economic Transition,"; Ivan Miklos, "Privatizacia," in Martin Butora and Michal lvantysin, eds. Slovensko, 1997: Suhrn a sprava o stave spolocnosti a trendoch na rok 1998. (Bratislava: Institut pre verejne otazky, 1998). 60 Soi\a Szomolanyi, "Identifying Slovakia's Emerging Regime," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 10. �120 SLOVAKIA zation Act transferred the right to propose and decide direct sales from the privatization ministry to the relatively less transparent FNM (Act #369/1994). The majority then stacked the FNM's Presidium and Supervisory Board with coalition officials and cancelled Janicina's 54 direct post-election sales (Act #370/1994). In five cases, new property owners had already taken legal possession of their assets from the state. 61 This violated both international human rights law and the Slovak Constitution. 62 The transfer of power to the FNM had important implications. The Constitutional Court later ruled that, as a joint stock company, the FNM did not have to submit to government review or regulatory oversight. Hence, it was exempt from oversight by the supreme government control body that could oversee and audit state agencies. Even had it not been exempt from oversight, however, the November 3-4 "night of the long knives" removed opposition parliamentarians from the oversight committee. The ruling majority was now fully responsible for monitoring itself. 63 While extolling the virtues of a state-directed transformation, Meciar provided the new measures with a market reform cover story. He claimed that insulating the privatization process from opposition would allow the FNM to make decisions according to technocratic criteria, free from political influence. In 1998, when the damage had been done, this allowed him to claim that although he still agreed with his "concept" of privatization, he had not been responsible for its administration. 64 Meciar's "concept" ultimately excluded outsiders from privatization. He initially promised that the second wave of voucher privatization would go ahead as planned-although with less property than Janicina envisioned. In July of 1995, however, Parliament cancelled voucher privatization altogether (Act #190/1995). Voucher booklets 61 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 126. Both Article 17b of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly 217 /1948) and Protocol 1, Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe 1952) secure the right to possessions. 63 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. In the fall of 1997, Parliament finally gave into EU and opposition pressure and appointed Ivan Miklos to the supervisory board of the FNM. 64 CTK News, May 8, 1998. Meciar was never directly implicated in a privatization scandal while in power, Sharon Fisher, Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nationalist to Europeanist, (New York: Pal grave, 2006), 91. 62 �SLOVAKIA 121 could now be exchanged for a bond with a face value of l 0,000 Sk to be redeemable in 2001 or on the bearer's 65 th birthday and with an interest rate equal to the discount rate of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS). Proceeds to meet the bond obligations were to come from sales of state property- a promise that the FNM's new privatization policy of selling to domestic industrial managers at a deep discount made impossible to keep . In its public statements, AZZZ took full credit for the cancellation of vouchers.65 A Constitutional Court decision overturned parts of Act #190 in late 1996.66 By that time, however, the FNM had already privatized most of Slovakia's remaining "non-strategic" industrial enterprises. Even had the government wanted to re-launch the voucher program, it would now have had to renationalize private properties to find adequate assets to make the program work. An additional measure passed in July of 1995 enhanced the government's capabilities to coordinate a state-directed industrial policy through the Strategic Enterprises Act (# 175/ 1995). The purpose of the act was to preserve the "public interest" in crucial Slovak industries. First, twenty-nine firms would be exempt from privatization altogether. This included the fundamental sectors of the economy including telecommunications, energy and the defense-related engineering sector. The list of strategic companies, made public in the summer of 1996, also included some at least questionably "strategic" firms such as health spas. 67 All told, the Strategic Enterprises Act reduced the book value of assets remaining to be privatized by half. 68 A second, legally controversial provision of the act, forced an additional forty-five firms to transfer a "golden share" to the firm's founding ministry-in most cases, to Jan Ducky's Ministry of the Economy. The Constitutional Court overturned this prescription in April of 1996 as a clear violation of property rights, but tellingly, the owners of major pro-HZDS firms , like Slovnaft, had failed to give 65 Lachovit, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie". Katarina Zavacka, "The Development of Constitutionalism in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 164. 67 The administration may have legitimately feared that privatization would mean the services of the spas would no longer be readily available or affordable to average Slovaks through the health care system. 68 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 130. 66 �122 SLOVAKIA the state ownership rights over the golden share. Their reaction gave credence to the market reformers' expectations that privatizationeven via a highly politicized process-would produce independent agents with the potential, at least, to resist government policies that hurt their material interests. 69 In November of 1996, the Constitutional Court also annulled Parliament's transfer of privatization powers to the FNM (Act #370/1994). The court argued that the act had illegally abrogated the state's responsibility for the transformation of state property. The Court stopped short of retroactively annulling the FNM ' s actions, however. Stripped of its exclusive prerogative over direct sales, the HZDS-controlled FNM continued to serve its clients through public auctions of shares from the FNM portfolio. While share auctions are a relatively uncontroversial privatization mode, critics allege that the FNM often limited access about the time and location of the auction to all but the intended buyer. 70 Coalition Control over Direct Sales. Between January of 1994 and November of 1996, the FNM privatized at a furious pace. While Act #3 70/1994 removed privatezation from the government's portfolio of responsibilities, coalition officials and industrial insiders from AZZZ retained close control over the process. Two FNM officials, HZDS member and FNM Chairman Milan Rehak, and Co-Chair and Director of the Direct Sales Section, Jan Povraznik, were responsible for executing Presidium decisions . These were closely controlled by the ruling coalition. Junior coalition partner ZRS had formal responsibility for the privatization process . ZRS member Peter Bisak ran the Ministry of Privatization while ZRS vice-chairman Stefan Gavornik chaired the Presidium. Gavornik attested, however, that his influence was minimal: while the HZDS had no seats on the nine member Presidium, AZZZ members held six seats and hence a majority of the votesand they supported the HZDS .7 1 Understandably, now that AZZZ 69 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi , "Bridging Slovakia's Elite Chasm," Transitions, November, 1997. 70 Jnterview with Gabriel Palacka, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 18, 1997 ; Miklos, "Economic Transition," 67-8 . 71 Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Postcommunist Europe (London: Ashgate, 2005), 64. �SLOVAKIA 123 influence was secured, incumbent managers who had previously been skeptical about privatization became its strong advocates. 72 According to Sharon Fisher, regional committees of five coalition representatives determined properties to be sold and top coalition officials made final decisions at coalition meetings every Wednesday at 6:00pm. 73 Allegedly, the meetings rarely considered the business merits of the proposal-or even how the sale would further the official goal of coordinated industrial restructuring. As Gavomik recalled, "We were .... lobbying for those who were coming to us." Yet, Gavomik added, "not even a nail was sold without Meciar."74 Milan Cagala, a HZDS-appointed FNM presidium member, confirmed these allegations. 75 More broadly, members of the ruling coalition were open about clientalism. 76 As Minister of the Economy, Jan Ducky (HZDS) explained, "every government gives advantages to those groups that cooperate with them. This is not controversial." 77 Yet sales went beyond clientalism to open self-dealing-included sales to leading ruling coalition politicians and their family members. As Gavomik admitted, "Of course there are [politicians in the privatization process], and I know about them, but I won't tell. After all .. . every citizen has a right to take part in privatization." 78 Participants in the FNM's direct sales program typically received terms similar to the midnight privatizations of February 1994. Buyers-usually incumbent managers- would receive the company for 72 Ibid. , 35. Fisher, Political Change, 88-9. The regional meetings were an institutional mechanism for regionally based privatization groups to make their claims to property. In the eyes of observers, the groups became associated with leading HZDS officials and clients. For example, it was rumored that meetings in Kosice tended to be dominated by Rezes, those in Banska Bystrica by Meciar, and those in Tmava by Vladimir Poor. Interview with Valer Ostrovsky, CEO, Schultz and Ostrovsky, Bratislava, May 14, 1997. 74 Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic," Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 75 Ibid. 76 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 66-7. 77 Author's notes from "Slovak Spectator Live, Debates for Democracy Series: Brigita Schmognerova & Jan Ducky," Bratislava, 1996. An FNM spokesman shared this sentiment with the author. Interview with Oto Balogh, Press Spokesman, Fund for National Property, Bratislava, April 22, 1998. 78 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 277-8, note 26. 73 �124 SLOVAKIA as little as one third, one-fifth, or even less of its book value. In practice, the typical firm required a ten to fifteen percent down payment, often using money borrowed from a state-owned financial institution. Moreover, installments on the purchaser' s debt to the FNM were usually spread over ten years and deductible from the company' s tax bill. These terms and often the buyers themselves were also frequently kept secret. In the case of the illegal sale of the strategically listed and highly profitable oil extraction and storage company, Nafta Gbely a.s., the new owners of the company remained a matter of intense speculation among opposition politicians and the press. The official address of the purchasing company, Druha obchodna, a.s. was initially an abandoned building. Vladimir Poor, Trnava's HZDS chief and a member of the regional coalition privatization committee later admitted to being a primary beneficiary of the deal, along with a close Meciar aide.79 FNM President Gavornik later alleged that Poor was able to meet the company's 575 million Sk purchase price simply by raiding the company's 1,075 million Sk capital account. If Gavornik is right, Poor used the firm's bank account to buy the firm for himself. Prosecutors later unsuccessfully charged Poor with "tunneling" 300 million Sk out of the company, but dropped the charges. In the end, the circumstances of the company ' s privatization were never fully investigated, perhaps because Poor voluntarily returned the company to the state. 80 In another controversial case, the FNM sold a controlling stake of Slovnaft, Slovakia's oil refinery, to Slovintegra-a company owned by Slovnaft' s director, Slavomir Hatina and nineteen other managers. Hatina was a financial backer of the HZDS and bought thirty-nine percent of the company at an eighty percent discount over the currently traded price. The initial down payment, moreover, was only 1.56 percent of the sale value. The FNM soon reduced the sale price by an additional eighty-four percent to reward management for meeting its promised investment and employment targets.81 The privatization of Slovakia' s largest company, VSZ, also continued apace under Meciar's direct sales framework. In 1995, junior 79 Fisher, Political Change, 93-4; Marcincin et al. , "Privatization Methods. " Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic, Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 81 Marcincin et. al. , "Privatization Methods," 18. 80 �SLOVAKIA 125 coalition member ZRS engineered a sale of ten percent of VSZ shares to Hutnik, a company formally owned by VSZ's union members but strongly under the influence of Minister of Transport (until 1996), Alexander Rezes. Again the price was a fraction of the real value of the shares and payments were made on a generous installment plan. Hutnik then collaborated with Rezes to form Ferrimex, a company that purchased another 15.4 percent on extraordinarily generous terms.82 The deal cemented Rezes ' s control over VSZ. Rezes responded by essentially barring minority shareholder VUB kup6n (an investment company set up by Slovakia' s state-run savings bank) from receiving any information about the health and activities of the firm _sJ Nationalism in Privatization. The Meciar government employed popular economic nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric to justify its choice of a privatization program. Junior coalition partner SNS campaigned in 1994 on a promise to protect Slovakia from "impoverishment" at the hands of foreign investors.84 The subsequent 1995 government program declaration promised to privilege "domestic business subjects" over foreigners in the privatization process. National entrepreneurs would then deal with their assets as they saw fit in what Meciar correctly predicted would be a "third wave" of privatization to foreigners. 85 In practice, Slovak government officials remained deeply suspicious of foreign direct investment and often sought to block foreign partnerships. "We just want to avoid them coming in and closing [the company]," remarked one FNM official in an interview with the author. "Investors only come to misuse companies and disappear." 86 One example is notable for its senselessness: a foreign advisor to the government related that he worked with an entrepreneur to acquire a strategic foreign partner to modernize and expand production of his product line for export abroad. While the entrepreneur was not explicitly prohibited from signing the deal, he received several telephone calls from top officials in one ministry warning that he would 82 01sson, Ownership, Reform, 223 -5. lbid., 182. 84 Fisher, Political Change, 89. 85 Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 65 . 86 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997. 83 �126 SLOVAKIA be held fully accountable if even one Slovak lost his job as a result of the investment. He lost his nerve and cancelled the contract. The enterprise thus remained in debt and was unable to raise the money on its own for modernization; nor was it able to make its own marketing contacts abroad. The advisor noted that this was typical of the Meciar government's attitude towards foreign joint-ventures. 87 The combination of national capitalism and knee-jerk nationalism cost Slovakia dearly. Joint ventures with multinational corporations were at that time leading the deep industrial restrucuring of Central Europe. They had the capital, marketing networks and technology to outperform domestically privatized companies and they were far outperforming firms that remained in state hands, measured in both production increases and productivity growth. 88 Despite this growing record of success, the ruling coalition sold a mere five companies to foreigners out of a total 347. 89 On a per capita basis, by 1998, Slovakia had received half the FDI of Poland, one-third the FDI of the Czech Republic and only a tenth of the FDI of Hungary.90 This was a lost opportunity. Over the next few years, new owners would effortlessly enrich themselves by "flipping" their cheaply acquired companies to international capital-realizing for themselves gains that should have gone into the FNM accounts to meet its new privatization bond obligations. 91 Insider-Controlled Capital Markets Regulation. Having gained control over the privatization process, incumbent managers pressured the government for a favorable capital markets policy. Throughout 1994 and into 1995, investment privatization companies had clashed with incumbent managers in company board rooms. As Michael Olsson relates, the managers wanted the new ow87 Confidential interview with a foreign financial service executive, Bratislava, October 20, 1996. Most of the foreign financial service executives and consultants I sroke with had similar stories. 8 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Elite Fragmentation, Industry and the Prospects for Democracy in Slovakia: Insights from New Elite Theory" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (New York: Columbia International Affairs Online, 1997), http: //www.ciaonet.org/book/gould/ [accessed February 23, 2012]. 89 Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 133. 90 Gould and Szomolinyi, "Elite Fragmentation," 58. 91 Fisher, Political Change, 94. �SLOVAKIA 127 ners to contribute capital while they continued to control the direction of the company. The new owners of the funds, by contrast, sought to pressure the incumbent managers into improving cost efficiency, technological and organizational restructuring, and developing new- often international- marketing arrangements. It did not help that the funds with diverse portfolios did not have sufficient expertise to cover all the firms in their portfolio. Fund representtatives were often barely out of university and entirely lacking in experience. A cultural clash thus developed between the older generation of industrial managers-most of whom had their start in Slovak industry in the 1960s and 70s-and the "young men from Bratislava_ ,,92 Government actions in 1995 wrested industrial control from the funds back to the industrial managers. Incumbent managers began to use the direct sales process to tum the tables at meetings of general shareholders. Olsson writes, "[M]anagers who acquired a large chunk of shares on soft terms from the FNM all of a sudden lost all respect for other minority shareholders .... funds could only sit by [as] ... managers or other domestic industrial groups took over." 93 The government also intervened in capital markets to further tilt the balance of power towards management. Legislation in 1995 reduced the maximum stake investment privatization companies could hold in a company from twenty to ten percent. It also prohibited investment privatization companies from placing officials on a company ' s Board of Directors. This weakened the ability of fund-dominated Supervisory Boards to monitor the day-to-day actions of company managers. Parliament also passed capital markets regulation in 1996 that reduced the transparency of capital markets transacttions and all but eliminated minority shareholder rights. President Kovac returned the legislation, demanding better protection for minority shareholders. Ironically, the funds were not necessarily in favor of a better regulated market. The Slovak capital market had few of the institutional safeguards to protect minority shareholder rights and prevent insider trading that we find in more developed equity markets. Controlling owners were often able to expropriate value from minority 92 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 182. 93 fbid. �128 SLOVAKIA shareholders without penalty. This meant, ironically, that the emergence of a dominant shareholder in a firm often would lead to a decline in the value of the firms' shares. 94 The result was a loss in equity market liquidity: when one lost control over a company, one would often be unable to sell one's shares at any price. Wise investors knew that the majority shareholders could tunnel the real value of the company elsewhere. Under such conditions, a passive portfolio stake in all but a few "blue chip" companies made little sense. Funds found they could best make money by secretly acquiring a controlling share of companies in unregistered, off market trades of physical paper shares and then selling them at a profit to a strategic investor. Given that a more transparent market would actually undermine this strategy, a number of funds were somewhat ambivalent about reforms that might make passive portfolio investment safer and profitable. 95 The ruling coalition made things even worse. It sought to limit the funds to a portfolio role even as it actively undermined their minority shareholder rights. Ministry of Finance capital markets regulator Jozef Magula testified on behalf of minority shareholder rights in front of Parliament--much to the disappointment of top AZZZ managers . A better law was passed in 1997 .96 Still, the new law continued to allow controlling shares to be bought anonymously in secret off-market trades. 97 Remarked one broker philosophically, "at least we have rules."98 94 Economist Joseph Stiglitz observed this phenomenon in the Czech equity market, but the problems were quite similar in Slovakia. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Comments on 'Czech Republic: Capital Market Review Report,"' Delivered at the Ministry of Finance, Prague, Czech Republic, May 9, I 997 ; For details, see Gould, The Politics o[ Privatization, 81- 10 I. 9 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 184-5 . 96 Magula claims that, as a result of his parliamentary testimony, he came under AZZZ pressure to step down. He relented and moved to the central bank. Interview with Jozef Magula, Member of the Bank Board, General Relations Department, National Bank of Slovakia, Bratislava, July 28, 1998. 97 Magula interview, July 28, 1998 ; Interview with Rudolf Lachovic, President, Association of Investment Managers and Investment Funds of the Slovak Republic, Brati slava, June I 6, 1997; for the early market regulatory climate, see Juris, I 994. 98 Ostrovsky interview, May 14, I 997. �SLOVAKIA 129 Meaningful portfolio investment disappeared under Meciar. In addition, led by Magula, the government destroyed a rapidly growing mutual fund industry in 1996. Unlike the privatization funds, the new mutual funds gathered people's savings and invested them in the market and other assets. The pioneer was Prva slovenska investicna skupina, a.s (First Slovak Investment Company-PSIS) an open-ended fund into which citizens could deposit and withdraw like a checking account. By early 1995, the PSIS's Sporofund had over $50 million in savings. 99 It was allegedly well-run and had done a reasonable job at building shareholder value within its portfolio. But in the fall of 1994, the PSIS used its savings to invest in citizen voucher booklets issued under the Moravcik government. Vouchers, the PSIS controversially argued, were a form of state security and hence a legal investment for the mutual fund. Over 750,000 Slovaks signed up for the PSIS voucher privatization funds . Had the second wave of voucher privatization gone forward as planned, PSIS would have become the second wave's largest owner of shares in Slovak enterpnses. However, PSIS owners were also strong contributors to the Democratic Union-the party of Janicina and Moravcik. Moreover, the PSIS had a stake in the independent daily newspaper SME. Both PSIS' s political orientation and its potential economic power were a threat to the ruling coalition and its industrial allies. In the spring of 1995, the Ministry of Finance revoked PSIS 's operating license. Courts found the measure illegal and ordered that the Ministry restore the license, but the Ministry simply revoked it again and transferred control of the company's Sporofund portfolio to Harvard Investment Company. In the face of a rapid withdrawal from the Sporofund, Harvard liquidated the fund and paid off savers about half of what they had put in. 100 The Coalition Assault on Democracy, 1995-1998. Meciar's coalition could not have achieved such close control over the privatization framework without a significant attack on democratic political and civic institutions. Hence, while Slovakia's 99 Interview with Vladimir Hoffman, Broker, Delta Securities, Prague, Czech Republic, July 25 , 1997. I0°Magula interview, July 28, 1998; Ostrovsky interview, May 14, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 187-90. �130 SLOVAKIA democratic decline from 1994 to 1998 was not exclusively caused by privatization, it was certainly linked to it. Indeed, it is unlikely that the ruling coalition and its allies would have fought so hard had the nation's most lucrative assets not been available for appropriation. After ad hoc encroachments on democratic norms in 1993-94, between late 1994 and 1998, Meciar' s parliamentary majority reduced Slovakia's formal democracy to an illiberal shell verging on soft authoritarianism. One permissive cause was the majoritarian nature of the Slovak Constitution. Led by a strong executive and unhindered by a weak presidency already on the defensive, the Meciar majority sought to override the remaining checks posed by the Constitutional Court, the political opposition, civil society and regional and municipal governments. This enabled a reorientation of the privatization framework towards political and economic insiders, but it also endangered "horizontal accountability"-the country' s internal balance of institutional power. 101 Meciar' s squabble with the president was the most visible aspect of this encroachment. Kovac ' s 1993 veto over Meciar's choice of Ivan Lexa to run the privatization ministry marked the beginning of a running battle between the government and the president. The conflict took on added intensity during Meciar's third government. Kovac did not have much institutional power to start with. His repeated vetoes of parliamentary acts were quickly overridden by a simple majority- entirely in line with the Constitution. Yet, Meciar sought to further weaken and discredit the president. An important player in this campaign was the Slovak Information Service (SIS), Slovakia ' s secret service. First, Meciar had to gain control over it. In the November 3-4, 1994 session of parliament, Meciar's majority excluded opposition parties from participating on the SIS oversight committee. In the spring of 1995, parliament transferred power to appoint the head of Slovakia's intelligence agency from President Kovac to Prime Minister Meciar. Meciar then appointed his trusted protege, Ivan Lexa, to head the service. 102 Over the next two and a half years, Lexa waged a war of "dirty tricks" against the president and harassed civil society and indepen10 1 Guillenno O' Donnell, "Delegati ve Democracy," Journal of Democracy, 5: I ( 1994), 55-69; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities. 102 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. �SLOVAKIA 131 dent entrepreneurs. The war reached its climax in August of 1995 when someone- possibly Meciar, but more probably Lexa-ordered that the president' s son be kidnapped, drugged, and dumped in neighboring Austria. When Robert Remias, the confidant of an exSIS agent, implicated Lexa's SIS in discussions with the editor of the leading independent daily SME, Remias was assassinated. Meciar's government squashed the investigation into the assassinationreplacing three investigators before finding one who suspended the inquiry into the SIS link. The new investigator concealed evidence that 150-200 grams of Semtex had ignited the car's propane tank. Now on the defensive, the SIS launched a campaign to show that Kovac Jr. had arranged for his own kidnapping.103 The battle between Meciar and Kovac ended only after the president's term of office expired in 1997. As the government and opposition could not achieve the super majority needed to select a replacement under a clearly flawed constitutional provision, presidential powers fell to the Prime Minister. Meciar subsequently used his presidential powers to pardon anyone linked to the kidnapping and Remias's murder-despite the lack of any official finding that a crime had taken place. 104 The government also encroached on the rights and prerogatives of the opposition, the courts, civil society and the media. In addition to oversight of the secret service, the November 3-4, 1994 parliamentary session blocked opposition MPs from participation on all substantive committees except the environment committee. The coalition further revealed its hegemonic intentions by trying to have former Prime Minister Moravcik' s party, the Democratic Union (DU), banned from parliament and by charging President Kovac with treason. Both efforts failed. To safeguard against a repeat of the 1993-4 defections of Kovac, Moravcik, Filkus, Knazko and others, defectors from the HZDS were now treated with open disrespect for the constitution. After HZDS co-founder Frantisek Gaulider left the HZDS parliamentary club in 1996, the HZDS leadership produced a pre-signed letter of resignation that they had obtained in 1994 to ensure party discipline. The 103 Kieran Wiliams, "Slovakia Since 1993," in Kieran Williams and Dennis Deletant, eds., Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001 ), 130-140. 104 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 48-50. �132 SLOVAKIA parliamentary majority then stripped him of his parliamentary mandate, barred him from the building and replaced him in parliament with a HZDS loyalist. The Constitutional Court ruled these acts to be unconstitutional, but parliament did not reinstate him- another violation of Slovakia' s fragile system of checks and balances. Gaulider also received numerous threats to his life. 105 Media and civil society also came under intense legal and extralegal pressure from the government and allegedly the SIS. The HZDS attempted to monopolize channels for societal interest group representation by creating bureaucratic barriers to their legal operation and by establishing party-controlled interest groups that competed with independent societal interest groups in their particular field. 106 Similarly in the media, parliament' s November 1994 legislation excluded the opposition from any role in oversight over public broadcasting. The state-controlled mass media and sympathetic newspapers then justified the government's actions with a torrent of unbalanced coverage, nationalism, xenophobia, personal slurs and misdirection. 107 Things were also tough for the independent media. Following his reporting on the Kovac, Jr. case, the editor of SME found a dead cat nailed to his door and his car burned. An anonymous leafleting campaign accused two other critical journalists of pornography and pedophilia. A third journalist who looked too closely at the links between Alexander Rezes and the HZDS was beaten up in a Kosice restaurant. 108 Meanwhile, privatization beneficiaries frequently bought and attempted to control the editorial content of the independent media. When VSZ took over the business daily 105 Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation," 43 ; Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, "Preface," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 5. 06 ' Darina Malova, "The Development of Interest Representation in Slovakia after 1989: From 'Transmission Belts' to ' Party-State Corporatism?"' in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 93113 . 07 ' The Helsinki Civic Assembly and the Association for the Support for Local Democracy survey concluded that state-run Slovak Television violated the principles of fa irness more often than any other public or private media outlet during the 1998 electoral campaign. It devoted seventy-five percent of its news programs to Met iar and the HZDS, RFEIRL News line, 2: 192 (October 5, 1998), Part II . 108 Innes, Czechoslovakia, 313 , note 139. �SLOVAKIA 133 Narodna obroda, for example, the new owners fired the newspaper's independent-minded editor. Overall, while the independent media functioned effectively, it faced numerous forms of petty harassment from various government agencies. 109 Independent news sources, however, did not reach the entire population. In much of the country, the state broadcast media was the primary source of information. After the November 3-4 session of parliament, government loyalists controlled the state media and state broadcasting reflected their views, even to the point of collaborating with the SIS to fabricate "investigative reports" slandering the president. Nor did the most important independent media source-the television station Markiza-initially have the coverage capacity or willingness to acquaint Slovaks with the details of privatization or other rule of law issues. Toward the end of the 1996-1998 period, however, TV Markiza did become a crucial source of alternative information in Slovakia. 11 0 As the Meciar government came into conflict with basic liberal institutions and freedoms , the EU, NA TO, European governments and the United States all registered their displeasure. The EU, in particular, issued a series of diplomatic demarches as part of its dialogue with applicant countries. 111 In 1996, Freedom House reduced Slovakia's political rights ranking from "free" to "partially free." 112 However, the nastiest rap to the government's knuckles came in July of 1997, after the government illegally cancelled a national referendum on NATO membership. The European Commission recommended that Slovakia be excluded from the first wave of EU membership negotiations. While Slovakia was a liberal democracy in 109 Andrej Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media in the Post-Communist Transition of Slovakia" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 187-208. 110 Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media," 196. 111 Alexander Duleba, "Democratic Consolidation and the Conflict over Slovakia's International Alignment," in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 209-30; Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, l everage and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11 2 Freedom House, "Freedom in the World, 2007," Freedom House, Washington, D.C., 2007 . �134 SLOVAKIA form, the Commission opined, it operated differently in practice. 113 NATO Followed suit and excluded Slovakia from its first round of • 114 expansion. The Meciar government dismissed these external critics by questioning the objectivity of their processes and critiquing the patriotism of domestic opponents who agreed with them . Yet, the blows hurt. Slovakia's young, urban and educated citizens were deeply concerned with proving the country's western credentials and desperately wished to join Europe 's most exclusive clubs. Thus, the EU and to a lesser extent NA TO, increasingly put the government in a bind: Meciar could not comply with their "conditions" and still retain his increasingly politicized and often illegal control over political and economic life. As Milada Vachudova pointed out, "political power depended on strategies that were incompatible with the EU's re~uirements of liberal democracy and comprehensive market reform." 15 With the September/October 1998 parliamentary elections approaching, the HZDS even appeared ready to jettison free and fair elections. Parliament amended the electoral law in ways that gave the Ministry of the Interior greater influence in counting the vote; and it put ambiguous and potentially expandable limitations on the ability of the private media to cover the election. New electoral rules also shackled the ability of small parties or coalitions to participate in the election. Finally, the HZDS had the courts review the leading opposition coalition 's eligibility to participate. Many worried that should the government apply a literal interpretation of its new laws, it could eliminate a number of important institutions of liberal democracy, including the right to contestation and participation as well as the right to alternative sources of information. Opponents feared a fullfledged authoritarian turn . 116 Privatization's Half-way Reform. Meciar's privatization program produced stakeholders in dysfun113 European Commission, Agenda 2000-Commission Opinion on Slovakia's Application for Membership of the European Union , (Brussels: European Union, 1997), section I. 3. 114 Duleba, " Democratic Consolidation." 115 Vachudova, Europe Undivided, 38. 11 6 1.M. Viersma, "Sprava docasnej pozorovatelskej misie na Slovensku," Euro Report, no. I 5, 1998, pp. 22-23. �SLOVAKIA 135 ctional economic policies. This was not necessarily pre-ordained. The first two Slovak governments retained the basic elements of the market reform program inherited from the federal government. An independent National Bank of Slovakia kept the Slovak currency strong, while the first two post-independence governments restricted their fiscal expenditures and preserved a liberalized trade environment. By 1995-6, Slovakia's firms were beginning to find new markets in Western Europe. Unemployment, still high at thirteen percent, was beginning to inch down. With so much slack in the labor market, inflationary pressures remained acceptable-reflecting a sustainable increase in demand as tradable products integrated into world markets. The major problem was the deliberate coalition policy of politicized reform. 1997-8 turned out to be challenging years in the global economy. Yet, the network of industry-state-party ties shaped by an insider privatization process and illiberal politics made Slovakia even more vulnerable to a downturn. 117 Missed tax payments, uncompetitive government procurement programs, significant new government financial obligations, delayed enterprise restructuring, low foreign direct investment and a troubled banking sector all contributed to an economic crisis that would cost Slovakia the next three years of growth. Manipulation of Debt. The Slovak Republic shows that a government's capacity to protect investor property rights and enforce debt contracts is crucial to the efficiency of privatization. 118 The Meciar government's policy of direct sales led to a rapid concentration of ownership, but it did not always produce more efficient behavior. According to interviews with Western financial services experts and equity market actors, Slovak owners often rejected enterprise restructuring and instead used their insider access to cash flows and assets from privatized 117 OECD, (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), OECD Economic Surveys, 1998-1999: Slovakia, (Paris: OECD, 1999), 29-30. 11 8 Olsson, Ownership, Reform; Simon Johnson and Andrei Shleifer, "Privatization and Corporate Governance," in Takatoshi Ito and Anne 0. Krueger, eds, Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region. NBER East Asia Seminar on Economics, 12 (2001), 13-34. http://www.nber.org/chapters/cl0l82 .pdf [accessed February 23, 2012]. �136 SLOVAKIA enterprises to get rich quickly-a process known as "rent seeking." Much of the reason relates to debt and the firms' low purchase prices. Slovak firms carried a large outstanding burden of debt which they were not necessarily pressured to honor. First, Slovakia's bankruptcy law privileged debtors over creditors, reinforcing a persistent problem with overdue liabiities. 11 9 Second, the administration of the first wave of voucher privatization in Slovakia led to an initial concentration of privatized property in the state-bank owned funds . These state-owned banks often transgressed the official firewall between their lending and equity management operations and forced firms to take on more loans than they needed. 120 The percentage of nonperforming loans in the portfolios of Slovakia's three state banks skyrocketed between 1996 and 1998 from twenty-five to thirty-seven percent. 121 Third, privatization in highly discounted client or management buyouts failed to bring in new cash or debt relief to Slovak companies. Despite the often-symbolic purchase prices and favorable repayment terms, politically connected buyers would often increase debt by borrowing from state banks to make their down payment to the FNM. Privatized firms also frequently stopped paying their taxes. Between 1995 and 1998, tax arrears of private firms in Slovakia tripled to about sixteen percent of total state expenditures. Fully paid, this would have been enough to eliminate the budget deficit. 122 The scarcity of cash in the economy did not bode well for restructuring. Many managers privatized their firms only to find themselves apparently condemned to eke out a living at the margins of solvency for years on end. Facing such choices, and given lucrative 11 9 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, p. 97 . Debt loading is the practice of pushing unnecessary loans on cash rich firms at high rates as a means of extracting their funds. According to Andrew Schwartz, it was a common practice among bank-owned privatization funds in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Since debt loading siphoned off cash that should have been shared with the enterprise ownership's minority shareholders, it was a form of tunneling. Andrew Schwartz, The Politics of Greed: How Privatization Structured Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (Lanham, MD : Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 236-7; Appel, A New Capitalist Order, 64; Jarko Fidrmuc and Andreas Worgotter, "Czech Banking Sector: Reasons of Banking Crises and Prospects," Discussion Parer, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, 1998. 21 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 79. 122 Ibid., 54-55 . 120 �SLOVAKIA 137 opportunities for cash assets elsewhere, 123 it actually made sense for new owners to strip their companies and return the shells to the FNM before making the first installment payment. Another option was to consume the company slowly-meeting its minimal obligations to the FNM and tax office, defaulting on inter-enterprise debt and siphoning off the extra cash. 124 Officially, the FNM was allowed to control major asset transfers in firms with FNM debt, but in practice, it was too over-stretched to monitor all transactions. 125 Meciar's HZDS- through the government- held the ends of the long strings of debt that permeated the economy. Ideally, given its commitment to state-led industrial restructuring, these debt obligetions should have been used by the government and the Ministries of Finance and Economy to coordinate restructuring efforts. Indeed, the Ministry of the Economy's official statement on industrial policy made it clear that control over liability networks was a crucial component of its effort to engage in industrial restructuring. The Ministry also aspired to promote the development of asset networks, "by supporting groupings of enterprises into holdings," to "pool investment resources." 126 The reality was that, due to coalition permeation by privileged 123 In one example of crowding out, the author interviewed an industrial manager who had recently signed a contract to produce copper pipes for a firm in Germany. When it came time to buy scrap metal to begin production, however, the cash he had reserved for the purpose had disappeared and he had to default on the contract. He soon learned that the owners had moved the funds to a short-term security with a return far greater than that offered by the copper pipe contract. Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povazske strojame, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, July, 22 1998. 124 Indeed, one EU sponsored consultant that I spoke with actually advised his clients to engage in a similar "triage" strategy of debt management. He advised managers facing illiquidity to delay paying those creditors who were no longer essential to the firm while using scarce cash to meet obligations to those creditors who were. The understanding was that the legal framework would favor the debtor. Confidential interview, foreign financial consultant, Bratislava, April, 1997. 125 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997 . Ironically, the politicization of credit and debt may have meant that the incentives to "rip off' stakeholders and minority shareholders were greater for owners who did not enjoy close contacts with the government. Unlike their well-connected competitors, they were less likely to win any dispensations from government creditors at the state-owned banks, the FNM or the tax officials. 126 Ministry of the Economy, SR, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update." Ministry of the Economy, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1997. �138 SLOVAKIA industrial interests, it was the governing coalition's industrial clients (as well as those firms that could "arrange" for ad hoc dispensations) that often pulled the strings of Slovak industrial and privatization policy. The result was that state-business networks were used to channel present and future tax revenues into the pockets of politically important industries and individuals. Ironically, after the Meciar government fell in 1998, the successor government picked up these long strings and used them to regain control of many enterprises. Revitalization and Industrial Policy. Even inter-enterprise debt and tax arrears provided opportunities for government manipulation. As noted, the bankruptcy framework privileged debtors over creditors. As most AZZZ members were debtors, there was little incentive for the industrial lobby to support a change in policy. Yet the government also passed a controversial Revitalization Act that granted chosen firms the right to enter into a state-sponsored debt relief program. 127 The Revitalization Act was designed in conjunction with Ducky's Ministry of the Economy on behalf of Slovakia's hard-hit engineering and machinery sectors. Based largely on tax relief, in practice its use was limited to the "restructured" companies owned by the quasi-private holding company, DMD Holdings a.s., as well as a number of agricultural firms. 128 DMD, run by Meciar's former Minister of Finance JuliusT6th, was an umbrella holding company for a network of former state-run defense manufacturing firms that were most severely hit by defense cutbacks at the end of the Cold War. In addition to restructuring, DMD profited from direct Ministry of Economy support- mostly in the form of encouragement and coordination-for the development of an indigenous automobile supply network. 129 While the effects of these direct attempts at industrial policy appeared to be generally well intentioned, they had little positive effect on restructuring the 127 Ministry of the Economy, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update," 18. The government also set up a state-run arms trading company, Armex. OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, l 04-5 . 129 AZZZ 1996; Intervi ew with Ministry of Economy Plenipotentiary for the Automotive Industry in Slovakia, Alfred Richter in Samuel Bibza, "Yel'ke Plany," MOT, August, 1998, 4-8 . Interview with Jan Lesinsky, President, Slovak Society of Automoti ve Engineers, Bratis lava, August I 0, 1998 . 128 �SLOVAKIA 139 companies involved. 130 Indeed, the program virtually halted marginally successful earlier attempts at defense conversion. 131 Slovakia eventually got its automotive sector, but it took the defeat of Meciar, clear political compliance with the prerequisites of EU membership, macroeconomic stabilization and significant initial investment incentives to entice foreign automobile producers and supply companies to come to Slovakia. 132 Politicization of Bank Privatization. The FNM's insider privatization framework raised levels of conflict surrounding bank privatization. In early 1996, Meciar promised to privatize Slovakia's largest state banks to Slovakia' s leading enterprises, most notably VSZ and Slovnaft. 133 Observers quickly pointed out that the likely result of the privatizations would be to decapitalize the banks as owner-firms, like VSZ, wrote themselves checks. Hence, while opposition parties KDH, DS and DU, were officially in favor of privatizing the banks, they formed a one-time coalition with HZDS's far left wing governing partner, ZRS , to get the banks placed on the list of strategic enterprises that prevented their privatization. The ZRS had nothing against bank privatization per se, but it allegedly was upset that the HZDS had excluded ZRS clients from buying one of the banks. 134 While partially preventing the banks ' capture and potential mismanagement by industrial managers, the banks nevertheless remained undercapitalized. Deeply in need of capital, the VSZ nevertheless did secure control over Slovakia's third largest state bank, Investicna a rozvojova banka (Investment and Development Bank-IRB) through the support of the FNM at shareholder meetings. 135 IRB had a troubled portfolio 130 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 104-5 . Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 75 . 132 Sharon Fisher, John Gould and Tim Haughton, "Slovakia's Neoliberal Tum," Europe-Asia Studies 59:6 (2007), 977-98. 133 If we include the third state owned financial institution, Slovenska sporitel'na, these three banks accounted for as much as 90% of all Slovak deposits and 60% of all loans. OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, (Paris: OECD, 1998), 29; EilJ (Economist Intelligence Unit), Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, (London: Economist, 1998), 17. 134 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 258 . 135 OECD, Slo vak Country Report, 1997-8, p. 29; EilJ, Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, p. 17; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 158. 131 �140 SLOVAKIA which VSZ control did little to correct. The state had been using it to keep a nuclear power plant solvent and to provide subsidies to the construction industry to build apartments for young couples. In 1997, IRB liquidity problems worsened and the bank was forced to borrow internationally at rates driven up by the emerging global financial crisis . The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) directed the VSZ, as the primary owner, to provide a much-needed capital injection. The VSZ refused. The NBS later "suggested" that the bank's deterioration resulted from "serious illegal transgressions which negatively influenced the bank's activities ." To add to the crisis, junior coalition partner SNS refused to support a renewal of state support for the construction industry's subsidized apartment loan program. After more government infighting, the IRB failed to meet its depositors' demands, forcing the NBS to seize it in December of 1997. 136 The VSZ raid on Slovakia's financial sector was the logical culmination of insider privatization under illiberal political conditions. Tightly bound together by political necessity, Meciar's administration provided Rezes and his network of enterprises insider access to special deals in privatization, taxation, credit allocation (from state financial institutions) and almost every other area where the state intersects with economic activity. Moreover, Meciar did this despite open indications of nepotism, corruption and mismanagement. The final cost to other corporations, the taxpayers and VSZ's more than 25,000 employees was enormous. By the winter of 1998, VSZ Holdings had defaulted on its foreign obligations and was facing layoffs and bankruptcy. Meciar's successor government then used this crisis to regain control of the company and limit its growing debt. 137 In 2000, the successor government sold the VSZ to United States Steel Corporation. 136 OECD, Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, 77-8; EfU, Slovak Country Report, 1st Quarter I 998, 17. In the spring of 1998, the VSZ used its influence with the FNM and its direct and indirect shareholdings in the two other state financial institutions to provide the !RB with a costly capital injection. The VSZ again refused to contribute any cash of its own beyond the initial amount required by the NBS . Nor was there any real attempt by VSZ to find an adequate foreign buyer. Peter Laca, "Troubled !RB bank approves capital injection," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-21 , 1998. 137 "Vlada mimo hry," Pravda, November 17, I 998; See also Miklo§, 1997 . �SLOVAKIA 141 Abuse of State Property. Coalition misuse of property included firms that were not yet privatized. Perhaps the most notable case is former Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky' s abuse of the country's natural gas company, Slovensky plynarensky priemysel (Slovak Gas Industry-SPP). A key member of AZZZ and a former communist-era official, Ducky resigned his position with the government to oversee a systematic tunneling of SPP assets for personal and political use. This included financing FC Slovan- Slovakia' s most famous football team (and, ironically, the former Czechoslovak rival to Sparta Praha, a team purchased by VSZ's Alexander Rezes). Ducky would even hand out cash bonuses to reward players for stellar play. 138 The full extent of Ducky's tunneling only became clear after the government fell from power. Ducky died in a still unexplained assassination in 1999 three days after a probe was launched into his handling of the company.139 Slowing Macroeconomic Performance. It is ironic that, except for privatization, Meciar's second government largely left the federal reform package intact until 1996. 140 The resulting favorable entrepreneurial conditions and international demand produced a relatively strong recovery in 1994-1996, matching a regional trend. The tight monetary policy of the largely independent NBS was a crucial element in the strong macroeconomic performance of Slovakia. Yet, since NBS monetary discipline also signifycantly raised the cost of credit, maintained the real value of liabilities, and put constraints on fiscal policy, the NBS came under pressure from the Ministry of Finance to be "more cooperative" with Slovak industrial policy. According to Ivan Miklos, VSZ President Jan Smerek complained that the NBS's tight money policy was a form of "disliking VSZ and, apparently, disliking Slovakia's development." 14 1 Under intense industrial pressure, the NBS narrowly escaped an attempt by parliament to place it more directly under government control. 142 Heavy borrowing, low foreign investment and this attack on the NBS led major investment rating agencies to 138 Confidential interview with FC Slovan football player, Bratislava, July 1998. Fisher, Political Change, 94. 140 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 63. 141 Ibid., 71-2. 142 EIU, Slovak Country Report, r" Quarter 1998, 16-7. 139 �142 SLOVAKIA downgrade Slovak bonds to below investment-grade level in the spring of 1998. This further raised the cost of borrowing. 143 By the end of Meciar's third government, enterprise restructuring in Slovakia had also slowed. Firms that sought an injection of capital had to face among other things : poorly functioning equity markets rendering an initial public offering nearly impossible; a government that was suspicious and even hostile to foreign strategic investors; government decision-making and procurement processes that frequently violated the equal application of the rule of law; and finally , an increasingly profligate fiscal policy, capped by a costly infrastructure development program that crowded out private investment. By the spring of 1998, the Meciar government had to finance its cash-starved economy on European markets at the relatively costly rate of 3.5 percent above the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate. It also borrowed short term domestically at a nominal rate of twenty-eight percent. The high level of domestic borrowing aggravated the credit squeeze on Slovakia's already strapped enterprises. 144 Short term borrowing to meet long term debt obligations was the final nail in the Meciar government's economic coffin. By the summer of 1998 it was clear that the Slovak performance of the previous years had been financed by unsustainable fiscal spending and borrowing. Meciar's Electoral Defeat, October 1998. Parliamentary elections in late September of 1998 proved a satisfactory denouement to the regime's VSZ-led orgy of self-dealing. The government had put in place rules that looked as if it was equipping itself with the necessary tools for a full-fledged authoritarian seizure of power. No seizure occurred. It is possible that the HZDS did not even consider the possibility. Even if it had, concerted efforts from independent NGOs, regional governmental associations, and a united center-right coalition of parties and the SDI.; helped to mobilize 84.25 percent of the voting population. Many correctly interpreted the election as a test of Slovakia's Western European credentials. The HZDS won a marginal plurality, but the ZRS was in shambles 143 "Another Agency Downgrades Slovaki a's Risk Indicator," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-2 1, 1998, p. 5. 144 M. E.S.A I 0, Slovak Mo nthly Report, May 1998, p. 1-2; M. E. S.A I 0, Slovak Monthly Report, July 1998, p. 2. �SLOVAKIA 143 after its lamentable performance as a far left party in formal charge of creating capitalists from state assets. The HZDS tried, but was unable to lure the SDI: away from the opposition to form a coalition. The SDC then joined a coalition of parties (the Slovak Democratic Coalition-SOK), SMK and the new Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) to form a government united by little more than opposition to Meciar and a desire to get into the EU and NAT0. 145 Slovakia's privatization winners split deeply during the election. Most of the direct beneficiaries of Meciar's politicized economic policies remained close to the Prime Minister. Most notably, VSZ owner Alexander Rezes provided the HZDS with significant frnancial support and other perks, including flying the Prime Minister to campaign events in his private jet and even forcing his football team, Sparta Praha, to wear HZDS jerseys in a campaign-related friendly match. Rezes ' s empire was already hemorrhaging money despite having raided two of Slovakia' s leading frnancial institutions. The IRB had already been bailed out by the NBS at taxpayer expense. This was an indirect subsidy that allowed money to filter into the HZDS campaign. It must have been clear to Rezes that only continued "industrial collaboration" with his political patron would save his fortune. Yet, faced with the gathering strength of the opposition, other Meciar clients were more circumspect- even Tmava's Vladimir Poor hinted at his willingness to work with a new govemment. 146 The SOP, the new "Party of Civic Understanding" promoted itself as the voice of the independent entrepreneurial community. In interviews, its spokesman strongly critiqued the disastrous economic management of the government and promised to uphold the rule of law in economic and political dealings. It sought initially to establish a safe, pro-business middle ground between the polarized camps in Slovakia' s "Cold War. " Despite this, its founder, Rudolf Schuster, refused any prospect of cooperation with the HZDS. 147 Other entre145 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "Slovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy, I0: I (I 999), 80-95 . 146 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence," in John Higley and Gyorgy Lengyel, eds., Elites after State Socialism (Lanham: Rowm an and Littlefield, 2000), 47-70. 147 Interview with Ferdinand Petrak, Vice Chairman, Party for Civic Understanding (SOP), Bratislava, July 28, 1998; Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities, 71. �144 SLOVAKIA preneurs continued to support the SDI:, and the newly united Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SKDU). 148 Conclusion. Having privatized their enterprises through political connections, Meciar's clients went on to privatize state policy. Rather than demand the rule of law, they corrupted politicians; rather than invest resources to restructure, they stripped and tunneled them; rather than act as national champions, they preyed on the country's financial stability. By 1998, the coalition government's economic model was no longer sustainable. As the economic price of clientalism grew, the politicization of economic policy became an important additional grievance in the opposition's political arsenal. Never completely unied, many of the coalition's economic allies sat on the fence or sought accommodation with the opposition. Others proved firm HZDS supporters-particularly Rezes's VSZ, who must have seen that VSZ's financial future was closely linked to government policy. On the whole, privatization in Slovakia did not produce "market democrats," but it did succeed in providing economic agents who responded to their own logic of action. These proved to be both a boon and a curse to Meciar during his moment of greatest political crisis. Privatization' s impact on Slovakia's political liberalization, in short, was at best neutral and at worst negative. Ultimately, it was a united opposition, strategically smart NGO's and a mass mobilezation of Slovakia's voters that established market democracy in Slovakia. 148 Gould and Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence." � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 102 SLOVAKIA , ..., VLADIMIR MECIAR AND THE POLITICS OF PRIVATIZATION IN SLOVAKIA, 1992-1998 1 John A. Gould "A just privatization does not exist; we all know that the only criterion was loyalty. " - Vit'azoslav Morie, SNS honorary chair2 Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution put former Communist Party bureaucrats and industrial managers on the defensive. Associated with the communist past, many top managers were removed from their jobs while the middle managers that replaced them carried little political clout in broader debates over the design of economic reforms like privatization. As a result, Czechoslovak privatization architects had the freedom to offer average citizens a potential stake in state-owned companies. In return for a small administrative fee, citizens received coupons that would allow them to bid on company shares . Most participating citizens, however, chose to invest through new financial intermediaries, called investment privatization funds, which would concentrate citizens' small shares into larger stakes in privatized companies. By 1993, these intermediaries began to rival remaining communist-era managers for control of Czech and Slovak firms .3 1 This paper is adopted from John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization: Wealth and Power in Postcommunist Europe (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011), 103-32. A full list of acknowledgments can be found on pp. vii-viii of that work, but the author would like to thank the following for their comments, assistance and support: Hilary Appel, Kevin Deegan-Krause, Sharon Fisher, Zsolt Gal, Simona Gould, Timothy Haughton, Cubomira Hromkova, Darina Malova, Mikael Olsson, Marek Ryhal', Sona Szomolanyi, James Thompson and Milada Anna Vachudova. The author is responsible for any errors in logic or fact. 2 Abigail Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 200 I), 263. 3 Ed Clark and Anna Soulsby,"The Re-formation of the Managerial Elite in the Czech Republic," Europe-Asia Studies 48 :2 (1996), 285-303; Mitchell Orenstein, Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Hilary Appel, A New Capitalist Order: SLOVAKIA 103 While the mass privatization program continued in the Czech Republic through 1995, Slovakia's industrial managers were able to derail it after independence on January 1, 1993 . They had initially suffered from the same liabilities as their Czech counterparts. 4 Yet, as debate over the sovereign status of Slovakia developed in 199192, Slovak managers found a resource in identity politics that their Czech counterparts largely lacked. 5 By fusing their interests to rising popular-nationalism, a select group gained influence with a number of Slovakia's nascent political parties, and most notably, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). The following paper examines the politics of privatization in Slovakia after independence. Slovakia's battle over privatization and its aftermath was a nasty, occasionally dangerous affair with very high stakes. At the center of this battle, initially, were the efforts of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar and various industrialists to stop the highly popular citizens' "voucher" privatization program that Slovakia had inherited from the federal republic. This had little to do with the voucher program 's evident flaws . Rather, Meciar's policies sought to reorient privatization away from the new financial intermediaries which largely supported his opponents. In its place, his government operated a direct sales program that would benefit those who would support him. Yet, by attempting to replace a program that rewarded a majority of Slovak citizens with a program that only rewarded a narrow group of industrial managers and political allies, Meciar embarked on a democratically difficult project. His early efforts to gain close personal control over the privatization process contributed to the alienation of many of the key players in the HZDS, including President of Slovakia Michal Kovac. The president briefly orchestrated Meciar's Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Central Europe (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004); Peter Rutland, "Thatcherism, Czech-Style: Transition to Capitalism in the Czech Republic," Telos 94 ( I 992), I 03-130; Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 56-68. 4 Interview wi th Jozef Uhrik, Commercial Director, Volkswagen Slovakia, Devinska Nova Yes, Slovakia, January 14, 1997 ; Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povai.ske strojarne, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, Slovakia, July, 22 I 998 . 5 Hilary Appel and John Gould, " Identi ty Politics and Economic Reform: Examining Industry-State Relations in the Czech and Slovak Republics," Europe-A sia Studies 52: I (2000), 111-31. 104 SLOVAKIA removal from power in March of 1994 after he made a speech criticizing a series of legally questionable privatization decisions. When Meciar regained power in November, he acted on the knowledge that his political and economic ambitions were incompatible with the democratic institutions he had inherited. The ensuing assault on democratic norms, rules and procedures, while not entirely directed at privatization, nevertheless gave his ruling coalition the freedom to privatize as it pleased. However, by the end of Meciar' s third term, Slovakia could no longer demonstrate its democratic credentials to the European Union or NATO . Both threatened to exclude Slovakia from their next rounds of expansion. Privileged access to government was not simply important to acquiring property. Under Meciar it also became increasingly useful for securing favorable economic policies such as the allocation of credit, the regulation of capital markets, government procurement, and taxation policies. Between 1996 and 1998, such largess undermined Slovakia' s economic recovery and threw the country into an economic crisis. By 1998, both Slovakia's long term economic recovery and its European future were in danger. Slovak voters responded with an 84.4 percent electoral turnout that left the ruling coalition no choice but to accept the vote and surrender power. Privatization should produce independent economic actors who seek a profit rather than a government handout. Yet, as the Slovak experience under Meciar reminds us, privatization is first and foremost a means of acquiring wealth and power. Where easy profits can easily be had through political connections, creating private property does not necessarily go hand in hand with market democracy. For privatization to be most effective, societies must first be willing and able to police the intersection of state policy and economic activity. Voucher Privatization in Slovakia, 1992-1993. Privatization in Czechoslovakia was designed at the federal level, but it was largely carried out by the Czech and Slovak republiclevel governments. In Slovakia privatization began under the government of Prime Minister Jan Carnogursky (Christiaq Democratic Movement-KDH) and his 30 year-old neo-liberal Minister of Privatiza- SLOVAKIA 105 tion,6 Ivan Miklos. While there was room for administrative innovation to account for local differences, in practice, Miklos administered the voucher program in an almost identical fashion to his Czech counterparts. This was no small accomplishment. Following the collapse of support for Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's first government in the spring 1991 , the new ruling coalition was deeply divided over privatization. The Carnogursky government included Jan Holcfk, and Jozef Belzak as Ministers of Industry and Economy, respectively. While both men favored a transition towards markets, both had industrial ties and favored a strong sectoral industrial policy in which firms would be restructured before privatization. In addition to Carnogursky 's ministers, industry had a strong friend in KDH member Viliam Oberhauser, a founding member of what Miklos claimed was industry's nomenklatura-controlled peak organization, the Federation of Employers Unions and Associations (AZZZ). 7 Oberhauser was a key member of the nationalist wing of the KDH and had helped author a "gradualist" economic reform scenario, challenging the market-oriented federal economic reforms that had been in place since January of 1991. 8 This created difficulties for Miklos. In the final years of the 1980s, Miklos had studied market economics at the Austrian school of Friedrich Hayek. At the time of the Revolution, he had been an economics student and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics in Bratislava. Deputy Prime Minister Jozef Kucerak brought him into the government in 1990. 9 After, the launch of strong market-oriented 6 There were three privatization ministries- one in each republic, and one at the federal level to deal with federal state property. Their formal name at the republic level was the Ministry for the Administration and Privatization of National Assets. For an explanation see, Petr Husak, Budovani kapitalismu v Cechach: Rozhovory s Tomasem Jeikem (Prague: Volvox Globatour, 1997), 111 ; John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 61. 7 lvan Miklos "Economic Transition and the Emergence of Clientalist Structures in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (Bratislava: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung/Slovak Political Science Association, 1997), 65. 8 Jvan Miklos recalls that the Ministries of Forest and Water, Agriculture and even the Environment - all run by KDH appointees - had strong gradualist leanings. Interview with Ivan Miklos, Consultant, M.E.S.A. I 0, Bratislava, April 2, 1997. 9 Miklos's first post was as Deputy Prime Minister, Jozef Kucerak's advisor, and Director of the Government's Section for Economic and Social Policy. Interview 106 SLOVAKIA reforms in January of 1991, however, Slovakia ' s economy suffered disproportionately more than the Czech Republic ' s economy. 10 Economic liberals like Kucerak increasingly became the target of colleagues seeking to distance themselves publicly from the growing pain of economic transformation. Market reforms would be managed better, they argued, if Slovak politicians were to have greater control over their own economic and political affairs where they could use state controls to moderate the pace of transition. 11 As the lead proponent of a federally brokered, rapid transformation towards a market economy, Kucerak was forced to step down after a vote of no-confidence in the spring of 1991 . Miklos was elevated to Minister of Privatization soon after and quickly replaced Kucerak as the most outspoken market liberal in the government and the strongest public supporter of federal reforms. He faced the brunt of attacks from both the opposition and the national wing of the ruling KDH. This included surviving several parliamentary votes of no-confidence. By the winter of 1991-92, it was increasingly clear that the KDH-led coalition would fare poorly in the upcoming June elections. Miklos feared that the next government would most likely slow privatization and delay the creation of private owners. He therefore sought to start the voucher program as quickly as possible- to create a fait accompli of new owners with a stake in continuing the rapid property transformation program. Miklos was responsible for convincing state-owned firms to put up shares for the voucher privatization program in Slovakia. He recalled that the threat of dismissal helped him to encourage most managers to include significant voucher components in their base privatization plans, but the pressure was bitterly resented. 12 Miklos with Ivan Miklos, Bratislava, October 1, 1996; Interview with Jozef Kucenik, Bratislava, January 13, 1997. 10 Slovakia was particularly handicapped by its reliance on heavy defense industries, among other things. See Gould, Politics of Privatization. 11 For details see Gould, Politics of Privatization , 73-79 . 12 In about sixty cases, managers called for direct sales exclusively to themselves. Assuming that the managers had failed to meet their obligations under the privatization act to make important data available to competitors, Miklos reopened the proposed submission process for an additional two months and pushed the firms to provide the necessary data to allow competitors to propose rival privatization plans for each firm, Miklos interview, October I, 1996; Ivan Miklos, "Corruption Risks in the Privatization Process: A Study of Privatization Developments in the Slovak Re- SLOVAKIA 107 further alienated industrial elites by converting what they hoped would be a program of cheap, direct sales of enterprise shares to incumbent managers, into a transparent, competitive program in which price was the leading criterion. Prior to the June elections, the ministry sold shares in 189 firms for prices approximating and often exceeding their book value. 13 It would be another six years before the state would do as well financially in its direct sales of public property. Meanwhile, the first wave of voucher privatization began in October of 1991 with the registration of 2.59 million Slovak citizens, almost two-thirds of the adult population, through the federal Ministry of Finance. As in the Czech Republic, 14 registration for the program in Slovakia initially lagged until financial intermediaries (also referred to as investment privatization companies) began to offer a ten-fold or greater return on the voucher holder's initial registration fee within a year. Seventy-two percent of Slovak citizen-participants subsequently invested their voucher coupons with investment privatization funds in the first wave of privatization. Bidding on firms began in May of 1992 and closed in December. Shares were finally distributed to new owners in April of 1993 .15 Despite the efforts of industrial elites, the federal voucher privatization program had succeeded in providing the investment privatization funds stakes of up to forty percent in privatized firms. 16 Another wave of voucher privatization could allow fund owners to consolidate ownership of Slovakia's industrial assets. Over the next two years industrial managers, therefore, worked diligently through AZZZ to ensure a second wave of voucher privatization would not take place. 17 public," Bratislava, Klub Windsor, I 995; Interview with I.'.udovit Cemak, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 2, I 997. 13 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997; Mikael Olsson, Ownership, Reform and Corporate Governance: The Slovak Privatization Process in 1990-1996 (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University, 1999), 119. 14 For details, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, Chapter 5. 15 For more on the technical details of voucher privatization, see Gould, The Politics of Privatization, 63-8. 16 0Jsson, Ownership, Reform, 115-6, 219. 17 AZZZ (Federation of Employers Unions and Associations), "5. vyrocie AZZZ SR, 1991-1996," Spravodaj AZZZ Extra. Bratislava, March, 1996; Rudolf Lachovic, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie a kolektivneho investovania," Global Brokers, Bratislava, I 997, manuscript. 108 SLOVAKIA Meciar's Second Government, 1992-1994. Meciar's HZDS dominated the June 1992 elections. With the tacit support of the Slovak National Party (SNS), he became Slovak Prime Minister for the second time. In July negotiations with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, Meciar failed in his bid to form a weak confederation with the Czech Republic. Unable to reconcile Meciar's concept of a weak confederation with Klaus' concept of a strong federation, the two agreed to replace the federal state with two sovereign, independent republics. After parliamentary approval in both republican assemblies, the countries split peacefully on January 1, 1993. 18 As in the Czech Republic, voucher privatization in Slovakia became one of the more popular aspects of the federal reform program. 19 This may help to explain why the Meciar government, elected in June of 1992, completed the first wave as its predecessor had planned. Nevertheless, Meciar's Minister of Privatization, I:ubomir Dolgos, promised a shakeup in the next round. One of the new govemment' s first decisions was to indefinitely postpone the demand that firms submit second round privatization plans to the Ministry of Privatization. This necessitated at least a delay in the second round of voucher privatization. In September of 1992, the government program declaration and an associated Ministry of Privatization document spelled out a new privatization philosophy based on a more gradual state-guided economic transformation. Rather than emphasize the rapid creation of new owners, the state would now single out "strategic fields" where it would intervene to protect the national interest through the state restructuring of enterprises before, or in place of, privatization. Industrial ministries would design and coordinate restructuring plans with the assistance of the state-controlled financial sector. 18 Eric Stein, Czecho/Slovakia: Ethnic Conflict, Constitutional Fissure, Negotiated Breakup (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Innes, Czechoslo vakia. 19 Miklo~ interview, April 2, 1997; Dusan Triska recalled being surprised at the strong support for the voucher scheme in Slovakia. Dusan Triska, "Privatization: Czechoslovakia" Eastern European Economics 26 (Fall, 1991 ); DusanTl'iska, "Political , Organizational, and Legislative Aspects of Mass Privatization-Czechoslovakia," in Marko Simonetti and Andreja Bohm, eds., Privatization in Central & Eastern Europe, 1991 . (Ljubljana: Central and Eastern European Privatization Network, 1991 ). Oldfich Dedek, The Break-up of Czechoslovakia (Aldershoot: Ave bury 1996), 201 . SLOVAKIA 109 This concept also favored direct sales to incumbent managers over voucher privatization. Price was no longer the dominant criterion in evaluating bids on the company shares that were to sold. First installments were lowered from thirty percent of the price to ten to fifteen percent, and payment could be extended over fifteen years. Another round of voucher privatization would take place, but would only be used as a residual method.20 Similarly, the threat that a manager would be dismissed diminished under the new government. Miklos asserted that Meciar and his Minister of Economy, I:udovit Cernak, reappointed many of the communist-era managers that had been pushed out by Carnogursky's government. 21 Many of these had been forced out for having collaborated with the communist secret service before the Revolution-in a process called "lustration."22 Cemak himself related that Meciar frequently paid little attention to his appointees' lustration certificates in . personne l dec1s1ons. . . 23 h1s Little privatization occurred under Dolgos in the first six months of 1993. Rather, Meciar focused his energies on consolidating control over his cabinet- pushing out co-HZDS founder Milan Kiiazko (who was a marginal threat to Meciar for party control) and Minister of Economy, Cemak. As a Kiiazko protege, Dolgos soon found himself in constant conflict with Meciar-most notably over whether vouchers should have any role in the second round when it started. Meciar felt they should not, while Dolgos asserted that he sought to put aside about a third of corporate shares for voucher privatization. 20 Dolgos stressed that any efforts to set voucher privatization timelines or the volume of assets to be voucher privatized in advance, "would ... fail to serve a purpose." Dolgos's reformulated concept even "warned" industrial managers that if their second wave base privatization plans relied too heavily on the voucher method, they would be "subjected to particularly critical and thorough evaluation." There would also be a critical "assessment of the risks derived from concentration of ownership through privatization investment funds ." Instead, Dolgos emphasized "combined methods" in which management buyouts would play an "exceedingly important role." Ministry of Administration and Privatization, SR. , "Concept of the Continuing Process of Privatization in the Slovak Republic. " Ministry of Administration and Privatization of National Property of the Slovak Republic, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1992; Interview with Cubomir Dolgos, Faculty of Management, Economics University, Bratislava, March 20, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 119-20. 21 Miklos interview, April 2, 1997. 22 Marsina interview, July, 22 1998; Uhrik interview, January 14, 1997. 2 3<'.:emak interview, April 2, 1997. 110 SLOVAKIA On June 12, 1993, Dolgos lost an HZDS-engineered vote of no confidence and stepped down.24 The departures of independent personalities like Cernak, Kiiazko and Dolgos left Meciar in more solid control over the HZDS and the government, but it also made his parliamentary majority vulnerable to future defections. Nevertheless, Meciar stepped up his efforts to replace his former colleagues with his personal loyalists-particularly in the Ministry of Privatization and the Fund for National Property (FNM). 25 At that time, the privatization ministry coordinated the privatization decision-making process while the FNM was a fully state-owned joint stock company charged with distributing shares to their new private owners. FNM appointees also represented the state's interests as a shareholder at general assemblies of corporate shareholders. In 100% state-owned companies, the FNM was on paper, at least, in complete control of the firm. Control over the FNM would give the Prime Minister control over most unprivatized and many partially privatized firms. Attempts to gain direct governmental control over the privatezation ministry and the FNM brought Meciar into sharp conflict with President Michael Kovac, another co-founder of the HZDS .26 To replace Dolgos at the privatization ministry, Meciar chose a close associate, Ivan Lexa. Having backed Meciar in the dismissal of Kiiazko, Kovac now balked. Citing Lexa's inexperience and potential conflicts of interest with his father (a communist-era central planning agency bureaucrat, recently-turned entrepreneur), the president refused to approve the appointment. Meciar responded by giving Lexa the post of State Secretary of the Ministry of Privatization (the highest ministerial position not requiring presidential approval) and assumed the responsibilities of Minister himself. One of Lexa's first privatization decisions as State Secretary in July of 1992 was to ap24 Dolgos interview, March 20, 1997; Cemak interview, April 2, 1997. Kevin Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 25 . 26 Slovakia 's President was constitutionally weak, making the need for a strong party system to check the Prime Minister's power all the more necessary. Executive power flowed from the Parliament, with limited presidential powers to check it. Kovac could and did veto legislation and appointees, but Parliament could override this with a simple majority. Later, when Parliament deadlocked over a new presidential candidate, presidenti al powers - including the power of a presidential amnesty transferred to the Prime Minister. 25 SLOVAKIA 111 prove his father ' s participation in the privatization of Povazske mlyny a cestoviname, a.s., with a personal stake estimated at up to 1 billion Sk (then about US $30 million).27 While Meciar consolidated power over Slovakia' s privatization and property control mechanisms, financial intermediaries whose funds had done so well in the first round of privatization began to assert some clout in shareholder meetings. Enterprise managers had also established a few funds. 28 Slovakia' s largest company, Vychodoslovenske zeleziame, a.s (Eastern Slovak Steelworks- VSZ) had established Cassiovia Invest, which had the marketing clout to acquire more than ten percent of the vouchers. But most funds- and hence a large portion of corporate power- were in the hands of enterprise outsiders, a fact that was increasingly resented by the incumbent industrial managers.29 In the first wave of privatization, the funds had amassed a forty percent stake in privatized firms and from the perspective of incumbent managers, carried unwelcome clout. Battles soon emerged over which would be dominant in determining the overall strategy of the company, the shareholder-dominated Supervisory Boards or the management-controlled Boards of Directors.30 Meciar' s allies came to feel that the most influential funds were, as subsequent Fund for National Property President Stefan Gavomik put it, "owned by the opposition."31While not technically true, by the end of the year, industrial managers and fund-appointed board members began to run into sharp conflict over the day-to-day management and long-term strategy of "privatized" companies. Hoping to avoid a further erosion of corporate insider influence, AZZZ halted a 27 Anton Marcincin, Daniela Zemanovifova, and Lubos Vagac, "Privatization Methods and Development of Slovakia," Bratislava, Center for Economic Development, 1996, 17. 28 Another fi fty percent was spread across a wide range of funds and individual shareholders, leaving the FNM , with its residual 37.6 percent, effectively in charge. Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 223 . 29 AZZZ, "S.Vyrocie AZZZ SR, 199 1- 1996"; Miklos, "Corruption Risks," 64; Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 279, 283. 30 Slovak and Czech companies had a dual board structure consisting of a supervisory board that gave general strategic direction to the company and managerial oversight, and a management board- largely consisting of top corporate mana~ers- that oversaw the day-to-day operations of the firm. 1 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 11 8. 112 SLOVAKIA second round of voucher privatization. Meciar obligingly pushed back the start date for the next round of voucher privatization. In the fall of 1993, Meciar complimented his firm grasp of the Ministry of Privatization by putting personal loyalists on the board of the National Property Fund. Between December of 1993 and March of 1994, his indirect control over state shares of major firms allowed him to replace enterprise board members and managers of twentyone Slovak companies which, allegedly, failed to show sufficient loyalty to the HZDS. Meciar claimed that he was simply replacing opposition-linked managers from the VPN-KDH era with more independent managers . Indeed, he accused parliamentary opposition leaders "straight into the eye, in front of everyone, that each one of them is linked with one of the twenty-one major Slovak corporations in which we intervened. And this is the problem." 32 Meciar was possibly correct in his assessment. While in power, KDH ministers appointed people to the boards of leading Slovak state firms and other opposition leaders clearly had close industrial connections. However, it was unclear whether they were now being removed because they were acting as KDH clients or due to their reluctance to serve HZDS interests. Indeed, the KDH-era manager of the large oil refinery, Slovnaft, was allegedly replaced after he refused Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky's demands that he subcontract services to HZDS-linked firms. 33 By the winter of 1994, Meciar' s increasingly personal consoledation of party and governmental power had alienated many of his own party members. By February of 1994, a last remaining block of HZDS deputies, led by HZDS co-founder Jozef Moravcik, appeared ready to follow other former HZDS members and allies into opposition. The threat of losing power may have led to a subsequent wave of direct sales. Starting with the "midnight privatizations" of February 1, 2004, Lexa sold forty-four companies with a book value of $96 million for a final sale price of just $22 million. The decisions were notable for their lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, and advantageous terms to the purchasers-many of whom had close ties to leading government officials. Thirteen were subsequently annulled 32 Specifically, Meciar was accusing Vojtech Sugar, Jan Carnogursky, Cudovit Cernak and Peter Wiess. "Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," T ASR-Slovakia (February 6, 1994). 33 Confidential interview, Slovnaft insider, Bratislava, February, 1997. SLOVAKIA 113 by the successor government for contravening the Large Scale Privatization Act of February 1991 , but virtually all of the privatizations were suspect. The beneficiaries included a range of politically connected individuals-from the wife of the leader of the Slovak National Party (SNS) to Meciar's own Minister of Finance, Julius T6th.34 A March 11 , 1994 report of a commission investigating the privatizations triggered the departure of the dissident-HZDS faction led by Jozef Moravcik and a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the government. In his speech before parliament, HZDS co-founder and Slovak President Michael Kovac openly accused Meciar of a lack of transparency and clientalism in the privatization process, among oth. 35 er th mgs. Meciar's and Lexa's hurried attempts to reorient Slovakia's privatization framework to favor political and economic insiders had run afoul of the opposition's effective use of liberal democratic institutions and norms. When next he gained power, Meciar' s new parliamentary majority would attack these opposition resources directly. VSZ and the Slovak Way of Privatization. One of Meciar's last acts in the1992-1994 government helps illustrate both the zero-sum nature of privatization, as well as its growing politicization. In December of 1993, the state exercised its shareholder rights to remove President Zoltan Berghauer and other top managers from the executive management of the state-owned firm VSZ, Slovakia's largest commercial entity. Berghauer had cofounded the AZZZ and was the lead author of an industry antireform petition in early 1991. 36 Meciar claimed that the top management change was a technocratic decision-made through consulta- 34 Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 121. Marcincin et al. "Privatization Methods"; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 25. 36 In February of 1991 , only a month after the start of market reforms, the Slovak and Czech industrial federations delivered a joint petition to the Federal Assembly demanding "help in solving the difficult economic and financial situation of industrial companies ... [resulting from] the ill-considered restrictive fiscal , credit and monetary policy of the Federal Government. " Reforms, the industrialists continued, threatened, "the collapse of the entire national economy" and a "declining living standard for all citizens of the state." Zoltan Bergauer et al. , "Petice svaz u pnlmyslu CR a SR Federilnimu shromizdeni CSFR," Hospodafske noviny, February 29, 1991 , p. 3. 35 114 SLOVAKIA tions with high-ranking bank and industrial managers.37 Yet he did not hide the fact that the change was to reduce the "unwarranted influence" of "opposition parties" in Slovakia's largest enterprise. 38 Berghauer and other purged VSZ managers protested the move, citing a history of political manipulation and threats by the HZDS towards VSZ management. The source of the claim directly attacked Meciar's Minister of Finance, JuliusToth. Toth had been VSZ's Vice President of Finance until he had resigned to join Meciar's government. According to Berghauer, Toth allegedly become enraged when Berghauer and VSZ's management refused to accept an HZDS member on the VSZ Board of Directors. Toth allegedly responded by demanding that the two top VSZ officials resign due to their political support for the KDH and other political opponents of the HZDS. 39 Toth later asserted that the Berghauer team had been stripping assets from the company. Through control of both the VSZ and collaboration with an independent trading company, they allegedly could siphon cash from the VSZ to the trade company by overcharging for supplies and underpaying for products.40 Perhaps to cut these alleged sales out of the revenue loop, or maybe to cut his allies in, Toth's new management team set up a new VSZ-owned sales company to oversee sales responsible for eighty percent of VSZ revenues. 4 1 As Minister of Finance, Toth and Lexa orchestrated the purchase of a 9.52 percent share of VSZ stock through a new private company, Manager a.s., established by five VSZ board members, including prominent HZDS member Alexander Rezes. The purchase was ques37 "Strong in the Saddle," T ASR-Slovakia, February 11, 1994. "Meciar Accuses Opposition of Links with 21 Major Companies," TASRSlovakia, February 6, 1994. 39 "Former Members of VSZ Board Lodge Complaint," CTK Business News, March 21 , 1994. 40 Despite Toth's allegations against Berghauer, no charges were ever filed . 41 Anthony Robinson, "Survey of Slovakia," The Financial Times, December 16, 1994, p. iv. It is unlikely that Toth was genuinely outraged at the allegations of corruption at VSZ. In 1993 he had allegedly used his influence as Minister of Finance to give a trading company, VSZ Selecta, a state contract to sell sugar that the Indian government provided to the Slovak government in place of its cash debt. VSZ Selecta won the contract without the required tender and then sold the sugar on the world market in violation of its contract. Toth was a member of the company's board. "Report on "Sugar Affair" to be out in January," CTK News, December 5, 1993. 38 SLOVAKIA 115 tionable for its unsightly conflicts of interest, advantageous terms and most of all, its timing. Again, in accordance with the government program, the shares were sold to domestic entrepreneurs at a substantial discount with a generous payment schedule. The discount on the current share value of the package was $36 million.42 After a ten percent down payment, Manager would pay the rest in yearly installments over five years. Manager's members each made their down payment with an interest-free $62,000 loan from the Kosice-based Priemyselna banka (Industrial Bank) whose controlling shareholder was, in turn, the VSZ-controlled fund, Cassiovia Invest. 43 Priemyselna banka, moreover, received these funds from Banka Slovakia (Bank Slovakia), which then served as the repository and investment arm of the FNM. In short, Manager borrowed FNM funds to buy shares from the FNM that in tum benefited close associates of its directors and the man responsible for their appointment, Vladimir Meciar.44 The timing was also controversial. The Meciar government received the proposal to privatize the VSZ shares to Manager on March 7 and the government approved the request on March 11- the day on which parliament finally passed a vote no-confidence in the Meciar cabinet. The FNM and Manager signed the agreement on March 14, the day the government fell. On March 17, VSZ held a general assembly at which the now former Minister of Finance and FNM Board member, JuliusT6th, was elected Chair of VSZ's Board of Directors. Rezes would become Minister of Transportation in 42 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 22 . 0lsson, Ownership, Reform , 223 , note 39. 44 "Approach to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Meciar attempted to establish Banka Slovakia as early as 1993 in his home region of Banska Bystrica as part of his effort to develop a regional banking center. The goal was to use the bank to recycle FNM funds and provide cheap credit for small to medium sized enterprises. After the VSZ deal, however, the opposition charged that it would be used as a means of providing the politically connected with cheap capital to make down payments for privatization deals. In April of 1994, the next government suspended the bank's license to operate. With Meciar's re-election in the fall, the government pushed the National Bank of Slovakia to grant the license. But, after building a costly and elaborate headquarters in Banska Bystrica and suffering from notoriously poor lending practices, the bank had significant difficulties with capitalization. The NBS finally approved a license to begin operating on June I, 1996, but the bank- like most Slovak banks-quickly developed a problem with non-performing loans. 43 116 SLOVAKIA Meciar's next cabinet. Supporting the vote were VSZ's investment privatization fund, Cassiovia Invest and VUE Invest, the investment company of Vseobecna uverova banka (General Credit Bank-VUB) and Slovakia's largest state owned bank. Ironically, oversight responsibility for VUB had, until four days earlier, lain primarily with T6th's Ministry of Finance.45 Meciar's Opposition Takes Power, March-November, 1993. A five-party caretaker government under the leadership of HZDS defector Jozef Moravcik was formed in mid-March. It promised to restore transparency and accountability to the privatization process and to re-launch the voucher privatization process as soon as possible. This was to be done before the scheduled new elections at the end of September. The coalition fought, however, over how to restore confidence, transparency and speed to the privatization process. Nevertheless, Kevin Deegan-Krause demonstrated how the new coalition allowed itself to be held accountable to competitive political forces. 46 The recent experience with Meciar may have taught the government coalition partners a good lesson in the dangers of overconcentration of power-particularly in the areas of property management and privatization. Yet, the new five-party coalition was fractious and ideologically incoherent. This influenced privatization. On the one hand, the formerly communist Party of the Democratic Left (SDI:) sought to maintain direct sales as the primary method of privatization. On the other hand, the coalition partners accused it of intending to use direct sales to reward its own allies amongst Slovakia's ex-communist industrialists and bureaucrats. The Ministry of Privatization, however, was now led by Milan Janicina, a lawyer from the center-right Democratic Union (DU). He sought to ensure that any direct sales would be a rule-governed, multi-party competitive process, not something to be run exclusively by SDI: dictates. 47 The SDI: did, however, secure an agreement to sub- 45 "Approac h to VSZ Privatization ' Strange and Unusual,"' CTK Business News, May 3, 1994. Toth also became deputy chairman of Priemyselna banka, Olsson Ownership, Reform, 223, note 39. 46 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 26. 47 Interviews with Milan Janicina, Commercial Lawyer, Bratislava, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. SLOVAKIA 117 ordinate the importance of price in the sales to employment and future investment commitments. 48 Corruption may have been possible in the final sales, but the number of competing interests in the decision making process ensured that the foxes guarding the hen house would keep each other in line. 49 Still , the program was not unimpeachable. Most of the direct privatization sales of fifty-four Slovak enterprises occurred after the elections had delivered a strong plurality to the HZDS but before Meciar had formed a government. 50 The government also conducted a public tender for the government's 24.9 percent share in VSi, attracting interest from nine companies, including the Austrian bank Creditanstalt. The coalition lost power before it could resolve internal bickering over the final buyer. 51 Throughout the summer of 1994, citizens, center-right coalition parties, brokerage firms and investment privatization funds clamored for a second wave of voucher privatization. Janicina fought with SD~'s Minister of the Economy Peter Magvasi (also an AZZZ member) to ensure that there would be enough property offered to make the project worthwhile. In preparation, the Ministry of Finance issued voucher booklets to seventy-two percent of Slovak citizens (ninety percent of those eligible). This was a significantly higher participation rate than the first wave. Janicina secured assets valued at $1.96 billion for the voucher program- making each voucher booklet potentially worth $593.00. After another aggressive campaign from financial intermediaries, fifty-eight percent of voucher holders traded their points for shares in investment privatization funds. 52 If the second wave of voucher privatization was completed, managerial insiders would cede significant additional economic power to the funds. 53 48 OIsson, Ownership, Reform , 124. Anna Grzymala-Busse, " Beyond Clientelism : Incumbent State Capture and State Formation," Comparative Political Studies 41 :4/5 (2008), 638-73 . 50 Jnterview with Rudolf Filkus, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 15, 1997; Janicina interviews, March I 0, 1997; April I, 1997. 51 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 222 . 52 Tbid. , 124-5. 53 Janici na interview, April I, 1997. 49 SLOVAKIA Privatization under Meciar's Third Government, 1994-1998. The Moravcik government was short-lived. The SD:C had secured early elections and in the ensuing campaign the center-right fragmented amongst a range of competing personalities. A number of opposition parties failed to cross the five percent threshold in the September-October 1994 vote. Moravcik's Democratic Union (DU) received 8.6 percent, the KDH won 10.l percent, SD:C got 10.4 percent and the ethnic Hungarian Coalition took 10.2 percent of the votes. The HZDS, meanwhile, won a thirty-five percent plurality. This was less than in 1992. However, since thirteen percent of the electorate voted for parties that did not pass the five percent threshold, the ideological weight of the next parliament shifted sharply back towards Meciar and his national-populism. After a month of negotiations, the HZDS formed an ideologically awkward coalition with the two smallest delegations in parliament-the extreme right Slovak National Party (SNS-5.4 percent) led by the garrulous Jan Slota,54 and the extreme left Association of Slovak Workers (ZRS-7.34 percent). 55 To discipline his junior coalition partners, Meciar could use the threat of an alternative coalition with the reformed communist party, the SD:C.56 Critics speculated that the "brown-red" wings of the new ruling coalition were held together only by the promise of privatization benefits. 57 The National-Populist Privatization Concept and its Implementation. Meciar's privatization policies formally settled the long-standing ideological battle between market reformers and gradualists over privatization policy, but in reality, this conflict had stood proxy for an underlying clash of interests between enterprise outsiders and incumbent firm management. Gradualist concepts were hijacked, to an extent, and combined with clientalism and xenophobic nationa54 1n the spring of 1993, Meciar had helped Jan Slota oust Cernak from control over the SNS. Cernak left (with Janicina) to form the Democratic Union. Cernak interview, April 2, 1997. 55 Grigorij Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation of Slovakia's Party System," in Soi\a Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation , 50. 56 Innes, Czechoslo vakia, 262. 57 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 64. SLOVAKIA 119 !ism to benefit the governing coalition and its allies at, as we shall see, a growing cost to the public. The formal theory underlying the Meciar government's privatezation program echoed the Dolgos strategy of the fall of 1992. The government would work closely with incumbent industrial managers to achieve ownership patterns that would be most appropriate to a coordinated industrial policy. The state would integrate equity transfer, credit and other policies in ways that would boost the strength of Slovak national firms on world markets and minimize transformational pain at the enterprise level. The variety of capitalism officially envisioned was thus much closer to a continental-style state-coordinated market economy than a more hands-off liberal market economy. However, Slovak industrial leaders at AZZZ also invoked Asian development models to explain what they were trying to accomplish.58 Insiders Ascendant. In practice, Meciar's coalition privatized the privatization process. It also subordinated capital markets regulation to the needs of incumbent managers at the expense of enterprise outsiders. The main target was the funds that emerged through voucher privatization. 59 Meciar's new parliamentary majority began to work even before he formed a government. In an overnight session of parliament on November 3-4, 1994, his new coalition passed legislation that secured exclusive control and oversight of privatization, the state media and the secret service. 60 An amendment to the 1991 Large Scale Privati58 Interview with Frantisek Bruckrneyer, General Director, Federation of Employers' Unions and Associations (AZZZ), Bratislava, February 6, 1997. Prior to becoming Director of AZZZ, Bruckrneyer worked for the Czechoslovak federal government after the Warsaw Pact invasion (1970-1974) and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in Moscow (1974-1980). In the 1980s, he directed the state-owned firm, Zdroj , before co-founding AZZZ in 1991 . Compiled from "Leaders.sk" database. Trend Holding Co. and The Slovak Spectator, Bratislava. http://www.leaders.sk/index.php?id=674 [accessed August 30, 2010). 59 Marcincin et al., "Privatization Methods"; Miklos, "Economic Transition,"; Ivan Miklos, "Privatizacia," in Martin Butora and Michal lvantysin, eds. Slovensko, 1997: Suhrn a sprava o stave spolocnosti a trendoch na rok 1998. (Bratislava: Institut pre verejne otazky, 1998). 60 Soi\a Szomolanyi, "Identifying Slovakia's Emerging Regime," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 10. 120 SLOVAKIA zation Act transferred the right to propose and decide direct sales from the privatization ministry to the relatively less transparent FNM (Act #369/1994). The majority then stacked the FNM's Presidium and Supervisory Board with coalition officials and cancelled Janicina's 54 direct post-election sales (Act #370/1994). In five cases, new property owners had already taken legal possession of their assets from the state. 61 This violated both international human rights law and the Slovak Constitution. 62 The transfer of power to the FNM had important implications. The Constitutional Court later ruled that, as a joint stock company, the FNM did not have to submit to government review or regulatory oversight. Hence, it was exempt from oversight by the supreme government control body that could oversee and audit state agencies. Even had it not been exempt from oversight, however, the November 3-4 "night of the long knives" removed opposition parliamentarians from the oversight committee. The ruling majority was now fully responsible for monitoring itself. 63 While extolling the virtues of a state-directed transformation, Meciar provided the new measures with a market reform cover story. He claimed that insulating the privatization process from opposition would allow the FNM to make decisions according to technocratic criteria, free from political influence. In 1998, when the damage had been done, this allowed him to claim that although he still agreed with his "concept" of privatization, he had not been responsible for its administration. 64 Meciar's "concept" ultimately excluded outsiders from privatization. He initially promised that the second wave of voucher privatization would go ahead as planned-although with less property than Janicina envisioned. In July of 1995, however, Parliament cancelled voucher privatization altogether (Act #190/1995). Voucher booklets 61 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 126. Both Article 17b of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly 217 /1948) and Protocol 1, Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe 1952) secure the right to possessions. 63 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. In the fall of 1997, Parliament finally gave into EU and opposition pressure and appointed Ivan Miklos to the supervisory board of the FNM. 64 CTK News, May 8, 1998. Meciar was never directly implicated in a privatization scandal while in power, Sharon Fisher, Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nationalist to Europeanist, (New York: Pal grave, 2006), 91. 62 SLOVAKIA 121 could now be exchanged for a bond with a face value of l 0,000 Sk to be redeemable in 2001 or on the bearer's 65 th birthday and with an interest rate equal to the discount rate of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS). Proceeds to meet the bond obligations were to come from sales of state property- a promise that the FNM's new privatization policy of selling to domestic industrial managers at a deep discount made impossible to keep . In its public statements, AZZZ took full credit for the cancellation of vouchers.65 A Constitutional Court decision overturned parts of Act #190 in late 1996.66 By that time, however, the FNM had already privatized most of Slovakia's remaining "non-strategic" industrial enterprises. Even had the government wanted to re-launch the voucher program, it would now have had to renationalize private properties to find adequate assets to make the program work. An additional measure passed in July of 1995 enhanced the government's capabilities to coordinate a state-directed industrial policy through the Strategic Enterprises Act (# 175/ 1995). The purpose of the act was to preserve the "public interest" in crucial Slovak industries. First, twenty-nine firms would be exempt from privatization altogether. This included the fundamental sectors of the economy including telecommunications, energy and the defense-related engineering sector. The list of strategic companies, made public in the summer of 1996, also included some at least questionably "strategic" firms such as health spas. 67 All told, the Strategic Enterprises Act reduced the book value of assets remaining to be privatized by half. 68 A second, legally controversial provision of the act, forced an additional forty-five firms to transfer a "golden share" to the firm's founding ministry-in most cases, to Jan Ducky's Ministry of the Economy. The Constitutional Court overturned this prescription in April of 1996 as a clear violation of property rights, but tellingly, the owners of major pro-HZDS firms , like Slovnaft, had failed to give 65 Lachovit, "Vzt'ah kup6novej met6dy privatizacie". Katarina Zavacka, "The Development of Constitutionalism in Slovakia," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 164. 67 The administration may have legitimately feared that privatization would mean the services of the spas would no longer be readily available or affordable to average Slovaks through the health care system. 68 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 130. 66 122 SLOVAKIA the state ownership rights over the golden share. Their reaction gave credence to the market reformers' expectations that privatizationeven via a highly politicized process-would produce independent agents with the potential, at least, to resist government policies that hurt their material interests. 69 In November of 1996, the Constitutional Court also annulled Parliament's transfer of privatization powers to the FNM (Act #370/1994). The court argued that the act had illegally abrogated the state's responsibility for the transformation of state property. The Court stopped short of retroactively annulling the FNM ' s actions, however. Stripped of its exclusive prerogative over direct sales, the HZDS-controlled FNM continued to serve its clients through public auctions of shares from the FNM portfolio. While share auctions are a relatively uncontroversial privatization mode, critics allege that the FNM often limited access about the time and location of the auction to all but the intended buyer. 70 Coalition Control over Direct Sales. Between January of 1994 and November of 1996, the FNM privatized at a furious pace. While Act #3 70/1994 removed privatezation from the government's portfolio of responsibilities, coalition officials and industrial insiders from AZZZ retained close control over the process. Two FNM officials, HZDS member and FNM Chairman Milan Rehak, and Co-Chair and Director of the Direct Sales Section, Jan Povraznik, were responsible for executing Presidium decisions . These were closely controlled by the ruling coalition. Junior coalition partner ZRS had formal responsibility for the privatization process . ZRS member Peter Bisak ran the Ministry of Privatization while ZRS vice-chairman Stefan Gavornik chaired the Presidium. Gavornik attested, however, that his influence was minimal: while the HZDS had no seats on the nine member Presidium, AZZZ members held six seats and hence a majority of the votesand they supported the HZDS .7 1 Understandably, now that AZZZ 69 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi , "Bridging Slovakia's Elite Chasm," Transitions, November, 1997. 70 Jnterview with Gabriel Palacka, Member of Parliament, Bratislava, April 18, 1997 ; Miklos, "Economic Transition," 67-8 . 71 Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Postcommunist Europe (London: Ashgate, 2005), 64. SLOVAKIA 123 influence was secured, incumbent managers who had previously been skeptical about privatization became its strong advocates. 72 According to Sharon Fisher, regional committees of five coalition representatives determined properties to be sold and top coalition officials made final decisions at coalition meetings every Wednesday at 6:00pm. 73 Allegedly, the meetings rarely considered the business merits of the proposal-or even how the sale would further the official goal of coordinated industrial restructuring. As Gavomik recalled, "We were .... lobbying for those who were coming to us." Yet, Gavomik added, "not even a nail was sold without Meciar."74 Milan Cagala, a HZDS-appointed FNM presidium member, confirmed these allegations. 75 More broadly, members of the ruling coalition were open about clientalism. 76 As Minister of the Economy, Jan Ducky (HZDS) explained, "every government gives advantages to those groups that cooperate with them. This is not controversial." 77 Yet sales went beyond clientalism to open self-dealing-included sales to leading ruling coalition politicians and their family members. As Gavomik admitted, "Of course there are [politicians in the privatization process], and I know about them, but I won't tell. After all .. . every citizen has a right to take part in privatization." 78 Participants in the FNM's direct sales program typically received terms similar to the midnight privatizations of February 1994. Buyers-usually incumbent managers- would receive the company for 72 Ibid. , 35. Fisher, Political Change, 88-9. The regional meetings were an institutional mechanism for regionally based privatization groups to make their claims to property. In the eyes of observers, the groups became associated with leading HZDS officials and clients. For example, it was rumored that meetings in Kosice tended to be dominated by Rezes, those in Banska Bystrica by Meciar, and those in Tmava by Vladimir Poor. Interview with Valer Ostrovsky, CEO, Schultz and Ostrovsky, Bratislava, May 14, 1997. 74 Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic," Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 75 Ibid. 76 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 66-7. 77 Author's notes from "Slovak Spectator Live, Debates for Democracy Series: Brigita Schmognerova & Jan Ducky," Bratislava, 1996. An FNM spokesman shared this sentiment with the author. Interview with Oto Balogh, Press Spokesman, Fund for National Property, Bratislava, April 22, 1998. 78 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 277-8, note 26. 73 124 SLOVAKIA as little as one third, one-fifth, or even less of its book value. In practice, the typical firm required a ten to fifteen percent down payment, often using money borrowed from a state-owned financial institution. Moreover, installments on the purchaser' s debt to the FNM were usually spread over ten years and deductible from the company' s tax bill. These terms and often the buyers themselves were also frequently kept secret. In the case of the illegal sale of the strategically listed and highly profitable oil extraction and storage company, Nafta Gbely a.s., the new owners of the company remained a matter of intense speculation among opposition politicians and the press. The official address of the purchasing company, Druha obchodna, a.s. was initially an abandoned building. Vladimir Poor, Trnava's HZDS chief and a member of the regional coalition privatization committee later admitted to being a primary beneficiary of the deal, along with a close Meciar aide.79 FNM President Gavornik later alleged that Poor was able to meet the company's 575 million Sk purchase price simply by raiding the company's 1,075 million Sk capital account. If Gavornik is right, Poor used the firm's bank account to buy the firm for himself. Prosecutors later unsuccessfully charged Poor with "tunneling" 300 million Sk out of the company, but dropped the charges. In the end, the circumstances of the company ' s privatization were never fully investigated, perhaps because Poor voluntarily returned the company to the state. 80 In another controversial case, the FNM sold a controlling stake of Slovnaft, Slovakia's oil refinery, to Slovintegra-a company owned by Slovnaft' s director, Slavomir Hatina and nineteen other managers. Hatina was a financial backer of the HZDS and bought thirty-nine percent of the company at an eighty percent discount over the currently traded price. The initial down payment, moreover, was only 1.56 percent of the sale value. The FNM soon reduced the sale price by an additional eighty-four percent to reward management for meeting its promised investment and employment targets.81 The privatization of Slovakia' s largest company, VSZ, also continued apace under Meciar's direct sales framework. In 1995, junior 79 Fisher, Political Change, 93-4; Marcincin et al. , "Privatization Methods. " Marek Vagovic, "Gavomik: Za privatizaciou Nafta Gbely stal Gasparovic, Sme, May 9, 2009, p. 3. 81 Marcincin et. al. , "Privatization Methods," 18. 80 SLOVAKIA 125 coalition member ZRS engineered a sale of ten percent of VSZ shares to Hutnik, a company formally owned by VSZ's union members but strongly under the influence of Minister of Transport (until 1996), Alexander Rezes. Again the price was a fraction of the real value of the shares and payments were made on a generous installment plan. Hutnik then collaborated with Rezes to form Ferrimex, a company that purchased another 15.4 percent on extraordinarily generous terms.82 The deal cemented Rezes ' s control over VSZ. Rezes responded by essentially barring minority shareholder VUB kup6n (an investment company set up by Slovakia' s state-run savings bank) from receiving any information about the health and activities of the firm _sJ Nationalism in Privatization. The Meciar government employed popular economic nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric to justify its choice of a privatization program. Junior coalition partner SNS campaigned in 1994 on a promise to protect Slovakia from "impoverishment" at the hands of foreign investors.84 The subsequent 1995 government program declaration promised to privilege "domestic business subjects" over foreigners in the privatization process. National entrepreneurs would then deal with their assets as they saw fit in what Meciar correctly predicted would be a "third wave" of privatization to foreigners. 85 In practice, Slovak government officials remained deeply suspicious of foreign direct investment and often sought to block foreign partnerships. "We just want to avoid them coming in and closing [the company]," remarked one FNM official in an interview with the author. "Investors only come to misuse companies and disappear." 86 One example is notable for its senselessness: a foreign advisor to the government related that he worked with an entrepreneur to acquire a strategic foreign partner to modernize and expand production of his product line for export abroad. While the entrepreneur was not explicitly prohibited from signing the deal, he received several telephone calls from top officials in one ministry warning that he would 82 01sson, Ownership, Reform, 223 -5. lbid., 182. 84 Fisher, Political Change, 89. 85 Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 65 . 86 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997. 83 126 SLOVAKIA be held fully accountable if even one Slovak lost his job as a result of the investment. He lost his nerve and cancelled the contract. The enterprise thus remained in debt and was unable to raise the money on its own for modernization; nor was it able to make its own marketing contacts abroad. The advisor noted that this was typical of the Meciar government's attitude towards foreign joint-ventures. 87 The combination of national capitalism and knee-jerk nationalism cost Slovakia dearly. Joint ventures with multinational corporations were at that time leading the deep industrial restrucuring of Central Europe. They had the capital, marketing networks and technology to outperform domestically privatized companies and they were far outperforming firms that remained in state hands, measured in both production increases and productivity growth. 88 Despite this growing record of success, the ruling coalition sold a mere five companies to foreigners out of a total 347. 89 On a per capita basis, by 1998, Slovakia had received half the FDI of Poland, one-third the FDI of the Czech Republic and only a tenth of the FDI of Hungary.90 This was a lost opportunity. Over the next few years, new owners would effortlessly enrich themselves by "flipping" their cheaply acquired companies to international capital-realizing for themselves gains that should have gone into the FNM accounts to meet its new privatization bond obligations. 91 Insider-Controlled Capital Markets Regulation. Having gained control over the privatization process, incumbent managers pressured the government for a favorable capital markets policy. Throughout 1994 and into 1995, investment privatization companies had clashed with incumbent managers in company board rooms. As Michael Olsson relates, the managers wanted the new ow87 Confidential interview with a foreign financial service executive, Bratislava, October 20, 1996. Most of the foreign financial service executives and consultants I sroke with had similar stories. 8 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Elite Fragmentation, Industry and the Prospects for Democracy in Slovakia: Insights from New Elite Theory" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation (New York: Columbia International Affairs Online, 1997), http: //www.ciaonet.org/book/gould/ [accessed February 23, 2012]. 89 Olsson, Ownership, Reform , 133. 90 Gould and Szomolinyi, "Elite Fragmentation," 58. 91 Fisher, Political Change, 94. SLOVAKIA 127 ners to contribute capital while they continued to control the direction of the company. The new owners of the funds, by contrast, sought to pressure the incumbent managers into improving cost efficiency, technological and organizational restructuring, and developing new- often international- marketing arrangements. It did not help that the funds with diverse portfolios did not have sufficient expertise to cover all the firms in their portfolio. Fund representtatives were often barely out of university and entirely lacking in experience. A cultural clash thus developed between the older generation of industrial managers-most of whom had their start in Slovak industry in the 1960s and 70s-and the "young men from Bratislava_ ,,92 Government actions in 1995 wrested industrial control from the funds back to the industrial managers. Incumbent managers began to use the direct sales process to tum the tables at meetings of general shareholders. Olsson writes, "[M]anagers who acquired a large chunk of shares on soft terms from the FNM all of a sudden lost all respect for other minority shareholders .... funds could only sit by [as] ... managers or other domestic industrial groups took over." 93 The government also intervened in capital markets to further tilt the balance of power towards management. Legislation in 1995 reduced the maximum stake investment privatization companies could hold in a company from twenty to ten percent. It also prohibited investment privatization companies from placing officials on a company ' s Board of Directors. This weakened the ability of fund-dominated Supervisory Boards to monitor the day-to-day actions of company managers. Parliament also passed capital markets regulation in 1996 that reduced the transparency of capital markets transacttions and all but eliminated minority shareholder rights. President Kovac returned the legislation, demanding better protection for minority shareholders. Ironically, the funds were not necessarily in favor of a better regulated market. The Slovak capital market had few of the institutional safeguards to protect minority shareholder rights and prevent insider trading that we find in more developed equity markets. Controlling owners were often able to expropriate value from minority 92 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 182. 93 fbid. 128 SLOVAKIA shareholders without penalty. This meant, ironically, that the emergence of a dominant shareholder in a firm often would lead to a decline in the value of the firms' shares. 94 The result was a loss in equity market liquidity: when one lost control over a company, one would often be unable to sell one's shares at any price. Wise investors knew that the majority shareholders could tunnel the real value of the company elsewhere. Under such conditions, a passive portfolio stake in all but a few "blue chip" companies made little sense. Funds found they could best make money by secretly acquiring a controlling share of companies in unregistered, off market trades of physical paper shares and then selling them at a profit to a strategic investor. Given that a more transparent market would actually undermine this strategy, a number of funds were somewhat ambivalent about reforms that might make passive portfolio investment safer and profitable. 95 The ruling coalition made things even worse. It sought to limit the funds to a portfolio role even as it actively undermined their minority shareholder rights. Ministry of Finance capital markets regulator Jozef Magula testified on behalf of minority shareholder rights in front of Parliament--much to the disappointment of top AZZZ managers . A better law was passed in 1997 .96 Still, the new law continued to allow controlling shares to be bought anonymously in secret off-market trades. 97 Remarked one broker philosophically, "at least we have rules."98 94 Economist Joseph Stiglitz observed this phenomenon in the Czech equity market, but the problems were quite similar in Slovakia. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Comments on 'Czech Republic: Capital Market Review Report,"' Delivered at the Ministry of Finance, Prague, Czech Republic, May 9, I 997 ; For details, see Gould, The Politics o[ Privatization, 81- 10 I. 9 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 184-5 . 96 Magula claims that, as a result of his parliamentary testimony, he came under AZZZ pressure to step down. He relented and moved to the central bank. Interview with Jozef Magula, Member of the Bank Board, General Relations Department, National Bank of Slovakia, Bratislava, July 28, 1998. 97 Magula interview, July 28, 1998 ; Interview with Rudolf Lachovic, President, Association of Investment Managers and Investment Funds of the Slovak Republic, Brati slava, June I 6, 1997; for the early market regulatory climate, see Juris, I 994. 98 Ostrovsky interview, May 14, I 997. SLOVAKIA 129 Meaningful portfolio investment disappeared under Meciar. In addition, led by Magula, the government destroyed a rapidly growing mutual fund industry in 1996. Unlike the privatization funds, the new mutual funds gathered people's savings and invested them in the market and other assets. The pioneer was Prva slovenska investicna skupina, a.s (First Slovak Investment Company-PSIS) an open-ended fund into which citizens could deposit and withdraw like a checking account. By early 1995, the PSIS's Sporofund had over $50 million in savings. 99 It was allegedly well-run and had done a reasonable job at building shareholder value within its portfolio. But in the fall of 1994, the PSIS used its savings to invest in citizen voucher booklets issued under the Moravcik government. Vouchers, the PSIS controversially argued, were a form of state security and hence a legal investment for the mutual fund. Over 750,000 Slovaks signed up for the PSIS voucher privatization funds . Had the second wave of voucher privatization gone forward as planned, PSIS would have become the second wave's largest owner of shares in Slovak enterpnses. However, PSIS owners were also strong contributors to the Democratic Union-the party of Janicina and Moravcik. Moreover, the PSIS had a stake in the independent daily newspaper SME. Both PSIS' s political orientation and its potential economic power were a threat to the ruling coalition and its industrial allies. In the spring of 1995, the Ministry of Finance revoked PSIS 's operating license. Courts found the measure illegal and ordered that the Ministry restore the license, but the Ministry simply revoked it again and transferred control of the company's Sporofund portfolio to Harvard Investment Company. In the face of a rapid withdrawal from the Sporofund, Harvard liquidated the fund and paid off savers about half of what they had put in. 100 The Coalition Assault on Democracy, 1995-1998. Meciar's coalition could not have achieved such close control over the privatization framework without a significant attack on democratic political and civic institutions. Hence, while Slovakia's 99 Interview with Vladimir Hoffman, Broker, Delta Securities, Prague, Czech Republic, July 25 , 1997. I0°Magula interview, July 28, 1998; Ostrovsky interview, May 14, 1997; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 187-90. 130 SLOVAKIA democratic decline from 1994 to 1998 was not exclusively caused by privatization, it was certainly linked to it. Indeed, it is unlikely that the ruling coalition and its allies would have fought so hard had the nation's most lucrative assets not been available for appropriation. After ad hoc encroachments on democratic norms in 1993-94, between late 1994 and 1998, Meciar' s parliamentary majority reduced Slovakia's formal democracy to an illiberal shell verging on soft authoritarianism. One permissive cause was the majoritarian nature of the Slovak Constitution. Led by a strong executive and unhindered by a weak presidency already on the defensive, the Meciar majority sought to override the remaining checks posed by the Constitutional Court, the political opposition, civil society and regional and municipal governments. This enabled a reorientation of the privatization framework towards political and economic insiders, but it also endangered "horizontal accountability"-the country' s internal balance of institutional power. 101 Meciar' s squabble with the president was the most visible aspect of this encroachment. Kovac ' s 1993 veto over Meciar's choice of Ivan Lexa to run the privatization ministry marked the beginning of a running battle between the government and the president. The conflict took on added intensity during Meciar's third government. Kovac did not have much institutional power to start with. His repeated vetoes of parliamentary acts were quickly overridden by a simple majority- entirely in line with the Constitution. Yet, Meciar sought to further weaken and discredit the president. An important player in this campaign was the Slovak Information Service (SIS), Slovakia ' s secret service. First, Meciar had to gain control over it. In the November 3-4, 1994 session of parliament, Meciar's majority excluded opposition parties from participating on the SIS oversight committee. In the spring of 1995, parliament transferred power to appoint the head of Slovakia's intelligence agency from President Kovac to Prime Minister Meciar. Meciar then appointed his trusted protege, Ivan Lexa, to head the service. 102 Over the next two and a half years, Lexa waged a war of "dirty tricks" against the president and harassed civil society and indepen10 1 Guillenno O' Donnell, "Delegati ve Democracy," Journal of Democracy, 5: I ( 1994), 55-69; Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities. 102 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 29. SLOVAKIA 131 dent entrepreneurs. The war reached its climax in August of 1995 when someone- possibly Meciar, but more probably Lexa-ordered that the president' s son be kidnapped, drugged, and dumped in neighboring Austria. When Robert Remias, the confidant of an exSIS agent, implicated Lexa's SIS in discussions with the editor of the leading independent daily SME, Remias was assassinated. Meciar's government squashed the investigation into the assassinationreplacing three investigators before finding one who suspended the inquiry into the SIS link. The new investigator concealed evidence that 150-200 grams of Semtex had ignited the car's propane tank. Now on the defensive, the SIS launched a campaign to show that Kovac Jr. had arranged for his own kidnapping.103 The battle between Meciar and Kovac ended only after the president's term of office expired in 1997. As the government and opposition could not achieve the super majority needed to select a replacement under a clearly flawed constitutional provision, presidential powers fell to the Prime Minister. Meciar subsequently used his presidential powers to pardon anyone linked to the kidnapping and Remias's murder-despite the lack of any official finding that a crime had taken place. 104 The government also encroached on the rights and prerogatives of the opposition, the courts, civil society and the media. In addition to oversight of the secret service, the November 3-4, 1994 parliamentary session blocked opposition MPs from participation on all substantive committees except the environment committee. The coalition further revealed its hegemonic intentions by trying to have former Prime Minister Moravcik' s party, the Democratic Union (DU), banned from parliament and by charging President Kovac with treason. Both efforts failed. To safeguard against a repeat of the 1993-4 defections of Kovac, Moravcik, Filkus, Knazko and others, defectors from the HZDS were now treated with open disrespect for the constitution. After HZDS co-founder Frantisek Gaulider left the HZDS parliamentary club in 1996, the HZDS leadership produced a pre-signed letter of resignation that they had obtained in 1994 to ensure party discipline. The 103 Kieran Wiliams, "Slovakia Since 1993," in Kieran Williams and Dennis Deletant, eds., Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001 ), 130-140. 104 Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities, 48-50. 132 SLOVAKIA parliamentary majority then stripped him of his parliamentary mandate, barred him from the building and replaced him in parliament with a HZDS loyalist. The Constitutional Court ruled these acts to be unconstitutional, but parliament did not reinstate him- another violation of Slovakia' s fragile system of checks and balances. Gaulider also received numerous threats to his life. 105 Media and civil society also came under intense legal and extralegal pressure from the government and allegedly the SIS. The HZDS attempted to monopolize channels for societal interest group representation by creating bureaucratic barriers to their legal operation and by establishing party-controlled interest groups that competed with independent societal interest groups in their particular field. 106 Similarly in the media, parliament' s November 1994 legislation excluded the opposition from any role in oversight over public broadcasting. The state-controlled mass media and sympathetic newspapers then justified the government's actions with a torrent of unbalanced coverage, nationalism, xenophobia, personal slurs and misdirection. 107 Things were also tough for the independent media. Following his reporting on the Kovac, Jr. case, the editor of SME found a dead cat nailed to his door and his car burned. An anonymous leafleting campaign accused two other critical journalists of pornography and pedophilia. A third journalist who looked too closely at the links between Alexander Rezes and the HZDS was beaten up in a Kosice restaurant. 108 Meanwhile, privatization beneficiaries frequently bought and attempted to control the editorial content of the independent media. When VSZ took over the business daily 105 Meseznikov, "The Open Ended Formation," 43 ; Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, "Preface," in Sona Szomolanyi and John Gould, eds. Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 5. 06 ' Darina Malova, "The Development of Interest Representation in Slovakia after 1989: From 'Transmission Belts' to ' Party-State Corporatism?"' in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 93113 . 07 ' The Helsinki Civic Assembly and the Association for the Support for Local Democracy survey concluded that state-run Slovak Television violated the principles of fa irness more often than any other public or private media outlet during the 1998 electoral campaign. It devoted seventy-five percent of its news programs to Met iar and the HZDS, RFEIRL News line, 2: 192 (October 5, 1998), Part II . 108 Innes, Czechoslovakia, 313 , note 139. SLOVAKIA 133 Narodna obroda, for example, the new owners fired the newspaper's independent-minded editor. Overall, while the independent media functioned effectively, it faced numerous forms of petty harassment from various government agencies. 109 Independent news sources, however, did not reach the entire population. In much of the country, the state broadcast media was the primary source of information. After the November 3-4 session of parliament, government loyalists controlled the state media and state broadcasting reflected their views, even to the point of collaborating with the SIS to fabricate "investigative reports" slandering the president. Nor did the most important independent media source-the television station Markiza-initially have the coverage capacity or willingness to acquaint Slovaks with the details of privatization or other rule of law issues. Toward the end of the 1996-1998 period, however, TV Markiza did become a crucial source of alternative information in Slovakia. 11 0 As the Meciar government came into conflict with basic liberal institutions and freedoms , the EU, NA TO, European governments and the United States all registered their displeasure. The EU, in particular, issued a series of diplomatic demarches as part of its dialogue with applicant countries. 111 In 1996, Freedom House reduced Slovakia's political rights ranking from "free" to "partially free." 112 However, the nastiest rap to the government's knuckles came in July of 1997, after the government illegally cancelled a national referendum on NATO membership. The European Commission recommended that Slovakia be excluded from the first wave of EU membership negotiations. While Slovakia was a liberal democracy in 109 Andrej Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media in the Post-Communist Transition of Slovakia" in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 187-208. 110 Skolkay, "The Role of the Mass Media," 196. 111 Alexander Duleba, "Democratic Consolidation and the Conflict over Slovakia's International Alignment," in Sona Szomolanyi and John A. Gould, eds., Slovakia: Problems of Democratic Consolidation, 209-30; Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, l everage and Integration after Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11 2 Freedom House, "Freedom in the World, 2007," Freedom House, Washington, D.C., 2007 . 134 SLOVAKIA form, the Commission opined, it operated differently in practice. 113 NATO Followed suit and excluded Slovakia from its first round of • 114 expansion. The Meciar government dismissed these external critics by questioning the objectivity of their processes and critiquing the patriotism of domestic opponents who agreed with them . Yet, the blows hurt. Slovakia's young, urban and educated citizens were deeply concerned with proving the country's western credentials and desperately wished to join Europe 's most exclusive clubs. Thus, the EU and to a lesser extent NA TO, increasingly put the government in a bind: Meciar could not comply with their "conditions" and still retain his increasingly politicized and often illegal control over political and economic life. As Milada Vachudova pointed out, "political power depended on strategies that were incompatible with the EU's re~uirements of liberal democracy and comprehensive market reform." 15 With the September/October 1998 parliamentary elections approaching, the HZDS even appeared ready to jettison free and fair elections. Parliament amended the electoral law in ways that gave the Ministry of the Interior greater influence in counting the vote; and it put ambiguous and potentially expandable limitations on the ability of the private media to cover the election. New electoral rules also shackled the ability of small parties or coalitions to participate in the election. Finally, the HZDS had the courts review the leading opposition coalition 's eligibility to participate. Many worried that should the government apply a literal interpretation of its new laws, it could eliminate a number of important institutions of liberal democracy, including the right to contestation and participation as well as the right to alternative sources of information. Opponents feared a fullfledged authoritarian turn . 116 Privatization's Half-way Reform. Meciar's privatization program produced stakeholders in dysfun113 European Commission, Agenda 2000-Commission Opinion on Slovakia's Application for Membership of the European Union , (Brussels: European Union, 1997), section I. 3. 114 Duleba, " Democratic Consolidation." 115 Vachudova, Europe Undivided, 38. 11 6 1.M. Viersma, "Sprava docasnej pozorovatelskej misie na Slovensku," Euro Report, no. I 5, 1998, pp. 22-23. SLOVAKIA 135 ctional economic policies. This was not necessarily pre-ordained. The first two Slovak governments retained the basic elements of the market reform program inherited from the federal government. An independent National Bank of Slovakia kept the Slovak currency strong, while the first two post-independence governments restricted their fiscal expenditures and preserved a liberalized trade environment. By 1995-6, Slovakia's firms were beginning to find new markets in Western Europe. Unemployment, still high at thirteen percent, was beginning to inch down. With so much slack in the labor market, inflationary pressures remained acceptable-reflecting a sustainable increase in demand as tradable products integrated into world markets. The major problem was the deliberate coalition policy of politicized reform. 1997-8 turned out to be challenging years in the global economy. Yet, the network of industry-state-party ties shaped by an insider privatization process and illiberal politics made Slovakia even more vulnerable to a downturn. 117 Missed tax payments, uncompetitive government procurement programs, significant new government financial obligations, delayed enterprise restructuring, low foreign direct investment and a troubled banking sector all contributed to an economic crisis that would cost Slovakia the next three years of growth. Manipulation of Debt. The Slovak Republic shows that a government's capacity to protect investor property rights and enforce debt contracts is crucial to the efficiency of privatization. 118 The Meciar government's policy of direct sales led to a rapid concentration of ownership, but it did not always produce more efficient behavior. According to interviews with Western financial services experts and equity market actors, Slovak owners often rejected enterprise restructuring and instead used their insider access to cash flows and assets from privatized 117 OECD, (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), OECD Economic Surveys, 1998-1999: Slovakia, (Paris: OECD, 1999), 29-30. 11 8 Olsson, Ownership, Reform; Simon Johnson and Andrei Shleifer, "Privatization and Corporate Governance," in Takatoshi Ito and Anne 0. Krueger, eds, Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region. NBER East Asia Seminar on Economics, 12 (2001), 13-34. http://www.nber.org/chapters/cl0l82 .pdf [accessed February 23, 2012]. 136 SLOVAKIA enterprises to get rich quickly-a process known as "rent seeking." Much of the reason relates to debt and the firms' low purchase prices. Slovak firms carried a large outstanding burden of debt which they were not necessarily pressured to honor. First, Slovakia's bankruptcy law privileged debtors over creditors, reinforcing a persistent problem with overdue liabiities. 11 9 Second, the administration of the first wave of voucher privatization in Slovakia led to an initial concentration of privatized property in the state-bank owned funds . These state-owned banks often transgressed the official firewall between their lending and equity management operations and forced firms to take on more loans than they needed. 120 The percentage of nonperforming loans in the portfolios of Slovakia's three state banks skyrocketed between 1996 and 1998 from twenty-five to thirty-seven percent. 121 Third, privatization in highly discounted client or management buyouts failed to bring in new cash or debt relief to Slovak companies. Despite the often-symbolic purchase prices and favorable repayment terms, politically connected buyers would often increase debt by borrowing from state banks to make their down payment to the FNM. Privatized firms also frequently stopped paying their taxes. Between 1995 and 1998, tax arrears of private firms in Slovakia tripled to about sixteen percent of total state expenditures. Fully paid, this would have been enough to eliminate the budget deficit. 122 The scarcity of cash in the economy did not bode well for restructuring. Many managers privatized their firms only to find themselves apparently condemned to eke out a living at the margins of solvency for years on end. Facing such choices, and given lucrative 11 9 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, p. 97 . Debt loading is the practice of pushing unnecessary loans on cash rich firms at high rates as a means of extracting their funds. According to Andrew Schwartz, it was a common practice among bank-owned privatization funds in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Since debt loading siphoned off cash that should have been shared with the enterprise ownership's minority shareholders, it was a form of tunneling. Andrew Schwartz, The Politics of Greed: How Privatization Structured Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (Lanham, MD : Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 236-7; Appel, A New Capitalist Order, 64; Jarko Fidrmuc and Andreas Worgotter, "Czech Banking Sector: Reasons of Banking Crises and Prospects," Discussion Parer, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, 1998. 21 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 79. 122 Ibid., 54-55 . 120 SLOVAKIA 137 opportunities for cash assets elsewhere, 123 it actually made sense for new owners to strip their companies and return the shells to the FNM before making the first installment payment. Another option was to consume the company slowly-meeting its minimal obligations to the FNM and tax office, defaulting on inter-enterprise debt and siphoning off the extra cash. 124 Officially, the FNM was allowed to control major asset transfers in firms with FNM debt, but in practice, it was too over-stretched to monitor all transactions. 125 Meciar's HZDS- through the government- held the ends of the long strings of debt that permeated the economy. Ideally, given its commitment to state-led industrial restructuring, these debt obligetions should have been used by the government and the Ministries of Finance and Economy to coordinate restructuring efforts. Indeed, the Ministry of the Economy's official statement on industrial policy made it clear that control over liability networks was a crucial component of its effort to engage in industrial restructuring. The Ministry also aspired to promote the development of asset networks, "by supporting groupings of enterprises into holdings," to "pool investment resources." 126 The reality was that, due to coalition permeation by privileged 123 In one example of crowding out, the author interviewed an industrial manager who had recently signed a contract to produce copper pipes for a firm in Germany. When it came time to buy scrap metal to begin production, however, the cash he had reserved for the purpose had disappeared and he had to default on the contract. He soon learned that the owners had moved the funds to a short-term security with a return far greater than that offered by the copper pipe contract. Interview with Stefan Marsina, Special Assistant to the General Director, Povazske strojame, a.s., Povazska Bystrica, July, 22 1998. 124 Indeed, one EU sponsored consultant that I spoke with actually advised his clients to engage in a similar "triage" strategy of debt management. He advised managers facing illiquidity to delay paying those creditors who were no longer essential to the firm while using scarce cash to meet obligations to those creditors who were. The understanding was that the legal framework would favor the debtor. Confidential interview, foreign financial consultant, Bratislava, April, 1997. 125 Balogh interview, April 22, 1997 . Ironically, the politicization of credit and debt may have meant that the incentives to "rip off' stakeholders and minority shareholders were greater for owners who did not enjoy close contacts with the government. Unlike their well-connected competitors, they were less likely to win any dispensations from government creditors at the state-owned banks, the FNM or the tax officials. 126 Ministry of the Economy, SR, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update." Ministry of the Economy, Slovak Republic, ministry document, 1997. 138 SLOVAKIA industrial interests, it was the governing coalition's industrial clients (as well as those firms that could "arrange" for ad hoc dispensations) that often pulled the strings of Slovak industrial and privatization policy. The result was that state-business networks were used to channel present and future tax revenues into the pockets of politically important industries and individuals. Ironically, after the Meciar government fell in 1998, the successor government picked up these long strings and used them to regain control of many enterprises. Revitalization and Industrial Policy. Even inter-enterprise debt and tax arrears provided opportunities for government manipulation. As noted, the bankruptcy framework privileged debtors over creditors. As most AZZZ members were debtors, there was little incentive for the industrial lobby to support a change in policy. Yet the government also passed a controversial Revitalization Act that granted chosen firms the right to enter into a state-sponsored debt relief program. 127 The Revitalization Act was designed in conjunction with Ducky's Ministry of the Economy on behalf of Slovakia's hard-hit engineering and machinery sectors. Based largely on tax relief, in practice its use was limited to the "restructured" companies owned by the quasi-private holding company, DMD Holdings a.s., as well as a number of agricultural firms. 128 DMD, run by Meciar's former Minister of Finance JuliusT6th, was an umbrella holding company for a network of former state-run defense manufacturing firms that were most severely hit by defense cutbacks at the end of the Cold War. In addition to restructuring, DMD profited from direct Ministry of Economy support- mostly in the form of encouragement and coordination-for the development of an indigenous automobile supply network. 129 While the effects of these direct attempts at industrial policy appeared to be generally well intentioned, they had little positive effect on restructuring the 127 Ministry of the Economy, "Slovakia's Industrial Policy Update," 18. The government also set up a state-run arms trading company, Armex. OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, l 04-5 . 129 AZZZ 1996; Intervi ew with Ministry of Economy Plenipotentiary for the Automotive Industry in Slovakia, Alfred Richter in Samuel Bibza, "Yel'ke Plany," MOT, August, 1998, 4-8 . Interview with Jan Lesinsky, President, Slovak Society of Automoti ve Engineers, Bratis lava, August I 0, 1998 . 128 SLOVAKIA 139 companies involved. 130 Indeed, the program virtually halted marginally successful earlier attempts at defense conversion. 131 Slovakia eventually got its automotive sector, but it took the defeat of Meciar, clear political compliance with the prerequisites of EU membership, macroeconomic stabilization and significant initial investment incentives to entice foreign automobile producers and supply companies to come to Slovakia. 132 Politicization of Bank Privatization. The FNM's insider privatization framework raised levels of conflict surrounding bank privatization. In early 1996, Meciar promised to privatize Slovakia's largest state banks to Slovakia' s leading enterprises, most notably VSZ and Slovnaft. 133 Observers quickly pointed out that the likely result of the privatizations would be to decapitalize the banks as owner-firms, like VSZ, wrote themselves checks. Hence, while opposition parties KDH, DS and DU, were officially in favor of privatizing the banks, they formed a one-time coalition with HZDS's far left wing governing partner, ZRS , to get the banks placed on the list of strategic enterprises that prevented their privatization. The ZRS had nothing against bank privatization per se, but it allegedly was upset that the HZDS had excluded ZRS clients from buying one of the banks. 134 While partially preventing the banks ' capture and potential mismanagement by industrial managers, the banks nevertheless remained undercapitalized. Deeply in need of capital, the VSZ nevertheless did secure control over Slovakia's third largest state bank, Investicna a rozvojova banka (Investment and Development Bank-IRB) through the support of the FNM at shareholder meetings. 135 IRB had a troubled portfolio 130 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1998-1999, 104-5 . Miklo~, "Economic Transition," 75 . 132 Sharon Fisher, John Gould and Tim Haughton, "Slovakia's Neoliberal Tum," Europe-Asia Studies 59:6 (2007), 977-98. 133 If we include the third state owned financial institution, Slovenska sporitel'na, these three banks accounted for as much as 90% of all Slovak deposits and 60% of all loans. OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, (Paris: OECD, 1998), 29; EilJ (Economist Intelligence Unit), Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, (London: Economist, 1998), 17. 134 Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 258 . 135 OECD, Slo vak Country Report, 1997-8, p. 29; EilJ, Slovak Country Report, I'' Quarter 1998, p. 17; Olsson, Ownership, Reform, 158. 131 140 SLOVAKIA which VSZ control did little to correct. The state had been using it to keep a nuclear power plant solvent and to provide subsidies to the construction industry to build apartments for young couples. In 1997, IRB liquidity problems worsened and the bank was forced to borrow internationally at rates driven up by the emerging global financial crisis . The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) directed the VSZ, as the primary owner, to provide a much-needed capital injection. The VSZ refused. The NBS later "suggested" that the bank's deterioration resulted from "serious illegal transgressions which negatively influenced the bank's activities ." To add to the crisis, junior coalition partner SNS refused to support a renewal of state support for the construction industry's subsidized apartment loan program. After more government infighting, the IRB failed to meet its depositors' demands, forcing the NBS to seize it in December of 1997. 136 The VSZ raid on Slovakia's financial sector was the logical culmination of insider privatization under illiberal political conditions. Tightly bound together by political necessity, Meciar's administration provided Rezes and his network of enterprises insider access to special deals in privatization, taxation, credit allocation (from state financial institutions) and almost every other area where the state intersects with economic activity. Moreover, Meciar did this despite open indications of nepotism, corruption and mismanagement. The final cost to other corporations, the taxpayers and VSZ's more than 25,000 employees was enormous. By the winter of 1998, VSZ Holdings had defaulted on its foreign obligations and was facing layoffs and bankruptcy. Meciar's successor government then used this crisis to regain control of the company and limit its growing debt. 137 In 2000, the successor government sold the VSZ to United States Steel Corporation. 136 OECD, Slovak Country Report, 1997-8, 77-8; EfU, Slovak Country Report, 1st Quarter I 998, 17. In the spring of 1998, the VSZ used its influence with the FNM and its direct and indirect shareholdings in the two other state financial institutions to provide the !RB with a costly capital injection. The VSZ again refused to contribute any cash of its own beyond the initial amount required by the NBS . Nor was there any real attempt by VSZ to find an adequate foreign buyer. Peter Laca, "Troubled !RB bank approves capital injection," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-21 , 1998. 137 "Vlada mimo hry," Pravda, November 17, I 998; See also Miklo§, 1997 . SLOVAKIA 141 Abuse of State Property. Coalition misuse of property included firms that were not yet privatized. Perhaps the most notable case is former Minister of the Economy Jan Ducky' s abuse of the country's natural gas company, Slovensky plynarensky priemysel (Slovak Gas Industry-SPP). A key member of AZZZ and a former communist-era official, Ducky resigned his position with the government to oversee a systematic tunneling of SPP assets for personal and political use. This included financing FC Slovan- Slovakia' s most famous football team (and, ironically, the former Czechoslovak rival to Sparta Praha, a team purchased by VSZ's Alexander Rezes). Ducky would even hand out cash bonuses to reward players for stellar play. 138 The full extent of Ducky's tunneling only became clear after the government fell from power. Ducky died in a still unexplained assassination in 1999 three days after a probe was launched into his handling of the company.139 Slowing Macroeconomic Performance. It is ironic that, except for privatization, Meciar's second government largely left the federal reform package intact until 1996. 140 The resulting favorable entrepreneurial conditions and international demand produced a relatively strong recovery in 1994-1996, matching a regional trend. The tight monetary policy of the largely independent NBS was a crucial element in the strong macroeconomic performance of Slovakia. Yet, since NBS monetary discipline also signifycantly raised the cost of credit, maintained the real value of liabilities, and put constraints on fiscal policy, the NBS came under pressure from the Ministry of Finance to be "more cooperative" with Slovak industrial policy. According to Ivan Miklos, VSZ President Jan Smerek complained that the NBS's tight money policy was a form of "disliking VSZ and, apparently, disliking Slovakia's development." 14 1 Under intense industrial pressure, the NBS narrowly escaped an attempt by parliament to place it more directly under government control. 142 Heavy borrowing, low foreign investment and this attack on the NBS led major investment rating agencies to 138 Confidential interview with FC Slovan football player, Bratislava, July 1998. Fisher, Political Change, 94. 140 Miklos, "Economic Transition," 63. 141 Ibid., 71-2. 142 EIU, Slovak Country Report, r" Quarter 1998, 16-7. 139 142 SLOVAKIA downgrade Slovak bonds to below investment-grade level in the spring of 1998. This further raised the cost of borrowing. 143 By the end of Meciar's third government, enterprise restructuring in Slovakia had also slowed. Firms that sought an injection of capital had to face among other things : poorly functioning equity markets rendering an initial public offering nearly impossible; a government that was suspicious and even hostile to foreign strategic investors; government decision-making and procurement processes that frequently violated the equal application of the rule of law; and finally , an increasingly profligate fiscal policy, capped by a costly infrastructure development program that crowded out private investment. By the spring of 1998, the Meciar government had to finance its cash-starved economy on European markets at the relatively costly rate of 3.5 percent above the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate. It also borrowed short term domestically at a nominal rate of twenty-eight percent. The high level of domestic borrowing aggravated the credit squeeze on Slovakia's already strapped enterprises. 144 Short term borrowing to meet long term debt obligations was the final nail in the Meciar government's economic coffin. By the summer of 1998 it was clear that the Slovak performance of the previous years had been financed by unsustainable fiscal spending and borrowing. Meciar's Electoral Defeat, October 1998. Parliamentary elections in late September of 1998 proved a satisfactory denouement to the regime's VSZ-led orgy of self-dealing. The government had put in place rules that looked as if it was equipping itself with the necessary tools for a full-fledged authoritarian seizure of power. No seizure occurred. It is possible that the HZDS did not even consider the possibility. Even if it had, concerted efforts from independent NGOs, regional governmental associations, and a united center-right coalition of parties and the SDI.; helped to mobilize 84.25 percent of the voting population. Many correctly interpreted the election as a test of Slovakia's Western European credentials. The HZDS won a marginal plurality, but the ZRS was in shambles 143 "Another Agency Downgrades Slovaki a's Risk Indicator," The Slovak Spectator, May 7-2 1, 1998, p. 5. 144 M. E.S.A I 0, Slovak Mo nthly Report, May 1998, p. 1-2; M. E. S.A I 0, Slovak Monthly Report, July 1998, p. 2. SLOVAKIA 143 after its lamentable performance as a far left party in formal charge of creating capitalists from state assets. The HZDS tried, but was unable to lure the SDI: away from the opposition to form a coalition. The SDC then joined a coalition of parties (the Slovak Democratic Coalition-SOK), SMK and the new Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) to form a government united by little more than opposition to Meciar and a desire to get into the EU and NAT0. 145 Slovakia's privatization winners split deeply during the election. Most of the direct beneficiaries of Meciar's politicized economic policies remained close to the Prime Minister. Most notably, VSZ owner Alexander Rezes provided the HZDS with significant frnancial support and other perks, including flying the Prime Minister to campaign events in his private jet and even forcing his football team, Sparta Praha, to wear HZDS jerseys in a campaign-related friendly match. Rezes ' s empire was already hemorrhaging money despite having raided two of Slovakia' s leading frnancial institutions. The IRB had already been bailed out by the NBS at taxpayer expense. This was an indirect subsidy that allowed money to filter into the HZDS campaign. It must have been clear to Rezes that only continued "industrial collaboration" with his political patron would save his fortune. Yet, faced with the gathering strength of the opposition, other Meciar clients were more circumspect- even Tmava's Vladimir Poor hinted at his willingness to work with a new govemment. 146 The SOP, the new "Party of Civic Understanding" promoted itself as the voice of the independent entrepreneurial community. In interviews, its spokesman strongly critiqued the disastrous economic management of the government and promised to uphold the rule of law in economic and political dealings. It sought initially to establish a safe, pro-business middle ground between the polarized camps in Slovakia' s "Cold War. " Despite this, its founder, Rudolf Schuster, refused any prospect of cooperation with the HZDS. 147 Other entre145 Martin Butora and Zora Butorova, "Slovakia's Democratic Awakening," Journal of Democracy, I0: I (I 999), 80-95 . 146 John A. Gould and Sona Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence," in John Higley and Gyorgy Lengyel, eds., Elites after State Socialism (Lanham: Rowm an and Littlefield, 2000), 47-70. 147 Interview with Ferdinand Petrak, Vice Chairman, Party for Civic Understanding (SOP), Bratislava, July 28, 1998; Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities, 71. 144 SLOVAKIA preneurs continued to support the SDI:, and the newly united Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SKDU). 148 Conclusion. Having privatized their enterprises through political connections, Meciar's clients went on to privatize state policy. Rather than demand the rule of law, they corrupted politicians; rather than invest resources to restructure, they stripped and tunneled them; rather than act as national champions, they preyed on the country's financial stability. By 1998, the coalition government's economic model was no longer sustainable. As the economic price of clientalism grew, the politicization of economic policy became an important additional grievance in the opposition's political arsenal. Never completely unied, many of the coalition's economic allies sat on the fence or sought accommodation with the opposition. Others proved firm HZDS supporters-particularly Rezes's VSZ, who must have seen that VSZ's financial future was closely linked to government policy. On the whole, privatization in Slovakia did not produce "market democrats," but it did succeed in providing economic agents who responded to their own logic of action. These proved to be both a boon and a curse to Meciar during his moment of greatest political crisis. Privatization' s impact on Slovakia's political liberalization, in short, was at best neutral and at worst negative. Ultimately, it was a united opposition, strategically smart NGO's and a mass mobilezation of Slovakia's voters that established market democracy in Slovakia. 148 Gould and Szomolanyi, "Slovakia: Elite Disunity and Convergence."  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Vladimír Mečiar and the Politics of Privatization in Slovakia, 1992-1998 Description An account of the resource John A. Gould Slovakia, Vol. 41 (No. 76-77), 2013 pp. 102-144 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gould, John A., 1962- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b0b9fcc0ef3ffcdedb66668b444ba4d1.pdf e3dbe12388d02ef68c79c21f5f380d31 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 73 Visible Signs of Slovak Culture in Cleveland, Ohio By Andrew P i e r , O.S.B. During World War II a popular calling card that was left mysteriously in many parts of the embattled areas was the scribbled message, "Kilroy was here," as if to say, 'Hello there, welcome.' Throughout the Cleveland area from the inner city to the outlying suburbs there are many indications that the Slovaks were not only there but continue to live, work and pray as integral social units in our variegated municipal society that has drawn human recruits from as many as fifty countries from all over the world. Slovakia, for centuries a royal province in the conglomerate kingdom of Hungary, then incorporated in CzechoSlovakia after World War I, Slovak Republic before and during World War II, and re-incorporated arbitrarily after the second World War inside Czecho-Slovakia again, has given the United States close to a million of her people who migrated to the new world in the past hundred years. Today in greater Cleveland it is conservatively estimated that there are at least 80,000 American citizens who trace their national origin to the Slovak nation that numbers approximately five million in its historic homeland, and an equal or even greater number of countrymen and their descendants around the globe. Signs that Slovaks settled in the Cleveland metropolis are many. Foremost among these are the church edifices and schools which they themselves built, maintained and staffed without benefit of church or state aid. Undoubtedly, early Slovaks deserve fully to be recognized and registered among most enterprising Americans of all time. The first and foremost indications of the presence of the Slovaks are their churches where they not only wor- �74 SLOVAKIA shipped but gathered socially in adjoining halls, and where they built parochial schools for their children's education. St. Martin and St. Ladislaus, no longer existing, were the first religious and social and cultural centers. There remain St. Wendelin's and Our Lady of Mercy on the west side, SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, St. Andrew's, Nativity and St. Benedict's on the east side, as well as several Lutheran parishes both in Cleveland and Lakewood. Around these parochial institutions various societies were organized, clubs were formed and newspapers began to be published. An assorted group of societies in the early 1890's was the nucleus for Father Stephen Furdek to establish the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) which was destined to become a 100,000-member fraternal organization to be followed soon by a sister fraternal society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union of which Father Furdek was co-founder with Mrs. Anna Hurban. Central headquarters of both fraternals ( each with a membership of a hundred thousand) are still here in Cleveland. In 1907 Father Furdek and his associates founded the Slovak League of America. A number of smaller organizations, such as the Cleveland Jednota and the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, sprang up, but in recent years these were absorbed by larger organizations. Both the Slovak Catholic Sokol and the Slovak Sokol, though not originating here, and the National Slovak Society have substantial membership in the Cleveland area, also Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the 2:ivena and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Nationwide influence of the Slovaks in Cleveland was highlighted by the issuance of the Cleveland Agreement in 1915 (which has been publicized by the famous Theodore Andrica of the Cleveland Press). The document outlined the democratic framework for a self-governing Slovak national state in central Europe. This was later revised and became the basis of the ill-starred Pittsburgh Pact in 1918 shamelessly repudiated by its most famous signer, Thomas G. Masaryk. A number of Slovak newspapers and periodicals were �SLOVAKIA 75 published here at one time or another, namely, the Cleveland Hlas (Voice) edited by Jan Pankuch, Sr., Father Liscinsky's Kritika (purchased by Michal Bosak in 1920 and re-named Slovenskd Obrana in Scranton, Penna.), and the Slovenske Noviny, edited by a staff o f ~ at St. Andrew's Abbey: by Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Karol Strmen and Rev. Andrew Pier, O.S.B. from 1949 to 1959, the Ave Maria monthly published since 1929 by the Slovak Benedictines is still being published and has a world-wide circulation. John C. Cieker, editor of the zivena monthly ,:nagazine lives in Parma. On the air waves for the past forty years Slovak broadcasts have been heard weekly or daily on the fallowing programs: The Cleveland Slovak radio club's Slovak Hour on Stations WADC and WERE-AM and WZAK-FM, Joseph Pales' Slovak Hour on Stations WDOK and WXEN-FM, Alex Mikula on Station WZAK-FM, Michael Beno on WXEN-FM with Viktor Nesnadny. John J. Biro and J. J . Kascak are currently the announcers on Station WERE's Slovak Hour. In the past Jan Majzler and Kolman Lajcak were pioneer announcers, then Judge Stephen A. Zona and Vladimir Mlynek. Politically, the Slovaks have had the following in various offices in public life: Judge George Tenesy and Judge Stephen A. Zona, State Representatives John Smolka, Stephen A. Zona, George E . Fedor, Andrew C. Putka, Jerome Stano, Mayors Stephen A. Zona and John Petruska in Parma, Assistant County Prosecutors: Attorneys Julius Badzik, John Kulka, John Urbancik and John Leonard, Stephen Suhajcik, Mary Sotak, Richard Harmondy in City Council, City Law Director George E . Fedor in Lakewood, Attorneys Andrew Sarisky, Andrew C. Putka and William Petro in the Mayor's cabinet at City Hall, Stephen Suhajcik, Commissioner of fiscal control in the Cleveland Water Department, Andrew G. Putka, sports' commissioner in the city. George Szell, famed conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, was of Slovak origin on his mother's side, as is Paul Newman, cinema star, whose mother was Slovak, too. Sammy Kaye comes from a well known Slovak family in �76 SLOVAKIA Lakewood, Ohio. Opera Singer Rudolf Petrak appeared in a special concert in the Public Auditorium here in May, 1952. Two Slovak composers, Orsagh and Francisci, lived here during the World War I era. Various Slovak clubs that were active at one time were: Bratislavsky knizok, Trenciansky klub, Oravsky klub (now the Cleveland Slovak Social Club and still active), also such active clubs as the American Slovak Zemplin Club, the General Milan R. stefanik Dramatic Circle, the Slovak Dramatic Society, the Vansova Literary Guild, the Lakewood Slovak Civic Club and the Cleveland Slovak Civic Club. John Rozboril was director of a popular marching band at St. Ladislaus parish in the World War I era and Ray Zamiska organized the well known Post 381 St. Benedict's military band after World War II. Popular orchestras that circulated in the Slovak community were: Sedlak's, Golden's, Beno's and Pales' orchestras, and now still active are Kopcho's Cavalier s and the Pastirik Combo Five, both of which specialize in Slovak folk music. George Lukac, Sr. was a typical representative of Church organists who not only played liturgical music but trained singing groups through the years, and often produced plays and musicals. His son, Matthew, has been the organist and choir director at St. John's Cathedral for the past 30 years. Visits from abroad by dignitaries were the following: Msgr. Andrej Hlinka in 1926, the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) from Turciansky Sv. Martin in Slovakia in 1935 and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegation in 1937 (with Dr. Joseph Tiso as a member). Police Chief George Matowic of Nativity parish was a highly respected member of the Cleveland Police Department for more than 40 years. Johnny Risko, Cleveland's "Baker Boy" was a perennial contender for the heavyweight boxing crown in the 1920's and early 1930's. �SLOVAKIA 77 In art the best known was Steve Sarisky of the Cleveland Institute of Art and George Krispinsky, a former art instructor at Benedictine High School. Photography has an expert in the person of Tibor Gasparik who is the chief photographer in the municipal photo laboratory at City Hall. Outstanding in the field of Slovak literature are two eminent Slovak poets and authors: Rev. Mikulas sprinc, professor of Modern Languages at Borromeo College in Wickliffe, Ohio and Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D., professor of French, Italian and Latin at Cleveland State University. Successful Slovak industrialists are the following machine-shop owners: Wendell sarmir and Sons, Michael Olle and Sons, Wendell Lorence and Son and the Bobinchuk Father and Sons Company. Travel agencies under Slovak management are: John Olds' Atlas, Andrew Hudak's Adventure International, Groger's Travel Service (Groger and Friedman), and LihaniNemecek Travel Bureau. Financial Institutions founded and managed by Slovaks are: State Savings (Joseph Sotak, Sr. and Sons, also Mrs. Anna Sotak), formerly Tatra Savings, and Home Federal Savings in Lakewood Ohio (formerly Orol Savings founded by Martin Slimak and associates). On the cultural side, there is the Slovak Institute and its library at St. Andrew's Abbey. The Slovak Institute was founded by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. who appointed as its first director Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, author of the first history of Slovakia, in 1952. Benedictine High School, founded in 1927, staffed and administered by the Slovak Benedictine Fathers of St. Andrew's Abbey, is perhaps the best known of Slovak sponsored educational institutions in the country. Its counterpart, the Lumen Cordium High School for girls, is administered and staffed by the Slovak Vincentian Sisters in Bedford, Ohio. They also have charge of the well known Slovak shrine there, Our Lady of Levoca. Under the sponsorship of the Cleveland Press and �78 SLOVAKIA directed by Theodore Andrica ( the well known nationality news editor for the daily over a period of forty years) a series of festival-pageants were produced annually. In the first years the Slovaks appeared with a la_rge group under the direction of Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. The Stefanik Dramatic Circle also participated. Among the most noteworthy books emanating from Cleveland directly were : 1) Poems by M. sprinc, 2) Poems by K. Strmen, 3) The History of Slovak Religious Orders in the U.S. by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., 4) Slovak Christmas by Jozef Duris, 5) Two works on ancient Slovak art and architecture by Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., 6) A small volume on childhood in a Slovak family in Pennsylvania by A. V. Pier, O.S.B. Undoubtedly the most impor tant of these publications are Dr. Hrusovsky's history of the Slovak religious orders in the U.S., Dr. Strmen's anthology of world literature in the Slovak language and Mr. Duris' Slovak Christmas (in English). Most popular of the Slovak productions in Cleveland has been the Slovak Cook Book published by the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. The book is in its 17th edition. Nat far behind in nationwide popularity among the Slovaks of America is the map of Slovakia which was originally drawn up with meticulous and scientific care by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. and Engineer Kalocsay at the Slovak Institute more than twenty years ago. The map which shows approximately 3,500 Slovak towns, villages, etc. has been in increasing demand as more and more people visit Slovakia each year. The map is in its third edition. The Slovak Institute sponsored a special cultural exhibit under the auspices of the Slovak League of America at the Benedictine High School in 1957 under the co- chairmanship of Konstantin culen and Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D. A three-day Slovak Book Exhibit at the Benedictine High School gym in the early 1960's was sponsored by the Slovak Institute. It was the first Nationality Book Fair in the history of Cleveland. Chief landmarks in Cleveland as unmistakable monu- �SLOVAKIA 79 ments of Slovak endeavor are : 1) The bronze statue of General Milan R. Stefanik, erected in Wade Park in 1924 under the sponsorship of the Slovak League of America and associated Slovak societies in Cleveland. The cost was $25,000, and the sculptor was Frico Motoska from Slovakia. 2) The Slovak Cultural Garden, one of a score of nationality garden centers in Rockefeller Park. Peter Mokris and his wife, as well as Msgr. Francis Dubosh, were instrumental in establishing this Slovak link in the chain of gardens by the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation. Mrs. Tillie Bacik is currently the president of the Slovak Cultural Garden Association. Villa Sancta Anna is a home for the aged in Beachwood under the management of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. Slovak historic shrines that trace their origin to Slovakia where they have a history that goes back for centuries have their counterparts in Cleveland. The best known is the unique Our Lady of Levoca pilgrimage site in Bedford, Ohio. Little known here but equally famous are the Mother of Sorrows shrine from sastin and the Mother and Child Mariatal statue enshrined in St. Benedict's Church. Proposing a list of leading personalities in Slovak life in Cleveland during the past hundred years is risky business, but one must begin somewhere, and so I submit the following to be enrolled in the Slovak Hall of Fame: Stefan Furdek, Matthew Benko, Matthew Gruss, John Liscinsky, John Pankuch, Sr., Johnny Risko, George Szell, Mrs. Anna Hurban, John Sabol, Mrs. Anna Sotak, Gregory Vaniscak, Mother M. Berchmans, V.S.C., Martin Slimak, Joseph Dubnicka, Paschal Kavulic, Susan Matuschak, John Rozboril, Philip A. Hrobak, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., and Msgr. Francis Dubosh. There are undoubtedly more who can be added to the group of our eminent Slovak leaders in various fields . Those who are still active have not been submitted as candidates for this honor. � SLOVAKIA 73 Visible Signs of Slovak Culture in Cleveland, Ohio By Andrew P i e r , O.S.B. During World War II a popular calling card that was left mysteriously in many parts of the embattled areas was the scribbled message, "Kilroy was here," as if to say, 'Hello there, welcome.' Throughout the Cleveland area from the inner city to the outlying suburbs there are many indications that the Slovaks were not only there but continue to live, work and pray as integral social units in our variegated municipal society that has drawn human recruits from as many as fifty countries from all over the world. Slovakia, for centuries a royal province in the conglomerate kingdom of Hungary, then incorporated in CzechoSlovakia after World War I, Slovak Republic before and during World War II, and re-incorporated arbitrarily after the second World War inside Czecho-Slovakia again, has given the United States close to a million of her people who migrated to the new world in the past hundred years. Today in greater Cleveland it is conservatively estimated that there are at least 80,000 American citizens who trace their national origin to the Slovak nation that numbers approximately five million in its historic homeland, and an equal or even greater number of countrymen and their descendants around the globe. Signs that Slovaks settled in the Cleveland metropolis are many. Foremost among these are the church edifices and schools which they themselves built, maintained and staffed without benefit of church or state aid. Undoubtedly, early Slovaks deserve fully to be recognized and registered among most enterprising Americans of all time. The first and foremost indications of the presence of the Slovaks are their churches where they not only wor- �74 SLOVAKIA shipped but gathered socially in adjoining halls, and where they built parochial schools for their children's education. St. Martin and St. Ladislaus, no longer existing, were the first religious and social and cultural centers. There remain St. Wendelin's and Our Lady of Mercy on the west side, SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, St. Andrew's, Nativity and St. Benedict's on the east side, as well as several Lutheran parishes both in Cleveland and Lakewood. Around these parochial institutions various societies were organized, clubs were formed and newspapers began to be published. An assorted group of societies in the early 1890's was the nucleus for Father Stephen Furdek to establish the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) which was destined to become a 100,000-member fraternal organization to be followed soon by a sister fraternal society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union of which Father Furdek was co-founder with Mrs. Anna Hurban. Central headquarters of both fraternals ( each with a membership of a hundred thousand) are still here in Cleveland. In 1907 Father Furdek and his associates founded the Slovak League of America. A number of smaller organizations, such as the Cleveland Jednota and the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, sprang up, but in recent years these were absorbed by larger organizations. Both the Slovak Catholic Sokol and the Slovak Sokol, though not originating here, and the National Slovak Society have substantial membership in the Cleveland area, also Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the 2:ivena and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Nationwide influence of the Slovaks in Cleveland was highlighted by the issuance of the Cleveland Agreement in 1915 (which has been publicized by the famous Theodore Andrica of the Cleveland Press). The document outlined the democratic framework for a self-governing Slovak national state in central Europe. This was later revised and became the basis of the ill-starred Pittsburgh Pact in 1918 shamelessly repudiated by its most famous signer, Thomas G. Masaryk. A number of Slovak newspapers and periodicals were �SLOVAKIA 75 published here at one time or another, namely, the Cleveland Hlas (Voice) edited by Jan Pankuch, Sr., Father Liscinsky's Kritika (purchased by Michal Bosak in 1920 and re-named Slovenskd Obrana in Scranton, Penna.), and the Slovenske Noviny, edited by a staff o f ~ at St. Andrew's Abbey: by Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Karol Strmen and Rev. Andrew Pier, O.S.B. from 1949 to 1959, the Ave Maria monthly published since 1929 by the Slovak Benedictines is still being published and has a world-wide circulation. John C. Cieker, editor of the zivena monthly ,:nagazine lives in Parma. On the air waves for the past forty years Slovak broadcasts have been heard weekly or daily on the fallowing programs: The Cleveland Slovak radio club's Slovak Hour on Stations WADC and WERE-AM and WZAK-FM, Joseph Pales' Slovak Hour on Stations WDOK and WXEN-FM, Alex Mikula on Station WZAK-FM, Michael Beno on WXEN-FM with Viktor Nesnadny. John J. Biro and J. J . Kascak are currently the announcers on Station WERE's Slovak Hour. In the past Jan Majzler and Kolman Lajcak were pioneer announcers, then Judge Stephen A. Zona and Vladimir Mlynek. Politically, the Slovaks have had the following in various offices in public life: Judge George Tenesy and Judge Stephen A. Zona, State Representatives John Smolka, Stephen A. Zona, George E . Fedor, Andrew C. Putka, Jerome Stano, Mayors Stephen A. Zona and John Petruska in Parma, Assistant County Prosecutors: Attorneys Julius Badzik, John Kulka, John Urbancik and John Leonard, Stephen Suhajcik, Mary Sotak, Richard Harmondy in City Council, City Law Director George E . Fedor in Lakewood, Attorneys Andrew Sarisky, Andrew C. Putka and William Petro in the Mayor's cabinet at City Hall, Stephen Suhajcik, Commissioner of fiscal control in the Cleveland Water Department, Andrew G. Putka, sports' commissioner in the city. George Szell, famed conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, was of Slovak origin on his mother's side, as is Paul Newman, cinema star, whose mother was Slovak, too. Sammy Kaye comes from a well known Slovak family in �76 SLOVAKIA Lakewood, Ohio. Opera Singer Rudolf Petrak appeared in a special concert in the Public Auditorium here in May, 1952. Two Slovak composers, Orsagh and Francisci, lived here during the World War I era. Various Slovak clubs that were active at one time were: Bratislavsky knizok, Trenciansky klub, Oravsky klub (now the Cleveland Slovak Social Club and still active), also such active clubs as the American Slovak Zemplin Club, the General Milan R. stefanik Dramatic Circle, the Slovak Dramatic Society, the Vansova Literary Guild, the Lakewood Slovak Civic Club and the Cleveland Slovak Civic Club. John Rozboril was director of a popular marching band at St. Ladislaus parish in the World War I era and Ray Zamiska organized the well known Post 381 St. Benedict's military band after World War II. Popular orchestras that circulated in the Slovak community were: Sedlak's, Golden's, Beno's and Pales' orchestras, and now still active are Kopcho's Cavalier s and the Pastirik Combo Five, both of which specialize in Slovak folk music. George Lukac, Sr. was a typical representative of Church organists who not only played liturgical music but trained singing groups through the years, and often produced plays and musicals. His son, Matthew, has been the organist and choir director at St. John's Cathedral for the past 30 years. Visits from abroad by dignitaries were the following: Msgr. Andrej Hlinka in 1926, the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) from Turciansky Sv. Martin in Slovakia in 1935 and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegation in 1937 (with Dr. Joseph Tiso as a member). Police Chief George Matowic of Nativity parish was a highly respected member of the Cleveland Police Department for more than 40 years. Johnny Risko, Cleveland's "Baker Boy" was a perennial contender for the heavyweight boxing crown in the 1920's and early 1930's. �SLOVAKIA 77 In art the best known was Steve Sarisky of the Cleveland Institute of Art and George Krispinsky, a former art instructor at Benedictine High School. Photography has an expert in the person of Tibor Gasparik who is the chief photographer in the municipal photo laboratory at City Hall. Outstanding in the field of Slovak literature are two eminent Slovak poets and authors: Rev. Mikulas sprinc, professor of Modern Languages at Borromeo College in Wickliffe, Ohio and Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D., professor of French, Italian and Latin at Cleveland State University. Successful Slovak industrialists are the following machine-shop owners: Wendell sarmir and Sons, Michael Olle and Sons, Wendell Lorence and Son and the Bobinchuk Father and Sons Company. Travel agencies under Slovak management are: John Olds' Atlas, Andrew Hudak's Adventure International, Groger's Travel Service (Groger and Friedman), and LihaniNemecek Travel Bureau. Financial Institutions founded and managed by Slovaks are: State Savings (Joseph Sotak, Sr. and Sons, also Mrs. Anna Sotak), formerly Tatra Savings, and Home Federal Savings in Lakewood Ohio (formerly Orol Savings founded by Martin Slimak and associates). On the cultural side, there is the Slovak Institute and its library at St. Andrew's Abbey. The Slovak Institute was founded by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. who appointed as its first director Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, author of the first history of Slovakia, in 1952. Benedictine High School, founded in 1927, staffed and administered by the Slovak Benedictine Fathers of St. Andrew's Abbey, is perhaps the best known of Slovak sponsored educational institutions in the country. Its counterpart, the Lumen Cordium High School for girls, is administered and staffed by the Slovak Vincentian Sisters in Bedford, Ohio. They also have charge of the well known Slovak shrine there, Our Lady of Levoca. Under the sponsorship of the Cleveland Press and �78 SLOVAKIA directed by Theodore Andrica ( the well known nationality news editor for the daily over a period of forty years) a series of festival-pageants were produced annually. In the first years the Slovaks appeared with a la_rge group under the direction of Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. The Stefanik Dramatic Circle also participated. Among the most noteworthy books emanating from Cleveland directly were : 1) Poems by M. sprinc, 2) Poems by K. Strmen, 3) The History of Slovak Religious Orders in the U.S. by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., 4) Slovak Christmas by Jozef Duris, 5) Two works on ancient Slovak art and architecture by Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., 6) A small volume on childhood in a Slovak family in Pennsylvania by A. V. Pier, O.S.B. Undoubtedly the most impor tant of these publications are Dr. Hrusovsky's history of the Slovak religious orders in the U.S., Dr. Strmen's anthology of world literature in the Slovak language and Mr. Duris' Slovak Christmas (in English). Most popular of the Slovak productions in Cleveland has been the Slovak Cook Book published by the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. The book is in its 17th edition. Nat far behind in nationwide popularity among the Slovaks of America is the map of Slovakia which was originally drawn up with meticulous and scientific care by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. and Engineer Kalocsay at the Slovak Institute more than twenty years ago. The map which shows approximately 3,500 Slovak towns, villages, etc. has been in increasing demand as more and more people visit Slovakia each year. The map is in its third edition. The Slovak Institute sponsored a special cultural exhibit under the auspices of the Slovak League of America at the Benedictine High School in 1957 under the co- chairmanship of Konstantin culen and Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D. A three-day Slovak Book Exhibit at the Benedictine High School gym in the early 1960's was sponsored by the Slovak Institute. It was the first Nationality Book Fair in the history of Cleveland. Chief landmarks in Cleveland as unmistakable monu- �SLOVAKIA 79 ments of Slovak endeavor are : 1) The bronze statue of General Milan R. Stefanik, erected in Wade Park in 1924 under the sponsorship of the Slovak League of America and associated Slovak societies in Cleveland. The cost was $25,000, and the sculptor was Frico Motoska from Slovakia. 2) The Slovak Cultural Garden, one of a score of nationality garden centers in Rockefeller Park. Peter Mokris and his wife, as well as Msgr. Francis Dubosh, were instrumental in establishing this Slovak link in the chain of gardens by the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation. Mrs. Tillie Bacik is currently the president of the Slovak Cultural Garden Association. Villa Sancta Anna is a home for the aged in Beachwood under the management of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. Slovak historic shrines that trace their origin to Slovakia where they have a history that goes back for centuries have their counterparts in Cleveland. The best known is the unique Our Lady of Levoca pilgrimage site in Bedford, Ohio. Little known here but equally famous are the Mother of Sorrows shrine from sastin and the Mother and Child Mariatal statue enshrined in St. Benedict's Church. Proposing a list of leading personalities in Slovak life in Cleveland during the past hundred years is risky business, but one must begin somewhere, and so I submit the following to be enrolled in the Slovak Hall of Fame: Stefan Furdek, Matthew Benko, Matthew Gruss, John Liscinsky, John Pankuch, Sr., Johnny Risko, George Szell, Mrs. Anna Hurban, John Sabol, Mrs. Anna Sotak, Gregory Vaniscak, Mother M. Berchmans, V.S.C., Martin Slimak, Joseph Dubnicka, Paschal Kavulic, Susan Matuschak, John Rozboril, Philip A. Hrobak, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., and Msgr. Francis Dubosh. There are undoubtedly more who can be added to the group of our eminent Slovak leaders in various fields . Those who are still active have not been submitted as candidates for this honor. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 73 Visible Signs of Slovak Culture in Cleveland, Ohio By Andrew P i e r , O.S.B. During World War II a popular calling card that was left mysteriously in many parts of the embattled areas was the scribbled message, "Kilroy was here," as if to say, 'Hello there, welcome.' Throughout the Cleveland area from the inner city to the outlying suburbs there are many indications that the Slovaks were not only there but continue to live, work and pray as integral social units in our variegated municipal society that has drawn human recruits from as many as fifty countries from all over the world. Slovakia, for centuries a royal province in the conglomerate kingdom of Hungary, then incorporated in CzechoSlovakia after World War I, Slovak Republic before and during World War II, and re-incorporated arbitrarily after the second World War inside Czecho-Slovakia again, has given the United States close to a million of her people who migrated to the new world in the past hundred years. Today in greater Cleveland it is conservatively estimated that there are at least 80,000 American citizens who trace their national origin to the Slovak nation that numbers approximately five million in its historic homeland, and an equal or even greater number of countrymen and their descendants around the globe. Signs that Slovaks settled in the Cleveland metropolis are many. Foremost among these are the church edifices and schools which they themselves built, maintained and staffed without benefit of church or state aid. Undoubtedly, early Slovaks deserve fully to be recognized and registered among most enterprising Americans of all time. The first and foremost indications of the presence of the Slovaks are their churches where they not only wor- 74 SLOVAKIA shipped but gathered socially in adjoining halls, and where they built parochial schools for their children's education. St. Martin and St. Ladislaus, no longer existing, were the first religious and social and cultural centers. There remain St. Wendelin's and Our Lady of Mercy on the west side, SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, St. Andrew's, Nativity and St. Benedict's on the east side, as well as several Lutheran parishes both in Cleveland and Lakewood. Around these parochial institutions various societies were organized, clubs were formed and newspapers began to be published. An assorted group of societies in the early 1890's was the nucleus for Father Stephen Furdek to establish the First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) which was destined to become a 100,000-member fraternal organization to be followed soon by a sister fraternal society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union of which Father Furdek was co-founder with Mrs. Anna Hurban. Central headquarters of both fraternals ( each with a membership of a hundred thousand) are still here in Cleveland. In 1907 Father Furdek and his associates founded the Slovak League of America. A number of smaller organizations, such as the Cleveland Jednota and the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, sprang up, but in recent years these were absorbed by larger organizations. Both the Slovak Catholic Sokol and the Slovak Sokol, though not originating here, and the National Slovak Society have substantial membership in the Cleveland area, also Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the 2:ivena and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Nationwide influence of the Slovaks in Cleveland was highlighted by the issuance of the Cleveland Agreement in 1915 (which has been publicized by the famous Theodore Andrica of the Cleveland Press). The document outlined the democratic framework for a self-governing Slovak national state in central Europe. This was later revised and became the basis of the ill-starred Pittsburgh Pact in 1918 shamelessly repudiated by its most famous signer, Thomas G. Masaryk. A number of Slovak newspapers and periodicals were SLOVAKIA 75 published here at one time or another, namely, the Cleveland Hlas (Voice) edited by Jan Pankuch, Sr., Father Liscinsky's Kritika (purchased by Michal Bosak in 1920 and re-named Slovenskd Obrana in Scranton, Penna.), and the Slovenske Noviny, edited by a staff o f ~ at St. Andrew's Abbey: by Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Karol Strmen and Rev. Andrew Pier, O.S.B. from 1949 to 1959, the Ave Maria monthly published since 1929 by the Slovak Benedictines is still being published and has a world-wide circulation. John C. Cieker, editor of the zivena monthly ,:nagazine lives in Parma. On the air waves for the past forty years Slovak broadcasts have been heard weekly or daily on the fallowing programs: The Cleveland Slovak radio club's Slovak Hour on Stations WADC and WERE-AM and WZAK-FM, Joseph Pales' Slovak Hour on Stations WDOK and WXEN-FM, Alex Mikula on Station WZAK-FM, Michael Beno on WXEN-FM with Viktor Nesnadny. John J. Biro and J. J . Kascak are currently the announcers on Station WERE's Slovak Hour. In the past Jan Majzler and Kolman Lajcak were pioneer announcers, then Judge Stephen A. Zona and Vladimir Mlynek. Politically, the Slovaks have had the following in various offices in public life: Judge George Tenesy and Judge Stephen A. Zona, State Representatives John Smolka, Stephen A. Zona, George E . Fedor, Andrew C. Putka, Jerome Stano, Mayors Stephen A. Zona and John Petruska in Parma, Assistant County Prosecutors: Attorneys Julius Badzik, John Kulka, John Urbancik and John Leonard, Stephen Suhajcik, Mary Sotak, Richard Harmondy in City Council, City Law Director George E . Fedor in Lakewood, Attorneys Andrew Sarisky, Andrew C. Putka and William Petro in the Mayor's cabinet at City Hall, Stephen Suhajcik, Commissioner of fiscal control in the Cleveland Water Department, Andrew G. Putka, sports' commissioner in the city. George Szell, famed conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, was of Slovak origin on his mother's side, as is Paul Newman, cinema star, whose mother was Slovak, too. Sammy Kaye comes from a well known Slovak family in 76 SLOVAKIA Lakewood, Ohio. Opera Singer Rudolf Petrak appeared in a special concert in the Public Auditorium here in May, 1952. Two Slovak composers, Orsagh and Francisci, lived here during the World War I era. Various Slovak clubs that were active at one time were: Bratislavsky knizok, Trenciansky klub, Oravsky klub (now the Cleveland Slovak Social Club and still active), also such active clubs as the American Slovak Zemplin Club, the General Milan R. stefanik Dramatic Circle, the Slovak Dramatic Society, the Vansova Literary Guild, the Lakewood Slovak Civic Club and the Cleveland Slovak Civic Club. John Rozboril was director of a popular marching band at St. Ladislaus parish in the World War I era and Ray Zamiska organized the well known Post 381 St. Benedict's military band after World War II. Popular orchestras that circulated in the Slovak community were: Sedlak's, Golden's, Beno's and Pales' orchestras, and now still active are Kopcho's Cavalier s and the Pastirik Combo Five, both of which specialize in Slovak folk music. George Lukac, Sr. was a typical representative of Church organists who not only played liturgical music but trained singing groups through the years, and often produced plays and musicals. His son, Matthew, has been the organist and choir director at St. John's Cathedral for the past 30 years. Visits from abroad by dignitaries were the following: Msgr. Andrej Hlinka in 1926, the Matica Slovenska (Slovak Institute) from Turciansky Sv. Martin in Slovakia in 1935 and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegation in 1937 (with Dr. Joseph Tiso as a member). Police Chief George Matowic of Nativity parish was a highly respected member of the Cleveland Police Department for more than 40 years. Johnny Risko, Cleveland's "Baker Boy" was a perennial contender for the heavyweight boxing crown in the 1920's and early 1930's. SLOVAKIA 77 In art the best known was Steve Sarisky of the Cleveland Institute of Art and George Krispinsky, a former art instructor at Benedictine High School. Photography has an expert in the person of Tibor Gasparik who is the chief photographer in the municipal photo laboratory at City Hall. Outstanding in the field of Slovak literature are two eminent Slovak poets and authors: Rev. Mikulas sprinc, professor of Modern Languages at Borromeo College in Wickliffe, Ohio and Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D., professor of French, Italian and Latin at Cleveland State University. Successful Slovak industrialists are the following machine-shop owners: Wendell sarmir and Sons, Michael Olle and Sons, Wendell Lorence and Son and the Bobinchuk Father and Sons Company. Travel agencies under Slovak management are: John Olds' Atlas, Andrew Hudak's Adventure International, Groger's Travel Service (Groger and Friedman), and LihaniNemecek Travel Bureau. Financial Institutions founded and managed by Slovaks are: State Savings (Joseph Sotak, Sr. and Sons, also Mrs. Anna Sotak), formerly Tatra Savings, and Home Federal Savings in Lakewood Ohio (formerly Orol Savings founded by Martin Slimak and associates). On the cultural side, there is the Slovak Institute and its library at St. Andrew's Abbey. The Slovak Institute was founded by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. who appointed as its first director Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, author of the first history of Slovakia, in 1952. Benedictine High School, founded in 1927, staffed and administered by the Slovak Benedictine Fathers of St. Andrew's Abbey, is perhaps the best known of Slovak sponsored educational institutions in the country. Its counterpart, the Lumen Cordium High School for girls, is administered and staffed by the Slovak Vincentian Sisters in Bedford, Ohio. They also have charge of the well known Slovak shrine there, Our Lady of Levoca. Under the sponsorship of the Cleveland Press and 78 SLOVAKIA directed by Theodore Andrica ( the well known nationality news editor for the daily over a period of forty years) a series of festival-pageants were produced annually. In the first years the Slovaks appeared with a la_rge group under the direction of Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. The Stefanik Dramatic Circle also participated. Among the most noteworthy books emanating from Cleveland directly were : 1) Poems by M. sprinc, 2) Poems by K. Strmen, 3) The History of Slovak Religious Orders in the U.S. by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., 4) Slovak Christmas by Jozef Duris, 5) Two works on ancient Slovak art and architecture by Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., 6) A small volume on childhood in a Slovak family in Pennsylvania by A. V. Pier, O.S.B. Undoubtedly the most impor tant of these publications are Dr. Hrusovsky's history of the Slovak religious orders in the U.S., Dr. Strmen's anthology of world literature in the Slovak language and Mr. Duris' Slovak Christmas (in English). Most popular of the Slovak productions in Cleveland has been the Slovak Cook Book published by the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. The book is in its 17th edition. Nat far behind in nationwide popularity among the Slovaks of America is the map of Slovakia which was originally drawn up with meticulous and scientific care by Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D. and Engineer Kalocsay at the Slovak Institute more than twenty years ago. The map which shows approximately 3,500 Slovak towns, villages, etc. has been in increasing demand as more and more people visit Slovakia each year. The map is in its third edition. The Slovak Institute sponsored a special cultural exhibit under the auspices of the Slovak League of America at the Benedictine High School in 1957 under the co- chairmanship of Konstantin culen and Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D. A three-day Slovak Book Exhibit at the Benedictine High School gym in the early 1960's was sponsored by the Slovak Institute. It was the first Nationality Book Fair in the history of Cleveland. Chief landmarks in Cleveland as unmistakable monu- SLOVAKIA 79 ments of Slovak endeavor are : 1) The bronze statue of General Milan R. Stefanik, erected in Wade Park in 1924 under the sponsorship of the Slovak League of America and associated Slovak societies in Cleveland. The cost was $25,000, and the sculptor was Frico Motoska from Slovakia. 2) The Slovak Cultural Garden, one of a score of nationality garden centers in Rockefeller Park. Peter Mokris and his wife, as well as Msgr. Francis Dubosh, were instrumental in establishing this Slovak link in the chain of gardens by the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation. Mrs. Tillie Bacik is currently the president of the Slovak Cultural Garden Association. Villa Sancta Anna is a home for the aged in Beachwood under the management of the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. Slovak historic shrines that trace their origin to Slovakia where they have a history that goes back for centuries have their counterparts in Cleveland. The best known is the unique Our Lady of Levoca pilgrimage site in Bedford, Ohio. Little known here but equally famous are the Mother of Sorrows shrine from sastin and the Mother and Child Mariatal statue enshrined in St. Benedict's Church. Proposing a list of leading personalities in Slovak life in Cleveland during the past hundred years is risky business, but one must begin somewhere, and so I submit the following to be enrolled in the Slovak Hall of Fame: Stefan Furdek, Matthew Benko, Matthew Gruss, John Liscinsky, John Pankuch, Sr., Johnny Risko, George Szell, Mrs. Anna Hurban, John Sabol, Mrs. Anna Sotak, Gregory Vaniscak, Mother M. Berchmans, V.S.C., Martin Slimak, Joseph Dubnicka, Paschal Kavulic, Susan Matuschak, John Rozboril, Philip A. Hrobak, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., and Msgr. Francis Dubosh. There are undoubtedly more who can be added to the group of our eminent Slovak leaders in various fields . Those who are still active have not been submitted as candidates for this honor.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Visible Signs of Slovak Culture in Cleveland, Ohio Description An account of the resource Andrew V. Pier, O.S.B. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 73-79 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pier, Andrew W., 1910-2003 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/5f1697592b297d8afb0e81d218226c76.pdf d8bdc781fc0df688e5c586e5835f96fb PDF Text Text 92 SLOVAKIA Vajansky and Turgenev Willia m E. H a rkin s It h as bee n said th a t literature feeds on lite rature m o re tha n it d oes on life, b y which it is m eant th a t a writer finds it m o re diffi cult to work directl y from life a nd tran sla te living expe rience directly into verbal a rt. Whe n o ne's source s a re them selves wo rd s a nd verb al fo rms, no act of tra n sla tion is required. The new " intertex tu al " approach to the semiotic stud y of literature wo uld seem to co nfirm this t ruth. It is a truism of Slovak literary history tha t the writer Svetozar Hurba n V aj a nsky was stro n gly influ en ced b y Ru ssian literature, a nd in parti cul a r b y Turgen ev. 1 Hurba n V aj a n sky st ands in th at nin eteen th- century Slovak ideological traditio n which turned its back on the W est , a nd specifically on the C zechs, a nd sou ght instead to find a n ideological base in Ru ss ian cul ture a nd Ru ssia n lite rature . T hi s pa per is inte nded to explore the questio n o f the exte nt o f Hurba n V aj a n sky's d epe nde nce o n Turge nev a nd to ve ntu re a n expla n a tio n of why Turge nev's le gacy was a suita ble bas is for V aj a n sky's w ritin gs . I will analyze V ajan sky' s most famous and probably his greatest novel , Su ch a. ratolest'(T he Dry B ranch , 1884) , as well as several o f his co untry sketches from the collectio n N a Basna.rovom kopci a ine crty (On Basnarov Hill a nd Other Sketche s, 1880-1 883) . At first sight it would seem that Tu rge nev wo uld h ave had ve ry little to o ffer the Slovak writer. V aj a n sk y was a n aggressive , d etermined a nd zealou s fi ghte r in the Slovak n atio n al cau se, him self witho u t hesita tio n a nd w ithout the intellectu al rese rvatio n s so typi cal of Tu rge nev's heroes. The them e o f n at io na lism is weak in Ru ss ia n Lite ra ture , pa rtl y becau se write rs did not iden ti fy th em selves with the R ussia n tsarist regim e, pa rtly b ecau se Ru ssia n n a tion a lism and na tio nal independence co uld be taken for gr a nted . T he sam e thing is tru e, of co urse, for En gli sh , Ame rican , o r Fre nch liter a ture, in which na tio na li st a nd p atriotic the m es a re no rmally weak , a nd in which a nti-na tion alist w riters are even kn ow n (Celine , M a ile r , etc.). Bu t in Ru ssia n li terature th e them e of natio n alism is alm os t pathologicall y weaken ed ; the reaso ns fo r this pheno m eno n mu st be sou gh t in Ru ssia 's unique spiritual and id eological develop ment . The a mbivalence of Turgenev's heroes would likewise seem �SLOVAKIA 93 to offer little to Vajansky, who was in part see kin g to create p rototyp es for n a tional lead ership. Th e search for a lead e r is a Turge n evan the me , o f course, but in Turgenev would-be lead er after lead e r goes d own to d efeat: Rudin , L avreckij , ln sarov , Bazarov, Nezdanov. I will return to these points presently , but first let us look at Vajansky ' s n ovel, Sucha ratolest'. The h ero of the novel is Stani slav Rudopol'sky, the la ndless heir of a n ancient n oble family o f la ndowne rs . Stanislav's father, impoverished, h ad turned from the ancient noble ways to foll ow a middle -class ex iste n ce as a governm en t official. Through indu stry a nd sob riety he accumul ated a con siderable fo rtune, which h e left to his son Stani slav , a youn g m a n with arti st ic inclin ations and tale nts and n ow e ndowed with e n ough wealth to cultivate these. H e return s h o m e to dwell in his an cestral m ansion in the provin cial town of Rudopolie . H e re he vacillates between two women: one the wife of his b est friend a nd the model for a great spiritualized portrait h e is p ainting which m ay vaguel y symbolize the Slovak people a nd its aspirations ; the o ther, a flirt a tiou s widow. The n ovel fin ally resolves the conflict b y transmittin g his affect io n for hi s friend's wife into spiritu al love a nd a rtistic creativ ity , thus leaving him to the wi dow , w h o turns out , in spite of h e r initi al capriciousness, to b e full y worthy of him . At first Stanislav is indiffere nt to the Slovak nation al cau se, which h e regards as a historical blind alley, but h e is ultimately brou ght through his frie ndship with Slovak p atriots to a tru e sense of the value and significan ce o f that cau se. Thus h e becomes what must h ave been a historical rarity: a zeman (squire) who is pro-Slovak and anti-Magyar. But we must remember that h e is landl ess and th at h e belongs essentially to th e middle class rath er t h an to th e gentry: in this Vajansky seems to be say in g th at the future hope of Slovakia lay in the middl e-class intelli ge ntsia and in the towns. Stanislav fight s a duel with the local leader of th e Magyar nationalist party: this is purely symbolic; in the duel he is n early k illed but a lso su cceeds in wounding hi s antagonist. Finally h e is nursed back to h ealth by the widow, and the novel ends w ith an opti mi stic, up-beat conclus io n . The title phrase, "Such a ratolest', " " dry branch," is applied to Stan islav , both by other ch aracters a nd by h imself. I t impli es his roo tlessness and purposel essness , qualiti es wh ich he feels strongly; at the e nd of the novel he would see m , however , to have transcended these qualities . Still, the novel has usu a ll y been taken as an ev idence th a t the �94 SLOVAKIA zemans had nothing to contribute to the Slovak nationalist cause (just as the Russian critic Dobroljubov took the novel Oblomov as a concrete evidence that the Russian gentry could not supply national leadership). The point remains ambiguous, and we must note here that this kind of ambiguity is quite typical of Turgenev ' s heroes. Rudin talks like a leader but is incapable of acting; Lavreckij too talks nobly but never acts; Insarov is killed off before he has an opportunity to lead ; Bazarov is a born leader but has no cause to lead, and he too is killed off to make doubly certain that the revolution will not come in hi s time. Just so Stanislav, or Stano as the author usually calls him , has a personal spiritual developme nt which is said to be fruitful, but that development seems to imply only fruitlessness for the national cause: the true ~ovak patriots and leaders in the novel are Stano's friends and not Stano. The point is furth er obscured in Vajansky' s romantic treatment of Stano as a painter: his activity is entirely idealized and spiritualized as artistic creation . We can read this as symbolic, but still the novel is too realistic (it co ntains an entire chapter describing an election, for instance), to permit us really to identify Stano ' s art as a symbol of the national struggle. Indeed , there is much in Stano which we could identify as "superfluity, " in the Russian tradition of the lisnij celovek or superfluous man . Essentially good, Stano is also fruitless and without purpose. H e vacillates in his love life. He almost gets killed in a duel. Only his art enables him to transcend lisnost' or superfluity. But is Vajansky's novel really so dependent on Turgenev as the critics have thought? Some general features do seem to resemble Turgenev: the treatment of landscape ( though Vajansky' s countryside is brighter and less somber than Turgenev's); the theme of a stranger returning home to the country to live there (Lavreckij, Bazarov); the theme of superfluity and the ambigu ity in its treatment; last perhaps, the theme of art, though actually it is not so typical of Turgenev as we might have supposed. Finally Vajansky , most unfortunately , e nded his novel with a virtual paraphase of the endi ng of Turgenev's Fathers and Children: the description of the cemetery in which Bazarov rests (in Sucha ratolest' the dead woman is Anna, one of the novel's three h eroines). But in fact Vajansky was not really very d ependent on Turgenev. Before discussing the novel 's independence, however, we should attend to several aspects that recall Pushkin rather than Turgenev. First, the �SLOVAKIA 95 trait of superfluity is as typical for Pu shkin as it is for Turgen ev, though in Pushkin it is d epicted with considerably less ambiguity . The theme of art is also Pushkinian , thou gh it must be said that Pushkin does not romanticize it the way Turgenev and Vajansky do . Several motifs involving Stano and the young orphan girl Anna recall Pushkin's Eugene On egin. As in On egin , a cultivated stranger comes to dwell in the countryside and makes a strong impression on a rathe r n aive native girl. As in On egin , the girl 's naivete is brought out throu gh the fact that she lacks discrimination in her choice of reading matter; specifically , the use of a library and books to assess character recalls Pushkin , though he used these for Onegin himself, for the hero , not the hero in e . There is a scene in which Anna , unable to sleep , gazes at the moon , as Tatyana does in Pushkin 's novel in verse. Finally, the duel in Vajansky's novel is som ewhat cl oser to the duel in On egin than it is to Bazarov' s duel wi th Pavel Kirsanov. But even in these d etails V aj a nsky shows great independence. Anna is impressed by Stano , but in the end she realizes his weakness and ambivalence a nd is repell ed by him , a nd the great bulk ofVajansky's novel is indepe nde nt both of Pushkin a nd Turgenev . If we look first of all at the n ovel 's st ructure, we a re impressed almost staggered - by V aj a n sky's originality. H e shows a freed om of con struction th at is truly amazing : without transitions he m oves from scene to scene, character to character, episode to episode. Events occur for which we are totally unprepared . Compared with Turgen ev, or Pushkin , his structure seems wild , formless , a rtl ess. These writers organize their materi al into tight structural units which themselves ha ve beginnings, middles and endi n gs. They operate with a restricted group of ch aracters in th e la te stages of their works. Vaj ansky can introdu ce a n ew ch aracter anyw here or at any time he wishes , nor does h e feel an obli gation to carry all hi s characters - even the importa nt ones - right down to the novel 's end. It would not be correct to say that Vajan sky' s novel is plotless it has a pl ot which, if less in scope than that of Pushkin 's Onegin could probably be compa red with T urge n ev's Smoke , or even Rudin . But in a certain sense, nothing h a ppens in Vajansky's novel with but one except ion: symbolic events occu r. Stano transcend s his attraction to his fri e nd 's wife. H e fi ghts a duel. Th e orphan Anna goes blind a nd dies. To a ttempt a more precise definition: th e realistic side of Vajan- �96 SLOVAKIA sky's novel lacks a plot stru cture . A second kind of event can occur which is radically unTurgenevan : this is the action of social groups: tavern brawls, demonstrations , election s held under conditions of corrupt ion. There is a far deeper sense of society in Vajansky' s fiction than in either Pushkin or Turgenev, and in this he was more of a realist. Presumabl y he had undergo ne the influ en ce of positivist philosophy, which turned its a ttent ion to society and created the new scien ce of sociology. Vajansky's "formlessn ess " would hardly have appealed to cultivated nineteenth-century readers . They would have preferred the powerful sense of form of a Pushkin , or the delicate understatement of a Turgenev. But to o ur times Vajansky's impatience with the constraints of form seems origin al and refreshing. I t h as often been said that Vajansky depicted a Slovak society that never ex isted, that is idealized. Yet in Sucha ratolest' that Slovak society hardl y appears a s idealized: it is dru nken , given to brawling, easily corrupted by bribes and drink. What Vajansky seems to intend here is a kind of dialectic opposition : ideal leaders will lead the people, brutalized by the Magyar oppress io n , to liberty . It is in suffi cient to say, then, that Vaj a nsky idealized Slovak society : in fact he gives us invaluable glimpses of life in a small Slovak country town of the day . The chapter depicting the elections is a masterly portrait that recalls, in its sordidness a nd detail , an American election of the ninetee nth or even twentieth century. Drink, arbitra ry challenges to the voters , repeat votin g - the familiar techniques of election control are all vividl y described. Thus Vajansky' s novel vacillates amb iguously be tween realism and id ealism . But the ambiguity is artistically fruitful and creative. In the years 1880- 1883 Vaj a n sky published a few sketch es of peasant a nd country life. The se sketch es, republish ed la ter in coll ected form unde r the titl e o f Na Basnarovom k opci a in e crty (On Basna rov Hill a nd Oth e r Ske tches), a re a m o n g hi s strongest a nd m os t ori ginal works, and it can o nly be re gretted th at he did not produ ce mo re exampl es of th e genre . T he form o fV ajan sky's sketch d e ri ves, o f co urse, from Turgenev , whose Sportsman ·s Sketches, pu bli shed in 1852, a re perh aps th a t writer 's stron ges t work. Lik e Turge nev , V ajan sky se ts hi s sketches in th e countrys id e, a nd th ey d ispl a y a stron gly im agisti c tre nd in th e d epi cti o n bo th of la nd scape a nd th e p easant cha racter s who pop ul a te it . In the sketches o f bo th w riters a n a rrator a ppears as a pe rce iver, a nd the di stan ce be- �SLOVAKIA 97 tween his perceiving eye and the peasants he views creates a subtle irony, one that does not , however , undercut the warm lyricism of the style and m anner. T u rgenev ' s narrator is a gentleman proprietor and hunter ; Vaj an sky's is (presum a bly) a middle-class intellectual turning his attention to the life of the Slovak peasantry. The ideological point of this is never m ade specific, bu t it was pa tently implicit in the political logic of the times: the Slovak intellectu als were waitin g for the d awn of political consciou sness am ong the peasantry. In the first of these sketches, " On Basna rov Hill ," the ideological mom ent is most incisive , though its intrusiveness detracts from the sketch artisti cally. A peasant m other and her younger son lam ent the cruelty of the elder son who has cast the widowed m other out with out provision for support. In her conversation she turns to attack Slovak officials , whom as a peasan t she di stru sts . V aj an sky, overhearing her , interrupts to de fend those offi cials who are Slovak nationalists. But the distinction is los t on the old woman , who has little political or national consciousness. She simply tu rns her back on his appeal. T hi s argum en t is of course quite un-Turgenevan ; Turgenev the hun ter m ay speak to the peasants, but he d oes not harran gu e them ; indeed , Tu rge nev is a master of understa tem en t and this q u ality Vajansky was perha ps un a ble to ass imila te, as we have already seen in the case of Su cha ra tolest'. But V ajan sky is capa ble o f creating im ages as powe rful and movin g as those of T u rgenev . P erh a ps the fines t of his sketcties is the one called " Hlasnik " (The Night W atchman): a movin g im agistic portrayal of a peasan t watchm an 's round s at nigh t, in te rtwined with hi s service to a dead m an fo r whom he digs a grave and whose bod y he later visits. With vivid depict ion of both the m ovem ent of the watchma n ' s round s and hi s calls th rough the night on his horn , the piece is a m asterpiece of mood im agery th at recall s the fin est sketches of Tu rgen ev such as "The Singe rs" or " Bezin M eadow," but d oes not imi tate them except in th e m ost ge neral way . In fac t , none of Vajansky' s ind ividual sketches recalls an y specific sketch b y T urgenev. Vaj an sky's land scape is too differe nt , a nd Slovak society too d ist inct. Vajan sky has perfectly ad apted th e Turgenevan ske tch and u sed it in the cause of Slovak li terature and Slovak ideology. We are now in a better pos ition to answer the ques tion we posed at the ou tset : what qu a:ities in T urgenev appealed to Vajansky and per- �98 SLOVAKIA suaded him to use elements taken from Turgenev 's work? The question should be asked in the light of the almost total difference we have found between the two writers, in personality, artistic temperament , psychology of character creation and development, optimism and pessimism, artistic structure. Still, there was something in Turgenev 's work, whether Vajansky realized it consciously or not, which Vajansky found of creative use . I suggest that this was that very ambiguity of treatment of ideological heroes by Turgenev which attracted Vajansky to his work. This in spite ofVajansky's much greater aggressiveness, his nationalism, his greater optimism . For tl;ie fact was that the Slovak cause was going nowhere in the 1880's. Though it might well have been that eventually it would go somewhere , it seemed bogged down - and this is the view Vajansky embodies in Sucha ratolest' in his chapter on the elections. Hence it was necessary to create characters who were "superfluous," who could achieve nothing in the present, yet characters capable of success, at least in an idealized dimension projected into the future . Turgenev had done the same thing: Bazarov is a born leader capable of reforming Russia, yet he is a leader without real followers and he comes at a time that is premature . The other common feature between Turgenev's writings and those of Vajansky is that of a passive human mass, the peasantry, needing to be awakened and educated . This is perhaps the only point where Turgenev's ideology acquires a nationalist tinge: Russia's peasantry holds her back, prevents her proper development : hence , it is necessary to educate the peasantry. In Vajansky the peasantry, and to some extent the town masses, play a similar role . It is necessary to win these masses over if the Slovak cause is to succeed. Following their leader l:.udovft Stur, the Slovak patriots turned to Russia because they perceived the West, including the Czechs , as decadent. They were influenced in this by Herder's prophecy of the future greatness of the Slavs, a prophecy Herder had specially made for the Eastern Slavs on the basis of his stay in Riga. Stur also noted that the closeness of kinship and family ties, so important to the Slovaks, was duplicated among the Eastern Slavs but not among the Czechs. 1 This began a Slovak turn toward Russia and Russian culture that was beneficial for the development of the nascent Slovak literature , if it was probably harmful to the development of the Slovak national ideology. �SLOVAKIA 99 It is perhaps ironic that , motivated by considerations such as warmth of emotionality and closeness of kinship ties, V ajansky should have turned to writers like Pushkin and Turgenev, who, among Russians, were to be regarded as Westerners. Curiously, the Slovak leaders hardly knew the Russian Slavophiles, and their influence was perceptible only later. Yet, clearly the Slovak writers were seeking something they could use, and the precise source was not important. It is remarkable that when artists such as Edouard Manet or Vincent van Gogh or Mary Cassat turned to Japanese art for inspiration , they found woodblock prints of grim acin g actors and simpering courtesans , rather than the infinitely more subtle and more sophisticated art of such J a panese schools as the Rimp a or Shijo schools. Yet apparently Manet, Van Gogh , or Mary Cassat kn ew what they were looking for, and they rejected what they could not use; thus they succeeded in making that Japanese influence fruitful and not pernicious . In a similar way, Turgenev was a writer in many ways not con genial to Vajansky. But Vajansky had his own individuality and was a great enough artist to take from Turgenev what he needed . And he incorporated that something into his own distinct art. NOTES See, e. g., Jan V . Novak and Arne Novak, Pfehledn e dejin y literatury ceske (Olomouc, 1936-39), p. 82 1; Andrej Mraz , Dejiny slovensk ej literatury, Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. 1, Literatura a jazyk (Bra tislava: Sloven ska Akademia vied a umenf, 1948), p . 214; Slovenska Akademia Vied, Ustav slovenskej li te ra tury, D ejin y slovenskej literatury, III (Bra tislava, 1965), 630-31 a nd passim . ' See Ludovft Stur , 0 narodnich pisnich a povestech plemen slovanskych (Prague , 1853). I Presented in Panel 65, "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asilomar, California on 21 September 1981. � 92 SLOVAKIA Vajansky and Turgenev Willia m E. H a rkin s It h as bee n said th a t literature feeds on lite rature m o re tha n it d oes on life, b y which it is m eant th a t a writer finds it m o re diffi cult to work directl y from life a nd tran sla te living expe rience directly into verbal a rt. Whe n o ne's source s a re them selves wo rd s a nd verb al fo rms, no act of tra n sla tion is required. The new " intertex tu al " approach to the semiotic stud y of literature wo uld seem to co nfirm this t ruth. It is a truism of Slovak literary history tha t the writer Svetozar Hurba n V aj a nsky was stro n gly influ en ced b y Ru ssian literature, a nd in parti cul a r b y Turgen ev. 1 Hurba n V aj a n sky st ands in th at nin eteen th- century Slovak ideological traditio n which turned its back on the W est , a nd specifically on the C zechs, a nd sou ght instead to find a n ideological base in Ru ss ian cul ture a nd Ru ssia n lite rature . T hi s pa per is inte nded to explore the questio n o f the exte nt o f Hurba n V aj a n sky's d epe nde nce o n Turge nev a nd to ve ntu re a n expla n a tio n of why Turge nev's le gacy was a suita ble bas is for V aj a n sky's w ritin gs . I will analyze V ajan sky' s most famous and probably his greatest novel , Su ch a. ratolest'(T he Dry B ranch , 1884) , as well as several o f his co untry sketches from the collectio n N a Basna.rovom kopci a ine crty (On Basnarov Hill a nd Other Sketche s, 1880-1 883) . At first sight it would seem that Tu rge nev wo uld h ave had ve ry little to o ffer the Slovak writer. V aj a n sk y was a n aggressive , d etermined a nd zealou s fi ghte r in the Slovak n atio n al cau se, him self witho u t hesita tio n a nd w ithout the intellectu al rese rvatio n s so typi cal of Tu rge nev's heroes. The them e o f n at io na lism is weak in Ru ss ia n Lite ra ture , pa rtl y becau se write rs did not iden ti fy th em selves with the R ussia n tsarist regim e, pa rtly b ecau se Ru ssia n n a tion a lism and na tio nal independence co uld be taken for gr a nted . T he sam e thing is tru e, of co urse, for En gli sh , Ame rican , o r Fre nch liter a ture, in which na tio na li st a nd p atriotic the m es a re no rmally weak , a nd in which a nti-na tion alist w riters are even kn ow n (Celine , M a ile r , etc.). Bu t in Ru ssia n li terature th e them e of natio n alism is alm os t pathologicall y weaken ed ; the reaso ns fo r this pheno m eno n mu st be sou gh t in Ru ssia 's unique spiritual and id eological develop ment . The a mbivalence of Turgenev's heroes would likewise seem �SLOVAKIA 93 to offer little to Vajansky, who was in part see kin g to create p rototyp es for n a tional lead ership. Th e search for a lead e r is a Turge n evan the me , o f course, but in Turgenev would-be lead er after lead e r goes d own to d efeat: Rudin , L avreckij , ln sarov , Bazarov, Nezdanov. I will return to these points presently , but first let us look at Vajansky ' s n ovel, Sucha ratolest'. The h ero of the novel is Stani slav Rudopol'sky, the la ndless heir of a n ancient n oble family o f la ndowne rs . Stanislav's father, impoverished, h ad turned from the ancient noble ways to foll ow a middle -class ex iste n ce as a governm en t official. Through indu stry a nd sob riety he accumul ated a con siderable fo rtune, which h e left to his son Stani slav , a youn g m a n with arti st ic inclin ations and tale nts and n ow e ndowed with e n ough wealth to cultivate these. H e return s h o m e to dwell in his an cestral m ansion in the provin cial town of Rudopolie . H e re he vacillates between two women: one the wife of his b est friend a nd the model for a great spiritualized portrait h e is p ainting which m ay vaguel y symbolize the Slovak people a nd its aspirations ; the o ther, a flirt a tiou s widow. The n ovel fin ally resolves the conflict b y transmittin g his affect io n for hi s friend's wife into spiritu al love a nd a rtistic creativ ity , thus leaving him to the wi dow , w h o turns out , in spite of h e r initi al capriciousness, to b e full y worthy of him . At first Stanislav is indiffere nt to the Slovak nation al cau se, which h e regards as a historical blind alley, but h e is ultimately brou ght through his frie ndship with Slovak p atriots to a tru e sense of the value and significan ce o f that cau se. Thus h e becomes what must h ave been a historical rarity: a zeman (squire) who is pro-Slovak and anti-Magyar. But we must remember that h e is landl ess and th at h e belongs essentially to th e middle class rath er t h an to th e gentry: in this Vajansky seems to be say in g th at the future hope of Slovakia lay in the middl e-class intelli ge ntsia and in the towns. Stanislav fight s a duel with the local leader of th e Magyar nationalist party: this is purely symbolic; in the duel he is n early k illed but a lso su cceeds in wounding hi s antagonist. Finally h e is nursed back to h ealth by the widow, and the novel ends w ith an opti mi stic, up-beat conclus io n . The title phrase, "Such a ratolest', " " dry branch," is applied to Stan islav , both by other ch aracters a nd by h imself. I t impli es his roo tlessness and purposel essness , qualiti es wh ich he feels strongly; at the e nd of the novel he would see m , however , to have transcended these qualities . Still, the novel has usu a ll y been taken as an ev idence th a t the �94 SLOVAKIA zemans had nothing to contribute to the Slovak nationalist cause (just as the Russian critic Dobroljubov took the novel Oblomov as a concrete evidence that the Russian gentry could not supply national leadership). The point remains ambiguous, and we must note here that this kind of ambiguity is quite typical of Turgenev ' s heroes. Rudin talks like a leader but is incapable of acting; Lavreckij too talks nobly but never acts; Insarov is killed off before he has an opportunity to lead ; Bazarov is a born leader but has no cause to lead, and he too is killed off to make doubly certain that the revolution will not come in hi s time. Just so Stanislav, or Stano as the author usually calls him , has a personal spiritual developme nt which is said to be fruitful, but that development seems to imply only fruitlessness for the national cause: the true ~ovak patriots and leaders in the novel are Stano's friends and not Stano. The point is furth er obscured in Vajansky' s romantic treatment of Stano as a painter: his activity is entirely idealized and spiritualized as artistic creation . We can read this as symbolic, but still the novel is too realistic (it co ntains an entire chapter describing an election, for instance), to permit us really to identify Stano ' s art as a symbol of the national struggle. Indeed , there is much in Stano which we could identify as "superfluity, " in the Russian tradition of the lisnij celovek or superfluous man . Essentially good, Stano is also fruitless and without purpose. H e vacillates in his love life. He almost gets killed in a duel. Only his art enables him to transcend lisnost' or superfluity. But is Vajansky's novel really so dependent on Turgenev as the critics have thought? Some general features do seem to resemble Turgenev: the treatment of landscape ( though Vajansky' s countryside is brighter and less somber than Turgenev's); the theme of a stranger returning home to the country to live there (Lavreckij, Bazarov); the theme of superfluity and the ambigu ity in its treatment; last perhaps, the theme of art, though actually it is not so typical of Turgenev as we might have supposed. Finally Vajansky , most unfortunately , e nded his novel with a virtual paraphase of the endi ng of Turgenev's Fathers and Children: the description of the cemetery in which Bazarov rests (in Sucha ratolest' the dead woman is Anna, one of the novel's three h eroines). But in fact Vajansky was not really very d ependent on Turgenev. Before discussing the novel 's independence, however, we should attend to several aspects that recall Pushkin rather than Turgenev. First, the �SLOVAKIA 95 trait of superfluity is as typical for Pu shkin as it is for Turgen ev, though in Pushkin it is d epicted with considerably less ambiguity . The theme of art is also Pushkinian , thou gh it must be said that Pushkin does not romanticize it the way Turgenev and Vajansky do . Several motifs involving Stano and the young orphan girl Anna recall Pushkin's Eugene On egin. As in On egin , a cultivated stranger comes to dwell in the countryside and makes a strong impression on a rathe r n aive native girl. As in On egin , the girl 's naivete is brought out throu gh the fact that she lacks discrimination in her choice of reading matter; specifically , the use of a library and books to assess character recalls Pushkin , though he used these for Onegin himself, for the hero , not the hero in e . There is a scene in which Anna , unable to sleep , gazes at the moon , as Tatyana does in Pushkin 's novel in verse. Finally, the duel in Vajansky's novel is som ewhat cl oser to the duel in On egin than it is to Bazarov' s duel wi th Pavel Kirsanov. But even in these d etails V aj a nsky shows great independence. Anna is impressed by Stano , but in the end she realizes his weakness and ambivalence a nd is repell ed by him , a nd the great bulk ofVajansky's novel is indepe nde nt both of Pushkin a nd Turgenev . If we look first of all at the n ovel 's st ructure, we a re impressed almost staggered - by V aj a n sky's originality. H e shows a freed om of con struction th at is truly amazing : without transitions he m oves from scene to scene, character to character, episode to episode. Events occur for which we are totally unprepared . Compared with Turgen ev, or Pushkin , his structure seems wild , formless , a rtl ess. These writers organize their materi al into tight structural units which themselves ha ve beginnings, middles and endi n gs. They operate with a restricted group of ch aracters in th e la te stages of their works. Vaj ansky can introdu ce a n ew ch aracter anyw here or at any time he wishes , nor does h e feel an obli gation to carry all hi s characters - even the importa nt ones - right down to the novel 's end. It would not be correct to say that Vajan sky' s novel is plotless it has a pl ot which, if less in scope than that of Pushkin 's Onegin could probably be compa red with T urge n ev's Smoke , or even Rudin . But in a certain sense, nothing h a ppens in Vajansky's novel with but one except ion: symbolic events occu r. Stano transcend s his attraction to his fri e nd 's wife. H e fi ghts a duel. Th e orphan Anna goes blind a nd dies. To a ttempt a more precise definition: th e realistic side of Vajan- �96 SLOVAKIA sky's novel lacks a plot stru cture . A second kind of event can occur which is radically unTurgenevan : this is the action of social groups: tavern brawls, demonstrations , election s held under conditions of corrupt ion. There is a far deeper sense of society in Vajansky' s fiction than in either Pushkin or Turgenev, and in this he was more of a realist. Presumabl y he had undergo ne the influ en ce of positivist philosophy, which turned its a ttent ion to society and created the new scien ce of sociology. Vajansky's "formlessn ess " would hardly have appealed to cultivated nineteenth-century readers . They would have preferred the powerful sense of form of a Pushkin , or the delicate understatement of a Turgenev. But to o ur times Vajansky's impatience with the constraints of form seems origin al and refreshing. I t h as often been said that Vajansky depicted a Slovak society that never ex isted, that is idealized. Yet in Sucha ratolest' that Slovak society hardl y appears a s idealized: it is dru nken , given to brawling, easily corrupted by bribes and drink. What Vajansky seems to intend here is a kind of dialectic opposition : ideal leaders will lead the people, brutalized by the Magyar oppress io n , to liberty . It is in suffi cient to say, then, that Vaj a nsky idealized Slovak society : in fact he gives us invaluable glimpses of life in a small Slovak country town of the day . The chapter depicting the elections is a masterly portrait that recalls, in its sordidness a nd detail , an American election of the ninetee nth or even twentieth century. Drink, arbitra ry challenges to the voters , repeat votin g - the familiar techniques of election control are all vividl y described. Thus Vajansky' s novel vacillates amb iguously be tween realism and id ealism . But the ambiguity is artistically fruitful and creative. In the years 1880- 1883 Vaj a n sky published a few sketch es of peasant a nd country life. The se sketch es, republish ed la ter in coll ected form unde r the titl e o f Na Basnarovom k opci a in e crty (On Basna rov Hill a nd Oth e r Ske tches), a re a m o n g hi s strongest a nd m os t ori ginal works, and it can o nly be re gretted th at he did not produ ce mo re exampl es of th e genre . T he form o fV ajan sky's sketch d e ri ves, o f co urse, from Turgenev , whose Sportsman ·s Sketches, pu bli shed in 1852, a re perh aps th a t writer 's stron ges t work. Lik e Turge nev , V ajan sky se ts hi s sketches in th e countrys id e, a nd th ey d ispl a y a stron gly im agisti c tre nd in th e d epi cti o n bo th of la nd scape a nd th e p easant cha racter s who pop ul a te it . In the sketches o f bo th w riters a n a rrator a ppears as a pe rce iver, a nd the di stan ce be- �SLOVAKIA 97 tween his perceiving eye and the peasants he views creates a subtle irony, one that does not , however , undercut the warm lyricism of the style and m anner. T u rgenev ' s narrator is a gentleman proprietor and hunter ; Vaj an sky's is (presum a bly) a middle-class intellectual turning his attention to the life of the Slovak peasantry. The ideological point of this is never m ade specific, bu t it was pa tently implicit in the political logic of the times: the Slovak intellectu als were waitin g for the d awn of political consciou sness am ong the peasantry. In the first of these sketches, " On Basna rov Hill ," the ideological mom ent is most incisive , though its intrusiveness detracts from the sketch artisti cally. A peasant m other and her younger son lam ent the cruelty of the elder son who has cast the widowed m other out with out provision for support. In her conversation she turns to attack Slovak officials , whom as a peasan t she di stru sts . V aj an sky, overhearing her , interrupts to de fend those offi cials who are Slovak nationalists. But the distinction is los t on the old woman , who has little political or national consciousness. She simply tu rns her back on his appeal. T hi s argum en t is of course quite un-Turgenevan ; Turgenev the hun ter m ay speak to the peasants, but he d oes not harran gu e them ; indeed , Tu rge nev is a master of understa tem en t and this q u ality Vajansky was perha ps un a ble to ass imila te, as we have already seen in the case of Su cha ra tolest'. But V ajan sky is capa ble o f creating im ages as powe rful and movin g as those of T u rgenev . P erh a ps the fines t of his sketcties is the one called " Hlasnik " (The Night W atchman): a movin g im agistic portrayal of a peasan t watchm an 's round s at nigh t, in te rtwined with hi s service to a dead m an fo r whom he digs a grave and whose bod y he later visits. With vivid depict ion of both the m ovem ent of the watchma n ' s round s and hi s calls th rough the night on his horn , the piece is a m asterpiece of mood im agery th at recall s the fin est sketches of Tu rgen ev such as "The Singe rs" or " Bezin M eadow," but d oes not imi tate them except in th e m ost ge neral way . In fac t , none of Vajansky' s ind ividual sketches recalls an y specific sketch b y T urgenev. Vaj an sky's land scape is too differe nt , a nd Slovak society too d ist inct. Vajan sky has perfectly ad apted th e Turgenevan ske tch and u sed it in the cause of Slovak li terature and Slovak ideology. We are now in a better pos ition to answer the ques tion we posed at the ou tset : what qu a:ities in T urgenev appealed to Vajansky and per- �98 SLOVAKIA suaded him to use elements taken from Turgenev 's work? The question should be asked in the light of the almost total difference we have found between the two writers, in personality, artistic temperament , psychology of character creation and development, optimism and pessimism, artistic structure. Still, there was something in Turgenev 's work, whether Vajansky realized it consciously or not, which Vajansky found of creative use . I suggest that this was that very ambiguity of treatment of ideological heroes by Turgenev which attracted Vajansky to his work. This in spite ofVajansky's much greater aggressiveness, his nationalism, his greater optimism . For tl;ie fact was that the Slovak cause was going nowhere in the 1880's. Though it might well have been that eventually it would go somewhere , it seemed bogged down - and this is the view Vajansky embodies in Sucha ratolest' in his chapter on the elections. Hence it was necessary to create characters who were "superfluous," who could achieve nothing in the present, yet characters capable of success, at least in an idealized dimension projected into the future . Turgenev had done the same thing: Bazarov is a born leader capable of reforming Russia, yet he is a leader without real followers and he comes at a time that is premature . The other common feature between Turgenev's writings and those of Vajansky is that of a passive human mass, the peasantry, needing to be awakened and educated . This is perhaps the only point where Turgenev's ideology acquires a nationalist tinge: Russia's peasantry holds her back, prevents her proper development : hence , it is necessary to educate the peasantry. In Vajansky the peasantry, and to some extent the town masses, play a similar role . It is necessary to win these masses over if the Slovak cause is to succeed. Following their leader l:.udovft Stur, the Slovak patriots turned to Russia because they perceived the West, including the Czechs , as decadent. They were influenced in this by Herder's prophecy of the future greatness of the Slavs, a prophecy Herder had specially made for the Eastern Slavs on the basis of his stay in Riga. Stur also noted that the closeness of kinship and family ties, so important to the Slovaks, was duplicated among the Eastern Slavs but not among the Czechs. 1 This began a Slovak turn toward Russia and Russian culture that was beneficial for the development of the nascent Slovak literature , if it was probably harmful to the development of the Slovak national ideology. �SLOVAKIA 99 It is perhaps ironic that , motivated by considerations such as warmth of emotionality and closeness of kinship ties, V ajansky should have turned to writers like Pushkin and Turgenev, who, among Russians, were to be regarded as Westerners. Curiously, the Slovak leaders hardly knew the Russian Slavophiles, and their influence was perceptible only later. Yet, clearly the Slovak writers were seeking something they could use, and the precise source was not important. It is remarkable that when artists such as Edouard Manet or Vincent van Gogh or Mary Cassat turned to Japanese art for inspiration , they found woodblock prints of grim acin g actors and simpering courtesans , rather than the infinitely more subtle and more sophisticated art of such J a panese schools as the Rimp a or Shijo schools. Yet apparently Manet, Van Gogh , or Mary Cassat kn ew what they were looking for, and they rejected what they could not use; thus they succeeded in making that Japanese influence fruitful and not pernicious . In a similar way, Turgenev was a writer in many ways not con genial to Vajansky. But Vajansky had his own individuality and was a great enough artist to take from Turgenev what he needed . And he incorporated that something into his own distinct art. NOTES See, e. g., Jan V . Novak and Arne Novak, Pfehledn e dejin y literatury ceske (Olomouc, 1936-39), p. 82 1; Andrej Mraz , Dejiny slovensk ej literatury, Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. 1, Literatura a jazyk (Bra tislava: Sloven ska Akademia vied a umenf, 1948), p . 214; Slovenska Akademia Vied, Ustav slovenskej li te ra tury, D ejin y slovenskej literatury, III (Bra tislava, 1965), 630-31 a nd passim . ' See Ludovft Stur , 0 narodnich pisnich a povestech plemen slovanskych (Prague , 1853). I Presented in Panel 65, "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asilomar, California on 21 September 1981. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1982-83, Vol. 30 Description An account of the resource Vol. 30 (No. 55-56), 1982-83. 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 1982-83 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 Vajansky and Turgenev Willia m E. H a rkin s It h as bee n said th a t literature feeds on lite rature m o re tha n it d oes on life, b y which it is m eant th a t a writer finds it m o re diffi cult to work directl y from life a nd tran sla te living expe rience directly into verbal a rt. Whe n o ne's source s a re them selves wo rd s a nd verb al fo rms, no act of tra n sla tion is required. The new " intertex tu al " approach to the semiotic stud y of literature wo uld seem to co nfirm this t ruth. It is a truism of Slovak literary history tha t the writer Svetozar Hurba n V aj a nsky was stro n gly influ en ced b y Ru ssian literature, a nd in parti cul a r b y Turgen ev. 1 Hurba n V aj a n sky st ands in th at nin eteen th- century Slovak ideological traditio n which turned its back on the W est , a nd specifically on the C zechs, a nd sou ght instead to find a n ideological base in Ru ss ian cul ture a nd Ru ssia n lite rature . T hi s pa per is inte nded to explore the questio n o f the exte nt o f Hurba n V aj a n sky's d epe nde nce o n Turge nev a nd to ve ntu re a n expla n a tio n of why Turge nev's le gacy was a suita ble bas is for V aj a n sky's w ritin gs . I will analyze V ajan sky' s most famous and probably his greatest novel , Su ch a. ratolest'(T he Dry B ranch , 1884) , as well as several o f his co untry sketches from the collectio n N a Basna.rovom kopci a ine crty (On Basnarov Hill a nd Other Sketche s, 1880-1 883) . At first sight it would seem that Tu rge nev wo uld h ave had ve ry little to o ffer the Slovak writer. V aj a n sk y was a n aggressive , d etermined a nd zealou s fi ghte r in the Slovak n atio n al cau se, him self witho u t hesita tio n a nd w ithout the intellectu al rese rvatio n s so typi cal of Tu rge nev's heroes. The them e o f n at io na lism is weak in Ru ss ia n Lite ra ture , pa rtl y becau se write rs did not iden ti fy th em selves with the R ussia n tsarist regim e, pa rtly b ecau se Ru ssia n n a tion a lism and na tio nal independence co uld be taken for gr a nted . T he sam e thing is tru e, of co urse, for En gli sh , Ame rican , o r Fre nch liter a ture, in which na tio na li st a nd p atriotic the m es a re no rmally weak , a nd in which a nti-na tion alist w riters are even kn ow n (Celine , M a ile r , etc.). Bu t in Ru ssia n li terature th e them e of natio n alism is alm os t pathologicall y weaken ed ; the reaso ns fo r this pheno m eno n mu st be sou gh t in Ru ssia 's unique spiritual and id eological develop ment . The a mbivalence of Turgenev's heroes would likewise seem SLOVAKIA 93 to offer little to Vajansky, who was in part see kin g to create p rototyp es for n a tional lead ership. Th e search for a lead e r is a Turge n evan the me , o f course, but in Turgenev would-be lead er after lead e r goes d own to d efeat: Rudin , L avreckij , ln sarov , Bazarov, Nezdanov. I will return to these points presently , but first let us look at Vajansky ' s n ovel, Sucha ratolest'. The h ero of the novel is Stani slav Rudopol'sky, the la ndless heir of a n ancient n oble family o f la ndowne rs . Stanislav's father, impoverished, h ad turned from the ancient noble ways to foll ow a middle -class ex iste n ce as a governm en t official. Through indu stry a nd sob riety he accumul ated a con siderable fo rtune, which h e left to his son Stani slav , a youn g m a n with arti st ic inclin ations and tale nts and n ow e ndowed with e n ough wealth to cultivate these. H e return s h o m e to dwell in his an cestral m ansion in the provin cial town of Rudopolie . H e re he vacillates between two women: one the wife of his b est friend a nd the model for a great spiritualized portrait h e is p ainting which m ay vaguel y symbolize the Slovak people a nd its aspirations ; the o ther, a flirt a tiou s widow. The n ovel fin ally resolves the conflict b y transmittin g his affect io n for hi s friend's wife into spiritu al love a nd a rtistic creativ ity , thus leaving him to the wi dow , w h o turns out , in spite of h e r initi al capriciousness, to b e full y worthy of him . At first Stanislav is indiffere nt to the Slovak nation al cau se, which h e regards as a historical blind alley, but h e is ultimately brou ght through his frie ndship with Slovak p atriots to a tru e sense of the value and significan ce o f that cau se. Thus h e becomes what must h ave been a historical rarity: a zeman (squire) who is pro-Slovak and anti-Magyar. But we must remember that h e is landl ess and th at h e belongs essentially to th e middle class rath er t h an to th e gentry: in this Vajansky seems to be say in g th at the future hope of Slovakia lay in the middl e-class intelli ge ntsia and in the towns. Stanislav fight s a duel with the local leader of th e Magyar nationalist party: this is purely symbolic; in the duel he is n early k illed but a lso su cceeds in wounding hi s antagonist. Finally h e is nursed back to h ealth by the widow, and the novel ends w ith an opti mi stic, up-beat conclus io n . The title phrase, "Such a ratolest', " " dry branch," is applied to Stan islav , both by other ch aracters a nd by h imself. I t impli es his roo tlessness and purposel essness , qualiti es wh ich he feels strongly; at the e nd of the novel he would see m , however , to have transcended these qualities . Still, the novel has usu a ll y been taken as an ev idence th a t the 94 SLOVAKIA zemans had nothing to contribute to the Slovak nationalist cause (just as the Russian critic Dobroljubov took the novel Oblomov as a concrete evidence that the Russian gentry could not supply national leadership). The point remains ambiguous, and we must note here that this kind of ambiguity is quite typical of Turgenev ' s heroes. Rudin talks like a leader but is incapable of acting; Lavreckij too talks nobly but never acts; Insarov is killed off before he has an opportunity to lead ; Bazarov is a born leader but has no cause to lead, and he too is killed off to make doubly certain that the revolution will not come in hi s time. Just so Stanislav, or Stano as the author usually calls him , has a personal spiritual developme nt which is said to be fruitful, but that development seems to imply only fruitlessness for the national cause: the true ~ovak patriots and leaders in the novel are Stano's friends and not Stano. The point is furth er obscured in Vajansky' s romantic treatment of Stano as a painter: his activity is entirely idealized and spiritualized as artistic creation . We can read this as symbolic, but still the novel is too realistic (it co ntains an entire chapter describing an election, for instance), to permit us really to identify Stano ' s art as a symbol of the national struggle. Indeed , there is much in Stano which we could identify as "superfluity, " in the Russian tradition of the lisnij celovek or superfluous man . Essentially good, Stano is also fruitless and without purpose. H e vacillates in his love life. He almost gets killed in a duel. Only his art enables him to transcend lisnost' or superfluity. But is Vajansky's novel really so dependent on Turgenev as the critics have thought? Some general features do seem to resemble Turgenev: the treatment of landscape ( though Vajansky' s countryside is brighter and less somber than Turgenev's); the theme of a stranger returning home to the country to live there (Lavreckij, Bazarov); the theme of superfluity and the ambigu ity in its treatment; last perhaps, the theme of art, though actually it is not so typical of Turgenev as we might have supposed. Finally Vajansky , most unfortunately , e nded his novel with a virtual paraphase of the endi ng of Turgenev's Fathers and Children: the description of the cemetery in which Bazarov rests (in Sucha ratolest' the dead woman is Anna, one of the novel's three h eroines). But in fact Vajansky was not really very d ependent on Turgenev. Before discussing the novel 's independence, however, we should attend to several aspects that recall Pushkin rather than Turgenev. First, the SLOVAKIA 95 trait of superfluity is as typical for Pu shkin as it is for Turgen ev, though in Pushkin it is d epicted with considerably less ambiguity . The theme of art is also Pushkinian , thou gh it must be said that Pushkin does not romanticize it the way Turgenev and Vajansky do . Several motifs involving Stano and the young orphan girl Anna recall Pushkin's Eugene On egin. As in On egin , a cultivated stranger comes to dwell in the countryside and makes a strong impression on a rathe r n aive native girl. As in On egin , the girl 's naivete is brought out throu gh the fact that she lacks discrimination in her choice of reading matter; specifically , the use of a library and books to assess character recalls Pushkin , though he used these for Onegin himself, for the hero , not the hero in e . There is a scene in which Anna , unable to sleep , gazes at the moon , as Tatyana does in Pushkin 's novel in verse. Finally, the duel in Vajansky's novel is som ewhat cl oser to the duel in On egin than it is to Bazarov' s duel wi th Pavel Kirsanov. But even in these d etails V aj a nsky shows great independence. Anna is impressed by Stano , but in the end she realizes his weakness and ambivalence a nd is repell ed by him , a nd the great bulk ofVajansky's novel is indepe nde nt both of Pushkin a nd Turgenev . If we look first of all at the n ovel 's st ructure, we a re impressed almost staggered - by V aj a n sky's originality. H e shows a freed om of con struction th at is truly amazing : without transitions he m oves from scene to scene, character to character, episode to episode. Events occur for which we are totally unprepared . Compared with Turgen ev, or Pushkin , his structure seems wild , formless , a rtl ess. These writers organize their materi al into tight structural units which themselves ha ve beginnings, middles and endi n gs. They operate with a restricted group of ch aracters in th e la te stages of their works. Vaj ansky can introdu ce a n ew ch aracter anyw here or at any time he wishes , nor does h e feel an obli gation to carry all hi s characters - even the importa nt ones - right down to the novel 's end. It would not be correct to say that Vajan sky' s novel is plotless it has a pl ot which, if less in scope than that of Pushkin 's Onegin could probably be compa red with T urge n ev's Smoke , or even Rudin . But in a certain sense, nothing h a ppens in Vajansky's novel with but one except ion: symbolic events occu r. Stano transcend s his attraction to his fri e nd 's wife. H e fi ghts a duel. Th e orphan Anna goes blind a nd dies. To a ttempt a more precise definition: th e realistic side of Vajan- 96 SLOVAKIA sky's novel lacks a plot stru cture . A second kind of event can occur which is radically unTurgenevan : this is the action of social groups: tavern brawls, demonstrations , election s held under conditions of corrupt ion. There is a far deeper sense of society in Vajansky' s fiction than in either Pushkin or Turgenev, and in this he was more of a realist. Presumabl y he had undergo ne the influ en ce of positivist philosophy, which turned its a ttent ion to society and created the new scien ce of sociology. Vajansky's "formlessn ess " would hardly have appealed to cultivated nineteenth-century readers . They would have preferred the powerful sense of form of a Pushkin , or the delicate understatement of a Turgenev. But to o ur times Vajansky's impatience with the constraints of form seems origin al and refreshing. I t h as often been said that Vajansky depicted a Slovak society that never ex isted, that is idealized. Yet in Sucha ratolest' that Slovak society hardl y appears a s idealized: it is dru nken , given to brawling, easily corrupted by bribes and drink. What Vajansky seems to intend here is a kind of dialectic opposition : ideal leaders will lead the people, brutalized by the Magyar oppress io n , to liberty . It is in suffi cient to say, then, that Vaj a nsky idealized Slovak society : in fact he gives us invaluable glimpses of life in a small Slovak country town of the day . The chapter depicting the elections is a masterly portrait that recalls, in its sordidness a nd detail , an American election of the ninetee nth or even twentieth century. Drink, arbitra ry challenges to the voters , repeat votin g - the familiar techniques of election control are all vividl y described. Thus Vajansky' s novel vacillates amb iguously be tween realism and id ealism . But the ambiguity is artistically fruitful and creative. In the years 1880- 1883 Vaj a n sky published a few sketch es of peasant a nd country life. The se sketch es, republish ed la ter in coll ected form unde r the titl e o f Na Basnarovom k opci a in e crty (On Basna rov Hill a nd Oth e r Ske tches), a re a m o n g hi s strongest a nd m os t ori ginal works, and it can o nly be re gretted th at he did not produ ce mo re exampl es of th e genre . T he form o fV ajan sky's sketch d e ri ves, o f co urse, from Turgenev , whose Sportsman ·s Sketches, pu bli shed in 1852, a re perh aps th a t writer 's stron ges t work. Lik e Turge nev , V ajan sky se ts hi s sketches in th e countrys id e, a nd th ey d ispl a y a stron gly im agisti c tre nd in th e d epi cti o n bo th of la nd scape a nd th e p easant cha racter s who pop ul a te it . In the sketches o f bo th w riters a n a rrator a ppears as a pe rce iver, a nd the di stan ce be- SLOVAKIA 97 tween his perceiving eye and the peasants he views creates a subtle irony, one that does not , however , undercut the warm lyricism of the style and m anner. T u rgenev ' s narrator is a gentleman proprietor and hunter ; Vaj an sky's is (presum a bly) a middle-class intellectual turning his attention to the life of the Slovak peasantry. The ideological point of this is never m ade specific, bu t it was pa tently implicit in the political logic of the times: the Slovak intellectu als were waitin g for the d awn of political consciou sness am ong the peasantry. In the first of these sketches, " On Basna rov Hill ," the ideological mom ent is most incisive , though its intrusiveness detracts from the sketch artisti cally. A peasant m other and her younger son lam ent the cruelty of the elder son who has cast the widowed m other out with out provision for support. In her conversation she turns to attack Slovak officials , whom as a peasan t she di stru sts . V aj an sky, overhearing her , interrupts to de fend those offi cials who are Slovak nationalists. But the distinction is los t on the old woman , who has little political or national consciousness. She simply tu rns her back on his appeal. T hi s argum en t is of course quite un-Turgenevan ; Turgenev the hun ter m ay speak to the peasants, but he d oes not harran gu e them ; indeed , Tu rge nev is a master of understa tem en t and this q u ality Vajansky was perha ps un a ble to ass imila te, as we have already seen in the case of Su cha ra tolest'. But V ajan sky is capa ble o f creating im ages as powe rful and movin g as those of T u rgenev . P erh a ps the fines t of his sketcties is the one called " Hlasnik " (The Night W atchman): a movin g im agistic portrayal of a peasan t watchm an 's round s at nigh t, in te rtwined with hi s service to a dead m an fo r whom he digs a grave and whose bod y he later visits. With vivid depict ion of both the m ovem ent of the watchma n ' s round s and hi s calls th rough the night on his horn , the piece is a m asterpiece of mood im agery th at recall s the fin est sketches of Tu rgen ev such as "The Singe rs" or " Bezin M eadow," but d oes not imi tate them except in th e m ost ge neral way . In fac t , none of Vajansky' s ind ividual sketches recalls an y specific sketch b y T urgenev. Vaj an sky's land scape is too differe nt , a nd Slovak society too d ist inct. Vajan sky has perfectly ad apted th e Turgenevan ske tch and u sed it in the cause of Slovak li terature and Slovak ideology. We are now in a better pos ition to answer the ques tion we posed at the ou tset : what qu a:ities in T urgenev appealed to Vajansky and per- 98 SLOVAKIA suaded him to use elements taken from Turgenev 's work? The question should be asked in the light of the almost total difference we have found between the two writers, in personality, artistic temperament , psychology of character creation and development, optimism and pessimism, artistic structure. Still, there was something in Turgenev 's work, whether Vajansky realized it consciously or not, which Vajansky found of creative use . I suggest that this was that very ambiguity of treatment of ideological heroes by Turgenev which attracted Vajansky to his work. This in spite ofVajansky's much greater aggressiveness, his nationalism, his greater optimism . For tl;ie fact was that the Slovak cause was going nowhere in the 1880's. Though it might well have been that eventually it would go somewhere , it seemed bogged down - and this is the view Vajansky embodies in Sucha ratolest' in his chapter on the elections. Hence it was necessary to create characters who were "superfluous," who could achieve nothing in the present, yet characters capable of success, at least in an idealized dimension projected into the future . Turgenev had done the same thing: Bazarov is a born leader capable of reforming Russia, yet he is a leader without real followers and he comes at a time that is premature . The other common feature between Turgenev's writings and those of Vajansky is that of a passive human mass, the peasantry, needing to be awakened and educated . This is perhaps the only point where Turgenev's ideology acquires a nationalist tinge: Russia's peasantry holds her back, prevents her proper development : hence , it is necessary to educate the peasantry. In Vajansky the peasantry, and to some extent the town masses, play a similar role . It is necessary to win these masses over if the Slovak cause is to succeed. Following their leader l:.udovft Stur, the Slovak patriots turned to Russia because they perceived the West, including the Czechs , as decadent. They were influenced in this by Herder's prophecy of the future greatness of the Slavs, a prophecy Herder had specially made for the Eastern Slavs on the basis of his stay in Riga. Stur also noted that the closeness of kinship and family ties, so important to the Slovaks, was duplicated among the Eastern Slavs but not among the Czechs. 1 This began a Slovak turn toward Russia and Russian culture that was beneficial for the development of the nascent Slovak literature , if it was probably harmful to the development of the Slovak national ideology. SLOVAKIA 99 It is perhaps ironic that , motivated by considerations such as warmth of emotionality and closeness of kinship ties, V ajansky should have turned to writers like Pushkin and Turgenev, who, among Russians, were to be regarded as Westerners. Curiously, the Slovak leaders hardly knew the Russian Slavophiles, and their influence was perceptible only later. Yet, clearly the Slovak writers were seeking something they could use, and the precise source was not important. It is remarkable that when artists such as Edouard Manet or Vincent van Gogh or Mary Cassat turned to Japanese art for inspiration , they found woodblock prints of grim acin g actors and simpering courtesans , rather than the infinitely more subtle and more sophisticated art of such J a panese schools as the Rimp a or Shijo schools. Yet apparently Manet, Van Gogh , or Mary Cassat kn ew what they were looking for, and they rejected what they could not use; thus they succeeded in making that Japanese influence fruitful and not pernicious . In a similar way, Turgenev was a writer in many ways not con genial to Vajansky. But Vajansky had his own individuality and was a great enough artist to take from Turgenev what he needed . And he incorporated that something into his own distinct art. NOTES See, e. g., Jan V . Novak and Arne Novak, Pfehledn e dejin y literatury ceske (Olomouc, 1936-39), p. 82 1; Andrej Mraz , Dejiny slovensk ej literatury, Slovenska vlastiveda , Vol. 1, Literatura a jazyk (Bra tislava: Sloven ska Akademia vied a umenf, 1948), p . 214; Slovenska Akademia Vied, Ustav slovenskej li te ra tury, D ejin y slovenskej literatury, III (Bra tislava, 1965), 630-31 a nd passim . ' See Ludovft Stur , 0 narodnich pisnich a povestech plemen slovanskych (Prague , 1853). I Presented in Panel 65, "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asilomar, California on 21 September 1981.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Vajanský and Turgenev Description An account of the resource William E. Harkins Slovakia, Vol. 30 (No. 55-56), 1982-83 pp. 92-99 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harkins, William Edward, 1921-2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-83 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5df349359c13f759066467f60fa19f41.pdf fa86e8be18d24769d0e5fe3811b9ef87 PDF Text Text 18 SLOVAKIA UNIVERSITY TRADITIONS IN SLOVAKIA Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum An dbjective search of the cultural development of Central ffiurOlpe will r,e veal that Slo,vakia was not only "the first cultural center," as M. Hodzas wrote, but also a land of noteworthy university traditions. With the loss of ,p olitical indeipenden~e in the tenth century and the inco.rporation of Slova!kia first into muJti-national Hungary and later into Ozecho..,Slova!kia, the university tradttions, as well as the entire cultural development of Slovalkia, are often ,presented, it is true, in foreign works as a paTt of Magyar and/ or Czech culture. This is e3:pecially true alb uot the foundation and activity of un1versities in SlorvaJkia, which Mwgyar historians, both young and old (1), classified e~clustvely under the caption of culture of the Magyar nation, despite the fact that in the Middle Ages - and in Cenm-ail ,E}urope even in the 17th centll!rY - modern nationalism ,w as something unknown and that those universities were conducted in a .s pirit of unirversalisrn and cosmopolitanism. Several arguments speak against any such exiplanation of the cultural development in Central ffiurope, and especially in the multi-national !Hungary ,p rior to 19118: 1) the nature of the medieval class .state which was managed by the nobility and gentry of all ethnical components; 2) the character of medieval universities and their mission; and, 3) the nationalistic composition of the students and the ,professorial sta~f. 'l 'f, in thi,s conteIIl\po11aneous period, one would classify, by an ex post exiplaination, the universities of Hungary as the cultural heritage of only one nation, then he would be malking use of an interpretation that is not in line ,w ith logic and historical truth. Cultural values in Hungary were creaited 1b y all the nations of Hungary and, since the nonMagyar nations often exceeded the Maigyars numerically, we can apply only the territorial 1principle when designing the prfority right of cultural institutions. Therefore, even �SLOVAKIA 19 this dissertaion speaJks rubout the university traditi:ons in Slova!kia and not aJbout traditions of Slova;k universities. It would not be in line with the resttlts of an oibjective search of the Slovak cultural ,p ast, if we should present the universities in Slovakia of the 15th or 17th century as 'SlovaJk. If we did, we would there by be committing an error almost as great as the Magyars when they present them a,s Magyar, or as the e~clusive heritage of the Magyar nation. But even overlooking the fact that the 15th or the 17th century did not as yet know the concept of a nation in the sense of the present-day meaning of the word and that culturnl institutions in Central Europe, and esipecially in Hungary, had a universalistic spirit and a language that was foremost Latin, the .national composition of Hungary demands a just distribution of merits, as well as cultural heritage, amon5 all the nations of the poiy,g lot Cro1WI1 of St. Stephen. II ffiven with this scrll!pulous distinction, the Sl01va!ks do have a prio,r ity right to three universities from the times of former Hungary and to two from the time of the incorporation of Slovakia into the Czecho-Sl01Valk Republic. That is, on the territory of Slovaikia, there was not only the .A;cadenia Istroipolitana, founded in Bratislaivia by Mathias Corrwin in 1465, and the University of 'I'rnava from the year 1635, but also the universities of Kosice and Bratislava. The Aicademia I.stropolitana, named aftex the Greek for Danulbe (Istros), was a typical medieval university, set up on the order of Italian universities, particularly that of Bologna, its mission /being mainly religious. Hungary, and especially Slcwalkia, was devastated by Jis:kra's Czech mercenary soldiers and by religious quarrels,. After Ji$kra's crupitulation in 1642, and after he had se:cured himself a;gainst the Turkish danger, King Mathias sought to consolidate his country. His plans called for, above all else, a learned priesthood and an educated nolbility revived in the Catholic spirit. Since at that time there was no university in Hungary, as the King himself wrote in his peti- �20 SLOVAKIA tion of May 19, 1465 which was addressed to the Pope, Mathias requested permission for a "studium generale" and Pope Pole II granted it on the same day. In the petition, King Mathias stated what motivated him to estrublish a university in Bratislava and what ,punpo.se it was to serwe. He wrote that "in the countries .bordering with hereti'Cs there is a need of learned men and that this was a loss for the Church itself, as well as for the Christian religion." The Ki.ng entrusted the organization of the university to the Arch'bishop of Ostrihom, J,o hn Vitez, and the university was started in the home of the Ventura Street. The solemn opening of the univensity took 1place on Jwy 28, 1467. Fortihwith the University of Bratisla;va established good relations with the Univensity orf Vienna which he.ljped out with several of its eminent professo,r s. With the death af King Mathias, however, the uni,v ersity not only lost its founder, but also its protector; it closed its doors in 1490. The Academia Istropolitana was a complete uniiversity with four faculties and a .study c,urriculum that equaled that of other European, particularly the Italian and German, univeTSities. The immediate proximity oif the older and well estalblished Uniiversity of Vienna, and the renown of the University of Cracow, estaiblished in 1364, and the Unirversity of Prague (11348) did not allow the University of Bratislaiva to develop as ,planned by King Mathias, who did want to attract students even from the surrounding countries. The fact is that many students from Hungary itself, particularly from SlorvaJkia, studied in Cracow and Pra1gue, Vienna and at Ralian universities. According to some sources in the years 1400-1525 in Oraco,w alone over 2000 students frOIIIl Slovakia attended, especially from her eastern area (2). Territorially, the Unirversity of Bratisla;va belongs to the history of Slovakia, in the remaining aspects it was a medievaI Catholic unirveTsity and :belongs to all the nations of Hungary from whkh ,b oth the students and also the professors descended. And since even in this case the �SLOVAKIA 21 Magyars cannot apply the dynastic principle (King Mathias was not of a Magyar dynasty), it is decidedly not in line with historic fact if anyone plruces the unhrersity in the cultural hi<story of only the Magyar nation. "The Academy Istropolitna, " as professor A. MTaz correctly states it, "originated f,r om the will and decision of the Hungarian ruler, it was the result of his cultUJral policy, which wais in many ways influenced by humanism and by contacts especially with the romantic world. Its designation must be understood in an all-state sense, but the very fact that this univer,s ity ori,g inated on Slovak territory, that in its ran1ks there was a great percentage of Slova!k students and professors - all thi,s puts the Corwinian Unirversity of Bratislava into close and lirvely relations with Slovalk cultUTal de,velo1pment" (3). The second univernity on the territory of Slorvakia, the Jesuit University in Trnava, was founded by Archlbishop Peter Pazmany and approved by ffimperor Ferdinand on Odolber 18, 1635. The UnirverS!ity of Trnava was also a Catholic unirver,s ity in ,w hich L'a tin was used, as is proved by the register and catalogues which haive 1been preserved. At first there were only two faculties at this uniiversity (iphilosoiphical and theological), with two others added later (the law faculty in 1667, and the medical in 1769). Archbishop Pa,m nany, originally a Calv:in of German birth (4), was critical of the Magyar nation wh~ch he clai<med as his own; but he, 1i'ke the other ecclesiastical authorities were aiware of the fact that Hungary was polyg,l ot and, therefore, it can be rightly claimed that the university was estalblished for all the nationalities of Hungary with the aim to speed the victory of the Counter-Reformation among the Magyars, as well as among the SJo,vaJks, and Germans, nay even among the Serbs and Ruthenians .by means of the Cyrillic a1phalbet. The words of the Charter about "noibilissimae gentis Hun1garicae" cannot b,e explaaned otherwise than that Pa~many had in mind the state-nation of Hungary, which was administered not only by the Magyar, but also by the Croation and Slovalk nobility and gentTy and compo,s ed of even the Ruimanians of Transyl- �22 SLOVAKIA vania, the Germans, Senbs, and Ruthenians who occupied the lands of St. Stephen's Crown. In the Charter, Archlbishoip Pazmainy says literally: "We often ~o1idtously pondered just in what manner we might take crure of prQlpagating the Catholic religion in Hungary and to wplift the authority of the ndble Hungarian naition; and the most advantageous medium that we came wpon was the estaJblishment of a university in which the mind of a belligerent nation could be moderated and capable people might be ti-ained for the administration Church and also the State." The administration of the State, especially in the 17th century, was not exclusively in the hands of the Magyar nobility and gentry, inasmuch the Magyarization of the Slovak nobility, for example, came quite some time later. Under the influence of the Tu:rlkish occupation and the partition of Hungary into three paI'ts (the southern and central part occupied by the Turks; Transylvainia and the Tisa River area b~ independent princes; and the northern part, that is SlovaJkia, with smaller parts of western Hungary administered by the Hapsburgs) , Slovakia played an altogether exceptional role in the 17th century. She was, Hod.fa tells us, the refuge of many intellectual efforts and for some time there was more cultural movement in Slo,vaJkia than in Bohemia or the occupied part of Hungary. .Aiccording to Hodza, practically a,U movements of the cultural and political Life met there and Slova1kia was indisputaJbly the cultural center of Catholic Hungary (5). So that the Slovalks could regard the Uni,v ersity of TrnaJva as their own is attested to not only by the fact that is was on the territocy of Slorvalkia which .played, as we saiw aJbove, an exrceptional role in Hungary in the seventeenth century. The significance of this university for the cultura-l development of the Slovaiks, their langunge and their national conscioU!Sness was so far-reaching that even one of the outstanding literary historians of the .p resent communistic university in SlovaJkia, Professo;r A. Mraz, acknowledges that "with its activity and within its frame- �SLOVAKIA 23 wor'k cultwral and scientific life was prQ_pagated and deepened, the effects of which, all things considered, affected very strong,ly the Sl~ak part of the inhaJbitants, even though this was done according to the plan of religious and scientific direction of this high school and its inclusion into the Jesuit European school ,system. Because o.f the university, Trnava became the cultuTal center of Catholic Hun,gary and Slovakia in the seventeenth centUTy." Mraz also states that "for 160 yews o,f the existence of the University of Trnava on SloiVaJk territory, together with its activity and educational atmosphere created by it, there were crystallized such SlovaJk cultural and natonal realities that were the support of Slovak national renascence" ( 6). From the archives orf the University of Trnava, we learn that UJP to the time of its transfer to Budin in the year 1777, the Slovaks attended the university in greatest numbers, not only as students but, in s·o me years, the Slovaxs predominated as professors. In the first five years, for example, out of 248 students logic, 90 are indicated a,s 'SlovaJks and 77 as Magyars (the others were marked as Croatians and Germans, or their nationality was not indicated). Mter 1649, the registers of the university do not indicate the nationality of the students reg,ulal'ly, but the nationality of those re::!eiving the baccalaureate is indicated: even during this period, it can lbe 1proved that the Siloiva'ks and other iSlorvanic peoples werre in the rubsolute majority at the uniivers,ity (7). Now, then, if we regard the University of Trna.va from the standpoint of the question whom it sewed, who studied and taught at it, the ,p reponderance is on the side of the SlovaJks, Croatians and Germans, a;nd then come the Magyars. As far as· cultural influence is concerned, the University of Trnarva has merited a permanent place in SlovaJk cultural history with the literary activity o.f its professors and wards even in the Slovak langua,ge. From the yearr 1578 to 1777, the unirvevsity issued 79 Lrutin pulblicati<ons in the field of apologetics and contro;versial works~· but also 14 such ipU!bli:cations in Slorvak. During that same, time, 20 Magyar and 12 German, lbut also 75 bodks in the �24 SLOVAKIA field of scetics and preaching (8), so that "the crystallization of the langll!age of Catholic writers from the period of the University of Trnava was marked to such a degree that when Anthony Bernolruk and his g,r oup came out with the idea of an independent Slovalk literary langua;ge, in many things they only codified the practices, prevalent in Catholic literature, of their predeces,s ors" (9). From the rubove, it is undouibtedly surfrficiently clear that the SlO'Vaiks can rightfully inolude the UnilV'ersity of Ton:wa in the cultural heritage of the 1Slovalk nation and that !it ibelOiillgs in the first iplace to the unirve:r,sity traditions of SlovaJkia. It was iin such a sense that the Slovaks celebrated the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Trnava in 1935, when they pulblished a whole ,s eries of literary works commemorating the occasion with the actirve ,partic~pation of not only their cultura·l, but also their ,politi'cal institutions. The third uni,v ersity in SlovaJkia was established in Kosice in 1657 by Benedict Kisdi, the bishop of Jasov; it began its aietivity in 1'658, and the 1SlovaJks are commemorating the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Kosice this year. Like the University oif Trnava, the University .of Kosice, too, is grateful to the Jesuits for its development and Mgh acaderruc standing .Emiperor Leopold I rupproved its foundation in 1660, when he issued a Golden Bull, placing the unirversity on a level with the other universities of the mona;rchy with the right of granting academic titles and degrees. The Unirver.sity of Kosice - later degraded to an academy iby the There~iaJll reforms and to a law academy during the Bachera - was formded lb y the same motives as the Trna'Va University. In the Charter of February 26, 1657, Bishop Benedict states that he decided to establish a "studiUJm universale, that is, an academy or unirversity and to entrust it to the Jesuits, whose industry, loyalty and skill in the educational field are known to the who,le world, .so that it could train caipaJble priests the lack of ,whom ~ very harmful for God's Chwrch and for our afflicted fatherland" (10). �SLOVAKIA 25 After the dissolution of the Kosice law academy by the Praigue Government in 1922, the archives of the University of Kosice, were taken to Bratislava and, as far as is known, no one has made a thorough study of them so that we might know a;ccurately the composition of the student 1body and its professorial staff. From the wo11ks of Jesuit scientific scholars, who have been active in Italian universities during recent years, we :know that religious servi·c es with exclusively Slo,va.k sermons, during the first years, in the uniiversity cha1pel, attracted so many listenera that they could not be taJken care of in the chaipel. Father Stanislaus Po1cin also states that one of his famous students was A. Balud'ansky, a native of Vysne Olsovany, who ovganized the Uniivers,ity oif St. Petersburg and also was its rector (11). On the whole, the Kosi,ce University was very much li!ke the University of Trnava. From the academic standpoint, the University of Kosice was independent, according to the intentions of its founder it was administered as an institution of higher learning only by Church regulations and later in the sense of the Bull of Leopold I. The latter granted the uni,v ersity the same iprivileges, immunities and .p rerogatives which he had granted to other great universities of the Hrupslburg Monarvchy, and the degrees ,granted ,b y it were on the same level as those granted :b y the other European universities. According to the Charter, at the univer~ity of Kosice there were faculties of logic, philosophy, mathematics, theology, moral, rupologetics, and Heibrew. In 1777 the university lost its theological faculty, but then the faculty of ,la;w was estrublished which, as we mentioned aJbo:ve, remained until 1922. Since we are here concerned with a unirversity on SlovaJk territory, we can conclude that, up to the time of the Theresiam reforms, its character di:fifered little, if at aU, from that of the University of Tr:nava. Certainly its national compositiorn and mission wer,e much the s,a me. It was a Jesuit Latin university set up to serve Counter-Reformation efforts in multi-national Hungary. Though parts of eastern !Slovakia were strongly influenced for a time by the �26 SLOVAKIA Reformation, the Slavruk element during the time of the Kosice University was more strongJy represented inasmuch the neighlboring Maygar parts of Hungary were strongly Calvm.istic and the stage for revolutionary, anti-Hapsburg activities. At the !b eginning of the eighteenth century, in the eastern parts of SlovaJkia, even the Slovaik Calvinists pwblished religious literature in the national tongue and expressed the hyipothesis that it was iproibably there that even the first translation Off he Holy Writ of the year 17561757 originated, with Romuald Hadlbavy, author of a LatinSlovruk dictionary, ipartioipating in it. A study of the archives would undoubtedly tell us much about the composition of students and professors of the University o.f Kosice. Unfortunately they are not accessible to us today because of the Czecho-Comrrnmist occupation of Slova1kia. A few documents rubout the Kosice University can be found in the arch1ves of the Vatican (12), but they do not ,g ive us a clear answer to the questions referred to. Ln 1912 another school of higher learning was established in Bratislava, the Academy of law, which belongs to SlovaJkia only territorially since its spirit and aims differed swbstantially from those of the universities dealt with above. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, this academy was tr~ferred to Pathlrnstoly (P&!s). The Comenius University was then organized in Bratislava to help the Czech governments Cz.echize the Slovaks. Slovak generations, educated iby the Czech professors of this university, did not succumlb, however, but went in the 01pposite direction: they .b ecame strongly nationalistic, forming the vanguard of the movement for the ouJ.trn-al and political individuality and independence of 'Slo!V'akia. fo 1939, they changed not only the name of the university, iburt also its spirit and mission: the Slovak University serived the highest cultural, political, and economical aims of the Slovak nation until the Slovak Republic was destroyed in AprH, 1945, when Benes, with the help of the United Nations, estaJblished another "Czec:ho-iSlovaJkia," a ,p olitical mons·t irosity more monstrous than the first which was born in 1918. Since 1945, lilke the other fom m;;titutions of higher �SLOVAKIA 27 learning, the SlovaJk University in Bratislava, is a tool of Communism in the hands of a Czecho-Communist government. Slovaks At Foreign Universities To complete the picture oif university traditions in Slovakia, we must mention at least ibriefly that f,r om the fourteenth century until the pre;,;ent time Slovalks studied and taught not only in S,lovaJk unilver,s ities, or only in Hoogary and Austria, hut also in significant numbers in practically all European universities. Some of them attained high honors and recognition not only of university circles, but even of the sovereigns. In the era of Humanism and Renaissance, Slo•v ~s studied mamly at the Italian universities in Bologna and Padua, but also in Paris, Vienna, and especially in Crrueow a,nd P.ra,gue. At the latter univ,e rsity, Va:vrinec Benedicti of Nedozery (1'555-11616) was the rector and wrote a Czech ,gram.mer, while John Jesenius from Turiec County excelled in medicine, atd'. Our list of eminent ,SlovaJks of the Hwmanistic, Renaissanoe and Enlightenment eras at foreign universities is far from complete, but it is a noteworthy list. John Samb.oclky (Sambuet.1:S, born in Trnruva 16'31), made himself famous at the University of Bologna and later became an advisor and personal physician to, ffirrvpreor Maximilian II in Vienna. His literacy wo!'!ks we,r e ,published in practically all centers of humanistic culture from Padua through Paris, Vienna, G€neva, Nruples and Antwer;p on to ,F rrunkfurt. His scientific works were in the ma-i n of a historical and legal nature, but he also wrote Latin verses. Ma.rtin Rakovsky enjoyed world fame also in his time; and renaissance learning. In the writing of such treati!Ses Peter Rewa also excelled; his "De Monarchia et sacra corona regni Hungariae" was published in Fran:kfurt in 16159. The Uni'Versity of Trnava mulitiplied its scientific activity and interest of Slovruks in a university education not only on natrve soil, but also in foreign lands. Many scienti£ic workers and defenders of the Slwaiks and their culture grew up within its circle. One of the most prominent representatives of scientific scholars of Trnava was �28 SLOVAKIA Martin Szentivanyi who hailed from Liptovsky Svaty Jan; he ,w rote a1bout fifty various volumes and a six..ivolume encyclopedia called "Curiosora et selectiora variarum scientiarum miscellanea" in which he collected the scientific 1 knowledge of the va-rious disciplines of his time, from philosophy and mathematics to history, geogiraiphy, theology and economy (13). In the eighteenth century we have quite a numlber of eminent Slovruks worthy of mention, of whom we have in the first place Adam F. Kollar (lborn 1718 in Terchova) and Mathias Bel. Kollar, lilbrarian to the emperor's court in Vienna, devoted his time to history and diplomacy, but al.so to social and educational questions. During the refol'lms of Marie-Therese he played a significant role in her educational changes and in contempo,r ary pedago,grics. Mathias Bel, iborn in Ocova as Funtilk, was such a prominent and many-sided .personality that as a Lutheran he received recognition f;z-om the Pope and the Catholic ruler, who g,r anted him the title of nobleman. Bel, called "magnum decus Hungariae," published his scientific work,s in Latin, Ger.man, and Magyar; seven of his works, however, were in Slovruk. Most of his lite;z-ary works concerned themse1ves with history, geogra.phy, ethnography, and philology. He was a member of many foreign scientific societies and one of the most ,p rominent personalities of his generation in all of Hungary. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries SlovaJk Catholics and Lutherans studied and taught at many foreign universities and so helrped to elevate the culture of other nations, ,pairticularly that of the Czechs and Magyars. This question, however, still needs a systematic going-over and, hence, is not included in this dissertation. A significant numlber of Slovruks are also active in the contemporary period at various universities of the free woTld, particularly in Rome, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chili, Flrance, and the United ,States. ,Dr. Milan Hodza stated only a fact at the beginning af Woirld War II when he wrote that "Slovakia reached if not surpassed the Central European civilization level." �SLOVAKIA REFERENCES 1. Dez1der Heckenast: HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITIES, PAST A ND PRESENT, Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 31-39; University of Montreal, Canada. 2. Compare Samuel Osusky's "Nasi studenti na Krakovskej universite od 1400-1525," Vi era a veda, Vol. II, 1931, pp. 174-178, 226-233, and Vol. IV, 1933, pp. 232-244. 3. Andrej Mraz : DEJINY SLOVENSKEJ LITERATURY, Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts, Bratislava, 1948, pp. 20-21. 4. In his letter of December 5, 1634, Pazmany wrote the Bishop of Olomouc, Cardinal F. Ditrichstein, that his family comes from Germany (ex Germania) and that is why, he said, that he wishes his last descendant would become a complete Moravian (totaliter Moravum facere constitutum habeo). According to I. Acsady, Pazmany "frequently told Ferdinand II that it was not possible to trust even the best Magyar and that the Magyar people needed a yoke, because it was only thus that it would be possible to keep it under control. He did not even believe his own non-Catholic countrymen, nay, not even in the future of the Magyar nation," (quoted from Daniel Varsik's Slovak book: THE NATIONALITY PROBLEM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TRNAVA, Bratislava, 1938, p. 37). How Pazmany felt about the nationalities is also attested to by the gift which he gave the Franciscan church in Trnava "moved," as he wrote. "above all else by paternal love for the Slovak nation and by t he ardor of the devout people" (Epistolae, II, p. 2-1). 5. Dr. Milan Hodfa: FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, London, 1942, pp. 208-209: "During the seventeenth century .. . Slovakia became also the refuge of many lofty intellectual efforts on behalf of that country. For some time to come in Slovakia there was much more cultural movement than in Bohemia or occupied Hungary .. . Trnava, which housed the Catholic University before it was transferred to Budapest, became a center of Catholic culture in the realm. Slovakia revealed itself as a meeting-place of practically all contemporary currents of cultural and political ideas." 6. Andrew Mraz: op. cit., pp. 35, 62. 7. Compare the thorough study of D. Varsik. "Narodnostny problem Trnavske j uni ve rz ity," which also has a resume in French in which Varsik states literally: "11 etait par consequent nature! que !'element slovaque fut preponderant a l'Universite de Trnava" (pp. 240-241). 8. Compare Stephen Dubravec's "Apologetika a kontroverz istika na un iverzite v Trnave," Sbornik LVOSSV, Vol. II, No. 2, Trnava, 1935, p. 197). 9. Andrew Mraz : op. cit., pp. 46-47. 10. Compare Stanislaus Polcin's S.J., "Tristo rokov od zalozenia Kosickej univerzity," MOST, Cleveland, 0., Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, pp. 97-106. 11. MOST, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, p. 105. 12. About the documents in the Vatican Archives, vd. mention in the study of S. Polcin,S.J. 13. Compare Stanislaus Jurovsky's "Fil ozofia Ma rti na Szent ivanyi ho," Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1944. � 18 SLOVAKIA UNIVERSITY TRADITIONS IN SLOVAKIA Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum An dbjective search of the cultural development of Central ffiurOlpe will r,e veal that Slo,vakia was not only "the first cultural center," as M. Hodzas wrote, but also a land of noteworthy university traditions. With the loss of ,p olitical indeipenden~e in the tenth century and the inco.rporation of Slova!kia first into muJti-national Hungary and later into Ozecho..,Slova!kia, the university tradttions, as well as the entire cultural development of Slovalkia, are often ,presented, it is true, in foreign works as a paTt of Magyar and/ or Czech culture. This is e3:pecially true alb uot the foundation and activity of un1versities in SlorvaJkia, which Mwgyar historians, both young and old (1), classified e~clustvely under the caption of culture of the Magyar nation, despite the fact that in the Middle Ages - and in Cenm-ail ,E}urope even in the 17th centll!rY - modern nationalism ,w as something unknown and that those universities were conducted in a .s pirit of unirversalisrn and cosmopolitanism. Several arguments speak against any such exiplanation of the cultural development in Central ffiurope, and especially in the multi-national !Hungary ,p rior to 19118: 1) the nature of the medieval class .state which was managed by the nobility and gentry of all ethnical components; 2) the character of medieval universities and their mission; and, 3) the nationalistic composition of the students and the ,professorial sta~f. 'l 'f, in thi,s conteIIl\po11aneous period, one would classify, by an ex post exiplaination, the universities of Hungary as the cultural heritage of only one nation, then he would be malking use of an interpretation that is not in line ,w ith logic and historical truth. Cultural values in Hungary were creaited 1b y all the nations of Hungary and, since the nonMagyar nations often exceeded the Maigyars numerically, we can apply only the territorial 1principle when designing the prfority right of cultural institutions. Therefore, even �SLOVAKIA 19 this dissertaion speaJks rubout the university traditi:ons in Slova!kia and not aJbout traditions of Slova;k universities. It would not be in line with the resttlts of an oibjective search of the Slovak cultural ,p ast, if we should present the universities in Slovakia of the 15th or 17th century as 'SlovaJk. If we did, we would there by be committing an error almost as great as the Magyars when they present them a,s Magyar, or as the e~clusive heritage of the Magyar nation. But even overlooking the fact that the 15th or the 17th century did not as yet know the concept of a nation in the sense of the present-day meaning of the word and that culturnl institutions in Central Europe, and esipecially in Hungary, had a universalistic spirit and a language that was foremost Latin, the .national composition of Hungary demands a just distribution of merits, as well as cultural heritage, amon5 all the nations of the poiy,g lot Cro1WI1 of St. Stephen. II ffiven with this scrll!pulous distinction, the Sl01va!ks do have a prio,r ity right to three universities from the times of former Hungary and to two from the time of the incorporation of Slovakia into the Czecho-Sl01Valk Republic. That is, on the territory of Slovaikia, there was not only the .A;cadenia Istroipolitana, founded in Bratislaivia by Mathias Corrwin in 1465, and the University of 'I'rnava from the year 1635, but also the universities of Kosice and Bratislava. The Aicademia I.stropolitana, named aftex the Greek for Danulbe (Istros), was a typical medieval university, set up on the order of Italian universities, particularly that of Bologna, its mission /being mainly religious. Hungary, and especially Slcwalkia, was devastated by Jis:kra's Czech mercenary soldiers and by religious quarrels,. After Ji$kra's crupitulation in 1642, and after he had se:cured himself a;gainst the Turkish danger, King Mathias sought to consolidate his country. His plans called for, above all else, a learned priesthood and an educated nolbility revived in the Catholic spirit. Since at that time there was no university in Hungary, as the King himself wrote in his peti- �20 SLOVAKIA tion of May 19, 1465 which was addressed to the Pope, Mathias requested permission for a "studium generale" and Pope Pole II granted it on the same day. In the petition, King Mathias stated what motivated him to estrublish a university in Bratislava and what ,punpo.se it was to serwe. He wrote that "in the countries .bordering with hereti'Cs there is a need of learned men and that this was a loss for the Church itself, as well as for the Christian religion." The Ki.ng entrusted the organization of the university to the Arch'bishop of Ostrihom, J,o hn Vitez, and the university was started in the home of the Ventura Street. The solemn opening of the univensity took 1place on Jwy 28, 1467. Fortihwith the University of Bratisla;va established good relations with the Univensity orf Vienna which he.ljped out with several of its eminent professo,r s. With the death af King Mathias, however, the uni,v ersity not only lost its founder, but also its protector; it closed its doors in 1490. The Academia Istropolitana was a complete uniiversity with four faculties and a .study c,urriculum that equaled that of other European, particularly the Italian and German, univeTSities. The immediate proximity oif the older and well estalblished Uniiversity of Vienna, and the renown of the University of Cracow, estaiblished in 1364, and the Unirversity of Prague (11348) did not allow the University of Bratislaiva to develop as ,planned by King Mathias, who did want to attract students even from the surrounding countries. The fact is that many students from Hungary itself, particularly from SlorvaJkia, studied in Cracow and Pra1gue, Vienna and at Ralian universities. According to some sources in the years 1400-1525 in Oraco,w alone over 2000 students frOIIIl Slovakia attended, especially from her eastern area (2). Territorially, the Unirversity of Bratisla;va belongs to the history of Slovakia, in the remaining aspects it was a medievaI Catholic unirveTsity and :belongs to all the nations of Hungary from whkh ,b oth the students and also the professors descended. And since even in this case the �SLOVAKIA 21 Magyars cannot apply the dynastic principle (King Mathias was not of a Magyar dynasty), it is decidedly not in line with historic fact if anyone plruces the unhrersity in the cultural hi<story of only the Magyar nation. "The Academy Istropolitna, " as professor A. MTaz correctly states it, "originated f,r om the will and decision of the Hungarian ruler, it was the result of his cultUJral policy, which wais in many ways influenced by humanism and by contacts especially with the romantic world. Its designation must be understood in an all-state sense, but the very fact that this univer,s ity ori,g inated on Slovak territory, that in its ran1ks there was a great percentage of Slova!k students and professors - all thi,s puts the Corwinian Unirversity of Bratislava into close and lirvely relations with Slovalk cultUTal de,velo1pment" (3). The second univernity on the territory of Slorvakia, the Jesuit University in Trnava, was founded by Archlbishop Peter Pazmany and approved by ffimperor Ferdinand on Odolber 18, 1635. The UnirverS!ity of Trnava was also a Catholic unirver,s ity in ,w hich L'a tin was used, as is proved by the register and catalogues which haive 1been preserved. At first there were only two faculties at this uniiversity (iphilosoiphical and theological), with two others added later (the law faculty in 1667, and the medical in 1769). Archbishop Pa,m nany, originally a Calv:in of German birth (4), was critical of the Magyar nation wh~ch he clai<med as his own; but he, 1i'ke the other ecclesiastical authorities were aiware of the fact that Hungary was polyg,l ot and, therefore, it can be rightly claimed that the university was estalblished for all the nationalities of Hungary with the aim to speed the victory of the Counter-Reformation among the Magyars, as well as among the SJo,vaJks, and Germans, nay even among the Serbs and Ruthenians .by means of the Cyrillic a1phalbet. The words of the Charter about "noibilissimae gentis Hun1garicae" cannot b,e explaaned otherwise than that Pa~many had in mind the state-nation of Hungary, which was administered not only by the Magyar, but also by the Croation and Slovalk nobility and gentTy and compo,s ed of even the Ruimanians of Transyl- �22 SLOVAKIA vania, the Germans, Senbs, and Ruthenians who occupied the lands of St. Stephen's Crown. In the Charter, Archlbishoip Pazmainy says literally: "We often ~o1idtously pondered just in what manner we might take crure of prQlpagating the Catholic religion in Hungary and to wplift the authority of the ndble Hungarian naition; and the most advantageous medium that we came wpon was the estaJblishment of a university in which the mind of a belligerent nation could be moderated and capable people might be ti-ained for the administration Church and also the State." The administration of the State, especially in the 17th century, was not exclusively in the hands of the Magyar nobility and gentry, inasmuch the Magyarization of the Slovak nobility, for example, came quite some time later. Under the influence of the Tu:rlkish occupation and the partition of Hungary into three paI'ts (the southern and central part occupied by the Turks; Transylvainia and the Tisa River area b~ independent princes; and the northern part, that is SlovaJkia, with smaller parts of western Hungary administered by the Hapsburgs) , Slovakia played an altogether exceptional role in the 17th century. She was, Hod.fa tells us, the refuge of many intellectual efforts and for some time there was more cultural movement in Slo,vaJkia than in Bohemia or the occupied part of Hungary. .Aiccording to Hodza, practically a,U movements of the cultural and political Life met there and Slova1kia was indisputaJbly the cultural center of Catholic Hungary (5). So that the Slovalks could regard the Uni,v ersity of TrnaJva as their own is attested to not only by the fact that is was on the territocy of Slorvalkia which .played, as we saiw aJbove, an exrceptional role in Hungary in the seventeenth century. The significance of this university for the cultura-l development of the Slovaiks, their langunge and their national conscioU!Sness was so far-reaching that even one of the outstanding literary historians of the .p resent communistic university in SlovaJkia, Professo;r A. Mraz, acknowledges that "with its activity and within its frame- �SLOVAKIA 23 wor'k cultwral and scientific life was prQ_pagated and deepened, the effects of which, all things considered, affected very strong,ly the Sl~ak part of the inhaJbitants, even though this was done according to the plan of religious and scientific direction of this high school and its inclusion into the Jesuit European school ,system. Because o.f the university, Trnava became the cultuTal center of Catholic Hun,gary and Slovakia in the seventeenth centUTy." Mraz also states that "for 160 yews o,f the existence of the University of Trnava on SloiVaJk territory, together with its activity and educational atmosphere created by it, there were crystallized such SlovaJk cultural and natonal realities that were the support of Slovak national renascence" ( 6). From the archives orf the University of Trnava, we learn that UJP to the time of its transfer to Budin in the year 1777, the Slovaks attended the university in greatest numbers, not only as students but, in s·o me years, the Slovaxs predominated as professors. In the first five years, for example, out of 248 students logic, 90 are indicated a,s 'SlovaJks and 77 as Magyars (the others were marked as Croatians and Germans, or their nationality was not indicated). Mter 1649, the registers of the university do not indicate the nationality of the students reg,ulal'ly, but the nationality of those re::!eiving the baccalaureate is indicated: even during this period, it can lbe 1proved that the Siloiva'ks and other iSlorvanic peoples werre in the rubsolute majority at the uniivers,ity (7). Now, then, if we regard the University of Trna.va from the standpoint of the question whom it sewed, who studied and taught at it, the ,p reponderance is on the side of the SlovaJks, Croatians and Germans, a;nd then come the Magyars. As far as· cultural influence is concerned, the University of Trnarva has merited a permanent place in SlovaJk cultural history with the literary activity o.f its professors and wards even in the Slovak langua,ge. From the yearr 1578 to 1777, the unirvevsity issued 79 Lrutin pulblicati<ons in the field of apologetics and contro;versial works~· but also 14 such ipU!bli:cations in Slorvak. During that same, time, 20 Magyar and 12 German, lbut also 75 bodks in the �24 SLOVAKIA field of scetics and preaching (8), so that "the crystallization of the langll!age of Catholic writers from the period of the University of Trnava was marked to such a degree that when Anthony Bernolruk and his g,r oup came out with the idea of an independent Slovalk literary langua;ge, in many things they only codified the practices, prevalent in Catholic literature, of their predeces,s ors" (9). From the rubove, it is undouibtedly surfrficiently clear that the SlO'Vaiks can rightfully inolude the UnilV'ersity of Ton:wa in the cultural heritage of the 1Slovalk nation and that !it ibelOiillgs in the first iplace to the unirve:r,sity traditions of SlovaJkia. It was iin such a sense that the Slovaks celebrated the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Trnava in 1935, when they pulblished a whole ,s eries of literary works commemorating the occasion with the actirve ,partic~pation of not only their cultura·l, but also their ,politi'cal institutions. The third uni,v ersity in SlovaJkia was established in Kosice in 1657 by Benedict Kisdi, the bishop of Jasov; it began its aietivity in 1'658, and the 1SlovaJks are commemorating the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Kosice this year. Like the University oif Trnava, the University .of Kosice, too, is grateful to the Jesuits for its development and Mgh acaderruc standing .Emiperor Leopold I rupproved its foundation in 1660, when he issued a Golden Bull, placing the unirversity on a level with the other universities of the mona;rchy with the right of granting academic titles and degrees. The Unirver.sity of Kosice - later degraded to an academy iby the There~iaJll reforms and to a law academy during the Bachera - was formded lb y the same motives as the Trna'Va University. In the Charter of February 26, 1657, Bishop Benedict states that he decided to establish a "studiUJm universale, that is, an academy or unirversity and to entrust it to the Jesuits, whose industry, loyalty and skill in the educational field are known to the who,le world, .so that it could train caipaJble priests the lack of ,whom ~ very harmful for God's Chwrch and for our afflicted fatherland" (10). �SLOVAKIA 25 After the dissolution of the Kosice law academy by the Praigue Government in 1922, the archives of the University of Kosice, were taken to Bratislava and, as far as is known, no one has made a thorough study of them so that we might know a;ccurately the composition of the student 1body and its professorial staff. From the wo11ks of Jesuit scientific scholars, who have been active in Italian universities during recent years, we :know that religious servi·c es with exclusively Slo,va.k sermons, during the first years, in the uniiversity cha1pel, attracted so many listenera that they could not be taJken care of in the chaipel. Father Stanislaus Po1cin also states that one of his famous students was A. Balud'ansky, a native of Vysne Olsovany, who ovganized the Uniivers,ity oif St. Petersburg and also was its rector (11). On the whole, the Kosi,ce University was very much li!ke the University of Trnava. From the academic standpoint, the University of Kosice was independent, according to the intentions of its founder it was administered as an institution of higher learning only by Church regulations and later in the sense of the Bull of Leopold I. The latter granted the uni,v ersity the same iprivileges, immunities and .p rerogatives which he had granted to other great universities of the Hrupslburg Monarvchy, and the degrees ,granted ,b y it were on the same level as those granted :b y the other European universities. According to the Charter, at the univer~ity of Kosice there were faculties of logic, philosophy, mathematics, theology, moral, rupologetics, and Heibrew. In 1777 the university lost its theological faculty, but then the faculty of ,la;w was estrublished which, as we mentioned aJbo:ve, remained until 1922. Since we are here concerned with a unirversity on SlovaJk territory, we can conclude that, up to the time of the Theresiam reforms, its character di:fifered little, if at aU, from that of the University of Tr:nava. Certainly its national compositiorn and mission wer,e much the s,a me. It was a Jesuit Latin university set up to serve Counter-Reformation efforts in multi-national Hungary. Though parts of eastern !Slovakia were strongly influenced for a time by the �26 SLOVAKIA Reformation, the Slavruk element during the time of the Kosice University was more strongJy represented inasmuch the neighlboring Maygar parts of Hungary were strongly Calvm.istic and the stage for revolutionary, anti-Hapsburg activities. At the !b eginning of the eighteenth century, in the eastern parts of SlovaJkia, even the Slovaik Calvinists pwblished religious literature in the national tongue and expressed the hyipothesis that it was iproibably there that even the first translation Off he Holy Writ of the year 17561757 originated, with Romuald Hadlbavy, author of a LatinSlovruk dictionary, ipartioipating in it. A study of the archives would undoubtedly tell us much about the composition of students and professors of the University o.f Kosice. Unfortunately they are not accessible to us today because of the Czecho-Comrrnmist occupation of Slova1kia. A few documents rubout the Kosice University can be found in the arch1ves of the Vatican (12), but they do not ,g ive us a clear answer to the questions referred to. Ln 1912 another school of higher learning was established in Bratislava, the Academy of law, which belongs to SlovaJkia only territorially since its spirit and aims differed swbstantially from those of the universities dealt with above. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, this academy was tr~ferred to Pathlrnstoly (P&!s). The Comenius University was then organized in Bratislava to help the Czech governments Cz.echize the Slovaks. Slovak generations, educated iby the Czech professors of this university, did not succumlb, however, but went in the 01pposite direction: they .b ecame strongly nationalistic, forming the vanguard of the movement for the ouJ.trn-al and political individuality and independence of 'Slo!V'akia. fo 1939, they changed not only the name of the university, iburt also its spirit and mission: the Slovak University serived the highest cultural, political, and economical aims of the Slovak nation until the Slovak Republic was destroyed in AprH, 1945, when Benes, with the help of the United Nations, estaJblished another "Czec:ho-iSlovaJkia," a ,p olitical mons·t irosity more monstrous than the first which was born in 1918. Since 1945, lilke the other fom m;;titutions of higher �SLOVAKIA 27 learning, the SlovaJk University in Bratislava, is a tool of Communism in the hands of a Czecho-Communist government. Slovaks At Foreign Universities To complete the picture oif university traditions in Slovakia, we must mention at least ibriefly that f,r om the fourteenth century until the pre;,;ent time Slovalks studied and taught not only in S,lovaJk unilver,s ities, or only in Hoogary and Austria, hut also in significant numbers in practically all European universities. Some of them attained high honors and recognition not only of university circles, but even of the sovereigns. In the era of Humanism and Renaissance, Slo•v ~s studied mamly at the Italian universities in Bologna and Padua, but also in Paris, Vienna, and especially in Crrueow a,nd P.ra,gue. At the latter univ,e rsity, Va:vrinec Benedicti of Nedozery (1'555-11616) was the rector and wrote a Czech ,gram.mer, while John Jesenius from Turiec County excelled in medicine, atd'. Our list of eminent ,SlovaJks of the Hwmanistic, Renaissanoe and Enlightenment eras at foreign universities is far from complete, but it is a noteworthy list. John Samb.oclky (Sambuet.1:S, born in Trnruva 16'31), made himself famous at the University of Bologna and later became an advisor and personal physician to, ffirrvpreor Maximilian II in Vienna. His literacy wo!'!ks we,r e ,published in practically all centers of humanistic culture from Padua through Paris, Vienna, G€neva, Nruples and Antwer;p on to ,F rrunkfurt. His scientific works were in the ma-i n of a historical and legal nature, but he also wrote Latin verses. Ma.rtin Rakovsky enjoyed world fame also in his time; and renaissance learning. In the writing of such treati!Ses Peter Rewa also excelled; his "De Monarchia et sacra corona regni Hungariae" was published in Fran:kfurt in 16159. The Uni'Versity of Trnava mulitiplied its scientific activity and interest of Slovruks in a university education not only on natrve soil, but also in foreign lands. Many scienti£ic workers and defenders of the Slwaiks and their culture grew up within its circle. One of the most prominent representatives of scientific scholars of Trnava was �28 SLOVAKIA Martin Szentivanyi who hailed from Liptovsky Svaty Jan; he ,w rote a1bout fifty various volumes and a six..ivolume encyclopedia called "Curiosora et selectiora variarum scientiarum miscellanea" in which he collected the scientific 1 knowledge of the va-rious disciplines of his time, from philosophy and mathematics to history, geogiraiphy, theology and economy (13). In the eighteenth century we have quite a numlber of eminent Slovruks worthy of mention, of whom we have in the first place Adam F. Kollar (lborn 1718 in Terchova) and Mathias Bel. Kollar, lilbrarian to the emperor's court in Vienna, devoted his time to history and diplomacy, but al.so to social and educational questions. During the refol'lms of Marie-Therese he played a significant role in her educational changes and in contempo,r ary pedago,grics. Mathias Bel, iborn in Ocova as Funtilk, was such a prominent and many-sided .personality that as a Lutheran he received recognition f;z-om the Pope and the Catholic ruler, who g,r anted him the title of nobleman. Bel, called "magnum decus Hungariae," published his scientific work,s in Latin, Ger.man, and Magyar; seven of his works, however, were in Slovruk. Most of his lite;z-ary works concerned themse1ves with history, geogra.phy, ethnography, and philology. He was a member of many foreign scientific societies and one of the most ,p rominent personalities of his generation in all of Hungary. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries SlovaJk Catholics and Lutherans studied and taught at many foreign universities and so helrped to elevate the culture of other nations, ,pairticularly that of the Czechs and Magyars. This question, however, still needs a systematic going-over and, hence, is not included in this dissertation. A significant numlber of Slovruks are also active in the contemporary period at various universities of the free woTld, particularly in Rome, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chili, Flrance, and the United ,States. ,Dr. Milan Hodza stated only a fact at the beginning af Woirld War II when he wrote that "Slovakia reached if not surpassed the Central European civilization level." �SLOVAKIA REFERENCES 1. Dez1der Heckenast: HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITIES, PAST A ND PRESENT, Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 31-39; University of Montreal, Canada. 2. Compare Samuel Osusky's "Nasi studenti na Krakovskej universite od 1400-1525," Vi era a veda, Vol. II, 1931, pp. 174-178, 226-233, and Vol. IV, 1933, pp. 232-244. 3. Andrej Mraz : DEJINY SLOVENSKEJ LITERATURY, Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts, Bratislava, 1948, pp. 20-21. 4. In his letter of December 5, 1634, Pazmany wrote the Bishop of Olomouc, Cardinal F. Ditrichstein, that his family comes from Germany (ex Germania) and that is why, he said, that he wishes his last descendant would become a complete Moravian (totaliter Moravum facere constitutum habeo). According to I. Acsady, Pazmany "frequently told Ferdinand II that it was not possible to trust even the best Magyar and that the Magyar people needed a yoke, because it was only thus that it would be possible to keep it under control. He did not even believe his own non-Catholic countrymen, nay, not even in the future of the Magyar nation," (quoted from Daniel Varsik's Slovak book: THE NATIONALITY PROBLEM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TRNAVA, Bratislava, 1938, p. 37). How Pazmany felt about the nationalities is also attested to by the gift which he gave the Franciscan church in Trnava "moved," as he wrote. "above all else by paternal love for the Slovak nation and by t he ardor of the devout people" (Epistolae, II, p. 2-1). 5. Dr. Milan Hodfa: FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, London, 1942, pp. 208-209: "During the seventeenth century .. . Slovakia became also the refuge of many lofty intellectual efforts on behalf of that country. For some time to come in Slovakia there was much more cultural movement than in Bohemia or occupied Hungary .. . Trnava, which housed the Catholic University before it was transferred to Budapest, became a center of Catholic culture in the realm. Slovakia revealed itself as a meeting-place of practically all contemporary currents of cultural and political ideas." 6. Andrew Mraz: op. cit., pp. 35, 62. 7. Compare the thorough study of D. Varsik. "Narodnostny problem Trnavske j uni ve rz ity," which also has a resume in French in which Varsik states literally: "11 etait par consequent nature! que !'element slovaque fut preponderant a l'Universite de Trnava" (pp. 240-241). 8. Compare Stephen Dubravec's "Apologetika a kontroverz istika na un iverzite v Trnave," Sbornik LVOSSV, Vol. II, No. 2, Trnava, 1935, p. 197). 9. Andrew Mraz : op. cit., pp. 46-47. 10. Compare Stanislaus Polcin's S.J., "Tristo rokov od zalozenia Kosickej univerzity," MOST, Cleveland, 0., Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, pp. 97-106. 11. MOST, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, p. 105. 12. About the documents in the Vatican Archives, vd. mention in the study of S. Polcin,S.J. 13. Compare Stanislaus Jurovsky's "Fil ozofia Ma rti na Szent ivanyi ho," Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1944. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 18 SLOVAKIA UNIVERSITY TRADITIONS IN SLOVAKIA Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum An dbjective search of the cultural development of Central ffiurOlpe will r,e veal that Slo,vakia was not only "the first cultural center," as M. Hodzas wrote, but also a land of noteworthy university traditions. With the loss of ,p olitical indeipenden~e in the tenth century and the inco.rporation of Slova!kia first into muJti-national Hungary and later into Ozecho..,Slova!kia, the university tradttions, as well as the entire cultural development of Slovalkia, are often ,presented, it is true, in foreign works as a paTt of Magyar and/ or Czech culture. This is e3:pecially true alb uot the foundation and activity of un1versities in SlorvaJkia, which Mwgyar historians, both young and old (1), classified e~clustvely under the caption of culture of the Magyar nation, despite the fact that in the Middle Ages - and in Cenm-ail ,E}urope even in the 17th centll!rY - modern nationalism ,w as something unknown and that those universities were conducted in a .s pirit of unirversalisrn and cosmopolitanism. Several arguments speak against any such exiplanation of the cultural development in Central ffiurope, and especially in the multi-national !Hungary ,p rior to 19118: 1) the nature of the medieval class .state which was managed by the nobility and gentry of all ethnical components; 2) the character of medieval universities and their mission; and, 3) the nationalistic composition of the students and the ,professorial sta~f. 'l 'f, in thi,s conteIIl\po11aneous period, one would classify, by an ex post exiplaination, the universities of Hungary as the cultural heritage of only one nation, then he would be malking use of an interpretation that is not in line ,w ith logic and historical truth. Cultural values in Hungary were creaited 1b y all the nations of Hungary and, since the nonMagyar nations often exceeded the Maigyars numerically, we can apply only the territorial 1principle when designing the prfority right of cultural institutions. Therefore, even SLOVAKIA 19 this dissertaion speaJks rubout the university traditi:ons in Slova!kia and not aJbout traditions of Slova;k universities. It would not be in line with the resttlts of an oibjective search of the Slovak cultural ,p ast, if we should present the universities in Slovakia of the 15th or 17th century as 'SlovaJk. If we did, we would there by be committing an error almost as great as the Magyars when they present them a,s Magyar, or as the e~clusive heritage of the Magyar nation. But even overlooking the fact that the 15th or the 17th century did not as yet know the concept of a nation in the sense of the present-day meaning of the word and that culturnl institutions in Central Europe, and esipecially in Hungary, had a universalistic spirit and a language that was foremost Latin, the .national composition of Hungary demands a just distribution of merits, as well as cultural heritage, amon5 all the nations of the poiy,g lot Cro1WI1 of St. Stephen. II ffiven with this scrll!pulous distinction, the Sl01va!ks do have a prio,r ity right to three universities from the times of former Hungary and to two from the time of the incorporation of Slovakia into the Czecho-Sl01Valk Republic. That is, on the territory of Slovaikia, there was not only the .A;cadenia Istroipolitana, founded in Bratislaivia by Mathias Corrwin in 1465, and the University of 'I'rnava from the year 1635, but also the universities of Kosice and Bratislava. The Aicademia I.stropolitana, named aftex the Greek for Danulbe (Istros), was a typical medieval university, set up on the order of Italian universities, particularly that of Bologna, its mission /being mainly religious. Hungary, and especially Slcwalkia, was devastated by Jis:kra's Czech mercenary soldiers and by religious quarrels,. After Ji$kra's crupitulation in 1642, and after he had se:cured himself a;gainst the Turkish danger, King Mathias sought to consolidate his country. His plans called for, above all else, a learned priesthood and an educated nolbility revived in the Catholic spirit. Since at that time there was no university in Hungary, as the King himself wrote in his peti- 20 SLOVAKIA tion of May 19, 1465 which was addressed to the Pope, Mathias requested permission for a "studium generale" and Pope Pole II granted it on the same day. In the petition, King Mathias stated what motivated him to estrublish a university in Bratislava and what ,punpo.se it was to serwe. He wrote that "in the countries .bordering with hereti'Cs there is a need of learned men and that this was a loss for the Church itself, as well as for the Christian religion." The Ki.ng entrusted the organization of the university to the Arch'bishop of Ostrihom, J,o hn Vitez, and the university was started in the home of the Ventura Street. The solemn opening of the univensity took 1place on Jwy 28, 1467. Fortihwith the University of Bratisla;va established good relations with the Univensity orf Vienna which he.ljped out with several of its eminent professo,r s. With the death af King Mathias, however, the uni,v ersity not only lost its founder, but also its protector; it closed its doors in 1490. The Academia Istropolitana was a complete uniiversity with four faculties and a .study c,urriculum that equaled that of other European, particularly the Italian and German, univeTSities. The immediate proximity oif the older and well estalblished Uniiversity of Vienna, and the renown of the University of Cracow, estaiblished in 1364, and the Unirversity of Prague (11348) did not allow the University of Bratislaiva to develop as ,planned by King Mathias, who did want to attract students even from the surrounding countries. The fact is that many students from Hungary itself, particularly from SlorvaJkia, studied in Cracow and Pra1gue, Vienna and at Ralian universities. According to some sources in the years 1400-1525 in Oraco,w alone over 2000 students frOIIIl Slovakia attended, especially from her eastern area (2). Territorially, the Unirversity of Bratisla;va belongs to the history of Slovakia, in the remaining aspects it was a medievaI Catholic unirveTsity and :belongs to all the nations of Hungary from whkh ,b oth the students and also the professors descended. And since even in this case the SLOVAKIA 21 Magyars cannot apply the dynastic principle (King Mathias was not of a Magyar dynasty), it is decidedly not in line with historic fact if anyone plruces the unhrersity in the cultural hi<story of only the Magyar nation. "The Academy Istropolitna, " as professor A. MTaz correctly states it, "originated f,r om the will and decision of the Hungarian ruler, it was the result of his cultUJral policy, which wais in many ways influenced by humanism and by contacts especially with the romantic world. Its designation must be understood in an all-state sense, but the very fact that this univer,s ity ori,g inated on Slovak territory, that in its ran1ks there was a great percentage of Slova!k students and professors - all thi,s puts the Corwinian Unirversity of Bratislava into close and lirvely relations with Slovalk cultUTal de,velo1pment" (3). The second univernity on the territory of Slorvakia, the Jesuit University in Trnava, was founded by Archlbishop Peter Pazmany and approved by ffimperor Ferdinand on Odolber 18, 1635. The UnirverS!ity of Trnava was also a Catholic unirver,s ity in ,w hich L'a tin was used, as is proved by the register and catalogues which haive 1been preserved. At first there were only two faculties at this uniiversity (iphilosoiphical and theological), with two others added later (the law faculty in 1667, and the medical in 1769). Archbishop Pa,m nany, originally a Calv:in of German birth (4), was critical of the Magyar nation wh~ch he clai<med as his own; but he, 1i'ke the other ecclesiastical authorities were aiware of the fact that Hungary was polyg,l ot and, therefore, it can be rightly claimed that the university was estalblished for all the nationalities of Hungary with the aim to speed the victory of the Counter-Reformation among the Magyars, as well as among the SJo,vaJks, and Germans, nay even among the Serbs and Ruthenians .by means of the Cyrillic a1phalbet. The words of the Charter about "noibilissimae gentis Hun1garicae" cannot b,e explaaned otherwise than that Pa~many had in mind the state-nation of Hungary, which was administered not only by the Magyar, but also by the Croation and Slovalk nobility and gentTy and compo,s ed of even the Ruimanians of Transyl- 22 SLOVAKIA vania, the Germans, Senbs, and Ruthenians who occupied the lands of St. Stephen's Crown. In the Charter, Archlbishoip Pazmainy says literally: "We often ~o1idtously pondered just in what manner we might take crure of prQlpagating the Catholic religion in Hungary and to wplift the authority of the ndble Hungarian naition; and the most advantageous medium that we came wpon was the estaJblishment of a university in which the mind of a belligerent nation could be moderated and capable people might be ti-ained for the administration Church and also the State." The administration of the State, especially in the 17th century, was not exclusively in the hands of the Magyar nobility and gentry, inasmuch the Magyarization of the Slovak nobility, for example, came quite some time later. Under the influence of the Tu:rlkish occupation and the partition of Hungary into three paI'ts (the southern and central part occupied by the Turks; Transylvainia and the Tisa River area b~ independent princes; and the northern part, that is SlovaJkia, with smaller parts of western Hungary administered by the Hapsburgs) , Slovakia played an altogether exceptional role in the 17th century. She was, Hod.fa tells us, the refuge of many intellectual efforts and for some time there was more cultural movement in Slo,vaJkia than in Bohemia or the occupied part of Hungary. .Aiccording to Hodza, practically a,U movements of the cultural and political Life met there and Slova1kia was indisputaJbly the cultural center of Catholic Hungary (5). So that the Slovalks could regard the Uni,v ersity of TrnaJva as their own is attested to not only by the fact that is was on the territocy of Slorvalkia which .played, as we saiw aJbove, an exrceptional role in Hungary in the seventeenth century. The significance of this university for the cultura-l development of the Slovaiks, their langunge and their national conscioU!Sness was so far-reaching that even one of the outstanding literary historians of the .p resent communistic university in SlovaJkia, Professo;r A. Mraz, acknowledges that "with its activity and within its frame- SLOVAKIA 23 wor'k cultwral and scientific life was prQ_pagated and deepened, the effects of which, all things considered, affected very strong,ly the Sl~ak part of the inhaJbitants, even though this was done according to the plan of religious and scientific direction of this high school and its inclusion into the Jesuit European school ,system. Because o.f the university, Trnava became the cultuTal center of Catholic Hun,gary and Slovakia in the seventeenth centUTy." Mraz also states that "for 160 yews o,f the existence of the University of Trnava on SloiVaJk territory, together with its activity and educational atmosphere created by it, there were crystallized such SlovaJk cultural and natonal realities that were the support of Slovak national renascence" ( 6). From the archives orf the University of Trnava, we learn that UJP to the time of its transfer to Budin in the year 1777, the Slovaks attended the university in greatest numbers, not only as students but, in s·o me years, the Slovaxs predominated as professors. In the first five years, for example, out of 248 students logic, 90 are indicated a,s 'SlovaJks and 77 as Magyars (the others were marked as Croatians and Germans, or their nationality was not indicated). Mter 1649, the registers of the university do not indicate the nationality of the students reg,ulal'ly, but the nationality of those re::!eiving the baccalaureate is indicated: even during this period, it can lbe 1proved that the Siloiva'ks and other iSlorvanic peoples werre in the rubsolute majority at the uniivers,ity (7). Now, then, if we regard the University of Trna.va from the standpoint of the question whom it sewed, who studied and taught at it, the ,p reponderance is on the side of the SlovaJks, Croatians and Germans, a;nd then come the Magyars. As far as· cultural influence is concerned, the University of Trnarva has merited a permanent place in SlovaJk cultural history with the literary activity o.f its professors and wards even in the Slovak langua,ge. From the yearr 1578 to 1777, the unirvevsity issued 79 Lrutin pulblicati<ons in the field of apologetics and contro;versial works~· but also 14 such ipU!bli:cations in Slorvak. During that same, time, 20 Magyar and 12 German, lbut also 75 bodks in the 24 SLOVAKIA field of scetics and preaching (8), so that "the crystallization of the langll!age of Catholic writers from the period of the University of Trnava was marked to such a degree that when Anthony Bernolruk and his g,r oup came out with the idea of an independent Slovalk literary langua;ge, in many things they only codified the practices, prevalent in Catholic literature, of their predeces,s ors" (9). From the rubove, it is undouibtedly surfrficiently clear that the SlO'Vaiks can rightfully inolude the UnilV'ersity of Ton:wa in the cultural heritage of the 1Slovalk nation and that !it ibelOiillgs in the first iplace to the unirve:r,sity traditions of SlovaJkia. It was iin such a sense that the Slovaks celebrated the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Trnava in 1935, when they pulblished a whole ,s eries of literary works commemorating the occasion with the actirve ,partic~pation of not only their cultura·l, but also their ,politi'cal institutions. The third uni,v ersity in SlovaJkia was established in Kosice in 1657 by Benedict Kisdi, the bishop of Jasov; it began its aietivity in 1'658, and the 1SlovaJks are commemorating the tri-centennial of the foundation of the University of Kosice this year. Like the University oif Trnava, the University .of Kosice, too, is grateful to the Jesuits for its development and Mgh acaderruc standing .Emiperor Leopold I rupproved its foundation in 1660, when he issued a Golden Bull, placing the unirversity on a level with the other universities of the mona;rchy with the right of granting academic titles and degrees. The Unirver.sity of Kosice - later degraded to an academy iby the There~iaJll reforms and to a law academy during the Bachera - was formded lb y the same motives as the Trna'Va University. In the Charter of February 26, 1657, Bishop Benedict states that he decided to establish a "studiUJm universale, that is, an academy or unirversity and to entrust it to the Jesuits, whose industry, loyalty and skill in the educational field are known to the who,le world, .so that it could train caipaJble priests the lack of ,whom ~ very harmful for God's Chwrch and for our afflicted fatherland" (10). SLOVAKIA 25 After the dissolution of the Kosice law academy by the Praigue Government in 1922, the archives of the University of Kosice, were taken to Bratislava and, as far as is known, no one has made a thorough study of them so that we might know a;ccurately the composition of the student 1body and its professorial staff. From the wo11ks of Jesuit scientific scholars, who have been active in Italian universities during recent years, we :know that religious servi·c es with exclusively Slo,va.k sermons, during the first years, in the uniiversity cha1pel, attracted so many listenera that they could not be taJken care of in the chaipel. Father Stanislaus Po1cin also states that one of his famous students was A. Balud'ansky, a native of Vysne Olsovany, who ovganized the Uniivers,ity oif St. Petersburg and also was its rector (11). On the whole, the Kosi,ce University was very much li!ke the University of Trnava. From the academic standpoint, the University of Kosice was independent, according to the intentions of its founder it was administered as an institution of higher learning only by Church regulations and later in the sense of the Bull of Leopold I. The latter granted the uni,v ersity the same iprivileges, immunities and .p rerogatives which he had granted to other great universities of the Hrupslburg Monarvchy, and the degrees ,granted ,b y it were on the same level as those granted :b y the other European universities. According to the Charter, at the univer~ity of Kosice there were faculties of logic, philosophy, mathematics, theology, moral, rupologetics, and Heibrew. In 1777 the university lost its theological faculty, but then the faculty of ,la;w was estrublished which, as we mentioned aJbo:ve, remained until 1922. Since we are here concerned with a unirversity on SlovaJk territory, we can conclude that, up to the time of the Theresiam reforms, its character di:fifered little, if at aU, from that of the University of Tr:nava. Certainly its national compositiorn and mission wer,e much the s,a me. It was a Jesuit Latin university set up to serve Counter-Reformation efforts in multi-national Hungary. Though parts of eastern !Slovakia were strongly influenced for a time by the 26 SLOVAKIA Reformation, the Slavruk element during the time of the Kosice University was more strongJy represented inasmuch the neighlboring Maygar parts of Hungary were strongly Calvm.istic and the stage for revolutionary, anti-Hapsburg activities. At the !b eginning of the eighteenth century, in the eastern parts of SlovaJkia, even the Slovaik Calvinists pwblished religious literature in the national tongue and expressed the hyipothesis that it was iproibably there that even the first translation Off he Holy Writ of the year 17561757 originated, with Romuald Hadlbavy, author of a LatinSlovruk dictionary, ipartioipating in it. A study of the archives would undoubtedly tell us much about the composition of students and professors of the University o.f Kosice. Unfortunately they are not accessible to us today because of the Czecho-Comrrnmist occupation of Slova1kia. A few documents rubout the Kosice University can be found in the arch1ves of the Vatican (12), but they do not ,g ive us a clear answer to the questions referred to. Ln 1912 another school of higher learning was established in Bratislava, the Academy of law, which belongs to SlovaJkia only territorially since its spirit and aims differed swbstantially from those of the universities dealt with above. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, this academy was tr~ferred to Pathlrnstoly (P&!s). The Comenius University was then organized in Bratislava to help the Czech governments Cz.echize the Slovaks. Slovak generations, educated iby the Czech professors of this university, did not succumlb, however, but went in the 01pposite direction: they .b ecame strongly nationalistic, forming the vanguard of the movement for the ouJ.trn-al and political individuality and independence of 'Slo!V'akia. fo 1939, they changed not only the name of the university, iburt also its spirit and mission: the Slovak University serived the highest cultural, political, and economical aims of the Slovak nation until the Slovak Republic was destroyed in AprH, 1945, when Benes, with the help of the United Nations, estaJblished another "Czec:ho-iSlovaJkia," a ,p olitical mons·t irosity more monstrous than the first which was born in 1918. Since 1945, lilke the other fom m;;titutions of higher SLOVAKIA 27 learning, the SlovaJk University in Bratislava, is a tool of Communism in the hands of a Czecho-Communist government. Slovaks At Foreign Universities To complete the picture oif university traditions in Slovakia, we must mention at least ibriefly that f,r om the fourteenth century until the pre;,;ent time Slovalks studied and taught not only in S,lovaJk unilver,s ities, or only in Hoogary and Austria, hut also in significant numbers in practically all European universities. Some of them attained high honors and recognition not only of university circles, but even of the sovereigns. In the era of Humanism and Renaissance, Slo•v ~s studied mamly at the Italian universities in Bologna and Padua, but also in Paris, Vienna, and especially in Crrueow a,nd P.ra,gue. At the latter univ,e rsity, Va:vrinec Benedicti of Nedozery (1'555-11616) was the rector and wrote a Czech ,gram.mer, while John Jesenius from Turiec County excelled in medicine, atd'. Our list of eminent ,SlovaJks of the Hwmanistic, Renaissanoe and Enlightenment eras at foreign universities is far from complete, but it is a noteworthy list. John Samb.oclky (Sambuet.1:S, born in Trnruva 16'31), made himself famous at the University of Bologna and later became an advisor and personal physician to, ffirrvpreor Maximilian II in Vienna. His literacy wo!'!ks we,r e ,published in practically all centers of humanistic culture from Padua through Paris, Vienna, G€neva, Nruples and Antwer;p on to ,F rrunkfurt. His scientific works were in the ma-i n of a historical and legal nature, but he also wrote Latin verses. Ma.rtin Rakovsky enjoyed world fame also in his time; and renaissance learning. In the writing of such treati!Ses Peter Rewa also excelled; his "De Monarchia et sacra corona regni Hungariae" was published in Fran:kfurt in 16159. The Uni'Versity of Trnava mulitiplied its scientific activity and interest of Slovruks in a university education not only on natrve soil, but also in foreign lands. Many scienti£ic workers and defenders of the Slwaiks and their culture grew up within its circle. One of the most prominent representatives of scientific scholars of Trnava was 28 SLOVAKIA Martin Szentivanyi who hailed from Liptovsky Svaty Jan; he ,w rote a1bout fifty various volumes and a six..ivolume encyclopedia called "Curiosora et selectiora variarum scientiarum miscellanea" in which he collected the scientific 1 knowledge of the va-rious disciplines of his time, from philosophy and mathematics to history, geogiraiphy, theology and economy (13). In the eighteenth century we have quite a numlber of eminent Slovruks worthy of mention, of whom we have in the first place Adam F. Kollar (lborn 1718 in Terchova) and Mathias Bel. Kollar, lilbrarian to the emperor's court in Vienna, devoted his time to history and diplomacy, but al.so to social and educational questions. During the refol'lms of Marie-Therese he played a significant role in her educational changes and in contempo,r ary pedago,grics. Mathias Bel, iborn in Ocova as Funtilk, was such a prominent and many-sided .personality that as a Lutheran he received recognition f;z-om the Pope and the Catholic ruler, who g,r anted him the title of nobleman. Bel, called "magnum decus Hungariae," published his scientific work,s in Latin, Ger.man, and Magyar; seven of his works, however, were in Slovruk. Most of his lite;z-ary works concerned themse1ves with history, geogra.phy, ethnography, and philology. He was a member of many foreign scientific societies and one of the most ,p rominent personalities of his generation in all of Hungary. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries SlovaJk Catholics and Lutherans studied and taught at many foreign universities and so helrped to elevate the culture of other nations, ,pairticularly that of the Czechs and Magyars. This question, however, still needs a systematic going-over and, hence, is not included in this dissertation. A significant numlber of Slovruks are also active in the contemporary period at various universities of the free woTld, particularly in Rome, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chili, Flrance, and the United ,States. ,Dr. Milan Hodza stated only a fact at the beginning af Woirld War II when he wrote that "Slovakia reached if not surpassed the Central European civilization level." SLOVAKIA REFERENCES 1. Dez1der Heckenast: HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITIES, PAST A ND PRESENT, Slavic and East European Studies, Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 31-39; University of Montreal, Canada. 2. Compare Samuel Osusky's "Nasi studenti na Krakovskej universite od 1400-1525," Vi era a veda, Vol. II, 1931, pp. 174-178, 226-233, and Vol. IV, 1933, pp. 232-244. 3. Andrej Mraz : DEJINY SLOVENSKEJ LITERATURY, Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts, Bratislava, 1948, pp. 20-21. 4. In his letter of December 5, 1634, Pazmany wrote the Bishop of Olomouc, Cardinal F. Ditrichstein, that his family comes from Germany (ex Germania) and that is why, he said, that he wishes his last descendant would become a complete Moravian (totaliter Moravum facere constitutum habeo). According to I. Acsady, Pazmany "frequently told Ferdinand II that it was not possible to trust even the best Magyar and that the Magyar people needed a yoke, because it was only thus that it would be possible to keep it under control. He did not even believe his own non-Catholic countrymen, nay, not even in the future of the Magyar nation," (quoted from Daniel Varsik's Slovak book: THE NATIONALITY PROBLEM OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TRNAVA, Bratislava, 1938, p. 37). How Pazmany felt about the nationalities is also attested to by the gift which he gave the Franciscan church in Trnava "moved," as he wrote. "above all else by paternal love for the Slovak nation and by t he ardor of the devout people" (Epistolae, II, p. 2-1). 5. Dr. Milan Hodfa: FEDERATION IN CENTRAL EUROPE, London, 1942, pp. 208-209: "During the seventeenth century .. . Slovakia became also the refuge of many lofty intellectual efforts on behalf of that country. For some time to come in Slovakia there was much more cultural movement than in Bohemia or occupied Hungary .. . Trnava, which housed the Catholic University before it was transferred to Budapest, became a center of Catholic culture in the realm. Slovakia revealed itself as a meeting-place of practically all contemporary currents of cultural and political ideas." 6. Andrew Mraz: op. cit., pp. 35, 62. 7. Compare the thorough study of D. Varsik. "Narodnostny problem Trnavske j uni ve rz ity," which also has a resume in French in which Varsik states literally: "11 etait par consequent nature! que !'element slovaque fut preponderant a l'Universite de Trnava" (pp. 240-241). 8. Compare Stephen Dubravec's "Apologetika a kontroverz istika na un iverzite v Trnave," Sbornik LVOSSV, Vol. II, No. 2, Trnava, 1935, p. 197). 9. Andrew Mraz : op. cit., pp. 46-47. 10. Compare Stanislaus Polcin's S.J., "Tristo rokov od zalozenia Kosickej univerzity," MOST, Cleveland, 0., Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, pp. 97-106. 11. MOST, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957, p. 105. 12. About the documents in the Vatican Archives, vd. mention in the study of S. Polcin,S.J. 13. Compare Stanislaus Jurovsky's "Fil ozofia Ma rti na Szent ivanyi ho," Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1944.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource University Traditions in Slovakia Description An account of the resource Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 8, No. 2 (27), June 1958 pp. 18-29 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 June 1958 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/6e729b4ce6b09bc6074d5be831d93e6a.pdf 7070c82f3b46098fb3ada5a17d8baf87 PDF Text Text 98 SLOVAKIA Une oraison de messe: Monument culture) ., europeen Stefan Polakovic Une oraison de messe: Monument culture/? Et de /'Europe? Eh, oui! Seulement pour le comprendre, nous devons descendre dans les entrailles memes de l'histoire de l'Europe. Avant de pouvoir qualifier un phenomene d'europeen, il nous faut savoir ce que nous entendons par "Europe". Et l'on ne comprendra rien a l'Europe, tant qu' on ne saura rien sur ses origines et sa formation. Elements constitutifs de /'Europe 11 fut un temps ou cette Europe que nous connaissons a l'heure actuelle n'existait pas. C'est a Charlemagne que nous devons son existence. A partir du V-eme siecle, apres la destruction de l'Europe Romaine par les tribus germaniques, il n'y eut plus qu'un tas de debris administratifs, juridiques et sociaux. C'est precisement a ce moment la que commence l'ouvre grandiose de Charlemagne pour reconstruire et fonder une nouvelle Europe. �SLOVAKIA 99 Dans une Europe ou regnait un desordre general, il introduisit l'ordre avant tout, en creant un nouveau systeme d'organization politique connu comme feodal qui dura pendant mil ans. Cet ordre s'appuyait sur le principe que le roi etat le seul proprietaire de toutes les terres. Pendant la royaute il y avait une noblesse superieure a laquelle le roi concedait l'usage des terres en fief (du latin: feudum, d'ou: feodal). Plus bas se trouvait la noblesse inferieure, les habitants des villes (artisans, marchands et bourgeois) et encore plus en dessous au bas de la pyramide politique, se trouvaient les paysans (90% de la population). A vec le systeme feodal nacquit en Europe la sfirete juridique, !'administration de la justice et, par consequent, la rennaissance ·de la vie economique. Grace au systeme feodal I'Europe a pu se relever du desastre general. Par la fondation d'une nouvelle politique, Charlemagne contribua ace que l'Europe se retrouve. L'introduction des ecoles constitua un autre element qui favorisa la naissance de I'Europe. Pour commencer, il ordonna l'ouverture d'ecoles gratuites dans les cathedrales, monasteres et paroisses, destinees avant tout a la formation des foncionnaires d'Etat. Sur !'initiative de Charlemagne, prenant probablement exemple sur l' Academie de Bizance, fut creee l"'Accademia Palatina", qui fut, posterieurement, d'une enorme importance pour !'evolution et la formation de l'Europe, car en peu de temps les Ecoles Superieures se sont transformees en Universites. Sans universites, l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est. L'Europe doit aux universites son developpement scientifique, les progres technologiques et economiques et, surtout, !'evolution politique. En effet, c'est grace aux universites que les peuples europeens ont commence a envisager, plus tard, une reforme du systeme feodal pour le remplacer, a partir de la Revolution Fran~aise, par un systeme democratique. Systeme �100 SLOVAKIA democratique qui fut implante pour la premiere fois aux EtatsU nis en 1776, seize ans avant la Revolution Fran~aise. De plus, Charlemagne encouragea les arts en general: architecture, peinture, sculpture. Lors de ses voyages en Italie il admira ses basiliques et ses eglises. Grace a son appui surgit ce que nous connaissons comme rennaissance artistique carolingienne. 11 voulut voir la floraison des arts dans son empire. 11 fit construire la "CAPELLA PALATINA" a Aix-la-Chapelle, qui est une imitation de la Basilique de Saint Vital a Ravenne. Sous Charlemagne, les architectes commencerent a remplacer dans leurs constructions le bois par la pierre. On vit l 'Europe entiere se couvrir de cathedrales de style roman. En peu de temps le style roman arriva jusqu'au centre de l'Europe grace aux moines benedictins. En effet, on trouve en Slovaquie, centre geographique de l'Europe des eglises romanes contruites en pierre peu apres la mort de Charlemagne. Une fois commence, l'art europeen ne connut pas d'interruption jusqu'a nos jours. L'art europeen occupe une place predominante dans l'histoire de l'art. Autre phenomene, sans lequel la constitution de l'Europe n'aurait pu se produire, ce sont ses nations et leurs cultures qui ont surgi a l'abri du feodalisme, l'education, les arts et la religion chretienne. Par "nation" je n'entends pas ici "Etat-nation", mais les communautes spirituelles des gens unis principalement par les liens d'une langue, d'une culture et d'une histoire communes, merne si elles n'ont pas un Etat propre (i. e.: les Kurdes). Comme dit Ernest Renan, lors de sa conference prononcee a la Sorbonne en 1880, a cause "des complications de l'histoire". Pour la meme raison, pendant des siecles, plusieurs nations europeennes n 'ont pu reconstituer leurs propres Etats apres les avoir perdus, comme par exemple les Slovaques, Croates, Slovenes, Lituaniens, Lettons, Estoniens, Finlandais, etc. �SLOVAKIA 101 La nation se developpe a partir d'une tribu lorsque les conditions sont favorables. La condition fondamentale est la possesion d'un territoire ou elle pourra deployer sa richesse spirituelle et fortifier son unite ontologique en toute tranquillite. En l'etat nomade, aucune nation ne put se constituer ni se consolider, comme nous le confirme l'auteur gitan espagnol Juan Ramirez Heredia dans son livre "Nosotros, los Gitanos", en decrivant la tragedie de son peuple: "Pelerins perpetuels, exiles volontaires, fugitifs toujours en route, marchant sans reJXJs depuis des siecles sans decider ou s' etablir'. Beaucoup de tribuns et nations embryonnaires de souche celtique, germanique et slave ont disparu, absorbees par des cultures superieures. Certains processus ethnogenetiques ont pu reussir avec une cartaine facilite grace au fait qu'ils se developpaient a l'abri d'un Etat, tandis que d'autres, etant donne les "complications de l'histoire" mentionnees plus haut, croissaient plus lentement. Quoiqu ' il en fut, en Europe existent actuellement les nations suivantes: Du groupe Celtique: Bretons, Irlandais, Gallois et Ecossais; Du groupe Latin: Italiens, Fran~ais, Espagnols, Catalans, Portugais, Roumains et Rhetoromans (en Suisse); Du groupe Germanique: Allemands, Suedois, Norvegiens, Danois, Hollandais, Flamands et Anglais; Du groupe Slave: Russes, Bielorusses, Ukrainiens, Bulgares, Serbes, Croates, Slovenes, Slovaques, Tcheques, Polonais, Macedoniens et Lusitiens (en Allemagne). D'origine non indo-europeenne nous avons les Magyars, Lituaniens, Estoniens, Lettons, Finlandais et Basques. �102 SLOVAKIA Demierement, certaines de ces nations ont pu reconstruire leur ancien Etat. Entin, la religion chretienne fait partie des elements constitutifs de !'Europe. Le christianisme s 'epanouit non seulement grace a la force de la parole, mais avant tout, grace a la force de l'exemple. Suivant l'exemple de la population des anciennes provinces romaines, les tribus germaniques qui s'y infiltrerent ont accepte le bapteme et ont change leurs coutumes. ll est vrai que le changement fut lent, mais grace a ce changement nous assistons, deja au IX-eme siecle, a la creation d'ouvres d'art, de peuples autrefois barbares, inspirees par la doctrine chretienne. L'esprit du christianisme a marque profondement tous les peuples europeens. La vie du peuple commun (la grande majorite etaient des paysans) s'est adaptee en general aux commandements de la morale chretienne. Nous avons comme preuve les exemples de saintete et les traditions, chansons, legendes et contes populaires de toutes les nations europeennes. Apres la chute de !'Empire Romain il y avait en Europe une seule organisation qui resista a la debacle generale et ce fut celle de l'Eglise. Les eveques etaient la seule autorite qui maintenait un peu d' ordre juridique en appliquant le droit canon et le droit romain. En dehors de cela, l'Eglise encourageait la fondation de monasteres qui se sont transformes en centres d'aide et de civilisation. Par exemple celui de MARMOUTIER-SUR-LOIRE, en France, qui a ere fonde en 375. Plus tard, au VI-eme siecle, Saint Benoit introduisit une regle commune a tous les monasteres. Les monasteres benedictins ont contribue a la bonne marche de la vie economique et sociale, et de par leur oeuvre, l 'heridite de Rome fut sauvee. �SLOVAKIA 103 Les bibliotheques des grands couvents benedictins ont transmis a l 'Europe des ouvres litteraires qui autrement auraient disparu. 11 est vrai qu' au temps ou nacquit Charlemagne, les territoires des anciennes provinces romaines etaient deja christianisees. Sa propre tribu, les Francs, suivant l'exemple de leur roi Clovis (496), accepta le christianisme. Mais au temps de Charlemagne il fallait christianiser la Germanie, ou etaient installees plusieurs tribus germaniques, parmi lesquelles la plus puissante etait celle des Saxons. Et derriere, les tribus germaniques se trouvaient les tribus slaves qui ont occupe les territoires du Nord de l'Europe, derriere la ligne qui commence a l'embourchure de l'Elbe pour aboutir, en passant par Trieste, aux Balkans. Un peu d'histoire des Slovaques Parmi ces tribus slaves, se trouvaient les ancetres des Slovaques d'aujourd'hui. C'est parmi eux que surgit l'oraison que nous avons qualifiee de "monument culturel europeen". A partir du IV-eme siecle, les anciens Slovaques penetrerent dans le Bassin du Danube et occuperent les territoires sur le Danube, la Morava, V ah, Nitra, Hron et Tisa. Deux cents ans apres, ils ont ete subjugues par les A vars qui, venant des steppes russes, se sont infiltres dans le Bassin du Danube (576). Par suite de cette occupation, les ancetres des Slovaques ont perdu contact avec les tribus slaves du Nord. Cette separation geographique, ajoutee a la difference de langue et de moeurs (les A vars etaient des nomades qui s' adonnaient au pillage des territoires allemands tandis que les anciens Slovaques etaient des agriculteurs etablis et des artisans) contribuait a la formation d'un refus et d'une conscience de differences qui se manifestait, �104 SLOVAKIA d'apres le chroniqueur franc Fredegaire, par de continuelles rebellions contre les Avars. En 624, au moment d'une de ces rebellions, arriva en ces territoires un marchand franc nomme Samo qui se mit a la tete des Slaves. Il battit les A vars et organisa le premier Etat protoslovaque dans ces regions. Sous le regne du roi Samo la population connut trente ans de paix, ce qui contribua a la consolidation d'une conscience ethnique embryonnaire. Nous en trouvons des traces dans l 'oraison mentionnee. En 796, Charlemagne se decida aen terminer avec les A vars. Avec l' aide des anciens Slovaques, Charlemagne detruisit l' empire primitif des A vars, de sorte que ce peuple disparut de l'histoire de !'Europe. Le contact de Charlemagne avec les anciens Slovaques est d' un symbolisme tres profond pour l'histoire de l'Europe car, grace acette rencontre, les nations slaves ont commence a entrer dans l'histoire de l'Europe. Les protagonistes de cet evement historique etaient les anciens Slovaques. Les premiers et les seuls d'entre les Slaves a avoir connu Charlemagne de son vivant. Les Slovaques en sont restes tres impressionnes. La preuve en est qu'ils ont commence autiliser le nom propre de Charlemagne "Karl" pour designer le roi (kni/). Cette designation slovaque fut plus tard acceptee par les autres nations slaves (Tcheques et Polonais) voisines des Slovaques et les Magyars (kinily) l'adopterent egalement apres !'occupation des territoires slovaques. C'est la deuxieme fois, apres "Caesar", que le nom propre d'un commandant militaire devient titre pour l'autorite supreme de l'Etat. La presence de Charlemagne sur les frontieres slovaques se fit sentir sous deux aspects: premierement, fidele a sa conception d'Etat, Charlemagne se considerait souverain feodal des territoires slovaques apres la defaite des A vars. Deuxiemement, comme proprietaire feodal preoccupe par la christianisation de �SLOVAKIA 105 ses terres, en 798 il donna l'ordre personnel a l'archeveque de Salzbourg d'envoyer des missionnaires dans les regions recemment annexees a son Empire ("lpse imperator praecepit Amoni archiepiscoJXJ pergere in partes Sclavomm"). Evidemment, Charlemagne ne savait pas que le christianisme avait ete preche parmi les anciens Slovaques par les missions italienne, irlandaise et anglo-saxonne. C'est ainsi qu'apres d'autres missionnaires, les territoires des anciens Slovaques ont ete evangelises par des moines bavarois avec un tel succes que, probablement deja en 824 fut consacree, par l'archeveque de Salzbourg, la premiere eglise batie en pierres, a Nitra siege du prince slovaque Pribina. La presence des missionnaires bavarois suscitait chez la noblesse slovaque une mefiance politique, parce qu'ils essayaient de renforcer leurs pretensions politiques sur les terres ou ils prechaient l 'Evangile. 11 est fort probable egalement, que la noblesse slovaque ait res:u des nouvelles sur la brutalite germanique envers les Slaves du Nord. D'autant plus que la noblesse ne put oublier la domination avare et craignait de tomber a nouveau sous la souverainete etrangere. C'est probablement pour cela qu'un autre prince slovaque, Mojmfr, chassa Pribine de Nitra, le considerant germanophile (sa femme etait allemande). Mojmfr unifia les deux principautes slovaques en un seul etat connu dans l'histoire comme "Grande Moravie". Ces changements deplurent au roi bavarois, Ludwig (neveu de Charlemagne) et en 846 il penetra dans les territoires slovaques, deposa Mojmfr et installa Rastislav. Mais Rastislav, a son tour, ne reconnaissait pas la souverainete feodale de Ludwig. C'est la raison pour laquelle il s' adressa a l 'empereur bizantin Michel III en le priant de lui envoyer des missionnaires qui connussent la langue du peuple (861). 11 y avait a Bizance, en ce temps la, deux freres: �106 SLOVAKIA Constantin et Methode, qui dominaient la langue paleoslave. Ils se rendirent en 863 en territoire slovaque. Pour reussir dans cette mission, Constantin crea !'alphabet dit 'glagolique', adapte aux sons de la langue slave a laquelle ils traduisirent les textes fondamentaux de la Bible. En s'installant au royaume de Rastislav, ils constaterent que les messes etaient deja celebrees en latin d' apres la liturgie romaine. Ils se sont decide a maintenir la liturgie romaine mais, en meme temps ils traduisirent les textes remains (latins) a la langue du peuple. Et nous voici en presence de l'une de ces oraisons de messe dont nous avons dit qu'elle est un "monument culturel europeen". "Vingtieme oraison de Kiev' On la nomme "vingtieme" parce qu'elle se trouve sur la vingtieme feuille de la collection connue comme "Collection de Kiev" (en Ukraine). Voici le texte paleoslave de cette oraison: "Cesarstve nasemu, Gospodi, milostjo Tvojejo prizri. I ne otdai nasego tuiim I ne obrati nas v plen narodom poganskym". En fran~ais: "Veillez, Seigneur, sur notre royaume avec Votre grace. Et ne livrez pas ce qui est notre aux etrangers et ne nous convertissez pas en proie des nations pa·iennes". Nous avons deja dit que les anciens Slovaques recevaient le christianisme des le VII-eme siecle et, par consequent, il y eut probablement parmi les pretres slovaques un grand nombre d'entre aux qui dominait bien le latin. En effet, avant sa mort, �SLOVAKIA 107 Saint Methode dit de Saint Gorazd, son disciple slovaque qu "'il est bien instruit dans Jes livres latins". En examinant le texte, les philologues slovaques ont trouve le texte latin, correspondant a toutes les oraisons de la Collection Kiev, sauf celui de la vingtieme oraison. Ils en sont restes perplexes. Mais a tort, car le sujet de cette oraison fait reference aux besoins particuliers du royaume slovaque. 11 est done bien naturel qu' ils n 'aient pas trouve le texte dans les missels de l'Eglise universelle car nous savons que chaque pays a ses propres oraisons de messe. La "vingtieme" oraison est, d'apres son contenu, une oraison "propre" au royaume slovaque. Nous pouvons legitimement nous demander quand a-t-elle ete ecrite. Sans encourir en erreur, nous pouvons en toute quietude affirmer qu'elle a ete ecrite avant l'arrivee de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode car, peu apres leur arrivee, elle fut traduite au paleoslovaque. Je dis "paleoslovaque" parce que, d'apres les philologues, dans le texte on trouve deja des elements qui la distinguent de la langue paleoslave. Et c 'est bien comprehensible car les anciens Slovaques se trouverent isoles des Slaves du Nord pendant plus de trois siecles (a cause des Avars et egalement a cause du royaume de Samo). D'autre part, elle a pu etre ecrite apres la formation de la Principaute slovaque (836) ou, au plus tard, apres la deposition de Mojmir par Ludwig (846). L'auteur de l'oraison a du etre membre de la haute noblesse slovaque car il semble tres bien verse en questions politiques. Comme enfant il a du ecouter ses parents parler des cruautes des Avars et par sa propre experience il se rendait compte des velleites politiques du roi bavarois. L'auteur re~ut une tres bonne formation latine car il a parfaitement saisi la construction des oraisons de messe latine qui excellent par leur brievete, leur contenu condense, leur clarte des concepts et la cadence poetique. �108 SLOVAKIA De plus il devait avoir une position elevees dans la hierarchie latine en Slovaquie, qui seule pouvait autoriser l'usage public d'une oraison de messe. Le texte latin a du etre le suivant: "Regnum nostrum, Domine, gratia Tua respice. Et _ne tradas nostra alienis nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum". A la premiere lecture, on s' aper~oit de la maturite politique de cette oraison car d'un cote elle fait allusion a la destitution du prince Mojmir (ne tradas nostra aliensis) et de l'autre elle fait allusion aux nouvelles sur l'apparition des avant-gardes Magyars sur la frontiere orientale du royaume (nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum). Faisant reference a la demiere partie de l' oraison, le philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrit que "derriere cette oraison on entend le bruit des sabots de envahisseurs magyars". Ou'y-a-t-il d'Europeen dans cette oraison? Avant tout, il nous faut rappeler que l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est sans ses nations qui sont toutes ses enfants, nes a I' abri de sa formation. Parmi celles-ci, la nation slovaque etait presente quand Charlemagne posait les fondations de !'Europe, meme si les Slovaques sont aujourd'hui peu connus pour leur histoire politique mouvementee. La nation slovaque a brille trop peu de temps et s 'etait eclipsee pendant mil ans. L'Europe ne peut nier !'existence d'aucune de ses nations sans se trahir. C'est pour cela qu'elle a reconu !'existence de la nation slovaque en acceptant la Republique Slovaque comme un de ses members. Une des lumieres qui nous parvient de tres loin et qui temoigne du sens europeen des Slovaques, c'est precisement la vingtieme oraison de Kiev. �SLOVAKIA 109 Les anciens Slovaques consideraient leur pays comme une propriete inalienable. C'est un point de vue commun a toutes les nations europeennes. Ils etaient preoccupes de voir leur pays assujetti anouveau comme au temps des A vars. Et voici que les Francs veulent s'emparer de leurs terres au titre de la divulgation de l'Evangile! Et, sur la frontiere orientale se trouvait apres les Avars, un autre peuple mongolien: les Magyars! En effet, l'oraison est une expression d'angoisse d'une communaute nationale, menacee de deux cotes, qui n'aspire a autre chose qu'a vivre en paix avec tous. C'est pour ces raisons que l 'oraison est dirigee a Dieu, pour implorer sa protection. Elle n'invoque pas les foudres divines pour aneantir les ennemis, ce que prouve que l'esprit de christianisme etait deja bien enracine parmi les Slovaques. Sous un autre aspect, cette oraison est un resume d'un traite embryonnaire des droits ethniques. En effet, nous pouvons y lire, sans exagerer, le droit a la terre propre, le droit a la liberte, le droit a la vie et le droit a l'autodetermination. Il s'agit des valeurs humaines "to which the Jaws of nature and of nature's God entide them" comme l'ont exprime les fondateurs des Etats-Unis, le 4 Juillet 1776, presque mil ans apres. L' oraison anticipe ce qu' a Helsinki I'Europe reconna1tra comme droits ethniques legitimes. Il s' agit, en effet, du premier document europeen qui devance les siecles a venir de l'histoire de l'Europe: !'existence des communautes nationales conscientes de leurs droits. Il y a un autre aspect tres important: cette oraison exprime, pour la premiere fois dans l'histoire de l'Europe, la conscience nationale d ' un groupe ethnique. Mais il l'exprime comme quelque chose de pur, d'humain et de noble. En effet, l'aspect bumain du national devrait devenir un tresor commun a toutes les nations pour eviter la deformation du national et pour etablir une base ferme pour cohabitation pacifique des peuples. �110 SLOVAKIA Ou'y-a-t-il de culture/? Tous les grands auteurs qui se sont occupes du phenomene "nation" sont unanimes: la culture est une forme de spiritualite. A son tour, la spiritualite est une forme de culture; quelque chose d ' inseparable de l'homme concret. C'est pour cela que la culture d 'un people pauvre qui vit sa spiritualite est superieure a celle d 'un people riche drape dans des valeurs materielles. Et comme "la culture cache beaucoup plus que ce qu' elle reveJe" (Edward T. Hall), son secret indique que sa derniere raison d'etre est d'une nature transcendante. Probablement c'est a cet aspect que fait allusion Aleksandr Soljeni tsyne lorsqu 'il dit, a l 'occasion du Prix Nobel, que Jes nations et Jeurs cultures sont Jes differents visages de Dieu. L 'Europe est le resultat de la culture de ses nations. La beaute d' un pre est le resultat de la multiplicite des aspeces de fleurs. S' il n'y avait au monde qu ' un seul type de fleurs, le monde nous paraitrait tres pauvre en beaute. La beaute de l'Europe est due ala multiplicite de cultures qui surgirent du meme sol spirituel duquel elles recevaient leur nourriture. Dans une roseraie il y a beaucoup de rosiers qui tous produisent des roses, mais les roses different par leurs parfums. La multiplicite des cultures europeennes represente la richesse spirituelle de l'Europe car chaque culture nationale contient quelque chose de propre, ce qui est la consequence de son individualite. L'europeite de cultures se doit a ce qu 'elles sont enracinees dans les fondements de l 'Europe. La beaute humaine de cette oraison de messe depasse les chroniques germaniques d'une maniere extraordinaire. Elle contient le desir de justice comme fondement de la coexistence pacifique des peoples sans en blesser aucun. Apres plus de mil ans, un ecrivain slovaque (Vladimir Mimic) en interpretant le sens de l'histoire des Slovaques a pu �SLOVAKIA 111 dire que "etre Slovaque, cela signifie etre frere de tous Jes hommes, ce qui constitue le noble heritage de notre histoire". La culture d'un peuple depend aussi de la richesse de sa litterature. La vingtieme oraison de messe represente un des monuments litteraires slovaques du IX-eme siecle, parce qu'elle est ecrite dans une langue qui etait non seulement une langue liturgique mais, par l'oeuvre de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode, elle s' est convertie en langue litteraire de la Grande Moravie, qui etait aussi employee dans la jurisprudence et dans !'administration publique. Surles qualites grammaticales de cette langue, l 'eminent philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrivit: "il s' agissait d' une Jangue polie et culti vee. La richesse des formes de construction grammaticales, J'elaboration de la syntaxe, la ch11te et la variete du tresor verbal, placent la Jangue paleoslovaque a la hauteur des Jangues culturelles de ce temps-la: le grec et le Jatin". C' est pour ces raison que la vingtieme oraison de la Collection de Kiev appartient au tresor spirituel de !'Europe. Elle ne peut s' en desinteresser. L'histoire postirieure des Slovaques En 907, lors de la bataille de Bratislava (Capitale contemporaine de la Slovaquie) sous une attaque commune des Francs et des Magyars, le royaume de la Grande Mora vie s' est ecroule. On suppose que la grande majorite de la noblesse a perdu la vie sur le champ de bataille. Les territoires slovaques ont ete partiellement occupes par les Magyars et, pendant mil ans, la Slovaquie a fait partie du royaume connu sous le nom de HONGRIE. Les Slovaques ont perdu leur royaume, mais ils n'ont pas perdu leur vie grace aune circonstance providentielle. �112 SLOVAKIA Ernest Renan, dans sa conference de 1880, se demandait comment la "couronne de Saint Etienne (le premier roi hongrois) ne put assimiler Jes Slovaques" (ii parlait des Slaves, parce qu'apres l'an 1201 un autre peuple slave - le croate - faisait partie de la Hongrie). La raison en est tres simple. Le roi n 'a pas pu introduire la langue slovaque comme langue officielle du royaume, malgre ses valeurs litteraires et administratives, tout simplement parce qu'il s'agissait de la langue d' un peuple subjugue. Et ii ne pu recourir a la langue magyar parce qu 'elle n 'existait pas. Les Magyars etaient des nomades qui ont ete ecrasees en 955 sur la Lech par l'Empereur Otto I-er. Ce n 'est qu ' apres cette defaite qu' ils deciderent de s 'etablir et d' abandonner le pillage. Par consequent, Saint Etiene introduisit en Hongrie le latin comme langue officielle, ce qui a dure jusqu'en 1840. A cause de cette mesure aussi bien la culture slovaque que celle des Magyars s 'est limitee a la culture populaire. En effet, il n'y a pas eu d'oeuvres litteraires slovaques ou magyares pendant des ciecles. Elles n'apparurent qu'a la fin du XVIII-eme siecle. II y a des preuves irrefutables permettant d'affirmer que les Magyars re~urent leur civilisation des anciens Slovaques. Bien evidement, les historiens magyars essayent de les minimiser. C'est par les Slovaques que les Magyars ont appris a cultiver la terre. Les termes magyars ayant trait a }'agriculture sont d' origine slovaque. Les slovaques nobles qui survecurent au desastre ont contribue a l 'organisation de l'Etat. En effet, les noms des foncionnaires de la cour royale sont d'origine slovaque (roi = kral - kiraly, prefet = span - ispan; cour = dvor - udvar, courtisan = dvomik - udvamok). II y a egalement des preuves demontrant que l' ordre juridique de la Grande Moravie fut transplante en Hongrie. En effet, juge en magyar se dit kenez du mot slovaque knaz. Les �SLOVAKIA 113 Magyars disaient, en ce temps la, qu'ils iraient "ad pravdam" lorsqu 'ils prenaient la decision de s 'adresser au tribunal pour regler leurs droits. "Pravda" signifie en slovaque "droit". La terminologie de la religion est aussi d' origine slovaque (bapteme =krstit' - keresztelni; pa'ien =pohan - pogany, enfer =peklo - pokol; frere = brat - banit). Au debut les Magyars n'avaient pas de terme magyar pour la "grace" divine, ils utilisaient le mot slovaque "milost"'. Naturellement, la science magyare contemporaine fait !'impossible pour effacer cette dependance culturelle des anciens Slovaques. Pendant des siecles, les deux communautes nationales cohabitaient en paix, contribuant par leur travail et leur sang au progres de la Hongrie. Le changement se produisit a un moment historique de !'Europe lorsque !es nations se sont reveillees et ont pris conscience de leurs identites differentes les unes des autres. Des le XVII-eme siecle, nous assistons en Europe a un phenomene generalise. Dans les Etats ou, pendant des siecles, cohabitaient deux ou trois nations, la nation qui detenait le pouvoir politique commern;a a faire pression pour faire dispara1tre les langues qui n'etaient pas la sienne. Ce fut aussi le cas de la Hongrie. Les Magyars decha1nerent une persecution contre tout ce qui etait slovaque. En 1872, pour eviler la formation de I'intelligentsia, ils fermerent les dernieres ecoles de l'enseignement secondaire et, plus tard, les ecoles furent magyarisees. La revolution de 1918 a sauve les Slovaques de la mort ethnique. En 1918, les Slovaques s'unirent aux Tcheques pour former un Etat commun. Mais le mot Tcheco-Slovaquie (c'etait le nom du nouvel Etat dans le Traite de Versailles) fut changee en "Tchecoslovaquie" par les Tcheques qui lancerent la theorie selon laquelle les Slovaques n 'etaient qu 'une tribu tcheque. �I 14 SLOVAKIA Ni Masaryk, ni Benes (President et Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres) ne se rendaient compte qu'une nation n'est pas un troupeau de brebis qu'ont peut envoyer dans n'importe quel bercail. 11 est vrai que les Slovaques et les Tcheques sont deux nations voisines, mais ils n'avaient jamais vecu dans le meme Etat. Leur histoire s'est deroulee d'une maniere differente, leurs langues et leurs cultures populaires ont des caracteristiques differentes et, par consequent, leurs personnalites ethniques sont differentes. Les Tcheques ont fait leur possible pendant soixante-dix ans pour tchequiser les Slovaques. La resistance slovaque fut telle qu'ils n'y reussirent pas. Ils firent, cependant, grand tort a la conscience d'identite nationale slovaque. A nouveau, la revolution de 1989 sauva les Slovaques d'un embrassement suffoquant du point de vue national, politique et economique. Le I-er Janvier 1993 apparut, sur la carte geographique de !'Europe, la Republique slovaque desireuse de participer a la vie economique, politique et culturelle de !'Europe, sans intermediaires. Bibliographie Bartek, Henrich: Les debuts du christianisme chez Jes Slovaques (en slovaque). Slobodne Slovensko, Vol. X, 5. Bro, Bertrand: La beaute sauvera le monde, Cerf, Paris, 1990. Carrere d'Encausse, Helene: La gloire des nations, Fayard, Paris, 1990. The Celts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Chadwick, Nora: England, 1970. �SLOVAKIA Dejiny Slovenska: Delort, Robert: Hall, Edward T.: Herrn, Gerhard: Heer, Friedrich: Krajcovic, Rudolf: Lacko, Michal: Martini, Alberto: Montanelli, lndro: Pauliny, Eugen: Ratkos, Peter: Simons, Gerald: Veiter, Theodor: 115 L'histoire de la Slovaquie, Vol. I, Bratislava, 1986. LeMoyen-Age, Edita, Lausanne, 1972. The Silent Language, Anchor, New York, 1973. Die Kellen, Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf, 1975. Das heilige romische Reich, Heyne Verlag, Miinchen, 1967. Le temoignage de l'histoire sur le Slovaque, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1977 (en slovaque ). Saint Cyrill and Methodius, Slovensky ustav, Rome 1969. Le Moyen-Age Europeen, Fabbri, Milano, 1963. Storia d'Italia, Rizzoli, Milano, 1959. La litterature et la langue culturelle de la Grande Mora vie, SA V, Bratislava, 1964 (en slovaque). Les sources de l'histoire de la Grande Moravie, SAY, Bratislava, 1961 (en slovaque). Orfgenes de Europa , Time-Life Int. , Amsterdam, 1968. Nationalitiittenfrage und Volksgroppenrecht, Braumiiller, Vienne, 1984. �� 98 SLOVAKIA Une oraison de messe: Monument culture) ., europeen Stefan Polakovic Une oraison de messe: Monument culture/? Et de /'Europe? Eh, oui! Seulement pour le comprendre, nous devons descendre dans les entrailles memes de l'histoire de l'Europe. Avant de pouvoir qualifier un phenomene d'europeen, il nous faut savoir ce que nous entendons par "Europe". Et l'on ne comprendra rien a l'Europe, tant qu' on ne saura rien sur ses origines et sa formation. Elements constitutifs de /'Europe 11 fut un temps ou cette Europe que nous connaissons a l'heure actuelle n'existait pas. C'est a Charlemagne que nous devons son existence. A partir du V-eme siecle, apres la destruction de l'Europe Romaine par les tribus germaniques, il n'y eut plus qu'un tas de debris administratifs, juridiques et sociaux. C'est precisement a ce moment la que commence l'ouvre grandiose de Charlemagne pour reconstruire et fonder une nouvelle Europe. �SLOVAKIA 99 Dans une Europe ou regnait un desordre general, il introduisit l'ordre avant tout, en creant un nouveau systeme d'organization politique connu comme feodal qui dura pendant mil ans. Cet ordre s'appuyait sur le principe que le roi etat le seul proprietaire de toutes les terres. Pendant la royaute il y avait une noblesse superieure a laquelle le roi concedait l'usage des terres en fief (du latin: feudum, d'ou: feodal). Plus bas se trouvait la noblesse inferieure, les habitants des villes (artisans, marchands et bourgeois) et encore plus en dessous au bas de la pyramide politique, se trouvaient les paysans (90% de la population). A vec le systeme feodal nacquit en Europe la sfirete juridique, !'administration de la justice et, par consequent, la rennaissance ·de la vie economique. Grace au systeme feodal I'Europe a pu se relever du desastre general. Par la fondation d'une nouvelle politique, Charlemagne contribua ace que l'Europe se retrouve. L'introduction des ecoles constitua un autre element qui favorisa la naissance de I'Europe. Pour commencer, il ordonna l'ouverture d'ecoles gratuites dans les cathedrales, monasteres et paroisses, destinees avant tout a la formation des foncionnaires d'Etat. Sur !'initiative de Charlemagne, prenant probablement exemple sur l' Academie de Bizance, fut creee l"'Accademia Palatina", qui fut, posterieurement, d'une enorme importance pour !'evolution et la formation de l'Europe, car en peu de temps les Ecoles Superieures se sont transformees en Universites. Sans universites, l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est. L'Europe doit aux universites son developpement scientifique, les progres technologiques et economiques et, surtout, !'evolution politique. En effet, c'est grace aux universites que les peuples europeens ont commence a envisager, plus tard, une reforme du systeme feodal pour le remplacer, a partir de la Revolution Fran~aise, par un systeme democratique. Systeme �100 SLOVAKIA democratique qui fut implante pour la premiere fois aux EtatsU nis en 1776, seize ans avant la Revolution Fran~aise. De plus, Charlemagne encouragea les arts en general: architecture, peinture, sculpture. Lors de ses voyages en Italie il admira ses basiliques et ses eglises. Grace a son appui surgit ce que nous connaissons comme rennaissance artistique carolingienne. 11 voulut voir la floraison des arts dans son empire. 11 fit construire la "CAPELLA PALATINA" a Aix-la-Chapelle, qui est une imitation de la Basilique de Saint Vital a Ravenne. Sous Charlemagne, les architectes commencerent a remplacer dans leurs constructions le bois par la pierre. On vit l 'Europe entiere se couvrir de cathedrales de style roman. En peu de temps le style roman arriva jusqu'au centre de l'Europe grace aux moines benedictins. En effet, on trouve en Slovaquie, centre geographique de l'Europe des eglises romanes contruites en pierre peu apres la mort de Charlemagne. Une fois commence, l'art europeen ne connut pas d'interruption jusqu'a nos jours. L'art europeen occupe une place predominante dans l'histoire de l'art. Autre phenomene, sans lequel la constitution de l'Europe n'aurait pu se produire, ce sont ses nations et leurs cultures qui ont surgi a l'abri du feodalisme, l'education, les arts et la religion chretienne. Par "nation" je n'entends pas ici "Etat-nation", mais les communautes spirituelles des gens unis principalement par les liens d'une langue, d'une culture et d'une histoire communes, merne si elles n'ont pas un Etat propre (i. e.: les Kurdes). Comme dit Ernest Renan, lors de sa conference prononcee a la Sorbonne en 1880, a cause "des complications de l'histoire". Pour la meme raison, pendant des siecles, plusieurs nations europeennes n 'ont pu reconstituer leurs propres Etats apres les avoir perdus, comme par exemple les Slovaques, Croates, Slovenes, Lituaniens, Lettons, Estoniens, Finlandais, etc. �SLOVAKIA 101 La nation se developpe a partir d'une tribu lorsque les conditions sont favorables. La condition fondamentale est la possesion d'un territoire ou elle pourra deployer sa richesse spirituelle et fortifier son unite ontologique en toute tranquillite. En l'etat nomade, aucune nation ne put se constituer ni se consolider, comme nous le confirme l'auteur gitan espagnol Juan Ramirez Heredia dans son livre "Nosotros, los Gitanos", en decrivant la tragedie de son peuple: "Pelerins perpetuels, exiles volontaires, fugitifs toujours en route, marchant sans reJXJs depuis des siecles sans decider ou s' etablir'. Beaucoup de tribuns et nations embryonnaires de souche celtique, germanique et slave ont disparu, absorbees par des cultures superieures. Certains processus ethnogenetiques ont pu reussir avec une cartaine facilite grace au fait qu'ils se developpaient a l'abri d'un Etat, tandis que d'autres, etant donne les "complications de l'histoire" mentionnees plus haut, croissaient plus lentement. Quoiqu ' il en fut, en Europe existent actuellement les nations suivantes: Du groupe Celtique: Bretons, Irlandais, Gallois et Ecossais; Du groupe Latin: Italiens, Fran~ais, Espagnols, Catalans, Portugais, Roumains et Rhetoromans (en Suisse); Du groupe Germanique: Allemands, Suedois, Norvegiens, Danois, Hollandais, Flamands et Anglais; Du groupe Slave: Russes, Bielorusses, Ukrainiens, Bulgares, Serbes, Croates, Slovenes, Slovaques, Tcheques, Polonais, Macedoniens et Lusitiens (en Allemagne). D'origine non indo-europeenne nous avons les Magyars, Lituaniens, Estoniens, Lettons, Finlandais et Basques. �102 SLOVAKIA Demierement, certaines de ces nations ont pu reconstruire leur ancien Etat. Entin, la religion chretienne fait partie des elements constitutifs de !'Europe. Le christianisme s 'epanouit non seulement grace a la force de la parole, mais avant tout, grace a la force de l'exemple. Suivant l'exemple de la population des anciennes provinces romaines, les tribus germaniques qui s'y infiltrerent ont accepte le bapteme et ont change leurs coutumes. ll est vrai que le changement fut lent, mais grace a ce changement nous assistons, deja au IX-eme siecle, a la creation d'ouvres d'art, de peuples autrefois barbares, inspirees par la doctrine chretienne. L'esprit du christianisme a marque profondement tous les peuples europeens. La vie du peuple commun (la grande majorite etaient des paysans) s'est adaptee en general aux commandements de la morale chretienne. Nous avons comme preuve les exemples de saintete et les traditions, chansons, legendes et contes populaires de toutes les nations europeennes. Apres la chute de !'Empire Romain il y avait en Europe une seule organisation qui resista a la debacle generale et ce fut celle de l'Eglise. Les eveques etaient la seule autorite qui maintenait un peu d' ordre juridique en appliquant le droit canon et le droit romain. En dehors de cela, l'Eglise encourageait la fondation de monasteres qui se sont transformes en centres d'aide et de civilisation. Par exemple celui de MARMOUTIER-SUR-LOIRE, en France, qui a ere fonde en 375. Plus tard, au VI-eme siecle, Saint Benoit introduisit une regle commune a tous les monasteres. Les monasteres benedictins ont contribue a la bonne marche de la vie economique et sociale, et de par leur oeuvre, l 'heridite de Rome fut sauvee. �SLOVAKIA 103 Les bibliotheques des grands couvents benedictins ont transmis a l 'Europe des ouvres litteraires qui autrement auraient disparu. 11 est vrai qu' au temps ou nacquit Charlemagne, les territoires des anciennes provinces romaines etaient deja christianisees. Sa propre tribu, les Francs, suivant l'exemple de leur roi Clovis (496), accepta le christianisme. Mais au temps de Charlemagne il fallait christianiser la Germanie, ou etaient installees plusieurs tribus germaniques, parmi lesquelles la plus puissante etait celle des Saxons. Et derriere, les tribus germaniques se trouvaient les tribus slaves qui ont occupe les territoires du Nord de l'Europe, derriere la ligne qui commence a l'embourchure de l'Elbe pour aboutir, en passant par Trieste, aux Balkans. Un peu d'histoire des Slovaques Parmi ces tribus slaves, se trouvaient les ancetres des Slovaques d'aujourd'hui. C'est parmi eux que surgit l'oraison que nous avons qualifiee de "monument culturel europeen". A partir du IV-eme siecle, les anciens Slovaques penetrerent dans le Bassin du Danube et occuperent les territoires sur le Danube, la Morava, V ah, Nitra, Hron et Tisa. Deux cents ans apres, ils ont ete subjugues par les A vars qui, venant des steppes russes, se sont infiltres dans le Bassin du Danube (576). Par suite de cette occupation, les ancetres des Slovaques ont perdu contact avec les tribus slaves du Nord. Cette separation geographique, ajoutee a la difference de langue et de moeurs (les A vars etaient des nomades qui s' adonnaient au pillage des territoires allemands tandis que les anciens Slovaques etaient des agriculteurs etablis et des artisans) contribuait a la formation d'un refus et d'une conscience de differences qui se manifestait, �104 SLOVAKIA d'apres le chroniqueur franc Fredegaire, par de continuelles rebellions contre les Avars. En 624, au moment d'une de ces rebellions, arriva en ces territoires un marchand franc nomme Samo qui se mit a la tete des Slaves. Il battit les A vars et organisa le premier Etat protoslovaque dans ces regions. Sous le regne du roi Samo la population connut trente ans de paix, ce qui contribua a la consolidation d'une conscience ethnique embryonnaire. Nous en trouvons des traces dans l 'oraison mentionnee. En 796, Charlemagne se decida aen terminer avec les A vars. Avec l' aide des anciens Slovaques, Charlemagne detruisit l' empire primitif des A vars, de sorte que ce peuple disparut de l'histoire de !'Europe. Le contact de Charlemagne avec les anciens Slovaques est d' un symbolisme tres profond pour l'histoire de l'Europe car, grace acette rencontre, les nations slaves ont commence a entrer dans l'histoire de l'Europe. Les protagonistes de cet evement historique etaient les anciens Slovaques. Les premiers et les seuls d'entre les Slaves a avoir connu Charlemagne de son vivant. Les Slovaques en sont restes tres impressionnes. La preuve en est qu'ils ont commence autiliser le nom propre de Charlemagne "Karl" pour designer le roi (kni/). Cette designation slovaque fut plus tard acceptee par les autres nations slaves (Tcheques et Polonais) voisines des Slovaques et les Magyars (kinily) l'adopterent egalement apres !'occupation des territoires slovaques. C'est la deuxieme fois, apres "Caesar", que le nom propre d'un commandant militaire devient titre pour l'autorite supreme de l'Etat. La presence de Charlemagne sur les frontieres slovaques se fit sentir sous deux aspects: premierement, fidele a sa conception d'Etat, Charlemagne se considerait souverain feodal des territoires slovaques apres la defaite des A vars. Deuxiemement, comme proprietaire feodal preoccupe par la christianisation de �SLOVAKIA 105 ses terres, en 798 il donna l'ordre personnel a l'archeveque de Salzbourg d'envoyer des missionnaires dans les regions recemment annexees a son Empire ("lpse imperator praecepit Amoni archiepiscoJXJ pergere in partes Sclavomm"). Evidemment, Charlemagne ne savait pas que le christianisme avait ete preche parmi les anciens Slovaques par les missions italienne, irlandaise et anglo-saxonne. C'est ainsi qu'apres d'autres missionnaires, les territoires des anciens Slovaques ont ete evangelises par des moines bavarois avec un tel succes que, probablement deja en 824 fut consacree, par l'archeveque de Salzbourg, la premiere eglise batie en pierres, a Nitra siege du prince slovaque Pribina. La presence des missionnaires bavarois suscitait chez la noblesse slovaque une mefiance politique, parce qu'ils essayaient de renforcer leurs pretensions politiques sur les terres ou ils prechaient l 'Evangile. 11 est fort probable egalement, que la noblesse slovaque ait res:u des nouvelles sur la brutalite germanique envers les Slaves du Nord. D'autant plus que la noblesse ne put oublier la domination avare et craignait de tomber a nouveau sous la souverainete etrangere. C'est probablement pour cela qu'un autre prince slovaque, Mojmfr, chassa Pribine de Nitra, le considerant germanophile (sa femme etait allemande). Mojmfr unifia les deux principautes slovaques en un seul etat connu dans l'histoire comme "Grande Moravie". Ces changements deplurent au roi bavarois, Ludwig (neveu de Charlemagne) et en 846 il penetra dans les territoires slovaques, deposa Mojmfr et installa Rastislav. Mais Rastislav, a son tour, ne reconnaissait pas la souverainete feodale de Ludwig. C'est la raison pour laquelle il s' adressa a l 'empereur bizantin Michel III en le priant de lui envoyer des missionnaires qui connussent la langue du peuple (861). 11 y avait a Bizance, en ce temps la, deux freres: �106 SLOVAKIA Constantin et Methode, qui dominaient la langue paleoslave. Ils se rendirent en 863 en territoire slovaque. Pour reussir dans cette mission, Constantin crea !'alphabet dit 'glagolique', adapte aux sons de la langue slave a laquelle ils traduisirent les textes fondamentaux de la Bible. En s'installant au royaume de Rastislav, ils constaterent que les messes etaient deja celebrees en latin d' apres la liturgie romaine. Ils se sont decide a maintenir la liturgie romaine mais, en meme temps ils traduisirent les textes remains (latins) a la langue du peuple. Et nous voici en presence de l'une de ces oraisons de messe dont nous avons dit qu'elle est un "monument culturel europeen". "Vingtieme oraison de Kiev' On la nomme "vingtieme" parce qu'elle se trouve sur la vingtieme feuille de la collection connue comme "Collection de Kiev" (en Ukraine). Voici le texte paleoslave de cette oraison: "Cesarstve nasemu, Gospodi, milostjo Tvojejo prizri. I ne otdai nasego tuiim I ne obrati nas v plen narodom poganskym". En fran~ais: "Veillez, Seigneur, sur notre royaume avec Votre grace. Et ne livrez pas ce qui est notre aux etrangers et ne nous convertissez pas en proie des nations pa·iennes". Nous avons deja dit que les anciens Slovaques recevaient le christianisme des le VII-eme siecle et, par consequent, il y eut probablement parmi les pretres slovaques un grand nombre d'entre aux qui dominait bien le latin. En effet, avant sa mort, �SLOVAKIA 107 Saint Methode dit de Saint Gorazd, son disciple slovaque qu "'il est bien instruit dans Jes livres latins". En examinant le texte, les philologues slovaques ont trouve le texte latin, correspondant a toutes les oraisons de la Collection Kiev, sauf celui de la vingtieme oraison. Ils en sont restes perplexes. Mais a tort, car le sujet de cette oraison fait reference aux besoins particuliers du royaume slovaque. 11 est done bien naturel qu' ils n 'aient pas trouve le texte dans les missels de l'Eglise universelle car nous savons que chaque pays a ses propres oraisons de messe. La "vingtieme" oraison est, d'apres son contenu, une oraison "propre" au royaume slovaque. Nous pouvons legitimement nous demander quand a-t-elle ete ecrite. Sans encourir en erreur, nous pouvons en toute quietude affirmer qu'elle a ete ecrite avant l'arrivee de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode car, peu apres leur arrivee, elle fut traduite au paleoslovaque. Je dis "paleoslovaque" parce que, d'apres les philologues, dans le texte on trouve deja des elements qui la distinguent de la langue paleoslave. Et c 'est bien comprehensible car les anciens Slovaques se trouverent isoles des Slaves du Nord pendant plus de trois siecles (a cause des Avars et egalement a cause du royaume de Samo). D'autre part, elle a pu etre ecrite apres la formation de la Principaute slovaque (836) ou, au plus tard, apres la deposition de Mojmir par Ludwig (846). L'auteur de l'oraison a du etre membre de la haute noblesse slovaque car il semble tres bien verse en questions politiques. Comme enfant il a du ecouter ses parents parler des cruautes des Avars et par sa propre experience il se rendait compte des velleites politiques du roi bavarois. L'auteur re~ut une tres bonne formation latine car il a parfaitement saisi la construction des oraisons de messe latine qui excellent par leur brievete, leur contenu condense, leur clarte des concepts et la cadence poetique. �108 SLOVAKIA De plus il devait avoir une position elevees dans la hierarchie latine en Slovaquie, qui seule pouvait autoriser l'usage public d'une oraison de messe. Le texte latin a du etre le suivant: "Regnum nostrum, Domine, gratia Tua respice. Et _ne tradas nostra alienis nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum". A la premiere lecture, on s' aper~oit de la maturite politique de cette oraison car d'un cote elle fait allusion a la destitution du prince Mojmir (ne tradas nostra aliensis) et de l'autre elle fait allusion aux nouvelles sur l'apparition des avant-gardes Magyars sur la frontiere orientale du royaume (nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum). Faisant reference a la demiere partie de l' oraison, le philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrit que "derriere cette oraison on entend le bruit des sabots de envahisseurs magyars". Ou'y-a-t-il d'Europeen dans cette oraison? Avant tout, il nous faut rappeler que l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est sans ses nations qui sont toutes ses enfants, nes a I' abri de sa formation. Parmi celles-ci, la nation slovaque etait presente quand Charlemagne posait les fondations de !'Europe, meme si les Slovaques sont aujourd'hui peu connus pour leur histoire politique mouvementee. La nation slovaque a brille trop peu de temps et s 'etait eclipsee pendant mil ans. L'Europe ne peut nier !'existence d'aucune de ses nations sans se trahir. C'est pour cela qu'elle a reconu !'existence de la nation slovaque en acceptant la Republique Slovaque comme un de ses members. Une des lumieres qui nous parvient de tres loin et qui temoigne du sens europeen des Slovaques, c'est precisement la vingtieme oraison de Kiev. �SLOVAKIA 109 Les anciens Slovaques consideraient leur pays comme une propriete inalienable. C'est un point de vue commun a toutes les nations europeennes. Ils etaient preoccupes de voir leur pays assujetti anouveau comme au temps des A vars. Et voici que les Francs veulent s'emparer de leurs terres au titre de la divulgation de l'Evangile! Et, sur la frontiere orientale se trouvait apres les Avars, un autre peuple mongolien: les Magyars! En effet, l'oraison est une expression d'angoisse d'une communaute nationale, menacee de deux cotes, qui n'aspire a autre chose qu'a vivre en paix avec tous. C'est pour ces raisons que l 'oraison est dirigee a Dieu, pour implorer sa protection. Elle n'invoque pas les foudres divines pour aneantir les ennemis, ce que prouve que l'esprit de christianisme etait deja bien enracine parmi les Slovaques. Sous un autre aspect, cette oraison est un resume d'un traite embryonnaire des droits ethniques. En effet, nous pouvons y lire, sans exagerer, le droit a la terre propre, le droit a la liberte, le droit a la vie et le droit a l'autodetermination. Il s'agit des valeurs humaines "to which the Jaws of nature and of nature's God entide them" comme l'ont exprime les fondateurs des Etats-Unis, le 4 Juillet 1776, presque mil ans apres. L' oraison anticipe ce qu' a Helsinki I'Europe reconna1tra comme droits ethniques legitimes. Il s' agit, en effet, du premier document europeen qui devance les siecles a venir de l'histoire de l'Europe: !'existence des communautes nationales conscientes de leurs droits. Il y a un autre aspect tres important: cette oraison exprime, pour la premiere fois dans l'histoire de l'Europe, la conscience nationale d ' un groupe ethnique. Mais il l'exprime comme quelque chose de pur, d'humain et de noble. En effet, l'aspect bumain du national devrait devenir un tresor commun a toutes les nations pour eviter la deformation du national et pour etablir une base ferme pour cohabitation pacifique des peuples. �110 SLOVAKIA Ou'y-a-t-il de culture/? Tous les grands auteurs qui se sont occupes du phenomene "nation" sont unanimes: la culture est une forme de spiritualite. A son tour, la spiritualite est une forme de culture; quelque chose d ' inseparable de l'homme concret. C'est pour cela que la culture d 'un people pauvre qui vit sa spiritualite est superieure a celle d 'un people riche drape dans des valeurs materielles. Et comme "la culture cache beaucoup plus que ce qu' elle reveJe" (Edward T. Hall), son secret indique que sa derniere raison d'etre est d'une nature transcendante. Probablement c'est a cet aspect que fait allusion Aleksandr Soljeni tsyne lorsqu 'il dit, a l 'occasion du Prix Nobel, que Jes nations et Jeurs cultures sont Jes differents visages de Dieu. L 'Europe est le resultat de la culture de ses nations. La beaute d' un pre est le resultat de la multiplicite des aspeces de fleurs. S' il n'y avait au monde qu ' un seul type de fleurs, le monde nous paraitrait tres pauvre en beaute. La beaute de l'Europe est due ala multiplicite de cultures qui surgirent du meme sol spirituel duquel elles recevaient leur nourriture. Dans une roseraie il y a beaucoup de rosiers qui tous produisent des roses, mais les roses different par leurs parfums. La multiplicite des cultures europeennes represente la richesse spirituelle de l'Europe car chaque culture nationale contient quelque chose de propre, ce qui est la consequence de son individualite. L'europeite de cultures se doit a ce qu 'elles sont enracinees dans les fondements de l 'Europe. La beaute humaine de cette oraison de messe depasse les chroniques germaniques d'une maniere extraordinaire. Elle contient le desir de justice comme fondement de la coexistence pacifique des peoples sans en blesser aucun. Apres plus de mil ans, un ecrivain slovaque (Vladimir Mimic) en interpretant le sens de l'histoire des Slovaques a pu �SLOVAKIA 111 dire que "etre Slovaque, cela signifie etre frere de tous Jes hommes, ce qui constitue le noble heritage de notre histoire". La culture d'un peuple depend aussi de la richesse de sa litterature. La vingtieme oraison de messe represente un des monuments litteraires slovaques du IX-eme siecle, parce qu'elle est ecrite dans une langue qui etait non seulement une langue liturgique mais, par l'oeuvre de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode, elle s' est convertie en langue litteraire de la Grande Moravie, qui etait aussi employee dans la jurisprudence et dans !'administration publique. Surles qualites grammaticales de cette langue, l 'eminent philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrivit: "il s' agissait d' une Jangue polie et culti vee. La richesse des formes de construction grammaticales, J'elaboration de la syntaxe, la ch11te et la variete du tresor verbal, placent la Jangue paleoslovaque a la hauteur des Jangues culturelles de ce temps-la: le grec et le Jatin". C' est pour ces raison que la vingtieme oraison de la Collection de Kiev appartient au tresor spirituel de !'Europe. Elle ne peut s' en desinteresser. L'histoire postirieure des Slovaques En 907, lors de la bataille de Bratislava (Capitale contemporaine de la Slovaquie) sous une attaque commune des Francs et des Magyars, le royaume de la Grande Mora vie s' est ecroule. On suppose que la grande majorite de la noblesse a perdu la vie sur le champ de bataille. Les territoires slovaques ont ete partiellement occupes par les Magyars et, pendant mil ans, la Slovaquie a fait partie du royaume connu sous le nom de HONGRIE. Les Slovaques ont perdu leur royaume, mais ils n'ont pas perdu leur vie grace aune circonstance providentielle. �112 SLOVAKIA Ernest Renan, dans sa conference de 1880, se demandait comment la "couronne de Saint Etienne (le premier roi hongrois) ne put assimiler Jes Slovaques" (ii parlait des Slaves, parce qu'apres l'an 1201 un autre peuple slave - le croate - faisait partie de la Hongrie). La raison en est tres simple. Le roi n 'a pas pu introduire la langue slovaque comme langue officielle du royaume, malgre ses valeurs litteraires et administratives, tout simplement parce qu'il s'agissait de la langue d' un peuple subjugue. Et ii ne pu recourir a la langue magyar parce qu 'elle n 'existait pas. Les Magyars etaient des nomades qui ont ete ecrasees en 955 sur la Lech par l'Empereur Otto I-er. Ce n 'est qu ' apres cette defaite qu' ils deciderent de s 'etablir et d' abandonner le pillage. Par consequent, Saint Etiene introduisit en Hongrie le latin comme langue officielle, ce qui a dure jusqu'en 1840. A cause de cette mesure aussi bien la culture slovaque que celle des Magyars s 'est limitee a la culture populaire. En effet, il n'y a pas eu d'oeuvres litteraires slovaques ou magyares pendant des ciecles. Elles n'apparurent qu'a la fin du XVIII-eme siecle. II y a des preuves irrefutables permettant d'affirmer que les Magyars re~urent leur civilisation des anciens Slovaques. Bien evidement, les historiens magyars essayent de les minimiser. C'est par les Slovaques que les Magyars ont appris a cultiver la terre. Les termes magyars ayant trait a }'agriculture sont d' origine slovaque. Les slovaques nobles qui survecurent au desastre ont contribue a l 'organisation de l'Etat. En effet, les noms des foncionnaires de la cour royale sont d'origine slovaque (roi = kral - kiraly, prefet = span - ispan; cour = dvor - udvar, courtisan = dvomik - udvamok). II y a egalement des preuves demontrant que l' ordre juridique de la Grande Moravie fut transplante en Hongrie. En effet, juge en magyar se dit kenez du mot slovaque knaz. Les �SLOVAKIA 113 Magyars disaient, en ce temps la, qu'ils iraient "ad pravdam" lorsqu 'ils prenaient la decision de s 'adresser au tribunal pour regler leurs droits. "Pravda" signifie en slovaque "droit". La terminologie de la religion est aussi d' origine slovaque (bapteme =krstit' - keresztelni; pa'ien =pohan - pogany, enfer =peklo - pokol; frere = brat - banit). Au debut les Magyars n'avaient pas de terme magyar pour la "grace" divine, ils utilisaient le mot slovaque "milost"'. Naturellement, la science magyare contemporaine fait !'impossible pour effacer cette dependance culturelle des anciens Slovaques. Pendant des siecles, les deux communautes nationales cohabitaient en paix, contribuant par leur travail et leur sang au progres de la Hongrie. Le changement se produisit a un moment historique de !'Europe lorsque !es nations se sont reveillees et ont pris conscience de leurs identites differentes les unes des autres. Des le XVII-eme siecle, nous assistons en Europe a un phenomene generalise. Dans les Etats ou, pendant des siecles, cohabitaient deux ou trois nations, la nation qui detenait le pouvoir politique commern;a a faire pression pour faire dispara1tre les langues qui n'etaient pas la sienne. Ce fut aussi le cas de la Hongrie. Les Magyars decha1nerent une persecution contre tout ce qui etait slovaque. En 1872, pour eviler la formation de I'intelligentsia, ils fermerent les dernieres ecoles de l'enseignement secondaire et, plus tard, les ecoles furent magyarisees. La revolution de 1918 a sauve les Slovaques de la mort ethnique. En 1918, les Slovaques s'unirent aux Tcheques pour former un Etat commun. Mais le mot Tcheco-Slovaquie (c'etait le nom du nouvel Etat dans le Traite de Versailles) fut changee en "Tchecoslovaquie" par les Tcheques qui lancerent la theorie selon laquelle les Slovaques n 'etaient qu 'une tribu tcheque. �I 14 SLOVAKIA Ni Masaryk, ni Benes (President et Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres) ne se rendaient compte qu'une nation n'est pas un troupeau de brebis qu'ont peut envoyer dans n'importe quel bercail. 11 est vrai que les Slovaques et les Tcheques sont deux nations voisines, mais ils n'avaient jamais vecu dans le meme Etat. Leur histoire s'est deroulee d'une maniere differente, leurs langues et leurs cultures populaires ont des caracteristiques differentes et, par consequent, leurs personnalites ethniques sont differentes. Les Tcheques ont fait leur possible pendant soixante-dix ans pour tchequiser les Slovaques. La resistance slovaque fut telle qu'ils n'y reussirent pas. Ils firent, cependant, grand tort a la conscience d'identite nationale slovaque. A nouveau, la revolution de 1989 sauva les Slovaques d'un embrassement suffoquant du point de vue national, politique et economique. Le I-er Janvier 1993 apparut, sur la carte geographique de !'Europe, la Republique slovaque desireuse de participer a la vie economique, politique et culturelle de !'Europe, sans intermediaires. Bibliographie Bartek, Henrich: Les debuts du christianisme chez Jes Slovaques (en slovaque). Slobodne Slovensko, Vol. X, 5. Bro, Bertrand: La beaute sauvera le monde, Cerf, Paris, 1990. Carrere d'Encausse, Helene: La gloire des nations, Fayard, Paris, 1990. The Celts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Chadwick, Nora: England, 1970. �SLOVAKIA Dejiny Slovenska: Delort, Robert: Hall, Edward T.: Herrn, Gerhard: Heer, Friedrich: Krajcovic, Rudolf: Lacko, Michal: Martini, Alberto: Montanelli, lndro: Pauliny, Eugen: Ratkos, Peter: Simons, Gerald: Veiter, Theodor: 115 L'histoire de la Slovaquie, Vol. I, Bratislava, 1986. LeMoyen-Age, Edita, Lausanne, 1972. The Silent Language, Anchor, New York, 1973. Die Kellen, Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf, 1975. Das heilige romische Reich, Heyne Verlag, Miinchen, 1967. Le temoignage de l'histoire sur le Slovaque, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1977 (en slovaque ). Saint Cyrill and Methodius, Slovensky ustav, Rome 1969. Le Moyen-Age Europeen, Fabbri, Milano, 1963. Storia d'Italia, Rizzoli, Milano, 1959. La litterature et la langue culturelle de la Grande Mora vie, SA V, Bratislava, 1964 (en slovaque). Les sources de l'histoire de la Grande Moravie, SAY, Bratislava, 1961 (en slovaque). Orfgenes de Europa , Time-Life Int. , Amsterdam, 1968. Nationalitiittenfrage und Volksgroppenrecht, Braumiiller, Vienne, 1984. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 98 SLOVAKIA Une oraison de messe: Monument culture) ., europeen Stefan Polakovic Une oraison de messe: Monument culture/? Et de /'Europe? Eh, oui! Seulement pour le comprendre, nous devons descendre dans les entrailles memes de l'histoire de l'Europe. Avant de pouvoir qualifier un phenomene d'europeen, il nous faut savoir ce que nous entendons par "Europe". Et l'on ne comprendra rien a l'Europe, tant qu' on ne saura rien sur ses origines et sa formation. Elements constitutifs de /'Europe 11 fut un temps ou cette Europe que nous connaissons a l'heure actuelle n'existait pas. C'est a Charlemagne que nous devons son existence. A partir du V-eme siecle, apres la destruction de l'Europe Romaine par les tribus germaniques, il n'y eut plus qu'un tas de debris administratifs, juridiques et sociaux. C'est precisement a ce moment la que commence l'ouvre grandiose de Charlemagne pour reconstruire et fonder une nouvelle Europe. SLOVAKIA 99 Dans une Europe ou regnait un desordre general, il introduisit l'ordre avant tout, en creant un nouveau systeme d'organization politique connu comme feodal qui dura pendant mil ans. Cet ordre s'appuyait sur le principe que le roi etat le seul proprietaire de toutes les terres. Pendant la royaute il y avait une noblesse superieure a laquelle le roi concedait l'usage des terres en fief (du latin: feudum, d'ou: feodal). Plus bas se trouvait la noblesse inferieure, les habitants des villes (artisans, marchands et bourgeois) et encore plus en dessous au bas de la pyramide politique, se trouvaient les paysans (90% de la population). A vec le systeme feodal nacquit en Europe la sfirete juridique, !'administration de la justice et, par consequent, la rennaissance ·de la vie economique. Grace au systeme feodal I'Europe a pu se relever du desastre general. Par la fondation d'une nouvelle politique, Charlemagne contribua ace que l'Europe se retrouve. L'introduction des ecoles constitua un autre element qui favorisa la naissance de I'Europe. Pour commencer, il ordonna l'ouverture d'ecoles gratuites dans les cathedrales, monasteres et paroisses, destinees avant tout a la formation des foncionnaires d'Etat. Sur !'initiative de Charlemagne, prenant probablement exemple sur l' Academie de Bizance, fut creee l"'Accademia Palatina", qui fut, posterieurement, d'une enorme importance pour !'evolution et la formation de l'Europe, car en peu de temps les Ecoles Superieures se sont transformees en Universites. Sans universites, l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est. L'Europe doit aux universites son developpement scientifique, les progres technologiques et economiques et, surtout, !'evolution politique. En effet, c'est grace aux universites que les peuples europeens ont commence a envisager, plus tard, une reforme du systeme feodal pour le remplacer, a partir de la Revolution Fran~aise, par un systeme democratique. Systeme 100 SLOVAKIA democratique qui fut implante pour la premiere fois aux EtatsU nis en 1776, seize ans avant la Revolution Fran~aise. De plus, Charlemagne encouragea les arts en general: architecture, peinture, sculpture. Lors de ses voyages en Italie il admira ses basiliques et ses eglises. Grace a son appui surgit ce que nous connaissons comme rennaissance artistique carolingienne. 11 voulut voir la floraison des arts dans son empire. 11 fit construire la "CAPELLA PALATINA" a Aix-la-Chapelle, qui est une imitation de la Basilique de Saint Vital a Ravenne. Sous Charlemagne, les architectes commencerent a remplacer dans leurs constructions le bois par la pierre. On vit l 'Europe entiere se couvrir de cathedrales de style roman. En peu de temps le style roman arriva jusqu'au centre de l'Europe grace aux moines benedictins. En effet, on trouve en Slovaquie, centre geographique de l'Europe des eglises romanes contruites en pierre peu apres la mort de Charlemagne. Une fois commence, l'art europeen ne connut pas d'interruption jusqu'a nos jours. L'art europeen occupe une place predominante dans l'histoire de l'art. Autre phenomene, sans lequel la constitution de l'Europe n'aurait pu se produire, ce sont ses nations et leurs cultures qui ont surgi a l'abri du feodalisme, l'education, les arts et la religion chretienne. Par "nation" je n'entends pas ici "Etat-nation", mais les communautes spirituelles des gens unis principalement par les liens d'une langue, d'une culture et d'une histoire communes, merne si elles n'ont pas un Etat propre (i. e.: les Kurdes). Comme dit Ernest Renan, lors de sa conference prononcee a la Sorbonne en 1880, a cause "des complications de l'histoire". Pour la meme raison, pendant des siecles, plusieurs nations europeennes n 'ont pu reconstituer leurs propres Etats apres les avoir perdus, comme par exemple les Slovaques, Croates, Slovenes, Lituaniens, Lettons, Estoniens, Finlandais, etc. SLOVAKIA 101 La nation se developpe a partir d'une tribu lorsque les conditions sont favorables. La condition fondamentale est la possesion d'un territoire ou elle pourra deployer sa richesse spirituelle et fortifier son unite ontologique en toute tranquillite. En l'etat nomade, aucune nation ne put se constituer ni se consolider, comme nous le confirme l'auteur gitan espagnol Juan Ramirez Heredia dans son livre "Nosotros, los Gitanos", en decrivant la tragedie de son peuple: "Pelerins perpetuels, exiles volontaires, fugitifs toujours en route, marchant sans reJXJs depuis des siecles sans decider ou s' etablir'. Beaucoup de tribuns et nations embryonnaires de souche celtique, germanique et slave ont disparu, absorbees par des cultures superieures. Certains processus ethnogenetiques ont pu reussir avec une cartaine facilite grace au fait qu'ils se developpaient a l'abri d'un Etat, tandis que d'autres, etant donne les "complications de l'histoire" mentionnees plus haut, croissaient plus lentement. Quoiqu ' il en fut, en Europe existent actuellement les nations suivantes: Du groupe Celtique: Bretons, Irlandais, Gallois et Ecossais; Du groupe Latin: Italiens, Fran~ais, Espagnols, Catalans, Portugais, Roumains et Rhetoromans (en Suisse); Du groupe Germanique: Allemands, Suedois, Norvegiens, Danois, Hollandais, Flamands et Anglais; Du groupe Slave: Russes, Bielorusses, Ukrainiens, Bulgares, Serbes, Croates, Slovenes, Slovaques, Tcheques, Polonais, Macedoniens et Lusitiens (en Allemagne). D'origine non indo-europeenne nous avons les Magyars, Lituaniens, Estoniens, Lettons, Finlandais et Basques. 102 SLOVAKIA Demierement, certaines de ces nations ont pu reconstruire leur ancien Etat. Entin, la religion chretienne fait partie des elements constitutifs de !'Europe. Le christianisme s 'epanouit non seulement grace a la force de la parole, mais avant tout, grace a la force de l'exemple. Suivant l'exemple de la population des anciennes provinces romaines, les tribus germaniques qui s'y infiltrerent ont accepte le bapteme et ont change leurs coutumes. ll est vrai que le changement fut lent, mais grace a ce changement nous assistons, deja au IX-eme siecle, a la creation d'ouvres d'art, de peuples autrefois barbares, inspirees par la doctrine chretienne. L'esprit du christianisme a marque profondement tous les peuples europeens. La vie du peuple commun (la grande majorite etaient des paysans) s'est adaptee en general aux commandements de la morale chretienne. Nous avons comme preuve les exemples de saintete et les traditions, chansons, legendes et contes populaires de toutes les nations europeennes. Apres la chute de !'Empire Romain il y avait en Europe une seule organisation qui resista a la debacle generale et ce fut celle de l'Eglise. Les eveques etaient la seule autorite qui maintenait un peu d' ordre juridique en appliquant le droit canon et le droit romain. En dehors de cela, l'Eglise encourageait la fondation de monasteres qui se sont transformes en centres d'aide et de civilisation. Par exemple celui de MARMOUTIER-SUR-LOIRE, en France, qui a ere fonde en 375. Plus tard, au VI-eme siecle, Saint Benoit introduisit une regle commune a tous les monasteres. Les monasteres benedictins ont contribue a la bonne marche de la vie economique et sociale, et de par leur oeuvre, l 'heridite de Rome fut sauvee. SLOVAKIA 103 Les bibliotheques des grands couvents benedictins ont transmis a l 'Europe des ouvres litteraires qui autrement auraient disparu. 11 est vrai qu' au temps ou nacquit Charlemagne, les territoires des anciennes provinces romaines etaient deja christianisees. Sa propre tribu, les Francs, suivant l'exemple de leur roi Clovis (496), accepta le christianisme. Mais au temps de Charlemagne il fallait christianiser la Germanie, ou etaient installees plusieurs tribus germaniques, parmi lesquelles la plus puissante etait celle des Saxons. Et derriere, les tribus germaniques se trouvaient les tribus slaves qui ont occupe les territoires du Nord de l'Europe, derriere la ligne qui commence a l'embourchure de l'Elbe pour aboutir, en passant par Trieste, aux Balkans. Un peu d'histoire des Slovaques Parmi ces tribus slaves, se trouvaient les ancetres des Slovaques d'aujourd'hui. C'est parmi eux que surgit l'oraison que nous avons qualifiee de "monument culturel europeen". A partir du IV-eme siecle, les anciens Slovaques penetrerent dans le Bassin du Danube et occuperent les territoires sur le Danube, la Morava, V ah, Nitra, Hron et Tisa. Deux cents ans apres, ils ont ete subjugues par les A vars qui, venant des steppes russes, se sont infiltres dans le Bassin du Danube (576). Par suite de cette occupation, les ancetres des Slovaques ont perdu contact avec les tribus slaves du Nord. Cette separation geographique, ajoutee a la difference de langue et de moeurs (les A vars etaient des nomades qui s' adonnaient au pillage des territoires allemands tandis que les anciens Slovaques etaient des agriculteurs etablis et des artisans) contribuait a la formation d'un refus et d'une conscience de differences qui se manifestait, 104 SLOVAKIA d'apres le chroniqueur franc Fredegaire, par de continuelles rebellions contre les Avars. En 624, au moment d'une de ces rebellions, arriva en ces territoires un marchand franc nomme Samo qui se mit a la tete des Slaves. Il battit les A vars et organisa le premier Etat protoslovaque dans ces regions. Sous le regne du roi Samo la population connut trente ans de paix, ce qui contribua a la consolidation d'une conscience ethnique embryonnaire. Nous en trouvons des traces dans l 'oraison mentionnee. En 796, Charlemagne se decida aen terminer avec les A vars. Avec l' aide des anciens Slovaques, Charlemagne detruisit l' empire primitif des A vars, de sorte que ce peuple disparut de l'histoire de !'Europe. Le contact de Charlemagne avec les anciens Slovaques est d' un symbolisme tres profond pour l'histoire de l'Europe car, grace acette rencontre, les nations slaves ont commence a entrer dans l'histoire de l'Europe. Les protagonistes de cet evement historique etaient les anciens Slovaques. Les premiers et les seuls d'entre les Slaves a avoir connu Charlemagne de son vivant. Les Slovaques en sont restes tres impressionnes. La preuve en est qu'ils ont commence autiliser le nom propre de Charlemagne "Karl" pour designer le roi (kni/). Cette designation slovaque fut plus tard acceptee par les autres nations slaves (Tcheques et Polonais) voisines des Slovaques et les Magyars (kinily) l'adopterent egalement apres !'occupation des territoires slovaques. C'est la deuxieme fois, apres "Caesar", que le nom propre d'un commandant militaire devient titre pour l'autorite supreme de l'Etat. La presence de Charlemagne sur les frontieres slovaques se fit sentir sous deux aspects: premierement, fidele a sa conception d'Etat, Charlemagne se considerait souverain feodal des territoires slovaques apres la defaite des A vars. Deuxiemement, comme proprietaire feodal preoccupe par la christianisation de SLOVAKIA 105 ses terres, en 798 il donna l'ordre personnel a l'archeveque de Salzbourg d'envoyer des missionnaires dans les regions recemment annexees a son Empire ("lpse imperator praecepit Amoni archiepiscoJXJ pergere in partes Sclavomm"). Evidemment, Charlemagne ne savait pas que le christianisme avait ete preche parmi les anciens Slovaques par les missions italienne, irlandaise et anglo-saxonne. C'est ainsi qu'apres d'autres missionnaires, les territoires des anciens Slovaques ont ete evangelises par des moines bavarois avec un tel succes que, probablement deja en 824 fut consacree, par l'archeveque de Salzbourg, la premiere eglise batie en pierres, a Nitra siege du prince slovaque Pribina. La presence des missionnaires bavarois suscitait chez la noblesse slovaque une mefiance politique, parce qu'ils essayaient de renforcer leurs pretensions politiques sur les terres ou ils prechaient l 'Evangile. 11 est fort probable egalement, que la noblesse slovaque ait res:u des nouvelles sur la brutalite germanique envers les Slaves du Nord. D'autant plus que la noblesse ne put oublier la domination avare et craignait de tomber a nouveau sous la souverainete etrangere. C'est probablement pour cela qu'un autre prince slovaque, Mojmfr, chassa Pribine de Nitra, le considerant germanophile (sa femme etait allemande). Mojmfr unifia les deux principautes slovaques en un seul etat connu dans l'histoire comme "Grande Moravie". Ces changements deplurent au roi bavarois, Ludwig (neveu de Charlemagne) et en 846 il penetra dans les territoires slovaques, deposa Mojmfr et installa Rastislav. Mais Rastislav, a son tour, ne reconnaissait pas la souverainete feodale de Ludwig. C'est la raison pour laquelle il s' adressa a l 'empereur bizantin Michel III en le priant de lui envoyer des missionnaires qui connussent la langue du peuple (861). 11 y avait a Bizance, en ce temps la, deux freres: 106 SLOVAKIA Constantin et Methode, qui dominaient la langue paleoslave. Ils se rendirent en 863 en territoire slovaque. Pour reussir dans cette mission, Constantin crea !'alphabet dit 'glagolique', adapte aux sons de la langue slave a laquelle ils traduisirent les textes fondamentaux de la Bible. En s'installant au royaume de Rastislav, ils constaterent que les messes etaient deja celebrees en latin d' apres la liturgie romaine. Ils se sont decide a maintenir la liturgie romaine mais, en meme temps ils traduisirent les textes remains (latins) a la langue du peuple. Et nous voici en presence de l'une de ces oraisons de messe dont nous avons dit qu'elle est un "monument culturel europeen". "Vingtieme oraison de Kiev' On la nomme "vingtieme" parce qu'elle se trouve sur la vingtieme feuille de la collection connue comme "Collection de Kiev" (en Ukraine). Voici le texte paleoslave de cette oraison: "Cesarstve nasemu, Gospodi, milostjo Tvojejo prizri. I ne otdai nasego tuiim I ne obrati nas v plen narodom poganskym". En fran~ais: "Veillez, Seigneur, sur notre royaume avec Votre grace. Et ne livrez pas ce qui est notre aux etrangers et ne nous convertissez pas en proie des nations pa·iennes". Nous avons deja dit que les anciens Slovaques recevaient le christianisme des le VII-eme siecle et, par consequent, il y eut probablement parmi les pretres slovaques un grand nombre d'entre aux qui dominait bien le latin. En effet, avant sa mort, SLOVAKIA 107 Saint Methode dit de Saint Gorazd, son disciple slovaque qu "'il est bien instruit dans Jes livres latins". En examinant le texte, les philologues slovaques ont trouve le texte latin, correspondant a toutes les oraisons de la Collection Kiev, sauf celui de la vingtieme oraison. Ils en sont restes perplexes. Mais a tort, car le sujet de cette oraison fait reference aux besoins particuliers du royaume slovaque. 11 est done bien naturel qu' ils n 'aient pas trouve le texte dans les missels de l'Eglise universelle car nous savons que chaque pays a ses propres oraisons de messe. La "vingtieme" oraison est, d'apres son contenu, une oraison "propre" au royaume slovaque. Nous pouvons legitimement nous demander quand a-t-elle ete ecrite. Sans encourir en erreur, nous pouvons en toute quietude affirmer qu'elle a ete ecrite avant l'arrivee de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode car, peu apres leur arrivee, elle fut traduite au paleoslovaque. Je dis "paleoslovaque" parce que, d'apres les philologues, dans le texte on trouve deja des elements qui la distinguent de la langue paleoslave. Et c 'est bien comprehensible car les anciens Slovaques se trouverent isoles des Slaves du Nord pendant plus de trois siecles (a cause des Avars et egalement a cause du royaume de Samo). D'autre part, elle a pu etre ecrite apres la formation de la Principaute slovaque (836) ou, au plus tard, apres la deposition de Mojmir par Ludwig (846). L'auteur de l'oraison a du etre membre de la haute noblesse slovaque car il semble tres bien verse en questions politiques. Comme enfant il a du ecouter ses parents parler des cruautes des Avars et par sa propre experience il se rendait compte des velleites politiques du roi bavarois. L'auteur re~ut une tres bonne formation latine car il a parfaitement saisi la construction des oraisons de messe latine qui excellent par leur brievete, leur contenu condense, leur clarte des concepts et la cadence poetique. 108 SLOVAKIA De plus il devait avoir une position elevees dans la hierarchie latine en Slovaquie, qui seule pouvait autoriser l'usage public d'une oraison de messe. Le texte latin a du etre le suivant: "Regnum nostrum, Domine, gratia Tua respice. Et _ne tradas nostra alienis nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum". A la premiere lecture, on s' aper~oit de la maturite politique de cette oraison car d'un cote elle fait allusion a la destitution du prince Mojmir (ne tradas nostra aliensis) et de l'autre elle fait allusion aux nouvelles sur l'apparition des avant-gardes Magyars sur la frontiere orientale du royaume (nee nos convertas in praedam JXJpulorum paganorum). Faisant reference a la demiere partie de l' oraison, le philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrit que "derriere cette oraison on entend le bruit des sabots de envahisseurs magyars". Ou'y-a-t-il d'Europeen dans cette oraison? Avant tout, il nous faut rappeler que l'Europe ne serait ce qu 'elle est sans ses nations qui sont toutes ses enfants, nes a I' abri de sa formation. Parmi celles-ci, la nation slovaque etait presente quand Charlemagne posait les fondations de !'Europe, meme si les Slovaques sont aujourd'hui peu connus pour leur histoire politique mouvementee. La nation slovaque a brille trop peu de temps et s 'etait eclipsee pendant mil ans. L'Europe ne peut nier !'existence d'aucune de ses nations sans se trahir. C'est pour cela qu'elle a reconu !'existence de la nation slovaque en acceptant la Republique Slovaque comme un de ses members. Une des lumieres qui nous parvient de tres loin et qui temoigne du sens europeen des Slovaques, c'est precisement la vingtieme oraison de Kiev. SLOVAKIA 109 Les anciens Slovaques consideraient leur pays comme une propriete inalienable. C'est un point de vue commun a toutes les nations europeennes. Ils etaient preoccupes de voir leur pays assujetti anouveau comme au temps des A vars. Et voici que les Francs veulent s'emparer de leurs terres au titre de la divulgation de l'Evangile! Et, sur la frontiere orientale se trouvait apres les Avars, un autre peuple mongolien: les Magyars! En effet, l'oraison est une expression d'angoisse d'une communaute nationale, menacee de deux cotes, qui n'aspire a autre chose qu'a vivre en paix avec tous. C'est pour ces raisons que l 'oraison est dirigee a Dieu, pour implorer sa protection. Elle n'invoque pas les foudres divines pour aneantir les ennemis, ce que prouve que l'esprit de christianisme etait deja bien enracine parmi les Slovaques. Sous un autre aspect, cette oraison est un resume d'un traite embryonnaire des droits ethniques. En effet, nous pouvons y lire, sans exagerer, le droit a la terre propre, le droit a la liberte, le droit a la vie et le droit a l'autodetermination. Il s'agit des valeurs humaines "to which the Jaws of nature and of nature's God entide them" comme l'ont exprime les fondateurs des Etats-Unis, le 4 Juillet 1776, presque mil ans apres. L' oraison anticipe ce qu' a Helsinki I'Europe reconna1tra comme droits ethniques legitimes. Il s' agit, en effet, du premier document europeen qui devance les siecles a venir de l'histoire de l'Europe: !'existence des communautes nationales conscientes de leurs droits. Il y a un autre aspect tres important: cette oraison exprime, pour la premiere fois dans l'histoire de l'Europe, la conscience nationale d ' un groupe ethnique. Mais il l'exprime comme quelque chose de pur, d'humain et de noble. En effet, l'aspect bumain du national devrait devenir un tresor commun a toutes les nations pour eviter la deformation du national et pour etablir une base ferme pour cohabitation pacifique des peuples. 110 SLOVAKIA Ou'y-a-t-il de culture/? Tous les grands auteurs qui se sont occupes du phenomene "nation" sont unanimes: la culture est une forme de spiritualite. A son tour, la spiritualite est une forme de culture; quelque chose d ' inseparable de l'homme concret. C'est pour cela que la culture d 'un people pauvre qui vit sa spiritualite est superieure a celle d 'un people riche drape dans des valeurs materielles. Et comme "la culture cache beaucoup plus que ce qu' elle reveJe" (Edward T. Hall), son secret indique que sa derniere raison d'etre est d'une nature transcendante. Probablement c'est a cet aspect que fait allusion Aleksandr Soljeni tsyne lorsqu 'il dit, a l 'occasion du Prix Nobel, que Jes nations et Jeurs cultures sont Jes differents visages de Dieu. L 'Europe est le resultat de la culture de ses nations. La beaute d' un pre est le resultat de la multiplicite des aspeces de fleurs. S' il n'y avait au monde qu ' un seul type de fleurs, le monde nous paraitrait tres pauvre en beaute. La beaute de l'Europe est due ala multiplicite de cultures qui surgirent du meme sol spirituel duquel elles recevaient leur nourriture. Dans une roseraie il y a beaucoup de rosiers qui tous produisent des roses, mais les roses different par leurs parfums. La multiplicite des cultures europeennes represente la richesse spirituelle de l'Europe car chaque culture nationale contient quelque chose de propre, ce qui est la consequence de son individualite. L'europeite de cultures se doit a ce qu 'elles sont enracinees dans les fondements de l 'Europe. La beaute humaine de cette oraison de messe depasse les chroniques germaniques d'une maniere extraordinaire. Elle contient le desir de justice comme fondement de la coexistence pacifique des peoples sans en blesser aucun. Apres plus de mil ans, un ecrivain slovaque (Vladimir Mimic) en interpretant le sens de l'histoire des Slovaques a pu SLOVAKIA 111 dire que "etre Slovaque, cela signifie etre frere de tous Jes hommes, ce qui constitue le noble heritage de notre histoire". La culture d'un peuple depend aussi de la richesse de sa litterature. La vingtieme oraison de messe represente un des monuments litteraires slovaques du IX-eme siecle, parce qu'elle est ecrite dans une langue qui etait non seulement une langue liturgique mais, par l'oeuvre de Saint Cyrille et de Saint Methode, elle s' est convertie en langue litteraire de la Grande Moravie, qui etait aussi employee dans la jurisprudence et dans !'administration publique. Surles qualites grammaticales de cette langue, l 'eminent philologue slovaque Eugen Pauliny ecrivit: "il s' agissait d' une Jangue polie et culti vee. La richesse des formes de construction grammaticales, J'elaboration de la syntaxe, la ch11te et la variete du tresor verbal, placent la Jangue paleoslovaque a la hauteur des Jangues culturelles de ce temps-la: le grec et le Jatin". C' est pour ces raison que la vingtieme oraison de la Collection de Kiev appartient au tresor spirituel de !'Europe. Elle ne peut s' en desinteresser. L'histoire postirieure des Slovaques En 907, lors de la bataille de Bratislava (Capitale contemporaine de la Slovaquie) sous une attaque commune des Francs et des Magyars, le royaume de la Grande Mora vie s' est ecroule. On suppose que la grande majorite de la noblesse a perdu la vie sur le champ de bataille. Les territoires slovaques ont ete partiellement occupes par les Magyars et, pendant mil ans, la Slovaquie a fait partie du royaume connu sous le nom de HONGRIE. Les Slovaques ont perdu leur royaume, mais ils n'ont pas perdu leur vie grace aune circonstance providentielle. 112 SLOVAKIA Ernest Renan, dans sa conference de 1880, se demandait comment la "couronne de Saint Etienne (le premier roi hongrois) ne put assimiler Jes Slovaques" (ii parlait des Slaves, parce qu'apres l'an 1201 un autre peuple slave - le croate - faisait partie de la Hongrie). La raison en est tres simple. Le roi n 'a pas pu introduire la langue slovaque comme langue officielle du royaume, malgre ses valeurs litteraires et administratives, tout simplement parce qu'il s'agissait de la langue d' un peuple subjugue. Et ii ne pu recourir a la langue magyar parce qu 'elle n 'existait pas. Les Magyars etaient des nomades qui ont ete ecrasees en 955 sur la Lech par l'Empereur Otto I-er. Ce n 'est qu ' apres cette defaite qu' ils deciderent de s 'etablir et d' abandonner le pillage. Par consequent, Saint Etiene introduisit en Hongrie le latin comme langue officielle, ce qui a dure jusqu'en 1840. A cause de cette mesure aussi bien la culture slovaque que celle des Magyars s 'est limitee a la culture populaire. En effet, il n'y a pas eu d'oeuvres litteraires slovaques ou magyares pendant des ciecles. Elles n'apparurent qu'a la fin du XVIII-eme siecle. II y a des preuves irrefutables permettant d'affirmer que les Magyars re~urent leur civilisation des anciens Slovaques. Bien evidement, les historiens magyars essayent de les minimiser. C'est par les Slovaques que les Magyars ont appris a cultiver la terre. Les termes magyars ayant trait a }'agriculture sont d' origine slovaque. Les slovaques nobles qui survecurent au desastre ont contribue a l 'organisation de l'Etat. En effet, les noms des foncionnaires de la cour royale sont d'origine slovaque (roi = kral - kiraly, prefet = span - ispan; cour = dvor - udvar, courtisan = dvomik - udvamok). II y a egalement des preuves demontrant que l' ordre juridique de la Grande Moravie fut transplante en Hongrie. En effet, juge en magyar se dit kenez du mot slovaque knaz. Les SLOVAKIA 113 Magyars disaient, en ce temps la, qu'ils iraient "ad pravdam" lorsqu 'ils prenaient la decision de s 'adresser au tribunal pour regler leurs droits. "Pravda" signifie en slovaque "droit". La terminologie de la religion est aussi d' origine slovaque (bapteme =krstit' - keresztelni; pa'ien =pohan - pogany, enfer =peklo - pokol; frere = brat - banit). Au debut les Magyars n'avaient pas de terme magyar pour la "grace" divine, ils utilisaient le mot slovaque "milost"'. Naturellement, la science magyare contemporaine fait !'impossible pour effacer cette dependance culturelle des anciens Slovaques. Pendant des siecles, les deux communautes nationales cohabitaient en paix, contribuant par leur travail et leur sang au progres de la Hongrie. Le changement se produisit a un moment historique de !'Europe lorsque !es nations se sont reveillees et ont pris conscience de leurs identites differentes les unes des autres. Des le XVII-eme siecle, nous assistons en Europe a un phenomene generalise. Dans les Etats ou, pendant des siecles, cohabitaient deux ou trois nations, la nation qui detenait le pouvoir politique commern;a a faire pression pour faire dispara1tre les langues qui n'etaient pas la sienne. Ce fut aussi le cas de la Hongrie. Les Magyars decha1nerent une persecution contre tout ce qui etait slovaque. En 1872, pour eviler la formation de I'intelligentsia, ils fermerent les dernieres ecoles de l'enseignement secondaire et, plus tard, les ecoles furent magyarisees. La revolution de 1918 a sauve les Slovaques de la mort ethnique. En 1918, les Slovaques s'unirent aux Tcheques pour former un Etat commun. Mais le mot Tcheco-Slovaquie (c'etait le nom du nouvel Etat dans le Traite de Versailles) fut changee en "Tchecoslovaquie" par les Tcheques qui lancerent la theorie selon laquelle les Slovaques n 'etaient qu 'une tribu tcheque. I 14 SLOVAKIA Ni Masaryk, ni Benes (President et Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres) ne se rendaient compte qu'une nation n'est pas un troupeau de brebis qu'ont peut envoyer dans n'importe quel bercail. 11 est vrai que les Slovaques et les Tcheques sont deux nations voisines, mais ils n'avaient jamais vecu dans le meme Etat. Leur histoire s'est deroulee d'une maniere differente, leurs langues et leurs cultures populaires ont des caracteristiques differentes et, par consequent, leurs personnalites ethniques sont differentes. Les Tcheques ont fait leur possible pendant soixante-dix ans pour tchequiser les Slovaques. La resistance slovaque fut telle qu'ils n'y reussirent pas. Ils firent, cependant, grand tort a la conscience d'identite nationale slovaque. A nouveau, la revolution de 1989 sauva les Slovaques d'un embrassement suffoquant du point de vue national, politique et economique. Le I-er Janvier 1993 apparut, sur la carte geographique de !'Europe, la Republique slovaque desireuse de participer a la vie economique, politique et culturelle de !'Europe, sans intermediaires. Bibliographie Bartek, Henrich: Les debuts du christianisme chez Jes Slovaques (en slovaque). Slobodne Slovensko, Vol. X, 5. Bro, Bertrand: La beaute sauvera le monde, Cerf, Paris, 1990. Carrere d'Encausse, Helene: La gloire des nations, Fayard, Paris, 1990. The Celts, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Chadwick, Nora: England, 1970. SLOVAKIA Dejiny Slovenska: Delort, Robert: Hall, Edward T.: Herrn, Gerhard: Heer, Friedrich: Krajcovic, Rudolf: Lacko, Michal: Martini, Alberto: Montanelli, lndro: Pauliny, Eugen: Ratkos, Peter: Simons, Gerald: Veiter, Theodor: 115 L'histoire de la Slovaquie, Vol. I, Bratislava, 1986. LeMoyen-Age, Edita, Lausanne, 1972. The Silent Language, Anchor, New York, 1973. Die Kellen, Econ Verlag, Diisseldorf, 1975. Das heilige romische Reich, Heyne Verlag, Miinchen, 1967. Le temoignage de l'histoire sur le Slovaque, Matica slovenska, Martin, 1977 (en slovaque ). Saint Cyrill and Methodius, Slovensky ustav, Rome 1969. Le Moyen-Age Europeen, Fabbri, Milano, 1963. Storia d'Italia, Rizzoli, Milano, 1959. La litterature et la langue culturelle de la Grande Mora vie, SA V, Bratislava, 1964 (en slovaque). Les sources de l'histoire de la Grande Moravie, SAY, Bratislava, 1961 (en slovaque). Orfgenes de Europa , Time-Life Int. , Amsterdam, 1968. Nationalitiittenfrage und Volksgroppenrecht, Braumiiller, Vienne, 1984.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Une oraison de messe: Monument culturel européen Description An account of the resource Štefan Polakovič Slovakia, Vol. 36 (No. 66-67), 1998 pp. 98-115 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Polakovič, Štefan, 1912-1999 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/464320d721fd4e1726f6e1a34dd49137.pdf 8726645fda2d11f5c3fd66e29386b1ec PDF Text Text 104 SLOVAKIA UNDER DYNAMIC LEADERSHI P Joseph Pauco, Ph.D. The activity of the Slovak League of America in its 40th year centered around Slovakia and the person of the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso. President Peter Jurcak, in his report to the League's 29th congress on October 20, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, disclosed that the Slovak League of America had sent "more than 40,000 letters to official circles, congressmen and senators, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to leading personalities in the United States, underlining its anti-Communist policies, and placing particular stress on the trend of events in the land of our forefathers." 1 The League had undertaken this action because "just one year past, American official circles and the press had been speaking of some sort of Czecho-Slova k bridge. The assumption was fostered that this bridge would entice the Soviet bear into Western Europe, and that once there he would be transformed into a lamb. There existed a wide-spread belief in the possibility of such a miracle. Generally overlooked was the fact that this bridge was occupied by the Soviet army, which would blow it to smithereens, the moment it lost its prerogative to control traffic, and thus abruptly bring to a halt any such 'monkey business'." Jurcak's report sheds light on the attitude of the Slovak League of America towards the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso, at that most critical moment. Before the verdict of the "People's Court" in Bratislava was given "we sent more than 20,000 letters", states Jurcak, " to every imaginable recipient, from the smallest fraternal branch to the President of the United States." Jurcak as president of the Slovak League made eight trips to Washington to raise his voice in the cause of saving Dr. Tiso. The Slovak League published a distinguished brochure in defense of Dr. Tiso titled The Truth about Slovakia.2 This action demonstrated the love of American Slovaks for the nation of their origin, and their devotion to the personality of Dr. Joseph Tiso. American Slovaks under the leadership of the League appealed to the Amer- �SLOVAKIA 105 ican Government to save the live of Dr. Joseph Tiso. They defended the policies of the president of the Slovak Republic, and pointed out that his case was not merely an internal matter of the "pertinent country", but that all Slovaks must work towards its just disposition, and that America might demonstrate by saving Tiso's life how committed she is to the strengthening of democratic infuences in a country which contains some of our most devoted allies in the current conflict between the USSR and the Western Democracies. The Slovak League distributed the brochure The Truth about Slovakia to all senators, congressmen, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to many newspapers. In addition to this the League prepared a special appeal to the President of the United States, which was sent for signing to all its branches and to all its affiliated organizations and church parishes. In the appeal American Slovaks protested the cynical trial of Dr. Tiso and preparations for his execution, and they urged President Truman to intercede in the matter with the Prague government. This appeal evoked a huge response among American Slovaks. Indeed, it was signed by many non-Slovaks. At the behest of the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, presented in the form of a motion at its annual meeting, the Slovak League called a conference of all American-Slovak organizations in Washington, D.C., placing at the top of the agenda the goal of obtaining an audience with President Truman. This conference was attended by representatives of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, and the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. President Truman sent a representative of the State Department to the Conference. Peter P. Jurcak in his report to the 29th congress noted: "We did not suceed in saving the life of the president of the Slovak State, but at least we acquainted the American public, more than ever before in the history of the Slovak League, with the Slovak nation and the Slovak question. Many congressmen became our friends; the fate of the Slovak hero so touched them that they expressed their convictions about this unpleasant affair publicly in �106 SLOVAKIA the forum of the United States Congress and thus before the whole world." In particular, the speeches of Congressmen Madden and O'Konski received wide publicity. Peter P. Jurcak was convinced that Dr. Joseph Tiso "would receive from history quite a different verdict from that of his present judges. When future generation s, particularly in America, compare his conduct with the voluntary embracem ent of Communis m by those who convicted him-whom do you think they will consider the greater enemy of American democracy ? Considerab le time may yet pass, but eventually the outside world will come to the realization that had Tiso voluntarily turned over Slovakia to the Communis ts, he might have preserved the Slovak state, and his life to boot." The 29th congress of the Slovak League of America adopted the viewpoint of Peter Jurcak, and in a policy statement added: The Czecho-Slovak government in Prague has committed (April 18, 1947) the gravest kind of injustice in .t he hanging of Monsignore Joseph Tiso, an exemplary priest, a staunch Slovak patriot, and wartime president of the Slovak Republic. This act defies the will of the entire Slovak nation and inflicts a most damaging blow to Czech Slovak relations. We are convinced that this is a case of the most arbitrary parody of justice, and we cannot but decisively condemn Dr. Eduard Benes and his government. This declaration expresses the anti-Comm unist sentiments of the Slovak League, and brings witness to the historic reality that "the Slovak Republic was destroyed by a self-appoin ted Communis t political regime and by brute military force-with out consultatio n of the will of the Slovak people", and that the new regime "distinguis hes itself with terror and the totalitarian conquest of a country by a minority which employs any means to impose its rule over Slovakia." Furthermo re the declaration demands free elections in Slovakia, commentin g: We are fully convinced that Czecho-Slovakia is not a democracy in the sense accepted in this country. In the 'people's democracy', as Czecho-Slovakia now styles itself, the government controls all political parties, the press, and the air-waves-a state of affairs which is at obvious odds with the fundamental principles embraced by all democratic governments . The declaration requests that the President and Con- �SLOVAKIA 107 gress of the United States protest the occupation of Slovakia and "the persecution of Slovak ecclesiastical, cultural and political leaders." Peter Jurcak was reelected president of the Slovak League of America, and John Kocur secretary. Shortly after the congress Jurcak sent a telegram to President Truman, in the name of the League, stating: To say nothing about what is happening in Slovakia today is but another form o:fl appeasement which will make the eventual liberation of the countries of Central Europe more difficult and more costly to the United States and will leave these people without hope.a The Slovak League also turned its attention to the problem of the expatriation of the Slovak nationals to the Sudetenland. According to a news release appearing in cas, the official administration newspaper in Bratislava, February 5, 1947 issue, 200,000 Slovaks had already been moved to the Sudetenland as of that date. On February 24, 1947 the Slovak League (Jurcak and Kocur) sent a petition to the President of the United States which read: We specifically appeal with reference to the proposed expatriation of several hundred thousand Slovaks from their homeland to the Sudetenland in Czecho-Slovakia. There is reason to believe that this is another effort to dismember this small nation and defeat permanently any effort at independence by the Slovak people.4 On March 29, 1947 Joseph Rusek, a past president of the Slovak League and an outstanding Slovak newspaperman, died in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Husek's name is closely associated with almost half a century's activity among American Slovaks. As editor of the weekly Jednota he stood in the front ranks as a defender of Slovak national individuality he had few peers in America. He was one of the signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, and remained and unswerving proponent of its letter and spirit. Not a single question affecting Slovak welfare either in America or the old country escaped his attention in the columns of his newspaper; his analyses covered a broad spectrum of problems - social, economic, cultural and national. The uniqueness of Husek's journalistic contributions lay in his penetrating criticism. Joseph Rusek was without doubt one of the greatest Slovak newsmen of his time, or any time. To promote interest in the plight of Slovakia the �108 SLOVAKIA League opened a campaign, headed by the Rev. John J . Lach of Whiting, Indiana, for distribution of Freedom for Slovakia stamps. The profit was to be channeled into a Fund for Slovak Freedom, established to support efforts for the liberation of the Slovak nation and the organization of a democratic government in a hoped-for independent Slovak state. In addition the League's attention was taken by the bitter fate of Slovak exiles, who were not recognized by the Western powers as refugees and who therefore failed to meet eligibility requirements for legal and material assistence in resettlement. A change was achieved through the efforts of the Slovak League, which through the intervention of its president Peter Jurcak engaged the favorable attention of the International Refugee Organization, and saw its representative, Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, received in the European headquarters of IRO in Geneva. As a result the IRO took the Slovak exile community under its protective wing. The League held a special meeting on this matter in Washington, D.C. on January 19 and 20, 1948, and committees visited American congressmen and administrative officials to work towards solution of this problem. On the 13th of July, 1948, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, John Kocur, long-time secretary of the Slovak League, died at the age of 61. The historian Dr. Francis Hrusovsky wrote of him: John A. Kocu r , in his uprightness of• char acter , his firmness of conviction, and his deep love of the Slovak nation, was a beautiful exemplification of the perfect American of Slovak extraction, who t hrough his tireless labor cultivated a deep furrow in Slovak life in America and earned an honorable niche in the history of his nation.s On December 20, 1948, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Peter P . Jurcak, attorney and president of the Slovak League, died at the age of only 48 years. With Peter Jurcak had begun a new era in the Slovak League of America-an era of dynamic workers, born in America, to be sure, but in their love for Slovakia holding steadily to the ideals of the founders and promoters of the League. Jurcak was the first president of the Slovak League who through English books and memoranda, as well as personal contacts, worked mightily to persuade American political and cultural workers to recognize the individuality and cultural �SLOVAKIA 109 distinctiveness of the Slovak nation. His activity in the Slovak League of America falls into the }lectic post-war years. He proved himself an aggressive and resourceful leader, such as was sorely needed by the Slovak League and the Slovak cause in general. During the 30th congress of the Slovak League of America on March 1 and 2, 1949 in Chicago, the delegates expressed their opposition to any form of Czecho-Slovakia, and by resolution took a stand on the Communist putsch there in February 1948: The Slovak nation by no means condones the aggressive tactics of the Communist party, but on the contrary, demanding respect for the convictions and will of the overwhelming majority, most resolutely condemns these tactics, and awaits only the opportunity to cast off this government by terror and violence.6 The congress also took a stand with respect to the new currents that appeared in the Slovak and Czech exile communities. It recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad, with Karol Sidor at the helm, as the leader in the fight for the independence of Slovakia.On the other hand "the Slovak League extends no recognition whatsoever to the Council of Free Czecho-Slovakia", wrote the new president of the League, Paul Jamriska; "it does not concede any right to the Czechs to meddle in the fate of Slovakia, and it considers those 'Czecho-Slovaks' who support the afore-mentioned organization enemies of their own nation." 7 The new vice-president of the Slovak League, Phillip A. Hrobak, began to publish in January 1949 a monthly Slovak Newsletter, dedicated to the defense of Slovak interests and the informing of American public opinion. The first issues of this periodical were devoted largely to countering the claims and theses of the Council of Free CzechoSlovakia, about which organization a leading American journal ( America) wrote: The leaders of the newly formed Council are Marxists - can Bolshevism be defeated by its own ideas? They are free thinkers and opponents of any religious instruction. What cultural ideas will they give to the unhappy Slovak people? They will have to rule in Slovakia by sheer force - could that be called democracy?B The Slovak League gained extraordinary recognition on June 26, 1949 in the House of Representatives, when the �110 SLOVAKIA Un-American Activities Committee issued a Report on the American Slav CO?uJress and Associated Organizations. This official report Cit_es the opposition of the Slovak League of America to the American Slav Congress. A whole passage is quoted from the declaration issued by the League's 29th congress, and in conclusion the Report remarks that the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations "are on record as opposed to Communist rule and as supporting 'present American foreign policy'." On the other hand this same repor~ notes that the organizations defending the idea of Czecho-Slovak unity were a mainstay of the American Slav Congress, and against them stood "the opposition of the American-Slovak League." Further the Report states : ... the friendly relations between the Benes government and the Soviet Union insured the cooperation of the bulk of the Czecho-Slovakian organizations, which constituted one of the most dependable elements in the American Slav Congress.9 The 31st congress of the Slovak League of America was held in the city of Cleveland. The delegates issued a manifest on May 24, 1950, in which they state among other things: At the end of World War II the Slovak nation found itself, despite great-power declarations affirming the principle of the self-determination of nations, back in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in which it had no desire to live, under any condiUons. In the renewed Czecho-Slovak Republic the Slovaks lost all the prerequisites for their free national development, and in this 'people's democracy' they are suffering the unendurable fate of helpless slaves. To this political degradation, economic misery and cultural enslavement has been added religious persecution, which is designed to break the moral strength of the Slovak nation, to destroy its peculiarly Christian character, so eventually a way of life might be forced on it that would obliterate its distinctive temperament, its convictions, its long Christian traditions, and its goals. The Slovak League, in the name of justice and human rights, most resolutely protests this ruthless enslavement of the Slovak nation, and sees in the progressive constriction of the rights of the churches and the disruption of religious life in Slovakia, the rawest form of Communist barbarity.10 The opponents of the movement for independeJt Slovakia continued to bring heavy pressures against the natural leaders of the Slovak nation, even on the soil of the free nations of the world. They attempted to prevent the very visit to America of Karol Sidor, author, journalist, �SLOVAKIA 111 and one-time minister in the Slovak Republic. The strength of the Slovak League, however, rallied to the occasion, and persuaded the State Department to grant a visa to Sidor as a guest of the League. Minister Karol Sidor received a warm welcome from the delegates at the League's 31st congress. Afterwards he visited almost all the Slovak centers in the United States. He made tens of speeches, leaving deep impressions with his listeners, and helping the broad Slovak masses to orient themselves in the welter of influences and events. Phillip A. Hrobak became the new president of the Slovak League of America. In January 1951 he was the first American-Slovak leader to raise his voice against the recent trial and conviction of Slovak bishops by Communist courts in Czecho-Slovakia. He sent a memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States in which he appealed to the Government to protest publicly against these convictions and the religious persecution in Slovakia, and to sever diplomatic relations with the Prague government "which has sinned so grievously against humanity and the fundamental principles of freedom." Lastly, Hrobak requested that the American Government present a resolution to the United Nations demanding an investigation of all the crimes committed against the Slovak nation.11 In April 1951 the Slovak League sent a further memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States, in which it appealed for independence of Slovakia and again underscored its anti-Communist sentiments.12 On May 21, 1951 the delegates to the League's 32nd congress, held in New York City, adopted a declaration condemning Communism and ... the insincere and false peace propaganda which by attractive slogans of world peace is attempting to still the consciences of individual nations, and thus to distract their attention from preparations for aggression and world rule. In Moscow's peace propaganda we are witness to duplicity of such dimensions as has no parallel in history. As citizens of a free and democratic country, which guarantees us not only all rights, but also all the conditions for material welfare and spiritual progress, we construe every aggressive war as criminal, but we see as no less criminal the immoral abuse of peace slogans for military buld-up, which threatens international peace and drives humanity towards a new catastrophe. �112 SLOVAKIA The 32nd congress of the Slovak League was attended by an official representativ e of the State Department in the person of Barstow H. Underwill. Also, the American publicist, Ann Su Cardwell, presented a significant speech to the delegates. A Slovak guest was the author and journalist, general-secre tary of the Slovak National Council Abroad, Peter Pridavok, from London, England. On the occasion of this congress the Slovak League published the first issue of a quarterly called Slovakia, which was edited by its president, Phillip Hrobak. This publication presented historical and topical articles, designed to furnish accurate information about Slovakia to the American political and cultural-scien tific communities. Phillip A. Hrobak was again elected president and Dr. Francis Hrusovsky became secretary for the third time. In early 1952 the Slovak League opened an information office in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., directed by the former Slovak diplomat Dr. Joseph Mikus. On the 23rd of May 1952 the League held a conference in Washingto, which was attended by representativ es of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, the Federation of Slovak Catholics, and representativ es of the Slovak Press in America. The conference heard addresses by Senator Theodore F. Green and Congressman Charles J. Kersten. The conferees issued a declaration in which the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations reaffirmed the appeals on behalf of Slovakia presented to the U.S. Government in past years. 13 On October 28, 1952, in Monessen, Pennsylvania , died Michael Sincak, former vice-presiden t of the Slovak League and well-known fraternalist. He had been one of the most energetic organizers of Slovak life in America, devoting his efforts with particular affection to Slovak song. He collected several hundred Slovak songs and promoted them enthusiastically . The Slovak public had met his name often on the pages of Slovak newspapers. The 33rd congress of the Slovak League of America �SLOVAKIA 113 was held on the 27th and 28th of April, 1953, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the two preceeding years the League's membership had increased by 2,000, its information office had proved its value, and the work of the League had aroused interest in many quarters. Among other things the League, in these two years, had presented 60 film showings. Many American politicians sent greetings to this congress. Foremost among them was the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who stated in his message: Our nation has been enriched by the contribution to our spiritual and economic welfare by the hundreds of thousands of Slovak people who have emigrated to the United States to find freedom and better livelihood. Experiencing and treasuring our representative democracy, our religious freedom, and our economic prosperity, Americans of Slovak descent naturally look forward eagerly to the day when the homeland of their forefathers may again know these blessings.14 This congress too passed a memorandum addressed to the President and Congress of the United States. Among other things it states: It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind a forced iron curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. Those rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend rights to survival and selffulfillment. The members of the Slovak League of America, including the membership of the organizations actively affiliated with it, are loyal to America because to them America is the ideal - the living symbol of freedom, tolerance and justice. They seek no special favors for the people from which they are descended but only the recognition of and respect for, the inherent and fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. We firmly believe that it is in the highest interests of America and the rest of the free world that the Slovaks be free and have their independent state.1s At the 33rd congress, which again elected Phillip A. Hrobak president, an honored guest was the former Slovak diplomat and active political worker in exile, Matus Cernak, from Munich, Germany. His speeches among American Slovaks provided a strong stimulus to interests in Slovak affairs . • On March 5, 1953, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, died the �114 SLOVAKIA Reverend John Porubsky, first secretary of the Slovak League, author and newspaperman of extraordinary talent. He was 79 years old. For half a century he had filled the columns of Slovak newspapers and almanacs in America, under his own name as well as under several pseudonyms (Sestros, Stary Farmer). John Porubsky was a living Slovak chronicle. He knew the history of the Slovak nation, particularly that of its American off-shoot. He applied himself on the one hand to the earthy problems of animal husbandry and farming, and on the other, to the more elevated fields of history and literature. Slovak literature he enriched with scores of essays and articles, crowning his efforts with a History of Slovak Literature. On October 20, 1953, in Montreal, Canada, died Karol Sidor, who in the Slovak movement for independence, occupies a position only slightly behind Andrej Hlinka and Dr. Joseph Tiso. The range of his interests was wide and varied, including at many points the affairs of American Slovaks. He had contacts with them, recognized their existence and needs; and it was Karol Sidor who first approached the writing of serious American-Slovak history with his work Slovdci v zahranicnom odboji (1928) (The Contributions of Slovaks Abroad to the Struggle for Independence of Slovakia). Sidor had particularly warm relations with the Slovak League of America. Among his personal friends were Phillip A. Hrobak and Dr. Peter P. Hletko. On the 24th and 25th of May, 1954 the Slovak League held another conference in WRshington, D.C. Tens of congressmen came to extend their greetings, as did representatives of various Central-European nationalities and exile groups. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sent separate messages to the conference. Dulles' statement included the following : Our government is deeply concerned about the plight of the Slovak people and of the other peoples of Central and Eastern Europe under the present Soviet-controlled regimes.16 The conference issued a declaration which touches on a number of topical subjects. It reads in part: We heartily commend all efforts on the part of our Government, �SLOVAKIA 115 its agencies and Congressional Committee to ferret out, unmask and prosecute all subversive elements, specifically all communists and fellow-travellers, which propagate class hatreds, economic strife, chaos and anarchy. All persons and organizations, who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism, should be thoroughly investigated by the proper organs of the Government. Concerning Slovakia the declaration emphasizes: As Christians and adherents of the democratic way of life, we resolutely oppose the domination and exploiitation of any nation by any other nation or political state. The Slovak nation did not want to be dominated by the Magyars prior to 1918 and, today, does not want to be ruled by the Czech nation. We firmly believe that the national existence and the welfare of the Slovak nation can best be safeguarded by the Slovaks themselves in their own Slovak Republic.17 In the year 1954, thanks to the efforts of Phillip Hrobak, president of the Slovak League, a number of Slovaks testified before committees of the American Congress which were investigating the fate of nations behind the iron curtain. Phillip Hrobak presented testimony in which he reviewed the history of the Slovak nation, with emphasis on its contemporary tribulations. In the Congress a special subcommittee was formed for Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia, and the testimony was printed in a publication titled Investigation of Communist Takeover and Occupation of Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia. In these hearings American officials received more information about Slovakia and the Slovaks than ever before. The greatest credit for enabling the Slovaks to speak freely before the committee of the American Congress belong to Congressman Charles J. Kersten, Chairman of the Committee, and Congressman Alvin N. Bentley, a member of the Committee. Congressman Bentley was a guest of the Slovak League at its 34th congress, which took place on the 23rd and 24th of May, 1955, in Washington, D.C. In his address he designated as the greatest bane of the Slovak nation the socalled Czech Slovaks. He declared at the same time that the American Government should recognize the demands of the Slovak League of America. Vice-President Nixon spoke for the Administration in a written message to the congress. The 130 delegates approved a memorandum which in substance made the same demands for Slovak rights as had previous memoranda. �116 SLOVAKIA This congress also observed the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the League's founder, the Reverend Stephen Furdek. On this occasion the Slovak League made a decision to sponsor the publication of a history of Slovakia in the English language. This announcement evoked such enthusiasm among the delegates and guests that they contributed more than $5,000.00 to the treasury of the League for this end. The Slovak League again commemorated the onehundredth anniversary of the birth of its founder in a joint observance with the First Catholic Slovak Union, held in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 4th and 5th of September, 1955. Approximately 10,000 American Slovaks attended the affair. The life and work of the Reverend Furdek were presented by Phillip Hrobak in a booklet titled The Reverend Stephen Furdek. 1855-1955. For Slovak readers a booklet by Joseph Pauco was issued, under the title stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectvo (Stephen Furdek and the Slovak Immigration). On November 20, 1955, in Lakewood, Ohio, Martin Slimak, a past vice-president of the Slovak League, and otherwise well-known fraternalist and financier, died at the age of 70. He was one of the most colorful figures in American-Slovak life. On July 5, 1955 news spread through the world of the dastardly murder of the outstanding Slovak politician, Matus Cernak. He was assassinated in Munich, Germany. The world press concluded unanimously that the case involved political murder. The culprits were never discovered by the police, but in Slovak circles little doubt exists that they were Communist agents. In 1956 the Slovak League was accorded one of the highest distinctions possible when on October 24th its eight-member delegation was received in audience by Secretary-of-State John F. Dulles. The Secretary entertained the delegates for almost half an hour and answered a whole series of questions which they put to him. At the head of this delegation was Phillip A. Hrobak, president of the League. The Hungarian uprising in 1956 touched off strong reverberations in Slovakia, as it did elsewhere. Reports in �SLOVAKIA 117 the American press spoke of unrest in Slovak towns and a general mood for revolt. But the eruption of rebellious feelings into overt act was effectively forestalled by the Czecho-Slovak army, which was controlled in all key positions by Czech officers. These circumstances and realities were pointed out by the Slovak League and the Slovak National Council Abroad in a joint memorandum to the United Nations. This memorandum presented a detailed description of the mood in Slovakia and reviewed the events had taken place there since 1945. The memorandum also notes the fact that by 1956, 320,000 Slovaks had been resettled in the Sudetenland. "This transfer of Slovak population," states the memorandum, "has much in common with deportations of the Baltic population to Siberia by the Soviets. The main purpose of the Prague Government is to cut people from their native roots and thus weaken the resistance which the compact mass of the Slovak population could exert against both Communism and also Czech domination. Prague obviously figures that the Slovak population, submerged thus by its new Czech environment, will finally lose its original Slovak character and become either entirely Czech, or at least proletarian."18 On May 31, 1956, in Owosso, Michigan, Julius Janci, American-Slovak doctor, member of the executive board of the Slovak League of America, and promoter of Slovak culture in America, died at the age of 51. He was one of the best known figures of Slovak life in the United States. On September 9, 1956 the Slovak League lost its secretary, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky. Death took him at the age of 53. He had plowed a deep furrow in Slovak life--as a national historian, and as an expert in the history and contemporary affairs of the American Slovaks. He was also an outstanding newspaperman and first-rate speaker. His loss was particularly painful for the Slovak League of America. The Abbot of the Monastery of St. Andrew Svorad in Cleveland, Ohio, Right Reverend Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. wrote of this outstanding Slovak: When nine years ago he came to us in Cleveland, it was as if the whole of Slovakia had come to us: with his simple faith in God, �116 SLOVAKIA his broad erudition, his intense desire for freedom and justice, his modesty, his industry, all his beauty of soul, Dr. Hru~ovsky personified the best of Slovak virtue and nobility.1 9 The 50th anniversary of the founding of the Slovak League of America came in the year 1957. The occasion was celebrated in conjunction with the League's 35th congress, which was held in Cleveland on the 26th to the 28th of May. A distinguished guest was the American bishop of Slovak extraction, the Right Reverend Andrew Grutka, D. D., of Gary, Indiana, who stated in an address: The Slovaks are one of the most godfearing of nations: this makes me happy to profess my national origin ; I love my native tongue. 20 During the congress extraordinary attention was aroused by a display featuring the life of the American Slovaks from the days of the pioneers to recent times. The exhibit in pictures, documents, newspapers, carvings, and statistical charts, engaged the interest of the Slovak public, and the American public as well. It was viewed in Benedectine High School by approximately 7,000 Slovaks and non-Slovaks. The local press, radio and television gave it exceptionally good coverage. In the preparation of this exhibit Constantine Culen, author and secretary of the Slovak League, accomplished a most worth-while bit of work. The leading Slovak writer and last director of the free Matica Slovenska, J . C. Hronsky, gave symbolic voice to the sentiments of the humiliated and silenced Slovak nation in anniversary greetings to this congress. "Slovak blood sends you greetings here today," went his salutation from far-off Argentina, "bidding you joy in your deliberations - because you have not betrayed it; because it still flows robustly in your veins; because it remains the same proud blood that has refused to bow in Slovakia, and has so often in the past been tempered to toughness by dungeon and gallow, as it continues to be today; because it refuses to stoop to self-betrayal."21 The delegates to the 35th congress of the Slovak League, who again elected Phillip Hrobak president and Constantine Culen secretary, adopted a memorandum in which they stressed: We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the basic moral �SLOVAKIA 119 principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Con• stitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America . They declared further : .. . on the solemn occasion of our Golden Jubilee, as represen• tatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group, we deem it our moral right and obligation to respectfully request, seek, and, if the need arises, to insist that our Government through its executive branch, in its various sections and divisions, not excluding our able ambassador to the United Nations, take all legitimate avenues of action in keeping with the sacred moral law of God and the law of nations to make certain that a true and lasting independent Slovakia may again take its rightful place in the community of nations which seek to preserve peace and promulgate the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.22 The leaders of the Slovak League prepared a special bi-lingual publication for this occasion, in which they reviewed the broad principles of the jubilating organiza. tion.23 The jubilee observance was rounded out by a com• plementary festivity - the first presentation on American soil of the "Andrew Hlinka Cup". The keepers of the cup, with Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum at their head, honored the president of the Slovak League and longtime editor of the newspaper Jednota, Phillip Hrobak, for his many contribu• tions to Slovak life, in particular for his contribution to American Slovaks of "a grammar and dictionary, and because with his aggresive elan, his perseverance and fear• lessness both as a newspaperman and as an organizer, he personifies the finest qualities, such as graced not only Uudovit stur, but also the first recipient of the cup, Andrew Hlinka, and those who came after."24 Phillip Hrobak remained at his post alert to developments on the international scene, and at the same time keeping American administrative circles informed of Slovak interests. He made several trips to Washington in 1958. His appeals and petitions were corroborated by reports in the American press, which wrote with admiration of developments in Slovakia. For instance the New York Times on January 13, 1958 carried a report which read: "The imperialists want to overthrow," announced the Czech communist, general-secretary of the Communist Party in Slovakia, Karel Bacilek, "our people's democracy by using Slovakia as a channel. Bourgeois nationalism is �120 SLOVAKIA allied with Ludakism and finds expression in an outcry against Czechs working in Slovakia." Another American newspaper disclosed: Slovakia, which has been more anti-Communist than some other East European countries, has experienced a new wave of anti-Czech, anti-Russian feeling in the past few months, and with Bulgaria is considered one of the Russian's most restless satellites.25 The League conducted its 36th congress on the 14th and 15th of June 1959 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It directed its attention to matters of American-Slovak cultural and civic life, and again declared itself for freedom and independence of Slovakia in the spirit of the address of its honorary president, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, who asserted: Our duty is to persevere in the struggle against Communism and to bolster everywhere the principles of democratic thought, democratic action, and the victory of democracy over dictatorship. This must also be the motivation of all our efforts with respect to the Slovak nation, to which we wish the same kind of freedom that we ourselves enjoy. In the struggle for an independent Slovakia the Slovak League will never, under any circumstances, capitulate. 26 The delegates unanimously reinstated Phillip Hrobak at the helm of the League, and Constantine culen at the post of secretary. In 1959 regional and local assemblies of the League prepared fitting commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic. A year later, through the initiative of Phillip Hrobak, president of the League, for the first time a public prayer for the Slovak nation was invoked on the floor of the American Congress. The March 14, 1960 session of the House of Representatives was opened by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., with the following prayer: Almighty God, heavenly Father, we beseach Thee to continue to bless our leaders so that they may always conscientiously serve the best interest of our nation and its people and thus remain in the favor of Thy Divine Providence. We pray Thee, God of Mercy, to mitigate the sufferings of all enslaved victims of brutal Communism and, in particular, on this solemn occasion of the Twenty-First Anniversary of the Proclamation of Slovak Independence, we implore Thee to grant the same blessings of freedom to the Slovak nation as Thou hast deigned to give us in our United States, so that Slovakia likewise, should have a 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. �SLOVAKIA 121 Lord, hear our prayers. And let our cries come unto Thee. Amen. 2 7 On May 9, 1960, in Whiting, Indiana, died the Reverend John Lach, a former member of the executive board of the Slovak League, cultural and social worker, particularly well-known as a generous patron of Slovak literary endeavors. "He was known and beloved not only among American Slovaks, but also among the Slovaks beyond the sea. His place was among the outstanding personalities of Slovak national life. He radiated love for his priestly calling, and for the Slovak people, and the Slovak people responded with the kind of love only they can show for the priests they love and for their genuine leaders ... " 28 The 37th congress of the Slovak League took place in the city of New York, on the 29th and 30th of May, 1961. It was conducted in the spirit of the preceeding congresses. The president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, John A. Sabol, described the Slovak League of America on this occasion as the finest heritage left by its founder Stephen Furdek. 29 This congress too, aproved a comprehensive memorandum in which the League expressed its loyalty to the United States and its government, and at the same time renewed its pleas for the liberation of the Slovak nation. In the memorandum are found the following statements: As Americans we sincerely believe that every nation, large and small, has the inherent, God-given right to freedom and independence, the right to its own nationhood and statehood. We believe, too, that liberty cannot be exercised by proxy and that all nations are entitled to a voice in the determination of their own destinies ... It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition of and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. These rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend their rights to survival and self-fulfillment.30 Phillip Hrobak was again elected to the post of president of the Slovak League. The preceding five years had witnessed an outbreak �122 SLOVAKIA of considerable feuding among American Slovaks. The strife carried over into the Slovak League, which was thus hampered in the conduct of the activities which clamored for its attention. In the year 1962 all the clashes and disputes in the Slovak press were brought to a close. The 38th congress, convened in Detroit, Michigan, on the 27th to the 29th of May, turned its attention to this problem. It reflects well on the perspicacity of all the groups which sent delegates to this congress, that they were able to reach an agreement and to dispel the belligerence that had discouraged and retarded the cultural and national activities of American Slovaks. Dr. Peter P. Hletko became the new president of the League at this congress. Also, a decision was made to restore the office of the secretary, and to this post was elected Dr. Joseph Pauco. The proceedings of the congress were conducted on a high level. It was visited and addressed by several American politicians, foremost among whom was the Governor of the State of Michigan, J. S . Swainson. In 1963 American Slovaks joined everywhere in the free world in commemorating with appropriate ceremony and solemnity the 1100th anniversary of the advent of the apostles Cyril and Methodius in Slovakia. The League rose to its calling on this occasion, too. Phillip Hrobak, continuing in the post of editor of the periodical Slovakia, dedicated the 1963 issue to the memorable Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee. He himself, along with other contributors, illuminated the importance and far-reaching significance of Christian culture and Christian morals for the Slovak nation. In addition, the Slovak League convoked a national conference in Washington, D.C., on the 5th and 6th of April, 1963, which marked this anniversary with fitting observances, and also commemorated another event of great national significance, the centenary of the founding of the Matica Slovenska, the outstanding Slovak cultural institution. Lectures on the significance of these anniversaries were presented in Slovak by Dr. Joseph Stasko, and in English by Phillip A. Hrobak. The occasion was also observed with religious ceremonies in the National Shrine of the �SLOVAKIA 123 Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C., which were conducted by the Reverend Paul Miklosovic, J.C.D., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also on this occasion, a delegation of the Slovak League, led by its president Peter P. Hletko and Phillip A. Hrobak, executive-board member, visited the State Department and again ventilated the demands of the Slovak League in the interest of the liberation of Slovakia. Thanks to the initiative of Phillip A. Hrobak the Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee received a signal commemoration on the floor of the American House of Representatives, when on March 14, 1963, the invocation was spoken by the Very Reverend Joseph Baran, V.F., from Lansford, Pennsylvania. A further project of the Slovak League of America in this connection was developed primarily through the initiative of its secretary: requests were sent to the governors of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan to declare days, weeks or months as commemorative observances of the CyriloMethodian Jubilee. Such observances were in fact proclaimed in all seven of the above-named states, which contain an absolute majority of Slovaks living in the United States. 31 The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee and the Matica centenary called forth the finest efforts of the Slovak League, because the events they commemorate are deeply woven into the fabric of the Slovak national character-they form the pith and substance of the Slovak national heritage. To review: The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee recalls the historical fact that the Slovaks are one of the oldest nations in Central Europe. Eleven hundred years ago they accepted Christianity and with it also Christian culture and civilization, whereby they definitely joined themselves with the western cultural world. The entire history of the Slovak people is characterized by this orientation. After the advent of the Slovak Apostles, a wealth of Slovak literature emanated in Slovakia which later became also the foundation of the literary culture of the other Slovanic nations. With the fall of Great Moravia, at the beginning of the tenth century, this culture gradually disappeared in Slovakia, because the Slovaks, after the collapse of their first political entity, came under the hegemony of the Magyars in Hungary, where Latin gradually replaced the ancient Slovak language as a literary medium. Politically, however, Slovakia retained �124 SLOVAKIA its independent status for many years. During the reign of Matus (Matthew) Cak of Trencin in the 14th century who controlled a large part of the Slovak country, Slovakia had its own army and its own mint ; and Matus concluded his own treaties with other countries without regard for Hungarian kings. Despite the fact that Slovaks had to suffer the hegemony of the Magyars for long centuries, they never renounced their Cyrilo-Methodian tradition, which became an integral part of their national ideology_ From the fifteenth century they are manifesting their adherence to the glorious past of their ancestors in numerous songs and historical works, thus demonstrating their antiquity and their claim to equality with the Magyars in old Hungary. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Slovaks, under the leadership of Louis Stur, Joseph Miloslav Hurban and Michael Hodfa, declared their independence and broke out in armed revolt against Magyar hegemony. In this struggle the Slovaks fondly recalled their first political entity, Great Moravia of the ninth century, and their national culture which was founded by SS. Cyril and Methodius. In 1863, despite the disfavor and opposition of Magyar authorities, the Slovaks celebrated the Millenium of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in practically every town and hamlet. The same year, to honor their Apostles, the Slovaks established the Matica Slovenska. And in the first half of the nineteenth century the bard of Slovakia, Jan Holly, wrote his great epic "Cyrilo-Methodiada," which is unique in European literature, glorifying the merits of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The cult of SS. Cyril and Methodius is wide-spread not only in Slovakia, but also wherever the Slovaks live, especially in the United States of America. This certainly is proof positive that the Slovaks are conscious of their cultural and .political antiquity. In America this cult is attested to by the numerous churches, schools, monasteries and fraternal societies that bear the name of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The Slovaks in the free world are commemorating the 1,lO0th anniversary of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in a grandiose manner. Besides religious and national celebrations in the United States and Canada, the Slovaks are planning two pilgrimages to Rome, the Eternal City where St. Cyril is buried, where they will dedicate the Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius on September 15, 1963, the seminary made possible by the gifts of Slovaks in the free world to train young men for the priesthood who will one day, God willing, do missionary work in a free Slovakia. Slovak poets of the free world are publishing a collection of poems to honor the memory of the Slovak Apostles; writers and journalists are extending themselves to the utmost to make the cult of 88. Cyril and Methodius better known to the non-Slovak world. All this forcefully stresses the fact that the Slovaks - after 1,100 years - are still spiritually connected with their ancient past, with their own Great Moravian Empire, and with the foundations of the literary culture established by SS. Cyril and Methodius. All these celebrations and commemorations are at the same time a clear expression of the desire of the Slovaks for political freedom, for a free culture, for a free religious life. The Slovaks in the free world, under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, are at this time also reminding the free world that �SLOVAKIA 125 their brethren in Slovakia, suffering under the brutal tyranny of the communists of Prague and Moscow, never did and never shall renounce their right to the political independence of Slovakia. This their right emanates from their political history and from their national and cultural antiquity. From Slovakia eleven hundred years ago Christianity spread to the Czech land, to Poland, to Hungary, to Bulgaria, and even to Russia. All these nations enjoyed a more fortunate past, they were able to create their own political states, only the Slovaks - one of the oldest nations in Central Europe - could not validate for long centuries their yearning and their right to their own state, because of the chauvinism and avariciousness of the nations that ruled over them. This year's great jubilee of the Slovak past is again a confirmation of the viability of the Slovak nation, of its loyalty to valid Christian val ues and, at the same time, an expression of the firm will of the Slovak to live an independent life, the kind of life ordained by God for man and for nations, the kind of life all nations of the world have the inherent right to live. The Slovak League of America, fully aware of its responsibility and fully conscious of its historical mission, expresses its profound feelings of fraternal relations with the suffering nation we are descended from, and in this great Slovak year, assembled in Washington, D.C., we again solemnly declare that we shall continue to exert ourselves, by all legal and ethical means at our disposal, for the preservation of the heritage of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Bernolak, and the Matica Slovenska, among American Slovaks, and that we shall continue in our effort to gain the favor of our American Government in the interest of renewing the free Slovak State in which, with the cooperation of all free nations, the Slovaks will fully enjoy the blessings of true freedom, the beginning and the end of which is the Gospel, and the most beautiful fruit of which. is contained in the testament of our Slovak Apostles, SS. Cyril and Methodius.32 Whereas the Slovak League had directed the Washington Declaration of 1963 to the American public at large, it addressed itself anew to topical political demands in a memorandum sent to Secretary-of-State Dean Rusk on October 7, 1963. This memorandum reads in part: As a representative of the United States government the President has asked me to tell you that the United States will continue to support the just aspirations of all people in the world for independence and liberty-aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations. We hail and welcome this assurance from our President and we request, Mr. Secretary of State, that you graciously recognize the fact that the Slovak League of America represents over 300,000 organized Americans of Slovak extraction and as such deems it its sacred duty to speak before the American Government in behalf of the Slovak nation which now lives under a Communist form of government and is unable to speak out for its rights and self-determination of its freedom and independence. The movement for an independent Slovakia is very strong at this time in Europe as well as here in America. Just in the past few months -as may be verified by our Ambassador in Prague, a strong wave of �126 SLOVAKIA resistance swept across Slovakia against the Czech Stalinists who for years were represented in Bratislava by their own man, Karel Bacilek, the secretary general of the Communist party. Slovak Communists with strong nationalistic inclinations forced the Prague government to recall Bacilek, and another Stalinist, Premier Viliam Siroky. In addition, they forced the posthumous rehabilitation of the former secretary of foreign affairs, Vlado Clementis, a Slovak, whom the Stalinists have executed. Along with Clementis, other nationalistically inclined Communists in Slovakia, who had been jailed during <the era of the Czech Stalinists, were pardoned, namely: Dr. Gustav Husak and Ladislav Novomesky. Membership in the Communist party was restored to both and their voice is now being heard more and more in Slovakia. Husak was removed some 10 years ago because immediately after the Second World War he clamored for an independent Soviet Slovak Republic and took a stand against the Czecho-Slovak Republic. According to information we have, the situation in Slovakia during the last four months is very similar and almost as explosive as was the situation in Hungary in 1956, which led to the well-known revolt against the Soviets. The Slovaks, of course, have no assurance from the outside world that they would be provided help if they revolted against the Prague and Moscow governments. Without such assurance any attempted revolt must prove foolhardy. The recent retreat of Moscow in Prague, while only in the Communist ranks thus for, is apparent in Slovakia. The nationalists are acquiring a voice and it appears that there is no force that can stop them . Naturally, we in no way support and will not support any Communist movement. But it is apparent and clear to us that Slovak patriotism in the political aspects has deep roots in the anti-Communist movement in Slovakia as well as in the ranks of the Slovak Communists themeselves. For that reason we are stronger and stronger in our conviction that it is our moral duty to come to the defense of the sovereign rights of the Slovak nation from which we have descended and to ask for that much recognition in a practical political sense as was expressed and interpreted to us by the brother of our President, John F. Kennedy. 33 The historic city of Philadelphia hosted the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America, on the 3rd to the 5th of May, 1964. The highlight of the Congress was a conference of young Americans of Slovak extraction. More than 80 young men and women participated. All walks of American-Slovak life were represented, and the discussion was extremely lively as the young people made suggestions for new forms of work. Out of the conference came a recommendation for the reorganization of courses in the Slovak language at various American centers. And the meeting issued an unanimous affirmation of the political program of the Slovak League: "Independence for Slovakia. This program is the most effective means of upholding Slovak consciousness."34 �SLOVAKIA 127 The 39th Congress set forth its sympathetic support of the aspirations of the Slovak nation, when it declared in a special proclamation: 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 officialsnational, 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 yoke 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 membership to solicit their local, state and federal officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an independent 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.35 1 From the comprehensive report presented to the 39th Congress of the Slovak League by its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, clear evidence emerges that the League had advanced both morally and materially in the period following the Detroit congress. A generally enlivened interest had coursed through the organization, which was reflected in positive responses, from the Slovak man-in-the-street, as well as from American politicians - governors of states to members of Congress. Several regional conferences of the Slovak League were conducted with marked success, and the treasury of the League recorded a gain of over $10,000.00.36 President Hletko declined to run for reelection and in his place the delegates to the 39th Congress elected Mr. Stephen J. Tkac; Dr. Pauco was reelected to the office of Secretary-Treasurer. In 1964 the Slovak League of America commemorated, with a special declaration, the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Andrew Hlinka, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. In the declaration it reaffirmed that: �128 SLOVAKIA The 14th of March remains an extraordinarily important milestone in Slovak history. This is true not only because, after long centuries of subjection, the Slovak nation had once more become master of its own destinies, but also because after March 14, 1939, there is no power on earth that can wipe from the souls of nationally conscious Slovaks the desire for independence and their own democratically administered state.37 The Slovak League and American Slovaks in general suffered painful losses in the year 1964. On January 10, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, died Phillip A. Hrobak. "Only future decades will reveal what a loss for all of us was the death of the zealous, industrious, and noble Phillip Hrobak ... his drive was not after venal mammon, or earthly glory - on the contrary, the work of his life was motivated by sincere conviction and holy enthusiasm", wrote Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B.38 Bishop Andrew Grutka rounded out Hrobak's profile: His departure deprives Slovaks and people of Slovak extraction of a courageous defender and zealous promoter whose weapons and tool was a pen. With the pen he has enshrined himself in the hearts of Slovaks. The world over his name will be indelibly inscribed in the pages of history as one who labored for God and country untiringly and unselfishly.39 Phillip Hrobak "never wavered, never strayed from the Slovak line; never backed down - but stood an unflinching guard over the finest aspirations of his nation; he was the gallant warrior who was not affraid of battle, and who always knew that his place was in the raging center of the battle."40 Another worker of great merit in the spheres of church and nationality, Monsignore Francis Dubosh, spoke the following testimonial: ... a man like Phillip Hrobak is outstanding. To him, an American of Slovak origin, freedom was not an empty word, it was not a fetish, but it was something real. It was an actual right given by the Creator himself, and not by some human government. Some human governments have usurped to themselves the right of granting or denying freedom to men and nations. Against these, Phillip Hrobak, a man of deep faith and love for God and men, took up the cudgel and fought, in season and out of season, to restore the divine right of freedom to all men, and in particular to the Slovak nation, from which he descended, of which he was never ashamed, and which nation he loved.41 Almost never before had an American-Slovak leader received the kind of recognition that came to the deceased Phillip Hrobak, and this was so because, in the words of �SLOVAKIA 129 the editor af Slovenska Obrana, "we can say without fear of contradiction that Hrobak performed a service of high merit for his nation. He left behind himself work of lasting value." 42 Shortly after Hrobak another eminent Slovak newspaperman and writer died: the former Secretary of the Slovak League, Constantine culen. Death struck him in the city of New York, on April 7, 1964. In culen the Slovaks lost one of the most aggressive and representative figures of their era. Constantine culen was the first Slovak writer to undertake systematic research in the history of American Slovaks, and the first to write a part of that history. He prepared many rich chapters in the history of parishes, movements, organizations, societies; he wrote biographies of priests; and he steadily pursued this line of work to the end. Even the first biography of the Reverend Stephen Furdek was prepared by Constantine culen. This work was written during the period of the Slovak Republic, when the daily siovak, in particular, regularly featured sketches of American-Slovak past and present, from the pen of Constantine culen. Constantine culen was first to bring about a reapprochement between Slovak America and the land of its origins. And had he accomplished nothing more as a writer and newspaperman, this accomplishment alone would rate him with the best - to be remembered as one of the foremost Slovak intellectuals of our century.43 On May 8, 1964, in the city of New York, died a former vice-president of the Slovak League of America and versatile correspondent of the Slovak newspapers, a man beloved among the Slovak rank-and-file-John Horecky. In Philadelphia the second vice-president-elect of the Slovak League, Dr. Paul Miklosovic, died suddenly on June 26, 1964, not having yet assumed office. He had been one of the most enlightened Slovak priests in America. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of the Slovak Republic he had pronounced the invocation to a session of the Senate of the United States. In it he spoke of the Slovaks, who "had always turned their eyes and hearts to the United States of America, knowing it to be strong, magnanimous, patient, and understanding."44 The new officers of the Slovak League of America addressed both candidates for the Presidency of the United States in a letter dated October 14, 1964, which stated in part: �130 SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America is concerned that up to this time there has not been an announcement by your party about the future of the peoples in Central Europe, where -0ur heritage stems and where over four million Slovaks suffer under Russian Communism and Czech domination and centralization. It is our conviction that the Slovaks have the God-given right to independence, because it is a people with over 1100 years of cultural background and a nation that has been striving for hundreds of years for freedom ... The Slovak League of America requests full recognition of American Slovaks in matters concerning ethnic groups and asks that our foreign policy concerned with oppressed peoples does not forget about the Slovaks in Central Europe and their birthright for independence. On October 21, 1965 the Slovak League addressed a letter to President L. B. Johnson, expressing approval of his policies in Vietnam, but reminding him at the same time of the plight of the Slovaks under Communism and their struggle for freedom and independence. In the spirit of the above-mentioned letters delegations of the Slovak League, headed by its president Stephen J. Tkac, visited the State Department on September 3, 1965 and March 28, 1966, where they presented petitions concerning the Voice of America and other administrative agencies. In these petitions the League requested that the organizational structure of these agencies be adjusted to allow for Slovak sections, separate and apart from existing Czech and Czecho-Slovak counterparts. Likewise, these delegations informed the State Department of the situation in Slovakia, placing particular stress on evidence that the Slovak movement for complete freedom was now much stronger than it had been in the years 1938-1939. The leadership of the League was given assurances that its petitions and related information were under study and had been passed on to the proper channels. In the spirit of the decisions of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League, its chief officers made overtures to the Slovak Lutherans (Evangelicals) of the United States for a strengthening of mutual ties and cooperation. This work was carried on by members of a special committee, which included Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., Dr. Peter P. Hletko, and Paul Jamriska. Particularly wide-ranging efforts in this direction were developed by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Secretary-Treasurer of the League - through personal and �SLOVAKIA 131 official contacts with various religious, national, and fraternal organizations of the Slovak Lutherans of the United States. A special campaign for reapproachment with the Lutherans was conducted on the pages of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, of which Dr. Pauco is publisher. An address which the Secretary-Treasurer presented to the Synod of the Slovak Lutherans held in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on June 2, 1965, was described in their official publication as historic. "All these steps", said the president of the League Stephen J. Tkac in his report to the 40th Congress, "the meetings, articles, discussions and solemn pronouncements, have brought forth fruit. There is noticeable, in the first place, a relaxation of mutual tensions, and in both camps exploration of grounds for cooperation. I think that a most essential step has been taken and we have begun to talk. Our discussions are calm, we are exchanging views and accomplishing in the social and national spheres what has been taking place among Christian church groups in matters of a spiritual nature." 45 Cooperation with Slovak organizations and periodicals between the 39th and 40th congress was very good. Many regional and local units of the League held observances in 1965 and 1966, as in prior years, of March 14, Slovak Independence Day. These observances were designed to call to the American public's attention the fact that free Slovaks earnestly support freedom and independence for the nation from which they are descended. The publication Slovakia was issued in the years 1965 and 1966 under the editorship of Dr. Joseph Pauco, in 160 pages. Many universities, public libraries, and many young Slovak Americans evinced interest in this periodical, which is dedicated to Slovak cultural and national matters of the past and present. Financially the Slovak League entered the 40th Congress with a cash balance of over $18,000.00. The 40th Congress of the Slovak League was conducted on the 15th to the 17th of May, 1966, in the city of Youngstown, Ohio. A second conference of young people was �132 SLOVAKIA attended by over 100 participants. With Dr. Peter Hletko at the chair many matters of interest to young American Slovaks were debated and the participants expressed their viewpoints. Attorney Edward J. Behuncik, first vice-president of the League, delivered a talk on Slovak self-respect and pride. The young people requested further such conferences, in conjunction with congresses of the League, and outside them. The Slovak League also arranged with representatives of organizations which lively interest was developed for in the preservation of Slovak cultural in America. special conferences and periodicals, at further cooperation and national values The Congress approved the establishment of a scholarship fund for American college students of Slovak extraction, who would study Slovak history and arts, and would write serious studies in these fields. Discussion in the Congress was constructive and favorable to the strengthening of ecumenical ideas. At the closing banquet the benediction was invoked by a Lutheran Dean, Rev. August skodacek; another Lutheran pastor, the Reverend Andrew Rolik sent written salutations; and the Reverend Rudolph Flachbarth came to extend personal well-wishes, and to sit with the League's leaders in work sessions. At the banquet of the 40th Congress the principal address was presented by Congressman Michael A. Feighan, who evaluated the patriotic program of the Slovak League, expressed high praise for the Christian ideals of the Slovak nation, and announced that he had presented a demand to the Administration for a separate Slovak section in the Voice of America. In closing he declared: While the evil hand of Russian Communism continues its attempts to destroy the very spirit of Saints Cyril and Methodius and to reduce the Slovak people to a state of complete servility, the Slovak people refuse to surrender that which, over a thousand years, they have continued to fi ght for - their spirit of independence, of justice and of freedom.46 The 40th Congress too approved a meaningful memorandum, in which the delegates noted, among other things: The eventual liberation of our brethren and kinfolk, and, in the �SLOVAKIA 133 ecumenical spirit, all mankind from the tyranny and yoke of atheistic materialism of Communism must and will be our continuous goal. The reestablishment of an independent Slovakia as a free state in a united Europe must be, and, in God's good time, will be brought about through the efforts of our members and the peoples of other God fearing, oppressed ethnic groups and nations.4 7 The local American press, as well as radio and television, brought noteworthy attention to the 40th Congress of the Slovak League of America. From this standpoint it was one of the most successful congresses in the history of the League. The delegates in Youngstown approved a motion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the League in the month of May 1966, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Preparations were started immediately after the conclusion of the congress and the executive board shifted most of its energies to this purpose. Nevertheless, oranizational and cultural work was by no means neglected, and further contacts with Administration people were steadily cultivated. President Stephen J. Tkac and Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Pauco wrote to President Lyndon Johnson to remind him that 20 years had passed since American-Slovak periodicals had been banned in Slovakia, while Communists continued to freely spread their propaganda throughout the free world. The honorary president of the League, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, had preserved in his possession a copy of a film produced by the Matica Slovenska (The Slovak Institute) titled Zem spieva (Song of the Earth). The League held showings of this film at various locations in the period preceding its jubilee celebration. The film arroused lively interest particularly among Slovak oldtimers and contributed to the enlivening of Slovak life in America. On the eve of the jubilee observance, held on the 27th and 28th of May, 1967, the publication Slovakia issued from the presses, again under the editorship of SecretaryTreasurer Pauco. This issue presents a compact history of the Slovak League of America, from its founding to the present, as well as other noteworthy contributions. The pre-jubilee mood among American Slovaks reflected a spirit of harmony, which had in recent years �134 SLOVAKIA become noticeable along the whole line of Slovak endeavors. The observance of the 60th anniversary of the Slovak League was conducted without the participation of a most prominent personality, one who had played an eminent role in Slovak life, particularly in the Slovak League of America: On January 17, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois died Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, perennial first lady of the League's Women's Auxiliary, the Vcielky (Bees), for many years vice-president of the League itself, and since 1966, its honorary vice-president. More than half a century of educational, organizational and charitable work is associated with the name of Julia Krajcovic. The charitable and patriotic work of the Vcielky under her leadership, as is pointed out elsewhere in this issue of Slovakia, comprises one of the finest chapters in the history of the Slovak League of America. One instance was the Vcielky's effective and substantial aid to Slovak victims of World War II, which presented a shining example of Slovak unity and harmony. Without Julia Krajcovic Slovak life in Chicago and all of America would hardly have flourished as it had during the days of the fullness of her vigor and elan. She was everywhere, and she did everything possible to promote love for the Slovak people and the Slovak word, to strengthen it, and to demonstrate it to the world.48 In its 60th year the Slovak League of America was poorer by many a distinguished colleague, including precious workers of the distaff side - but its momentum was full-forward, and its posture reflected readiness to continue its work for the preservation of Slovak consciousness, Slovak culture and Slovak traditions in America, and for a free Slovakia. FOOTNOTES 1. Zprava predsedu S'lovenskej Ligy v Amerike podana na XXIX . kongrese. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Presented to the 29th Congress.), Cleveland, Ohio, 1947. Published for distribution. Yurchak, Peter P. The Truth about Slovakia. 1947. Jednota. November 12, 1947. Jednota. March 12, 1947 "Prve vyrocie smrti Jana A. Kocura. " (The First Anniversary of the Death of John A. Kocur.) Jednota, July 20, 1949. Pauco, Joseph. Slovcici a komunizmus. (The Slovaks and Communism), Middletown, Pa., 1957, pg. 306. �SLOVAKIA 135 7. "Vedieme boj a z boja neustt'.ipime." (We Are Engaged in Battle and Will Never Retreat from the Field), Jednota, April 27, 1947. 8. "The Czechoslovak Council." America, March 19, 1949. 9. Report on the American Slav Congress and Associated Organizations. Prepared and released by the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., 1949. 10. Pauco, Joseph. Sfovcici a komunizmus. pg. 307. 11. Full text in Jednota, January 31, 1951. 12. "To the President and Congress of the United States." Jednota, May 9, 1951. 13. Report on the conference in Jednota, May 28, 1952. 14. Jednota. May 6, 1953. 15. The memorandum was published for distribution under the title : Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United States of America. Issued by the Thirty-Third Congress of the Slovak League of America, April 28, 1953, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 16. Jednota. June 9, 1954. 17. Declaration of the National Conferenc e of Americans of Slovak Descent. May 24-25, 1954, Washington, D.C. Eight-page publication with photostatic copies of the signatures of the participants. 18. Memorandum Concerning the Czech-Communist Military Intervention in Slovakia. Presented to the United Nations General Assembly by the Slovak League of America and Slovak National Council Abroad . Middletown, Pa., December 22, 1956. Published for distribution. 19. "Za Dr. Frantiskom Hrusovskym." (In Memoriam to Dr. Francis Hrusovsky.) , Kalendcir Jednota 1957, pg. 23. 20. "Biskup Grutka na kongrese Slovenskej Ligy." (Bishop Grutka at the Congress of the Slovak League,), Jednota, May 29, 1957. 21. "Slovenskej Lige v Amerike." (To the Slovak League of America.), Jednota, May 22, 1957. 22. Memorandum to the President of the United States of America, the Hon. Secretary of State of the United States of America, and the Hon. Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations by the Thirty-Fifth Congress of the Slovak League of America. Cleveland, Ohio, May 28, 1957. Published for distribution. 23. Golden Jubilee and the XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America. May 26-28, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio, 96 pp. Contributors: Phillip A. Hrobak, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, Julia Krajcovic, Paul Jamriska, and Dr. Joseph A. Mikus. The publication is bi-lingual. 24. From the speech of Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, as quoted in Jednota, March 27, 1957. 25. "Czech Trials Seen as Sign of Red Fears." Sunday News. New York City, March 16, 1958. 26. Jednota. June 24, 1959. 27. Full text in Jednota, March 16, 1960. 28. From an eulogy by Bishop Andrew Grutka, as quoted in Jednota, May 18, 1960. 29. The complete text of Sabol's salutation in Jednota, June 7, 1961. 30. Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United �136 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. SLOVAKIA States of America. The XXXVII Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 29-30, 1961, New York, N. Y., 4 pp. "Slovenska Liga oznamuje." (The Slovak League Announces.), Jednota, August 7, 1963. "Proclamation of the Slovak League of America, Washington, D.C., April 5, 1963." Jednota, April 17, 1963. The full text of the memorandum in Jednota, October 16, 1963. From a report published in Jednota, May 6, 1964. Proclam ati on of May 5, 1964. 39th Congress - Slovak League of America. Philadelphia, Pa., 4 pp. Jednota published the full text of Dr. Peter Hletko's report in its issues of May 20 and 27, 1964. "Na pamat' storocnice Andreja Hlinku a 25. vyrocia vyhlasenia Slovenskej Republiky." (In Commemoration of the Hlinka Centennial and the 25th Anniversary of the Declaration of Slovak Independence.), Jednota, March 11, 1964. The declaration was signed by the chief officers and executive board of the Slovak League of America, as well as by the presidents of all its affiliated organizations. "Nad smrt'ou Filipa Hrobaka. " (Reflections on the Death of Phillip Hrobak.),Jednota, January 22, 1964. "In Memoriam." Ibid. " Tryzna za Filipom Hrobakom." (An Elegy to Phillip Hrobak. ), Mikulas Sprinc, Jednota, January 29, 1964. " Phillip Anthony Hrobak." Jednota, February 12, 1964. "Za Filipom Hrobakom." (In Memory of Phillip Hrobak. ), Slov enska Obr ana, Scranton, Pa., January 21, 1964. Additional data from the life of Phillip Hrobak appears in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v A m erike, Middletown, Pa., 1967, pp. 157-158. Jednota. April 15, 1964. More about Constantine Culen in the abovecited Literarny Alm anach Slovaka v Amerike, pp. 129-130. Jedn ota. April 1, 1964. 45. Zprav a preds edu Slovensk ej L i gy v Amerike Stefana J. Tkaca na 40. kongrese v o Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, 16. maja 1966. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America Stephen J. Tkac at the 40th Congress in the Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, May 16, 1966.), pg. 7. 46. Slov akia. Middletown, Pa., Volume XVI, 1966. pp. 126-127. 47. M emorandum Adopted Unani mously by the 40th Congress of the Slov ak League of America. Youngstown, Ohio, May 17, 1966. 4 pp. 48. " Chicago stratilo najpoprednejsiu Slovenku." (Chicago Loses its Foremost Slovak Lady.)), Nase Hlasy, February 1967. Anna Kolena eulogized the life and work of Julia Krajcovic in an extensive necrology titled "Za Juliou Krajcovicovou." (In Memory of Julia Krajcovic ), Slovak v Amerike, February 1, 1967. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. � 104 SLOVAKIA UNDER DYNAMIC LEADERSHI P Joseph Pauco, Ph.D. The activity of the Slovak League of America in its 40th year centered around Slovakia and the person of the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso. President Peter Jurcak, in his report to the League's 29th congress on October 20, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, disclosed that the Slovak League of America had sent "more than 40,000 letters to official circles, congressmen and senators, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to leading personalities in the United States, underlining its anti-Communist policies, and placing particular stress on the trend of events in the land of our forefathers." 1 The League had undertaken this action because "just one year past, American official circles and the press had been speaking of some sort of Czecho-Slova k bridge. The assumption was fostered that this bridge would entice the Soviet bear into Western Europe, and that once there he would be transformed into a lamb. There existed a wide-spread belief in the possibility of such a miracle. Generally overlooked was the fact that this bridge was occupied by the Soviet army, which would blow it to smithereens, the moment it lost its prerogative to control traffic, and thus abruptly bring to a halt any such 'monkey business'." Jurcak's report sheds light on the attitude of the Slovak League of America towards the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso, at that most critical moment. Before the verdict of the "People's Court" in Bratislava was given "we sent more than 20,000 letters", states Jurcak, " to every imaginable recipient, from the smallest fraternal branch to the President of the United States." Jurcak as president of the Slovak League made eight trips to Washington to raise his voice in the cause of saving Dr. Tiso. The Slovak League published a distinguished brochure in defense of Dr. Tiso titled The Truth about Slovakia.2 This action demonstrated the love of American Slovaks for the nation of their origin, and their devotion to the personality of Dr. Joseph Tiso. American Slovaks under the leadership of the League appealed to the Amer- �SLOVAKIA 105 ican Government to save the live of Dr. Joseph Tiso. They defended the policies of the president of the Slovak Republic, and pointed out that his case was not merely an internal matter of the "pertinent country", but that all Slovaks must work towards its just disposition, and that America might demonstrate by saving Tiso's life how committed she is to the strengthening of democratic infuences in a country which contains some of our most devoted allies in the current conflict between the USSR and the Western Democracies. The Slovak League distributed the brochure The Truth about Slovakia to all senators, congressmen, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to many newspapers. In addition to this the League prepared a special appeal to the President of the United States, which was sent for signing to all its branches and to all its affiliated organizations and church parishes. In the appeal American Slovaks protested the cynical trial of Dr. Tiso and preparations for his execution, and they urged President Truman to intercede in the matter with the Prague government. This appeal evoked a huge response among American Slovaks. Indeed, it was signed by many non-Slovaks. At the behest of the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, presented in the form of a motion at its annual meeting, the Slovak League called a conference of all American-Slovak organizations in Washington, D.C., placing at the top of the agenda the goal of obtaining an audience with President Truman. This conference was attended by representatives of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, and the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. President Truman sent a representative of the State Department to the Conference. Peter P. Jurcak in his report to the 29th congress noted: "We did not suceed in saving the life of the president of the Slovak State, but at least we acquainted the American public, more than ever before in the history of the Slovak League, with the Slovak nation and the Slovak question. Many congressmen became our friends; the fate of the Slovak hero so touched them that they expressed their convictions about this unpleasant affair publicly in �106 SLOVAKIA the forum of the United States Congress and thus before the whole world." In particular, the speeches of Congressmen Madden and O'Konski received wide publicity. Peter P. Jurcak was convinced that Dr. Joseph Tiso "would receive from history quite a different verdict from that of his present judges. When future generation s, particularly in America, compare his conduct with the voluntary embracem ent of Communis m by those who convicted him-whom do you think they will consider the greater enemy of American democracy ? Considerab le time may yet pass, but eventually the outside world will come to the realization that had Tiso voluntarily turned over Slovakia to the Communis ts, he might have preserved the Slovak state, and his life to boot." The 29th congress of the Slovak League of America adopted the viewpoint of Peter Jurcak, and in a policy statement added: The Czecho-Slovak government in Prague has committed (April 18, 1947) the gravest kind of injustice in .t he hanging of Monsignore Joseph Tiso, an exemplary priest, a staunch Slovak patriot, and wartime president of the Slovak Republic. This act defies the will of the entire Slovak nation and inflicts a most damaging blow to Czech Slovak relations. We are convinced that this is a case of the most arbitrary parody of justice, and we cannot but decisively condemn Dr. Eduard Benes and his government. This declaration expresses the anti-Comm unist sentiments of the Slovak League, and brings witness to the historic reality that "the Slovak Republic was destroyed by a self-appoin ted Communis t political regime and by brute military force-with out consultatio n of the will of the Slovak people", and that the new regime "distinguis hes itself with terror and the totalitarian conquest of a country by a minority which employs any means to impose its rule over Slovakia." Furthermo re the declaration demands free elections in Slovakia, commentin g: We are fully convinced that Czecho-Slovakia is not a democracy in the sense accepted in this country. In the 'people's democracy', as Czecho-Slovakia now styles itself, the government controls all political parties, the press, and the air-waves-a state of affairs which is at obvious odds with the fundamental principles embraced by all democratic governments . The declaration requests that the President and Con- �SLOVAKIA 107 gress of the United States protest the occupation of Slovakia and "the persecution of Slovak ecclesiastical, cultural and political leaders." Peter Jurcak was reelected president of the Slovak League of America, and John Kocur secretary. Shortly after the congress Jurcak sent a telegram to President Truman, in the name of the League, stating: To say nothing about what is happening in Slovakia today is but another form o:fl appeasement which will make the eventual liberation of the countries of Central Europe more difficult and more costly to the United States and will leave these people without hope.a The Slovak League also turned its attention to the problem of the expatriation of the Slovak nationals to the Sudetenland. According to a news release appearing in cas, the official administration newspaper in Bratislava, February 5, 1947 issue, 200,000 Slovaks had already been moved to the Sudetenland as of that date. On February 24, 1947 the Slovak League (Jurcak and Kocur) sent a petition to the President of the United States which read: We specifically appeal with reference to the proposed expatriation of several hundred thousand Slovaks from their homeland to the Sudetenland in Czecho-Slovakia. There is reason to believe that this is another effort to dismember this small nation and defeat permanently any effort at independence by the Slovak people.4 On March 29, 1947 Joseph Rusek, a past president of the Slovak League and an outstanding Slovak newspaperman, died in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Husek's name is closely associated with almost half a century's activity among American Slovaks. As editor of the weekly Jednota he stood in the front ranks as a defender of Slovak national individuality he had few peers in America. He was one of the signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, and remained and unswerving proponent of its letter and spirit. Not a single question affecting Slovak welfare either in America or the old country escaped his attention in the columns of his newspaper; his analyses covered a broad spectrum of problems - social, economic, cultural and national. The uniqueness of Husek's journalistic contributions lay in his penetrating criticism. Joseph Rusek was without doubt one of the greatest Slovak newsmen of his time, or any time. To promote interest in the plight of Slovakia the �108 SLOVAKIA League opened a campaign, headed by the Rev. John J . Lach of Whiting, Indiana, for distribution of Freedom for Slovakia stamps. The profit was to be channeled into a Fund for Slovak Freedom, established to support efforts for the liberation of the Slovak nation and the organization of a democratic government in a hoped-for independent Slovak state. In addition the League's attention was taken by the bitter fate of Slovak exiles, who were not recognized by the Western powers as refugees and who therefore failed to meet eligibility requirements for legal and material assistence in resettlement. A change was achieved through the efforts of the Slovak League, which through the intervention of its president Peter Jurcak engaged the favorable attention of the International Refugee Organization, and saw its representative, Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, received in the European headquarters of IRO in Geneva. As a result the IRO took the Slovak exile community under its protective wing. The League held a special meeting on this matter in Washington, D.C. on January 19 and 20, 1948, and committees visited American congressmen and administrative officials to work towards solution of this problem. On the 13th of July, 1948, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, John Kocur, long-time secretary of the Slovak League, died at the age of 61. The historian Dr. Francis Hrusovsky wrote of him: John A. Kocu r , in his uprightness of• char acter , his firmness of conviction, and his deep love of the Slovak nation, was a beautiful exemplification of the perfect American of Slovak extraction, who t hrough his tireless labor cultivated a deep furrow in Slovak life in America and earned an honorable niche in the history of his nation.s On December 20, 1948, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Peter P . Jurcak, attorney and president of the Slovak League, died at the age of only 48 years. With Peter Jurcak had begun a new era in the Slovak League of America-an era of dynamic workers, born in America, to be sure, but in their love for Slovakia holding steadily to the ideals of the founders and promoters of the League. Jurcak was the first president of the Slovak League who through English books and memoranda, as well as personal contacts, worked mightily to persuade American political and cultural workers to recognize the individuality and cultural �SLOVAKIA 109 distinctiveness of the Slovak nation. His activity in the Slovak League of America falls into the }lectic post-war years. He proved himself an aggressive and resourceful leader, such as was sorely needed by the Slovak League and the Slovak cause in general. During the 30th congress of the Slovak League of America on March 1 and 2, 1949 in Chicago, the delegates expressed their opposition to any form of Czecho-Slovakia, and by resolution took a stand on the Communist putsch there in February 1948: The Slovak nation by no means condones the aggressive tactics of the Communist party, but on the contrary, demanding respect for the convictions and will of the overwhelming majority, most resolutely condemns these tactics, and awaits only the opportunity to cast off this government by terror and violence.6 The congress also took a stand with respect to the new currents that appeared in the Slovak and Czech exile communities. It recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad, with Karol Sidor at the helm, as the leader in the fight for the independence of Slovakia.On the other hand "the Slovak League extends no recognition whatsoever to the Council of Free Czecho-Slovakia", wrote the new president of the League, Paul Jamriska; "it does not concede any right to the Czechs to meddle in the fate of Slovakia, and it considers those 'Czecho-Slovaks' who support the afore-mentioned organization enemies of their own nation." 7 The new vice-president of the Slovak League, Phillip A. Hrobak, began to publish in January 1949 a monthly Slovak Newsletter, dedicated to the defense of Slovak interests and the informing of American public opinion. The first issues of this periodical were devoted largely to countering the claims and theses of the Council of Free CzechoSlovakia, about which organization a leading American journal ( America) wrote: The leaders of the newly formed Council are Marxists - can Bolshevism be defeated by its own ideas? They are free thinkers and opponents of any religious instruction. What cultural ideas will they give to the unhappy Slovak people? They will have to rule in Slovakia by sheer force - could that be called democracy?B The Slovak League gained extraordinary recognition on June 26, 1949 in the House of Representatives, when the �110 SLOVAKIA Un-American Activities Committee issued a Report on the American Slav CO?uJress and Associated Organizations. This official report Cit_es the opposition of the Slovak League of America to the American Slav Congress. A whole passage is quoted from the declaration issued by the League's 29th congress, and in conclusion the Report remarks that the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations "are on record as opposed to Communist rule and as supporting 'present American foreign policy'." On the other hand this same repor~ notes that the organizations defending the idea of Czecho-Slovak unity were a mainstay of the American Slav Congress, and against them stood "the opposition of the American-Slovak League." Further the Report states : ... the friendly relations between the Benes government and the Soviet Union insured the cooperation of the bulk of the Czecho-Slovakian organizations, which constituted one of the most dependable elements in the American Slav Congress.9 The 31st congress of the Slovak League of America was held in the city of Cleveland. The delegates issued a manifest on May 24, 1950, in which they state among other things: At the end of World War II the Slovak nation found itself, despite great-power declarations affirming the principle of the self-determination of nations, back in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in which it had no desire to live, under any condiUons. In the renewed Czecho-Slovak Republic the Slovaks lost all the prerequisites for their free national development, and in this 'people's democracy' they are suffering the unendurable fate of helpless slaves. To this political degradation, economic misery and cultural enslavement has been added religious persecution, which is designed to break the moral strength of the Slovak nation, to destroy its peculiarly Christian character, so eventually a way of life might be forced on it that would obliterate its distinctive temperament, its convictions, its long Christian traditions, and its goals. The Slovak League, in the name of justice and human rights, most resolutely protests this ruthless enslavement of the Slovak nation, and sees in the progressive constriction of the rights of the churches and the disruption of religious life in Slovakia, the rawest form of Communist barbarity.10 The opponents of the movement for independeJt Slovakia continued to bring heavy pressures against the natural leaders of the Slovak nation, even on the soil of the free nations of the world. They attempted to prevent the very visit to America of Karol Sidor, author, journalist, �SLOVAKIA 111 and one-time minister in the Slovak Republic. The strength of the Slovak League, however, rallied to the occasion, and persuaded the State Department to grant a visa to Sidor as a guest of the League. Minister Karol Sidor received a warm welcome from the delegates at the League's 31st congress. Afterwards he visited almost all the Slovak centers in the United States. He made tens of speeches, leaving deep impressions with his listeners, and helping the broad Slovak masses to orient themselves in the welter of influences and events. Phillip A. Hrobak became the new president of the Slovak League of America. In January 1951 he was the first American-Slovak leader to raise his voice against the recent trial and conviction of Slovak bishops by Communist courts in Czecho-Slovakia. He sent a memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States in which he appealed to the Government to protest publicly against these convictions and the religious persecution in Slovakia, and to sever diplomatic relations with the Prague government "which has sinned so grievously against humanity and the fundamental principles of freedom." Lastly, Hrobak requested that the American Government present a resolution to the United Nations demanding an investigation of all the crimes committed against the Slovak nation.11 In April 1951 the Slovak League sent a further memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States, in which it appealed for independence of Slovakia and again underscored its anti-Communist sentiments.12 On May 21, 1951 the delegates to the League's 32nd congress, held in New York City, adopted a declaration condemning Communism and ... the insincere and false peace propaganda which by attractive slogans of world peace is attempting to still the consciences of individual nations, and thus to distract their attention from preparations for aggression and world rule. In Moscow's peace propaganda we are witness to duplicity of such dimensions as has no parallel in history. As citizens of a free and democratic country, which guarantees us not only all rights, but also all the conditions for material welfare and spiritual progress, we construe every aggressive war as criminal, but we see as no less criminal the immoral abuse of peace slogans for military buld-up, which threatens international peace and drives humanity towards a new catastrophe. �112 SLOVAKIA The 32nd congress of the Slovak League was attended by an official representativ e of the State Department in the person of Barstow H. Underwill. Also, the American publicist, Ann Su Cardwell, presented a significant speech to the delegates. A Slovak guest was the author and journalist, general-secre tary of the Slovak National Council Abroad, Peter Pridavok, from London, England. On the occasion of this congress the Slovak League published the first issue of a quarterly called Slovakia, which was edited by its president, Phillip Hrobak. This publication presented historical and topical articles, designed to furnish accurate information about Slovakia to the American political and cultural-scien tific communities. Phillip A. Hrobak was again elected president and Dr. Francis Hrusovsky became secretary for the third time. In early 1952 the Slovak League opened an information office in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., directed by the former Slovak diplomat Dr. Joseph Mikus. On the 23rd of May 1952 the League held a conference in Washingto, which was attended by representativ es of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, the Federation of Slovak Catholics, and representativ es of the Slovak Press in America. The conference heard addresses by Senator Theodore F. Green and Congressman Charles J. Kersten. The conferees issued a declaration in which the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations reaffirmed the appeals on behalf of Slovakia presented to the U.S. Government in past years. 13 On October 28, 1952, in Monessen, Pennsylvania , died Michael Sincak, former vice-presiden t of the Slovak League and well-known fraternalist. He had been one of the most energetic organizers of Slovak life in America, devoting his efforts with particular affection to Slovak song. He collected several hundred Slovak songs and promoted them enthusiastically . The Slovak public had met his name often on the pages of Slovak newspapers. The 33rd congress of the Slovak League of America �SLOVAKIA 113 was held on the 27th and 28th of April, 1953, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the two preceeding years the League's membership had increased by 2,000, its information office had proved its value, and the work of the League had aroused interest in many quarters. Among other things the League, in these two years, had presented 60 film showings. Many American politicians sent greetings to this congress. Foremost among them was the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who stated in his message: Our nation has been enriched by the contribution to our spiritual and economic welfare by the hundreds of thousands of Slovak people who have emigrated to the United States to find freedom and better livelihood. Experiencing and treasuring our representative democracy, our religious freedom, and our economic prosperity, Americans of Slovak descent naturally look forward eagerly to the day when the homeland of their forefathers may again know these blessings.14 This congress too passed a memorandum addressed to the President and Congress of the United States. Among other things it states: It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind a forced iron curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. Those rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend rights to survival and selffulfillment. The members of the Slovak League of America, including the membership of the organizations actively affiliated with it, are loyal to America because to them America is the ideal - the living symbol of freedom, tolerance and justice. They seek no special favors for the people from which they are descended but only the recognition of and respect for, the inherent and fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. We firmly believe that it is in the highest interests of America and the rest of the free world that the Slovaks be free and have their independent state.1s At the 33rd congress, which again elected Phillip A. Hrobak president, an honored guest was the former Slovak diplomat and active political worker in exile, Matus Cernak, from Munich, Germany. His speeches among American Slovaks provided a strong stimulus to interests in Slovak affairs . • On March 5, 1953, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, died the �114 SLOVAKIA Reverend John Porubsky, first secretary of the Slovak League, author and newspaperman of extraordinary talent. He was 79 years old. For half a century he had filled the columns of Slovak newspapers and almanacs in America, under his own name as well as under several pseudonyms (Sestros, Stary Farmer). John Porubsky was a living Slovak chronicle. He knew the history of the Slovak nation, particularly that of its American off-shoot. He applied himself on the one hand to the earthy problems of animal husbandry and farming, and on the other, to the more elevated fields of history and literature. Slovak literature he enriched with scores of essays and articles, crowning his efforts with a History of Slovak Literature. On October 20, 1953, in Montreal, Canada, died Karol Sidor, who in the Slovak movement for independence, occupies a position only slightly behind Andrej Hlinka and Dr. Joseph Tiso. The range of his interests was wide and varied, including at many points the affairs of American Slovaks. He had contacts with them, recognized their existence and needs; and it was Karol Sidor who first approached the writing of serious American-Slovak history with his work Slovdci v zahranicnom odboji (1928) (The Contributions of Slovaks Abroad to the Struggle for Independence of Slovakia). Sidor had particularly warm relations with the Slovak League of America. Among his personal friends were Phillip A. Hrobak and Dr. Peter P. Hletko. On the 24th and 25th of May, 1954 the Slovak League held another conference in WRshington, D.C. Tens of congressmen came to extend their greetings, as did representatives of various Central-European nationalities and exile groups. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sent separate messages to the conference. Dulles' statement included the following : Our government is deeply concerned about the plight of the Slovak people and of the other peoples of Central and Eastern Europe under the present Soviet-controlled regimes.16 The conference issued a declaration which touches on a number of topical subjects. It reads in part: We heartily commend all efforts on the part of our Government, �SLOVAKIA 115 its agencies and Congressional Committee to ferret out, unmask and prosecute all subversive elements, specifically all communists and fellow-travellers, which propagate class hatreds, economic strife, chaos and anarchy. All persons and organizations, who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism, should be thoroughly investigated by the proper organs of the Government. Concerning Slovakia the declaration emphasizes: As Christians and adherents of the democratic way of life, we resolutely oppose the domination and exploiitation of any nation by any other nation or political state. The Slovak nation did not want to be dominated by the Magyars prior to 1918 and, today, does not want to be ruled by the Czech nation. We firmly believe that the national existence and the welfare of the Slovak nation can best be safeguarded by the Slovaks themselves in their own Slovak Republic.17 In the year 1954, thanks to the efforts of Phillip Hrobak, president of the Slovak League, a number of Slovaks testified before committees of the American Congress which were investigating the fate of nations behind the iron curtain. Phillip Hrobak presented testimony in which he reviewed the history of the Slovak nation, with emphasis on its contemporary tribulations. In the Congress a special subcommittee was formed for Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia, and the testimony was printed in a publication titled Investigation of Communist Takeover and Occupation of Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia. In these hearings American officials received more information about Slovakia and the Slovaks than ever before. The greatest credit for enabling the Slovaks to speak freely before the committee of the American Congress belong to Congressman Charles J. Kersten, Chairman of the Committee, and Congressman Alvin N. Bentley, a member of the Committee. Congressman Bentley was a guest of the Slovak League at its 34th congress, which took place on the 23rd and 24th of May, 1955, in Washington, D.C. In his address he designated as the greatest bane of the Slovak nation the socalled Czech Slovaks. He declared at the same time that the American Government should recognize the demands of the Slovak League of America. Vice-President Nixon spoke for the Administration in a written message to the congress. The 130 delegates approved a memorandum which in substance made the same demands for Slovak rights as had previous memoranda. �116 SLOVAKIA This congress also observed the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the League's founder, the Reverend Stephen Furdek. On this occasion the Slovak League made a decision to sponsor the publication of a history of Slovakia in the English language. This announcement evoked such enthusiasm among the delegates and guests that they contributed more than $5,000.00 to the treasury of the League for this end. The Slovak League again commemorated the onehundredth anniversary of the birth of its founder in a joint observance with the First Catholic Slovak Union, held in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 4th and 5th of September, 1955. Approximately 10,000 American Slovaks attended the affair. The life and work of the Reverend Furdek were presented by Phillip Hrobak in a booklet titled The Reverend Stephen Furdek. 1855-1955. For Slovak readers a booklet by Joseph Pauco was issued, under the title stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectvo (Stephen Furdek and the Slovak Immigration). On November 20, 1955, in Lakewood, Ohio, Martin Slimak, a past vice-president of the Slovak League, and otherwise well-known fraternalist and financier, died at the age of 70. He was one of the most colorful figures in American-Slovak life. On July 5, 1955 news spread through the world of the dastardly murder of the outstanding Slovak politician, Matus Cernak. He was assassinated in Munich, Germany. The world press concluded unanimously that the case involved political murder. The culprits were never discovered by the police, but in Slovak circles little doubt exists that they were Communist agents. In 1956 the Slovak League was accorded one of the highest distinctions possible when on October 24th its eight-member delegation was received in audience by Secretary-of-State John F. Dulles. The Secretary entertained the delegates for almost half an hour and answered a whole series of questions which they put to him. At the head of this delegation was Phillip A. Hrobak, president of the League. The Hungarian uprising in 1956 touched off strong reverberations in Slovakia, as it did elsewhere. Reports in �SLOVAKIA 117 the American press spoke of unrest in Slovak towns and a general mood for revolt. But the eruption of rebellious feelings into overt act was effectively forestalled by the Czecho-Slovak army, which was controlled in all key positions by Czech officers. These circumstances and realities were pointed out by the Slovak League and the Slovak National Council Abroad in a joint memorandum to the United Nations. This memorandum presented a detailed description of the mood in Slovakia and reviewed the events had taken place there since 1945. The memorandum also notes the fact that by 1956, 320,000 Slovaks had been resettled in the Sudetenland. "This transfer of Slovak population," states the memorandum, "has much in common with deportations of the Baltic population to Siberia by the Soviets. The main purpose of the Prague Government is to cut people from their native roots and thus weaken the resistance which the compact mass of the Slovak population could exert against both Communism and also Czech domination. Prague obviously figures that the Slovak population, submerged thus by its new Czech environment, will finally lose its original Slovak character and become either entirely Czech, or at least proletarian."18 On May 31, 1956, in Owosso, Michigan, Julius Janci, American-Slovak doctor, member of the executive board of the Slovak League of America, and promoter of Slovak culture in America, died at the age of 51. He was one of the best known figures of Slovak life in the United States. On September 9, 1956 the Slovak League lost its secretary, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky. Death took him at the age of 53. He had plowed a deep furrow in Slovak life--as a national historian, and as an expert in the history and contemporary affairs of the American Slovaks. He was also an outstanding newspaperman and first-rate speaker. His loss was particularly painful for the Slovak League of America. The Abbot of the Monastery of St. Andrew Svorad in Cleveland, Ohio, Right Reverend Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. wrote of this outstanding Slovak: When nine years ago he came to us in Cleveland, it was as if the whole of Slovakia had come to us: with his simple faith in God, �116 SLOVAKIA his broad erudition, his intense desire for freedom and justice, his modesty, his industry, all his beauty of soul, Dr. Hru~ovsky personified the best of Slovak virtue and nobility.1 9 The 50th anniversary of the founding of the Slovak League of America came in the year 1957. The occasion was celebrated in conjunction with the League's 35th congress, which was held in Cleveland on the 26th to the 28th of May. A distinguished guest was the American bishop of Slovak extraction, the Right Reverend Andrew Grutka, D. D., of Gary, Indiana, who stated in an address: The Slovaks are one of the most godfearing of nations: this makes me happy to profess my national origin ; I love my native tongue. 20 During the congress extraordinary attention was aroused by a display featuring the life of the American Slovaks from the days of the pioneers to recent times. The exhibit in pictures, documents, newspapers, carvings, and statistical charts, engaged the interest of the Slovak public, and the American public as well. It was viewed in Benedectine High School by approximately 7,000 Slovaks and non-Slovaks. The local press, radio and television gave it exceptionally good coverage. In the preparation of this exhibit Constantine Culen, author and secretary of the Slovak League, accomplished a most worth-while bit of work. The leading Slovak writer and last director of the free Matica Slovenska, J . C. Hronsky, gave symbolic voice to the sentiments of the humiliated and silenced Slovak nation in anniversary greetings to this congress. "Slovak blood sends you greetings here today," went his salutation from far-off Argentina, "bidding you joy in your deliberations - because you have not betrayed it; because it still flows robustly in your veins; because it remains the same proud blood that has refused to bow in Slovakia, and has so often in the past been tempered to toughness by dungeon and gallow, as it continues to be today; because it refuses to stoop to self-betrayal."21 The delegates to the 35th congress of the Slovak League, who again elected Phillip Hrobak president and Constantine Culen secretary, adopted a memorandum in which they stressed: We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the basic moral �SLOVAKIA 119 principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Con• stitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America . They declared further : .. . on the solemn occasion of our Golden Jubilee, as represen• tatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group, we deem it our moral right and obligation to respectfully request, seek, and, if the need arises, to insist that our Government through its executive branch, in its various sections and divisions, not excluding our able ambassador to the United Nations, take all legitimate avenues of action in keeping with the sacred moral law of God and the law of nations to make certain that a true and lasting independent Slovakia may again take its rightful place in the community of nations which seek to preserve peace and promulgate the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.22 The leaders of the Slovak League prepared a special bi-lingual publication for this occasion, in which they reviewed the broad principles of the jubilating organiza. tion.23 The jubilee observance was rounded out by a com• plementary festivity - the first presentation on American soil of the "Andrew Hlinka Cup". The keepers of the cup, with Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum at their head, honored the president of the Slovak League and longtime editor of the newspaper Jednota, Phillip Hrobak, for his many contribu• tions to Slovak life, in particular for his contribution to American Slovaks of "a grammar and dictionary, and because with his aggresive elan, his perseverance and fear• lessness both as a newspaperman and as an organizer, he personifies the finest qualities, such as graced not only Uudovit stur, but also the first recipient of the cup, Andrew Hlinka, and those who came after."24 Phillip Hrobak remained at his post alert to developments on the international scene, and at the same time keeping American administrative circles informed of Slovak interests. He made several trips to Washington in 1958. His appeals and petitions were corroborated by reports in the American press, which wrote with admiration of developments in Slovakia. For instance the New York Times on January 13, 1958 carried a report which read: "The imperialists want to overthrow," announced the Czech communist, general-secretary of the Communist Party in Slovakia, Karel Bacilek, "our people's democracy by using Slovakia as a channel. Bourgeois nationalism is �120 SLOVAKIA allied with Ludakism and finds expression in an outcry against Czechs working in Slovakia." Another American newspaper disclosed: Slovakia, which has been more anti-Communist than some other East European countries, has experienced a new wave of anti-Czech, anti-Russian feeling in the past few months, and with Bulgaria is considered one of the Russian's most restless satellites.25 The League conducted its 36th congress on the 14th and 15th of June 1959 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It directed its attention to matters of American-Slovak cultural and civic life, and again declared itself for freedom and independence of Slovakia in the spirit of the address of its honorary president, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, who asserted: Our duty is to persevere in the struggle against Communism and to bolster everywhere the principles of democratic thought, democratic action, and the victory of democracy over dictatorship. This must also be the motivation of all our efforts with respect to the Slovak nation, to which we wish the same kind of freedom that we ourselves enjoy. In the struggle for an independent Slovakia the Slovak League will never, under any circumstances, capitulate. 26 The delegates unanimously reinstated Phillip Hrobak at the helm of the League, and Constantine culen at the post of secretary. In 1959 regional and local assemblies of the League prepared fitting commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic. A year later, through the initiative of Phillip Hrobak, president of the League, for the first time a public prayer for the Slovak nation was invoked on the floor of the American Congress. The March 14, 1960 session of the House of Representatives was opened by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., with the following prayer: Almighty God, heavenly Father, we beseach Thee to continue to bless our leaders so that they may always conscientiously serve the best interest of our nation and its people and thus remain in the favor of Thy Divine Providence. We pray Thee, God of Mercy, to mitigate the sufferings of all enslaved victims of brutal Communism and, in particular, on this solemn occasion of the Twenty-First Anniversary of the Proclamation of Slovak Independence, we implore Thee to grant the same blessings of freedom to the Slovak nation as Thou hast deigned to give us in our United States, so that Slovakia likewise, should have a 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. �SLOVAKIA 121 Lord, hear our prayers. And let our cries come unto Thee. Amen. 2 7 On May 9, 1960, in Whiting, Indiana, died the Reverend John Lach, a former member of the executive board of the Slovak League, cultural and social worker, particularly well-known as a generous patron of Slovak literary endeavors. "He was known and beloved not only among American Slovaks, but also among the Slovaks beyond the sea. His place was among the outstanding personalities of Slovak national life. He radiated love for his priestly calling, and for the Slovak people, and the Slovak people responded with the kind of love only they can show for the priests they love and for their genuine leaders ... " 28 The 37th congress of the Slovak League took place in the city of New York, on the 29th and 30th of May, 1961. It was conducted in the spirit of the preceeding congresses. The president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, John A. Sabol, described the Slovak League of America on this occasion as the finest heritage left by its founder Stephen Furdek. 29 This congress too, aproved a comprehensive memorandum in which the League expressed its loyalty to the United States and its government, and at the same time renewed its pleas for the liberation of the Slovak nation. In the memorandum are found the following statements: As Americans we sincerely believe that every nation, large and small, has the inherent, God-given right to freedom and independence, the right to its own nationhood and statehood. We believe, too, that liberty cannot be exercised by proxy and that all nations are entitled to a voice in the determination of their own destinies ... It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition of and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. These rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend their rights to survival and self-fulfillment.30 Phillip Hrobak was again elected to the post of president of the Slovak League. The preceding five years had witnessed an outbreak �122 SLOVAKIA of considerable feuding among American Slovaks. The strife carried over into the Slovak League, which was thus hampered in the conduct of the activities which clamored for its attention. In the year 1962 all the clashes and disputes in the Slovak press were brought to a close. The 38th congress, convened in Detroit, Michigan, on the 27th to the 29th of May, turned its attention to this problem. It reflects well on the perspicacity of all the groups which sent delegates to this congress, that they were able to reach an agreement and to dispel the belligerence that had discouraged and retarded the cultural and national activities of American Slovaks. Dr. Peter P. Hletko became the new president of the League at this congress. Also, a decision was made to restore the office of the secretary, and to this post was elected Dr. Joseph Pauco. The proceedings of the congress were conducted on a high level. It was visited and addressed by several American politicians, foremost among whom was the Governor of the State of Michigan, J. S . Swainson. In 1963 American Slovaks joined everywhere in the free world in commemorating with appropriate ceremony and solemnity the 1100th anniversary of the advent of the apostles Cyril and Methodius in Slovakia. The League rose to its calling on this occasion, too. Phillip Hrobak, continuing in the post of editor of the periodical Slovakia, dedicated the 1963 issue to the memorable Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee. He himself, along with other contributors, illuminated the importance and far-reaching significance of Christian culture and Christian morals for the Slovak nation. In addition, the Slovak League convoked a national conference in Washington, D.C., on the 5th and 6th of April, 1963, which marked this anniversary with fitting observances, and also commemorated another event of great national significance, the centenary of the founding of the Matica Slovenska, the outstanding Slovak cultural institution. Lectures on the significance of these anniversaries were presented in Slovak by Dr. Joseph Stasko, and in English by Phillip A. Hrobak. The occasion was also observed with religious ceremonies in the National Shrine of the �SLOVAKIA 123 Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C., which were conducted by the Reverend Paul Miklosovic, J.C.D., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also on this occasion, a delegation of the Slovak League, led by its president Peter P. Hletko and Phillip A. Hrobak, executive-board member, visited the State Department and again ventilated the demands of the Slovak League in the interest of the liberation of Slovakia. Thanks to the initiative of Phillip A. Hrobak the Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee received a signal commemoration on the floor of the American House of Representatives, when on March 14, 1963, the invocation was spoken by the Very Reverend Joseph Baran, V.F., from Lansford, Pennsylvania. A further project of the Slovak League of America in this connection was developed primarily through the initiative of its secretary: requests were sent to the governors of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan to declare days, weeks or months as commemorative observances of the CyriloMethodian Jubilee. Such observances were in fact proclaimed in all seven of the above-named states, which contain an absolute majority of Slovaks living in the United States. 31 The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee and the Matica centenary called forth the finest efforts of the Slovak League, because the events they commemorate are deeply woven into the fabric of the Slovak national character-they form the pith and substance of the Slovak national heritage. To review: The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee recalls the historical fact that the Slovaks are one of the oldest nations in Central Europe. Eleven hundred years ago they accepted Christianity and with it also Christian culture and civilization, whereby they definitely joined themselves with the western cultural world. The entire history of the Slovak people is characterized by this orientation. After the advent of the Slovak Apostles, a wealth of Slovak literature emanated in Slovakia which later became also the foundation of the literary culture of the other Slovanic nations. With the fall of Great Moravia, at the beginning of the tenth century, this culture gradually disappeared in Slovakia, because the Slovaks, after the collapse of their first political entity, came under the hegemony of the Magyars in Hungary, where Latin gradually replaced the ancient Slovak language as a literary medium. Politically, however, Slovakia retained �124 SLOVAKIA its independent status for many years. During the reign of Matus (Matthew) Cak of Trencin in the 14th century who controlled a large part of the Slovak country, Slovakia had its own army and its own mint ; and Matus concluded his own treaties with other countries without regard for Hungarian kings. Despite the fact that Slovaks had to suffer the hegemony of the Magyars for long centuries, they never renounced their Cyrilo-Methodian tradition, which became an integral part of their national ideology_ From the fifteenth century they are manifesting their adherence to the glorious past of their ancestors in numerous songs and historical works, thus demonstrating their antiquity and their claim to equality with the Magyars in old Hungary. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Slovaks, under the leadership of Louis Stur, Joseph Miloslav Hurban and Michael Hodfa, declared their independence and broke out in armed revolt against Magyar hegemony. In this struggle the Slovaks fondly recalled their first political entity, Great Moravia of the ninth century, and their national culture which was founded by SS. Cyril and Methodius. In 1863, despite the disfavor and opposition of Magyar authorities, the Slovaks celebrated the Millenium of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in practically every town and hamlet. The same year, to honor their Apostles, the Slovaks established the Matica Slovenska. And in the first half of the nineteenth century the bard of Slovakia, Jan Holly, wrote his great epic "Cyrilo-Methodiada," which is unique in European literature, glorifying the merits of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The cult of SS. Cyril and Methodius is wide-spread not only in Slovakia, but also wherever the Slovaks live, especially in the United States of America. This certainly is proof positive that the Slovaks are conscious of their cultural and .political antiquity. In America this cult is attested to by the numerous churches, schools, monasteries and fraternal societies that bear the name of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The Slovaks in the free world are commemorating the 1,lO0th anniversary of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in a grandiose manner. Besides religious and national celebrations in the United States and Canada, the Slovaks are planning two pilgrimages to Rome, the Eternal City where St. Cyril is buried, where they will dedicate the Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius on September 15, 1963, the seminary made possible by the gifts of Slovaks in the free world to train young men for the priesthood who will one day, God willing, do missionary work in a free Slovakia. Slovak poets of the free world are publishing a collection of poems to honor the memory of the Slovak Apostles; writers and journalists are extending themselves to the utmost to make the cult of 88. Cyril and Methodius better known to the non-Slovak world. All this forcefully stresses the fact that the Slovaks - after 1,100 years - are still spiritually connected with their ancient past, with their own Great Moravian Empire, and with the foundations of the literary culture established by SS. Cyril and Methodius. All these celebrations and commemorations are at the same time a clear expression of the desire of the Slovaks for political freedom, for a free culture, for a free religious life. The Slovaks in the free world, under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, are at this time also reminding the free world that �SLOVAKIA 125 their brethren in Slovakia, suffering under the brutal tyranny of the communists of Prague and Moscow, never did and never shall renounce their right to the political independence of Slovakia. This their right emanates from their political history and from their national and cultural antiquity. From Slovakia eleven hundred years ago Christianity spread to the Czech land, to Poland, to Hungary, to Bulgaria, and even to Russia. All these nations enjoyed a more fortunate past, they were able to create their own political states, only the Slovaks - one of the oldest nations in Central Europe - could not validate for long centuries their yearning and their right to their own state, because of the chauvinism and avariciousness of the nations that ruled over them. This year's great jubilee of the Slovak past is again a confirmation of the viability of the Slovak nation, of its loyalty to valid Christian val ues and, at the same time, an expression of the firm will of the Slovak to live an independent life, the kind of life ordained by God for man and for nations, the kind of life all nations of the world have the inherent right to live. The Slovak League of America, fully aware of its responsibility and fully conscious of its historical mission, expresses its profound feelings of fraternal relations with the suffering nation we are descended from, and in this great Slovak year, assembled in Washington, D.C., we again solemnly declare that we shall continue to exert ourselves, by all legal and ethical means at our disposal, for the preservation of the heritage of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Bernolak, and the Matica Slovenska, among American Slovaks, and that we shall continue in our effort to gain the favor of our American Government in the interest of renewing the free Slovak State in which, with the cooperation of all free nations, the Slovaks will fully enjoy the blessings of true freedom, the beginning and the end of which is the Gospel, and the most beautiful fruit of which. is contained in the testament of our Slovak Apostles, SS. Cyril and Methodius.32 Whereas the Slovak League had directed the Washington Declaration of 1963 to the American public at large, it addressed itself anew to topical political demands in a memorandum sent to Secretary-of-State Dean Rusk on October 7, 1963. This memorandum reads in part: As a representative of the United States government the President has asked me to tell you that the United States will continue to support the just aspirations of all people in the world for independence and liberty-aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations. We hail and welcome this assurance from our President and we request, Mr. Secretary of State, that you graciously recognize the fact that the Slovak League of America represents over 300,000 organized Americans of Slovak extraction and as such deems it its sacred duty to speak before the American Government in behalf of the Slovak nation which now lives under a Communist form of government and is unable to speak out for its rights and self-determination of its freedom and independence. The movement for an independent Slovakia is very strong at this time in Europe as well as here in America. Just in the past few months -as may be verified by our Ambassador in Prague, a strong wave of �126 SLOVAKIA resistance swept across Slovakia against the Czech Stalinists who for years were represented in Bratislava by their own man, Karel Bacilek, the secretary general of the Communist party. Slovak Communists with strong nationalistic inclinations forced the Prague government to recall Bacilek, and another Stalinist, Premier Viliam Siroky. In addition, they forced the posthumous rehabilitation of the former secretary of foreign affairs, Vlado Clementis, a Slovak, whom the Stalinists have executed. Along with Clementis, other nationalistically inclined Communists in Slovakia, who had been jailed during <the era of the Czech Stalinists, were pardoned, namely: Dr. Gustav Husak and Ladislav Novomesky. Membership in the Communist party was restored to both and their voice is now being heard more and more in Slovakia. Husak was removed some 10 years ago because immediately after the Second World War he clamored for an independent Soviet Slovak Republic and took a stand against the Czecho-Slovak Republic. According to information we have, the situation in Slovakia during the last four months is very similar and almost as explosive as was the situation in Hungary in 1956, which led to the well-known revolt against the Soviets. The Slovaks, of course, have no assurance from the outside world that they would be provided help if they revolted against the Prague and Moscow governments. Without such assurance any attempted revolt must prove foolhardy. The recent retreat of Moscow in Prague, while only in the Communist ranks thus for, is apparent in Slovakia. The nationalists are acquiring a voice and it appears that there is no force that can stop them . Naturally, we in no way support and will not support any Communist movement. But it is apparent and clear to us that Slovak patriotism in the political aspects has deep roots in the anti-Communist movement in Slovakia as well as in the ranks of the Slovak Communists themeselves. For that reason we are stronger and stronger in our conviction that it is our moral duty to come to the defense of the sovereign rights of the Slovak nation from which we have descended and to ask for that much recognition in a practical political sense as was expressed and interpreted to us by the brother of our President, John F. Kennedy. 33 The historic city of Philadelphia hosted the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America, on the 3rd to the 5th of May, 1964. The highlight of the Congress was a conference of young Americans of Slovak extraction. More than 80 young men and women participated. All walks of American-Slovak life were represented, and the discussion was extremely lively as the young people made suggestions for new forms of work. Out of the conference came a recommendation for the reorganization of courses in the Slovak language at various American centers. And the meeting issued an unanimous affirmation of the political program of the Slovak League: "Independence for Slovakia. This program is the most effective means of upholding Slovak consciousness."34 �SLOVAKIA 127 The 39th Congress set forth its sympathetic support of the aspirations of the Slovak nation, when it declared in a special proclamation: 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 officialsnational, 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 yoke 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 membership to solicit their local, state and federal officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an independent 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.35 1 From the comprehensive report presented to the 39th Congress of the Slovak League by its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, clear evidence emerges that the League had advanced both morally and materially in the period following the Detroit congress. A generally enlivened interest had coursed through the organization, which was reflected in positive responses, from the Slovak man-in-the-street, as well as from American politicians - governors of states to members of Congress. Several regional conferences of the Slovak League were conducted with marked success, and the treasury of the League recorded a gain of over $10,000.00.36 President Hletko declined to run for reelection and in his place the delegates to the 39th Congress elected Mr. Stephen J. Tkac; Dr. Pauco was reelected to the office of Secretary-Treasurer. In 1964 the Slovak League of America commemorated, with a special declaration, the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Andrew Hlinka, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. In the declaration it reaffirmed that: �128 SLOVAKIA The 14th of March remains an extraordinarily important milestone in Slovak history. This is true not only because, after long centuries of subjection, the Slovak nation had once more become master of its own destinies, but also because after March 14, 1939, there is no power on earth that can wipe from the souls of nationally conscious Slovaks the desire for independence and their own democratically administered state.37 The Slovak League and American Slovaks in general suffered painful losses in the year 1964. On January 10, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, died Phillip A. Hrobak. "Only future decades will reveal what a loss for all of us was the death of the zealous, industrious, and noble Phillip Hrobak ... his drive was not after venal mammon, or earthly glory - on the contrary, the work of his life was motivated by sincere conviction and holy enthusiasm", wrote Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B.38 Bishop Andrew Grutka rounded out Hrobak's profile: His departure deprives Slovaks and people of Slovak extraction of a courageous defender and zealous promoter whose weapons and tool was a pen. With the pen he has enshrined himself in the hearts of Slovaks. The world over his name will be indelibly inscribed in the pages of history as one who labored for God and country untiringly and unselfishly.39 Phillip Hrobak "never wavered, never strayed from the Slovak line; never backed down - but stood an unflinching guard over the finest aspirations of his nation; he was the gallant warrior who was not affraid of battle, and who always knew that his place was in the raging center of the battle."40 Another worker of great merit in the spheres of church and nationality, Monsignore Francis Dubosh, spoke the following testimonial: ... a man like Phillip Hrobak is outstanding. To him, an American of Slovak origin, freedom was not an empty word, it was not a fetish, but it was something real. It was an actual right given by the Creator himself, and not by some human government. Some human governments have usurped to themselves the right of granting or denying freedom to men and nations. Against these, Phillip Hrobak, a man of deep faith and love for God and men, took up the cudgel and fought, in season and out of season, to restore the divine right of freedom to all men, and in particular to the Slovak nation, from which he descended, of which he was never ashamed, and which nation he loved.41 Almost never before had an American-Slovak leader received the kind of recognition that came to the deceased Phillip Hrobak, and this was so because, in the words of �SLOVAKIA 129 the editor af Slovenska Obrana, "we can say without fear of contradiction that Hrobak performed a service of high merit for his nation. He left behind himself work of lasting value." 42 Shortly after Hrobak another eminent Slovak newspaperman and writer died: the former Secretary of the Slovak League, Constantine culen. Death struck him in the city of New York, on April 7, 1964. In culen the Slovaks lost one of the most aggressive and representative figures of their era. Constantine culen was the first Slovak writer to undertake systematic research in the history of American Slovaks, and the first to write a part of that history. He prepared many rich chapters in the history of parishes, movements, organizations, societies; he wrote biographies of priests; and he steadily pursued this line of work to the end. Even the first biography of the Reverend Stephen Furdek was prepared by Constantine culen. This work was written during the period of the Slovak Republic, when the daily siovak, in particular, regularly featured sketches of American-Slovak past and present, from the pen of Constantine culen. Constantine culen was first to bring about a reapprochement between Slovak America and the land of its origins. And had he accomplished nothing more as a writer and newspaperman, this accomplishment alone would rate him with the best - to be remembered as one of the foremost Slovak intellectuals of our century.43 On May 8, 1964, in the city of New York, died a former vice-president of the Slovak League of America and versatile correspondent of the Slovak newspapers, a man beloved among the Slovak rank-and-file-John Horecky. In Philadelphia the second vice-president-elect of the Slovak League, Dr. Paul Miklosovic, died suddenly on June 26, 1964, not having yet assumed office. He had been one of the most enlightened Slovak priests in America. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of the Slovak Republic he had pronounced the invocation to a session of the Senate of the United States. In it he spoke of the Slovaks, who "had always turned their eyes and hearts to the United States of America, knowing it to be strong, magnanimous, patient, and understanding."44 The new officers of the Slovak League of America addressed both candidates for the Presidency of the United States in a letter dated October 14, 1964, which stated in part: �130 SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America is concerned that up to this time there has not been an announcement by your party about the future of the peoples in Central Europe, where -0ur heritage stems and where over four million Slovaks suffer under Russian Communism and Czech domination and centralization. It is our conviction that the Slovaks have the God-given right to independence, because it is a people with over 1100 years of cultural background and a nation that has been striving for hundreds of years for freedom ... The Slovak League of America requests full recognition of American Slovaks in matters concerning ethnic groups and asks that our foreign policy concerned with oppressed peoples does not forget about the Slovaks in Central Europe and their birthright for independence. On October 21, 1965 the Slovak League addressed a letter to President L. B. Johnson, expressing approval of his policies in Vietnam, but reminding him at the same time of the plight of the Slovaks under Communism and their struggle for freedom and independence. In the spirit of the above-mentioned letters delegations of the Slovak League, headed by its president Stephen J. Tkac, visited the State Department on September 3, 1965 and March 28, 1966, where they presented petitions concerning the Voice of America and other administrative agencies. In these petitions the League requested that the organizational structure of these agencies be adjusted to allow for Slovak sections, separate and apart from existing Czech and Czecho-Slovak counterparts. Likewise, these delegations informed the State Department of the situation in Slovakia, placing particular stress on evidence that the Slovak movement for complete freedom was now much stronger than it had been in the years 1938-1939. The leadership of the League was given assurances that its petitions and related information were under study and had been passed on to the proper channels. In the spirit of the decisions of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League, its chief officers made overtures to the Slovak Lutherans (Evangelicals) of the United States for a strengthening of mutual ties and cooperation. This work was carried on by members of a special committee, which included Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., Dr. Peter P. Hletko, and Paul Jamriska. Particularly wide-ranging efforts in this direction were developed by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Secretary-Treasurer of the League - through personal and �SLOVAKIA 131 official contacts with various religious, national, and fraternal organizations of the Slovak Lutherans of the United States. A special campaign for reapproachment with the Lutherans was conducted on the pages of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, of which Dr. Pauco is publisher. An address which the Secretary-Treasurer presented to the Synod of the Slovak Lutherans held in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on June 2, 1965, was described in their official publication as historic. "All these steps", said the president of the League Stephen J. Tkac in his report to the 40th Congress, "the meetings, articles, discussions and solemn pronouncements, have brought forth fruit. There is noticeable, in the first place, a relaxation of mutual tensions, and in both camps exploration of grounds for cooperation. I think that a most essential step has been taken and we have begun to talk. Our discussions are calm, we are exchanging views and accomplishing in the social and national spheres what has been taking place among Christian church groups in matters of a spiritual nature." 45 Cooperation with Slovak organizations and periodicals between the 39th and 40th congress was very good. Many regional and local units of the League held observances in 1965 and 1966, as in prior years, of March 14, Slovak Independence Day. These observances were designed to call to the American public's attention the fact that free Slovaks earnestly support freedom and independence for the nation from which they are descended. The publication Slovakia was issued in the years 1965 and 1966 under the editorship of Dr. Joseph Pauco, in 160 pages. Many universities, public libraries, and many young Slovak Americans evinced interest in this periodical, which is dedicated to Slovak cultural and national matters of the past and present. Financially the Slovak League entered the 40th Congress with a cash balance of over $18,000.00. The 40th Congress of the Slovak League was conducted on the 15th to the 17th of May, 1966, in the city of Youngstown, Ohio. A second conference of young people was �132 SLOVAKIA attended by over 100 participants. With Dr. Peter Hletko at the chair many matters of interest to young American Slovaks were debated and the participants expressed their viewpoints. Attorney Edward J. Behuncik, first vice-president of the League, delivered a talk on Slovak self-respect and pride. The young people requested further such conferences, in conjunction with congresses of the League, and outside them. The Slovak League also arranged with representatives of organizations which lively interest was developed for in the preservation of Slovak cultural in America. special conferences and periodicals, at further cooperation and national values The Congress approved the establishment of a scholarship fund for American college students of Slovak extraction, who would study Slovak history and arts, and would write serious studies in these fields. Discussion in the Congress was constructive and favorable to the strengthening of ecumenical ideas. At the closing banquet the benediction was invoked by a Lutheran Dean, Rev. August skodacek; another Lutheran pastor, the Reverend Andrew Rolik sent written salutations; and the Reverend Rudolph Flachbarth came to extend personal well-wishes, and to sit with the League's leaders in work sessions. At the banquet of the 40th Congress the principal address was presented by Congressman Michael A. Feighan, who evaluated the patriotic program of the Slovak League, expressed high praise for the Christian ideals of the Slovak nation, and announced that he had presented a demand to the Administration for a separate Slovak section in the Voice of America. In closing he declared: While the evil hand of Russian Communism continues its attempts to destroy the very spirit of Saints Cyril and Methodius and to reduce the Slovak people to a state of complete servility, the Slovak people refuse to surrender that which, over a thousand years, they have continued to fi ght for - their spirit of independence, of justice and of freedom.46 The 40th Congress too approved a meaningful memorandum, in which the delegates noted, among other things: The eventual liberation of our brethren and kinfolk, and, in the �SLOVAKIA 133 ecumenical spirit, all mankind from the tyranny and yoke of atheistic materialism of Communism must and will be our continuous goal. The reestablishment of an independent Slovakia as a free state in a united Europe must be, and, in God's good time, will be brought about through the efforts of our members and the peoples of other God fearing, oppressed ethnic groups and nations.4 7 The local American press, as well as radio and television, brought noteworthy attention to the 40th Congress of the Slovak League of America. From this standpoint it was one of the most successful congresses in the history of the League. The delegates in Youngstown approved a motion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the League in the month of May 1966, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Preparations were started immediately after the conclusion of the congress and the executive board shifted most of its energies to this purpose. Nevertheless, oranizational and cultural work was by no means neglected, and further contacts with Administration people were steadily cultivated. President Stephen J. Tkac and Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Pauco wrote to President Lyndon Johnson to remind him that 20 years had passed since American-Slovak periodicals had been banned in Slovakia, while Communists continued to freely spread their propaganda throughout the free world. The honorary president of the League, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, had preserved in his possession a copy of a film produced by the Matica Slovenska (The Slovak Institute) titled Zem spieva (Song of the Earth). The League held showings of this film at various locations in the period preceding its jubilee celebration. The film arroused lively interest particularly among Slovak oldtimers and contributed to the enlivening of Slovak life in America. On the eve of the jubilee observance, held on the 27th and 28th of May, 1967, the publication Slovakia issued from the presses, again under the editorship of SecretaryTreasurer Pauco. This issue presents a compact history of the Slovak League of America, from its founding to the present, as well as other noteworthy contributions. The pre-jubilee mood among American Slovaks reflected a spirit of harmony, which had in recent years �134 SLOVAKIA become noticeable along the whole line of Slovak endeavors. The observance of the 60th anniversary of the Slovak League was conducted without the participation of a most prominent personality, one who had played an eminent role in Slovak life, particularly in the Slovak League of America: On January 17, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois died Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, perennial first lady of the League's Women's Auxiliary, the Vcielky (Bees), for many years vice-president of the League itself, and since 1966, its honorary vice-president. More than half a century of educational, organizational and charitable work is associated with the name of Julia Krajcovic. The charitable and patriotic work of the Vcielky under her leadership, as is pointed out elsewhere in this issue of Slovakia, comprises one of the finest chapters in the history of the Slovak League of America. One instance was the Vcielky's effective and substantial aid to Slovak victims of World War II, which presented a shining example of Slovak unity and harmony. Without Julia Krajcovic Slovak life in Chicago and all of America would hardly have flourished as it had during the days of the fullness of her vigor and elan. She was everywhere, and she did everything possible to promote love for the Slovak people and the Slovak word, to strengthen it, and to demonstrate it to the world.48 In its 60th year the Slovak League of America was poorer by many a distinguished colleague, including precious workers of the distaff side - but its momentum was full-forward, and its posture reflected readiness to continue its work for the preservation of Slovak consciousness, Slovak culture and Slovak traditions in America, and for a free Slovakia. FOOTNOTES 1. Zprava predsedu S'lovenskej Ligy v Amerike podana na XXIX . kongrese. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Presented to the 29th Congress.), Cleveland, Ohio, 1947. Published for distribution. Yurchak, Peter P. The Truth about Slovakia. 1947. Jednota. November 12, 1947. Jednota. March 12, 1947 "Prve vyrocie smrti Jana A. Kocura. " (The First Anniversary of the Death of John A. Kocur.) Jednota, July 20, 1949. Pauco, Joseph. Slovcici a komunizmus. (The Slovaks and Communism), Middletown, Pa., 1957, pg. 306. �SLOVAKIA 135 7. "Vedieme boj a z boja neustt'.ipime." (We Are Engaged in Battle and Will Never Retreat from the Field), Jednota, April 27, 1947. 8. "The Czechoslovak Council." America, March 19, 1949. 9. Report on the American Slav Congress and Associated Organizations. Prepared and released by the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., 1949. 10. Pauco, Joseph. Sfovcici a komunizmus. pg. 307. 11. Full text in Jednota, January 31, 1951. 12. "To the President and Congress of the United States." Jednota, May 9, 1951. 13. Report on the conference in Jednota, May 28, 1952. 14. Jednota. May 6, 1953. 15. The memorandum was published for distribution under the title : Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United States of America. Issued by the Thirty-Third Congress of the Slovak League of America, April 28, 1953, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 16. Jednota. June 9, 1954. 17. Declaration of the National Conferenc e of Americans of Slovak Descent. May 24-25, 1954, Washington, D.C. Eight-page publication with photostatic copies of the signatures of the participants. 18. Memorandum Concerning the Czech-Communist Military Intervention in Slovakia. Presented to the United Nations General Assembly by the Slovak League of America and Slovak National Council Abroad . Middletown, Pa., December 22, 1956. Published for distribution. 19. "Za Dr. Frantiskom Hrusovskym." (In Memoriam to Dr. Francis Hrusovsky.) , Kalendcir Jednota 1957, pg. 23. 20. "Biskup Grutka na kongrese Slovenskej Ligy." (Bishop Grutka at the Congress of the Slovak League,), Jednota, May 29, 1957. 21. "Slovenskej Lige v Amerike." (To the Slovak League of America.), Jednota, May 22, 1957. 22. Memorandum to the President of the United States of America, the Hon. Secretary of State of the United States of America, and the Hon. Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations by the Thirty-Fifth Congress of the Slovak League of America. Cleveland, Ohio, May 28, 1957. Published for distribution. 23. Golden Jubilee and the XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America. May 26-28, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio, 96 pp. Contributors: Phillip A. Hrobak, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, Julia Krajcovic, Paul Jamriska, and Dr. Joseph A. Mikus. The publication is bi-lingual. 24. From the speech of Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, as quoted in Jednota, March 27, 1957. 25. "Czech Trials Seen as Sign of Red Fears." Sunday News. New York City, March 16, 1958. 26. Jednota. June 24, 1959. 27. Full text in Jednota, March 16, 1960. 28. From an eulogy by Bishop Andrew Grutka, as quoted in Jednota, May 18, 1960. 29. The complete text of Sabol's salutation in Jednota, June 7, 1961. 30. Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United �136 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. SLOVAKIA States of America. The XXXVII Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 29-30, 1961, New York, N. Y., 4 pp. "Slovenska Liga oznamuje." (The Slovak League Announces.), Jednota, August 7, 1963. "Proclamation of the Slovak League of America, Washington, D.C., April 5, 1963." Jednota, April 17, 1963. The full text of the memorandum in Jednota, October 16, 1963. From a report published in Jednota, May 6, 1964. Proclam ati on of May 5, 1964. 39th Congress - Slovak League of America. Philadelphia, Pa., 4 pp. Jednota published the full text of Dr. Peter Hletko's report in its issues of May 20 and 27, 1964. "Na pamat' storocnice Andreja Hlinku a 25. vyrocia vyhlasenia Slovenskej Republiky." (In Commemoration of the Hlinka Centennial and the 25th Anniversary of the Declaration of Slovak Independence.), Jednota, March 11, 1964. The declaration was signed by the chief officers and executive board of the Slovak League of America, as well as by the presidents of all its affiliated organizations. "Nad smrt'ou Filipa Hrobaka. " (Reflections on the Death of Phillip Hrobak.),Jednota, January 22, 1964. "In Memoriam." Ibid. " Tryzna za Filipom Hrobakom." (An Elegy to Phillip Hrobak. ), Mikulas Sprinc, Jednota, January 29, 1964. " Phillip Anthony Hrobak." Jednota, February 12, 1964. "Za Filipom Hrobakom." (In Memory of Phillip Hrobak. ), Slov enska Obr ana, Scranton, Pa., January 21, 1964. Additional data from the life of Phillip Hrobak appears in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v A m erike, Middletown, Pa., 1967, pp. 157-158. Jednota. April 15, 1964. More about Constantine Culen in the abovecited Literarny Alm anach Slovaka v Amerike, pp. 129-130. Jedn ota. April 1, 1964. 45. Zprav a preds edu Slovensk ej L i gy v Amerike Stefana J. Tkaca na 40. kongrese v o Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, 16. maja 1966. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America Stephen J. Tkac at the 40th Congress in the Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, May 16, 1966.), pg. 7. 46. Slov akia. Middletown, Pa., Volume XVI, 1966. pp. 126-127. 47. M emorandum Adopted Unani mously by the 40th Congress of the Slov ak League of America. Youngstown, Ohio, May 17, 1966. 4 pp. 48. " Chicago stratilo najpoprednejsiu Slovenku." (Chicago Loses its Foremost Slovak Lady.)), Nase Hlasy, February 1967. Anna Kolena eulogized the life and work of Julia Krajcovic in an extensive necrology titled "Za Juliou Krajcovicovou." (In Memory of Julia Krajcovic ), Slovak v Amerike, February 1, 1967. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 104 SLOVAKIA UNDER DYNAMIC LEADERSHI P Joseph Pauco, Ph.D. The activity of the Slovak League of America in its 40th year centered around Slovakia and the person of the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso. President Peter Jurcak, in his report to the League's 29th congress on October 20, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, disclosed that the Slovak League of America had sent "more than 40,000 letters to official circles, congressmen and senators, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to leading personalities in the United States, underlining its anti-Communist policies, and placing particular stress on the trend of events in the land of our forefathers." 1 The League had undertaken this action because "just one year past, American official circles and the press had been speaking of some sort of Czecho-Slova k bridge. The assumption was fostered that this bridge would entice the Soviet bear into Western Europe, and that once there he would be transformed into a lamb. There existed a wide-spread belief in the possibility of such a miracle. Generally overlooked was the fact that this bridge was occupied by the Soviet army, which would blow it to smithereens, the moment it lost its prerogative to control traffic, and thus abruptly bring to a halt any such 'monkey business'." Jurcak's report sheds light on the attitude of the Slovak League of America towards the president of the Slovak Republic, Dr. Joseph Tiso, at that most critical moment. Before the verdict of the "People's Court" in Bratislava was given "we sent more than 20,000 letters", states Jurcak, " to every imaginable recipient, from the smallest fraternal branch to the President of the United States." Jurcak as president of the Slovak League made eight trips to Washington to raise his voice in the cause of saving Dr. Tiso. The Slovak League published a distinguished brochure in defense of Dr. Tiso titled The Truth about Slovakia.2 This action demonstrated the love of American Slovaks for the nation of their origin, and their devotion to the personality of Dr. Joseph Tiso. American Slovaks under the leadership of the League appealed to the Amer- SLOVAKIA 105 ican Government to save the live of Dr. Joseph Tiso. They defended the policies of the president of the Slovak Republic, and pointed out that his case was not merely an internal matter of the "pertinent country", but that all Slovaks must work towards its just disposition, and that America might demonstrate by saving Tiso's life how committed she is to the strengthening of democratic infuences in a country which contains some of our most devoted allies in the current conflict between the USSR and the Western Democracies. The Slovak League distributed the brochure The Truth about Slovakia to all senators, congressmen, to all the delegates to the United Nations, and to many newspapers. In addition to this the League prepared a special appeal to the President of the United States, which was sent for signing to all its branches and to all its affiliated organizations and church parishes. In the appeal American Slovaks protested the cynical trial of Dr. Tiso and preparations for his execution, and they urged President Truman to intercede in the matter with the Prague government. This appeal evoked a huge response among American Slovaks. Indeed, it was signed by many non-Slovaks. At the behest of the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, presented in the form of a motion at its annual meeting, the Slovak League called a conference of all American-Slovak organizations in Washington, D.C., placing at the top of the agenda the goal of obtaining an audience with President Truman. This conference was attended by representatives of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, and the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. President Truman sent a representative of the State Department to the Conference. Peter P. Jurcak in his report to the 29th congress noted: "We did not suceed in saving the life of the president of the Slovak State, but at least we acquainted the American public, more than ever before in the history of the Slovak League, with the Slovak nation and the Slovak question. Many congressmen became our friends; the fate of the Slovak hero so touched them that they expressed their convictions about this unpleasant affair publicly in 106 SLOVAKIA the forum of the United States Congress and thus before the whole world." In particular, the speeches of Congressmen Madden and O'Konski received wide publicity. Peter P. Jurcak was convinced that Dr. Joseph Tiso "would receive from history quite a different verdict from that of his present judges. When future generation s, particularly in America, compare his conduct with the voluntary embracem ent of Communis m by those who convicted him-whom do you think they will consider the greater enemy of American democracy ? Considerab le time may yet pass, but eventually the outside world will come to the realization that had Tiso voluntarily turned over Slovakia to the Communis ts, he might have preserved the Slovak state, and his life to boot." The 29th congress of the Slovak League of America adopted the viewpoint of Peter Jurcak, and in a policy statement added: The Czecho-Slovak government in Prague has committed (April 18, 1947) the gravest kind of injustice in .t he hanging of Monsignore Joseph Tiso, an exemplary priest, a staunch Slovak patriot, and wartime president of the Slovak Republic. This act defies the will of the entire Slovak nation and inflicts a most damaging blow to Czech Slovak relations. We are convinced that this is a case of the most arbitrary parody of justice, and we cannot but decisively condemn Dr. Eduard Benes and his government. This declaration expresses the anti-Comm unist sentiments of the Slovak League, and brings witness to the historic reality that "the Slovak Republic was destroyed by a self-appoin ted Communis t political regime and by brute military force-with out consultatio n of the will of the Slovak people", and that the new regime "distinguis hes itself with terror and the totalitarian conquest of a country by a minority which employs any means to impose its rule over Slovakia." Furthermo re the declaration demands free elections in Slovakia, commentin g: We are fully convinced that Czecho-Slovakia is not a democracy in the sense accepted in this country. In the 'people's democracy', as Czecho-Slovakia now styles itself, the government controls all political parties, the press, and the air-waves-a state of affairs which is at obvious odds with the fundamental principles embraced by all democratic governments . The declaration requests that the President and Con- SLOVAKIA 107 gress of the United States protest the occupation of Slovakia and "the persecution of Slovak ecclesiastical, cultural and political leaders." Peter Jurcak was reelected president of the Slovak League of America, and John Kocur secretary. Shortly after the congress Jurcak sent a telegram to President Truman, in the name of the League, stating: To say nothing about what is happening in Slovakia today is but another form o:fl appeasement which will make the eventual liberation of the countries of Central Europe more difficult and more costly to the United States and will leave these people without hope.a The Slovak League also turned its attention to the problem of the expatriation of the Slovak nationals to the Sudetenland. According to a news release appearing in cas, the official administration newspaper in Bratislava, February 5, 1947 issue, 200,000 Slovaks had already been moved to the Sudetenland as of that date. On February 24, 1947 the Slovak League (Jurcak and Kocur) sent a petition to the President of the United States which read: We specifically appeal with reference to the proposed expatriation of several hundred thousand Slovaks from their homeland to the Sudetenland in Czecho-Slovakia. There is reason to believe that this is another effort to dismember this small nation and defeat permanently any effort at independence by the Slovak people.4 On March 29, 1947 Joseph Rusek, a past president of the Slovak League and an outstanding Slovak newspaperman, died in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Husek's name is closely associated with almost half a century's activity among American Slovaks. As editor of the weekly Jednota he stood in the front ranks as a defender of Slovak national individuality he had few peers in America. He was one of the signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, and remained and unswerving proponent of its letter and spirit. Not a single question affecting Slovak welfare either in America or the old country escaped his attention in the columns of his newspaper; his analyses covered a broad spectrum of problems - social, economic, cultural and national. The uniqueness of Husek's journalistic contributions lay in his penetrating criticism. Joseph Rusek was without doubt one of the greatest Slovak newsmen of his time, or any time. To promote interest in the plight of Slovakia the 108 SLOVAKIA League opened a campaign, headed by the Rev. John J . Lach of Whiting, Indiana, for distribution of Freedom for Slovakia stamps. The profit was to be channeled into a Fund for Slovak Freedom, established to support efforts for the liberation of the Slovak nation and the organization of a democratic government in a hoped-for independent Slovak state. In addition the League's attention was taken by the bitter fate of Slovak exiles, who were not recognized by the Western powers as refugees and who therefore failed to meet eligibility requirements for legal and material assistence in resettlement. A change was achieved through the efforts of the Slovak League, which through the intervention of its president Peter Jurcak engaged the favorable attention of the International Refugee Organization, and saw its representative, Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, received in the European headquarters of IRO in Geneva. As a result the IRO took the Slovak exile community under its protective wing. The League held a special meeting on this matter in Washington, D.C. on January 19 and 20, 1948, and committees visited American congressmen and administrative officials to work towards solution of this problem. On the 13th of July, 1948, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, John Kocur, long-time secretary of the Slovak League, died at the age of 61. The historian Dr. Francis Hrusovsky wrote of him: John A. Kocu r , in his uprightness of• char acter , his firmness of conviction, and his deep love of the Slovak nation, was a beautiful exemplification of the perfect American of Slovak extraction, who t hrough his tireless labor cultivated a deep furrow in Slovak life in America and earned an honorable niche in the history of his nation.s On December 20, 1948, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Peter P . Jurcak, attorney and president of the Slovak League, died at the age of only 48 years. With Peter Jurcak had begun a new era in the Slovak League of America-an era of dynamic workers, born in America, to be sure, but in their love for Slovakia holding steadily to the ideals of the founders and promoters of the League. Jurcak was the first president of the Slovak League who through English books and memoranda, as well as personal contacts, worked mightily to persuade American political and cultural workers to recognize the individuality and cultural SLOVAKIA 109 distinctiveness of the Slovak nation. His activity in the Slovak League of America falls into the }lectic post-war years. He proved himself an aggressive and resourceful leader, such as was sorely needed by the Slovak League and the Slovak cause in general. During the 30th congress of the Slovak League of America on March 1 and 2, 1949 in Chicago, the delegates expressed their opposition to any form of Czecho-Slovakia, and by resolution took a stand on the Communist putsch there in February 1948: The Slovak nation by no means condones the aggressive tactics of the Communist party, but on the contrary, demanding respect for the convictions and will of the overwhelming majority, most resolutely condemns these tactics, and awaits only the opportunity to cast off this government by terror and violence.6 The congress also took a stand with respect to the new currents that appeared in the Slovak and Czech exile communities. It recognized the Slovak National Council Abroad, with Karol Sidor at the helm, as the leader in the fight for the independence of Slovakia.On the other hand "the Slovak League extends no recognition whatsoever to the Council of Free Czecho-Slovakia", wrote the new president of the League, Paul Jamriska; "it does not concede any right to the Czechs to meddle in the fate of Slovakia, and it considers those 'Czecho-Slovaks' who support the afore-mentioned organization enemies of their own nation." 7 The new vice-president of the Slovak League, Phillip A. Hrobak, began to publish in January 1949 a monthly Slovak Newsletter, dedicated to the defense of Slovak interests and the informing of American public opinion. The first issues of this periodical were devoted largely to countering the claims and theses of the Council of Free CzechoSlovakia, about which organization a leading American journal ( America) wrote: The leaders of the newly formed Council are Marxists - can Bolshevism be defeated by its own ideas? They are free thinkers and opponents of any religious instruction. What cultural ideas will they give to the unhappy Slovak people? They will have to rule in Slovakia by sheer force - could that be called democracy?B The Slovak League gained extraordinary recognition on June 26, 1949 in the House of Representatives, when the 110 SLOVAKIA Un-American Activities Committee issued a Report on the American Slav CO?uJress and Associated Organizations. This official report Cit_es the opposition of the Slovak League of America to the American Slav Congress. A whole passage is quoted from the declaration issued by the League's 29th congress, and in conclusion the Report remarks that the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations "are on record as opposed to Communist rule and as supporting 'present American foreign policy'." On the other hand this same repor~ notes that the organizations defending the idea of Czecho-Slovak unity were a mainstay of the American Slav Congress, and against them stood "the opposition of the American-Slovak League." Further the Report states : ... the friendly relations between the Benes government and the Soviet Union insured the cooperation of the bulk of the Czecho-Slovakian organizations, which constituted one of the most dependable elements in the American Slav Congress.9 The 31st congress of the Slovak League of America was held in the city of Cleveland. The delegates issued a manifest on May 24, 1950, in which they state among other things: At the end of World War II the Slovak nation found itself, despite great-power declarations affirming the principle of the self-determination of nations, back in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in which it had no desire to live, under any condiUons. In the renewed Czecho-Slovak Republic the Slovaks lost all the prerequisites for their free national development, and in this 'people's democracy' they are suffering the unendurable fate of helpless slaves. To this political degradation, economic misery and cultural enslavement has been added religious persecution, which is designed to break the moral strength of the Slovak nation, to destroy its peculiarly Christian character, so eventually a way of life might be forced on it that would obliterate its distinctive temperament, its convictions, its long Christian traditions, and its goals. The Slovak League, in the name of justice and human rights, most resolutely protests this ruthless enslavement of the Slovak nation, and sees in the progressive constriction of the rights of the churches and the disruption of religious life in Slovakia, the rawest form of Communist barbarity.10 The opponents of the movement for independeJt Slovakia continued to bring heavy pressures against the natural leaders of the Slovak nation, even on the soil of the free nations of the world. They attempted to prevent the very visit to America of Karol Sidor, author, journalist, SLOVAKIA 111 and one-time minister in the Slovak Republic. The strength of the Slovak League, however, rallied to the occasion, and persuaded the State Department to grant a visa to Sidor as a guest of the League. Minister Karol Sidor received a warm welcome from the delegates at the League's 31st congress. Afterwards he visited almost all the Slovak centers in the United States. He made tens of speeches, leaving deep impressions with his listeners, and helping the broad Slovak masses to orient themselves in the welter of influences and events. Phillip A. Hrobak became the new president of the Slovak League of America. In January 1951 he was the first American-Slovak leader to raise his voice against the recent trial and conviction of Slovak bishops by Communist courts in Czecho-Slovakia. He sent a memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States in which he appealed to the Government to protest publicly against these convictions and the religious persecution in Slovakia, and to sever diplomatic relations with the Prague government "which has sinned so grievously against humanity and the fundamental principles of freedom." Lastly, Hrobak requested that the American Government present a resolution to the United Nations demanding an investigation of all the crimes committed against the Slovak nation.11 In April 1951 the Slovak League sent a further memorandum to the President and Congress of the United States, in which it appealed for independence of Slovakia and again underscored its anti-Communist sentiments.12 On May 21, 1951 the delegates to the League's 32nd congress, held in New York City, adopted a declaration condemning Communism and ... the insincere and false peace propaganda which by attractive slogans of world peace is attempting to still the consciences of individual nations, and thus to distract their attention from preparations for aggression and world rule. In Moscow's peace propaganda we are witness to duplicity of such dimensions as has no parallel in history. As citizens of a free and democratic country, which guarantees us not only all rights, but also all the conditions for material welfare and spiritual progress, we construe every aggressive war as criminal, but we see as no less criminal the immoral abuse of peace slogans for military buld-up, which threatens international peace and drives humanity towards a new catastrophe. 112 SLOVAKIA The 32nd congress of the Slovak League was attended by an official representativ e of the State Department in the person of Barstow H. Underwill. Also, the American publicist, Ann Su Cardwell, presented a significant speech to the delegates. A Slovak guest was the author and journalist, general-secre tary of the Slovak National Council Abroad, Peter Pridavok, from London, England. On the occasion of this congress the Slovak League published the first issue of a quarterly called Slovakia, which was edited by its president, Phillip Hrobak. This publication presented historical and topical articles, designed to furnish accurate information about Slovakia to the American political and cultural-scien tific communities. Phillip A. Hrobak was again elected president and Dr. Francis Hrusovsky became secretary for the third time. In early 1952 the Slovak League opened an information office in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., directed by the former Slovak diplomat Dr. Joseph Mikus. On the 23rd of May 1952 the League held a conference in Washingto, which was attended by representativ es of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Women's Union, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Women's Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union, the Federation of Slovak Catholics, and representativ es of the Slovak Press in America. The conference heard addresses by Senator Theodore F. Green and Congressman Charles J. Kersten. The conferees issued a declaration in which the Slovak League and its affiliated organizations reaffirmed the appeals on behalf of Slovakia presented to the U.S. Government in past years. 13 On October 28, 1952, in Monessen, Pennsylvania , died Michael Sincak, former vice-presiden t of the Slovak League and well-known fraternalist. He had been one of the most energetic organizers of Slovak life in America, devoting his efforts with particular affection to Slovak song. He collected several hundred Slovak songs and promoted them enthusiastically . The Slovak public had met his name often on the pages of Slovak newspapers. The 33rd congress of the Slovak League of America SLOVAKIA 113 was held on the 27th and 28th of April, 1953, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the two preceeding years the League's membership had increased by 2,000, its information office had proved its value, and the work of the League had aroused interest in many quarters. Among other things the League, in these two years, had presented 60 film showings. Many American politicians sent greetings to this congress. Foremost among them was the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who stated in his message: Our nation has been enriched by the contribution to our spiritual and economic welfare by the hundreds of thousands of Slovak people who have emigrated to the United States to find freedom and better livelihood. Experiencing and treasuring our representative democracy, our religious freedom, and our economic prosperity, Americans of Slovak descent naturally look forward eagerly to the day when the homeland of their forefathers may again know these blessings.14 This congress too passed a memorandum addressed to the President and Congress of the United States. Among other things it states: It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind a forced iron curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. Those rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend rights to survival and selffulfillment. The members of the Slovak League of America, including the membership of the organizations actively affiliated with it, are loyal to America because to them America is the ideal - the living symbol of freedom, tolerance and justice. They seek no special favors for the people from which they are descended but only the recognition of and respect for, the inherent and fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. We firmly believe that it is in the highest interests of America and the rest of the free world that the Slovaks be free and have their independent state.1s At the 33rd congress, which again elected Phillip A. Hrobak president, an honored guest was the former Slovak diplomat and active political worker in exile, Matus Cernak, from Munich, Germany. His speeches among American Slovaks provided a strong stimulus to interests in Slovak affairs . • On March 5, 1953, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, died the 114 SLOVAKIA Reverend John Porubsky, first secretary of the Slovak League, author and newspaperman of extraordinary talent. He was 79 years old. For half a century he had filled the columns of Slovak newspapers and almanacs in America, under his own name as well as under several pseudonyms (Sestros, Stary Farmer). John Porubsky was a living Slovak chronicle. He knew the history of the Slovak nation, particularly that of its American off-shoot. He applied himself on the one hand to the earthy problems of animal husbandry and farming, and on the other, to the more elevated fields of history and literature. Slovak literature he enriched with scores of essays and articles, crowning his efforts with a History of Slovak Literature. On October 20, 1953, in Montreal, Canada, died Karol Sidor, who in the Slovak movement for independence, occupies a position only slightly behind Andrej Hlinka and Dr. Joseph Tiso. The range of his interests was wide and varied, including at many points the affairs of American Slovaks. He had contacts with them, recognized their existence and needs; and it was Karol Sidor who first approached the writing of serious American-Slovak history with his work Slovdci v zahranicnom odboji (1928) (The Contributions of Slovaks Abroad to the Struggle for Independence of Slovakia). Sidor had particularly warm relations with the Slovak League of America. Among his personal friends were Phillip A. Hrobak and Dr. Peter P. Hletko. On the 24th and 25th of May, 1954 the Slovak League held another conference in WRshington, D.C. Tens of congressmen came to extend their greetings, as did representatives of various Central-European nationalities and exile groups. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sent separate messages to the conference. Dulles' statement included the following : Our government is deeply concerned about the plight of the Slovak people and of the other peoples of Central and Eastern Europe under the present Soviet-controlled regimes.16 The conference issued a declaration which touches on a number of topical subjects. It reads in part: We heartily commend all efforts on the part of our Government, SLOVAKIA 115 its agencies and Congressional Committee to ferret out, unmask and prosecute all subversive elements, specifically all communists and fellow-travellers, which propagate class hatreds, economic strife, chaos and anarchy. All persons and organizations, who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism, should be thoroughly investigated by the proper organs of the Government. Concerning Slovakia the declaration emphasizes: As Christians and adherents of the democratic way of life, we resolutely oppose the domination and exploiitation of any nation by any other nation or political state. The Slovak nation did not want to be dominated by the Magyars prior to 1918 and, today, does not want to be ruled by the Czech nation. We firmly believe that the national existence and the welfare of the Slovak nation can best be safeguarded by the Slovaks themselves in their own Slovak Republic.17 In the year 1954, thanks to the efforts of Phillip Hrobak, president of the Slovak League, a number of Slovaks testified before committees of the American Congress which were investigating the fate of nations behind the iron curtain. Phillip Hrobak presented testimony in which he reviewed the history of the Slovak nation, with emphasis on its contemporary tribulations. In the Congress a special subcommittee was formed for Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia, and the testimony was printed in a publication titled Investigation of Communist Takeover and Occupation of Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia. In these hearings American officials received more information about Slovakia and the Slovaks than ever before. The greatest credit for enabling the Slovaks to speak freely before the committee of the American Congress belong to Congressman Charles J. Kersten, Chairman of the Committee, and Congressman Alvin N. Bentley, a member of the Committee. Congressman Bentley was a guest of the Slovak League at its 34th congress, which took place on the 23rd and 24th of May, 1955, in Washington, D.C. In his address he designated as the greatest bane of the Slovak nation the socalled Czech Slovaks. He declared at the same time that the American Government should recognize the demands of the Slovak League of America. Vice-President Nixon spoke for the Administration in a written message to the congress. The 130 delegates approved a memorandum which in substance made the same demands for Slovak rights as had previous memoranda. 116 SLOVAKIA This congress also observed the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the League's founder, the Reverend Stephen Furdek. On this occasion the Slovak League made a decision to sponsor the publication of a history of Slovakia in the English language. This announcement evoked such enthusiasm among the delegates and guests that they contributed more than $5,000.00 to the treasury of the League for this end. The Slovak League again commemorated the onehundredth anniversary of the birth of its founder in a joint observance with the First Catholic Slovak Union, held in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 4th and 5th of September, 1955. Approximately 10,000 American Slovaks attended the affair. The life and work of the Reverend Furdek were presented by Phillip Hrobak in a booklet titled The Reverend Stephen Furdek. 1855-1955. For Slovak readers a booklet by Joseph Pauco was issued, under the title stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectvo (Stephen Furdek and the Slovak Immigration). On November 20, 1955, in Lakewood, Ohio, Martin Slimak, a past vice-president of the Slovak League, and otherwise well-known fraternalist and financier, died at the age of 70. He was one of the most colorful figures in American-Slovak life. On July 5, 1955 news spread through the world of the dastardly murder of the outstanding Slovak politician, Matus Cernak. He was assassinated in Munich, Germany. The world press concluded unanimously that the case involved political murder. The culprits were never discovered by the police, but in Slovak circles little doubt exists that they were Communist agents. In 1956 the Slovak League was accorded one of the highest distinctions possible when on October 24th its eight-member delegation was received in audience by Secretary-of-State John F. Dulles. The Secretary entertained the delegates for almost half an hour and answered a whole series of questions which they put to him. At the head of this delegation was Phillip A. Hrobak, president of the League. The Hungarian uprising in 1956 touched off strong reverberations in Slovakia, as it did elsewhere. Reports in SLOVAKIA 117 the American press spoke of unrest in Slovak towns and a general mood for revolt. But the eruption of rebellious feelings into overt act was effectively forestalled by the Czecho-Slovak army, which was controlled in all key positions by Czech officers. These circumstances and realities were pointed out by the Slovak League and the Slovak National Council Abroad in a joint memorandum to the United Nations. This memorandum presented a detailed description of the mood in Slovakia and reviewed the events had taken place there since 1945. The memorandum also notes the fact that by 1956, 320,000 Slovaks had been resettled in the Sudetenland. "This transfer of Slovak population," states the memorandum, "has much in common with deportations of the Baltic population to Siberia by the Soviets. The main purpose of the Prague Government is to cut people from their native roots and thus weaken the resistance which the compact mass of the Slovak population could exert against both Communism and also Czech domination. Prague obviously figures that the Slovak population, submerged thus by its new Czech environment, will finally lose its original Slovak character and become either entirely Czech, or at least proletarian."18 On May 31, 1956, in Owosso, Michigan, Julius Janci, American-Slovak doctor, member of the executive board of the Slovak League of America, and promoter of Slovak culture in America, died at the age of 51. He was one of the best known figures of Slovak life in the United States. On September 9, 1956 the Slovak League lost its secretary, Dr. Francis Hrusovsky. Death took him at the age of 53. He had plowed a deep furrow in Slovak life--as a national historian, and as an expert in the history and contemporary affairs of the American Slovaks. He was also an outstanding newspaperman and first-rate speaker. His loss was particularly painful for the Slovak League of America. The Abbot of the Monastery of St. Andrew Svorad in Cleveland, Ohio, Right Reverend Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. wrote of this outstanding Slovak: When nine years ago he came to us in Cleveland, it was as if the whole of Slovakia had come to us: with his simple faith in God, 116 SLOVAKIA his broad erudition, his intense desire for freedom and justice, his modesty, his industry, all his beauty of soul, Dr. Hru~ovsky personified the best of Slovak virtue and nobility.1 9 The 50th anniversary of the founding of the Slovak League of America came in the year 1957. The occasion was celebrated in conjunction with the League's 35th congress, which was held in Cleveland on the 26th to the 28th of May. A distinguished guest was the American bishop of Slovak extraction, the Right Reverend Andrew Grutka, D. D., of Gary, Indiana, who stated in an address: The Slovaks are one of the most godfearing of nations: this makes me happy to profess my national origin ; I love my native tongue. 20 During the congress extraordinary attention was aroused by a display featuring the life of the American Slovaks from the days of the pioneers to recent times. The exhibit in pictures, documents, newspapers, carvings, and statistical charts, engaged the interest of the Slovak public, and the American public as well. It was viewed in Benedectine High School by approximately 7,000 Slovaks and non-Slovaks. The local press, radio and television gave it exceptionally good coverage. In the preparation of this exhibit Constantine Culen, author and secretary of the Slovak League, accomplished a most worth-while bit of work. The leading Slovak writer and last director of the free Matica Slovenska, J . C. Hronsky, gave symbolic voice to the sentiments of the humiliated and silenced Slovak nation in anniversary greetings to this congress. "Slovak blood sends you greetings here today," went his salutation from far-off Argentina, "bidding you joy in your deliberations - because you have not betrayed it; because it still flows robustly in your veins; because it remains the same proud blood that has refused to bow in Slovakia, and has so often in the past been tempered to toughness by dungeon and gallow, as it continues to be today; because it refuses to stoop to self-betrayal."21 The delegates to the 35th congress of the Slovak League, who again elected Phillip Hrobak president and Constantine Culen secretary, adopted a memorandum in which they stressed: We rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the basic moral SLOVAKIA 119 principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Con• stitution, and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America . They declared further : .. . on the solemn occasion of our Golden Jubilee, as represen• tatives of the vast majority of the Slovak ethnic group, we deem it our moral right and obligation to respectfully request, seek, and, if the need arises, to insist that our Government through its executive branch, in its various sections and divisions, not excluding our able ambassador to the United Nations, take all legitimate avenues of action in keeping with the sacred moral law of God and the law of nations to make certain that a true and lasting independent Slovakia may again take its rightful place in the community of nations which seek to preserve peace and promulgate the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.22 The leaders of the Slovak League prepared a special bi-lingual publication for this occasion, in which they reviewed the broad principles of the jubilating organiza. tion.23 The jubilee observance was rounded out by a com• plementary festivity - the first presentation on American soil of the "Andrew Hlinka Cup". The keepers of the cup, with Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum at their head, honored the president of the Slovak League and longtime editor of the newspaper Jednota, Phillip Hrobak, for his many contribu• tions to Slovak life, in particular for his contribution to American Slovaks of "a grammar and dictionary, and because with his aggresive elan, his perseverance and fear• lessness both as a newspaperman and as an organizer, he personifies the finest qualities, such as graced not only Uudovit stur, but also the first recipient of the cup, Andrew Hlinka, and those who came after."24 Phillip Hrobak remained at his post alert to developments on the international scene, and at the same time keeping American administrative circles informed of Slovak interests. He made several trips to Washington in 1958. His appeals and petitions were corroborated by reports in the American press, which wrote with admiration of developments in Slovakia. For instance the New York Times on January 13, 1958 carried a report which read: "The imperialists want to overthrow," announced the Czech communist, general-secretary of the Communist Party in Slovakia, Karel Bacilek, "our people's democracy by using Slovakia as a channel. Bourgeois nationalism is 120 SLOVAKIA allied with Ludakism and finds expression in an outcry against Czechs working in Slovakia." Another American newspaper disclosed: Slovakia, which has been more anti-Communist than some other East European countries, has experienced a new wave of anti-Czech, anti-Russian feeling in the past few months, and with Bulgaria is considered one of the Russian's most restless satellites.25 The League conducted its 36th congress on the 14th and 15th of June 1959 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It directed its attention to matters of American-Slovak cultural and civic life, and again declared itself for freedom and independence of Slovakia in the spirit of the address of its honorary president, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, who asserted: Our duty is to persevere in the struggle against Communism and to bolster everywhere the principles of democratic thought, democratic action, and the victory of democracy over dictatorship. This must also be the motivation of all our efforts with respect to the Slovak nation, to which we wish the same kind of freedom that we ourselves enjoy. In the struggle for an independent Slovakia the Slovak League will never, under any circumstances, capitulate. 26 The delegates unanimously reinstated Phillip Hrobak at the helm of the League, and Constantine culen at the post of secretary. In 1959 regional and local assemblies of the League prepared fitting commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic. A year later, through the initiative of Phillip Hrobak, president of the League, for the first time a public prayer for the Slovak nation was invoked on the floor of the American Congress. The March 14, 1960 session of the House of Representatives was opened by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., with the following prayer: Almighty God, heavenly Father, we beseach Thee to continue to bless our leaders so that they may always conscientiously serve the best interest of our nation and its people and thus remain in the favor of Thy Divine Providence. We pray Thee, God of Mercy, to mitigate the sufferings of all enslaved victims of brutal Communism and, in particular, on this solemn occasion of the Twenty-First Anniversary of the Proclamation of Slovak Independence, we implore Thee to grant the same blessings of freedom to the Slovak nation as Thou hast deigned to give us in our United States, so that Slovakia likewise, should have a 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. SLOVAKIA 121 Lord, hear our prayers. And let our cries come unto Thee. Amen. 2 7 On May 9, 1960, in Whiting, Indiana, died the Reverend John Lach, a former member of the executive board of the Slovak League, cultural and social worker, particularly well-known as a generous patron of Slovak literary endeavors. "He was known and beloved not only among American Slovaks, but also among the Slovaks beyond the sea. His place was among the outstanding personalities of Slovak national life. He radiated love for his priestly calling, and for the Slovak people, and the Slovak people responded with the kind of love only they can show for the priests they love and for their genuine leaders ... " 28 The 37th congress of the Slovak League took place in the city of New York, on the 29th and 30th of May, 1961. It was conducted in the spirit of the preceeding congresses. The president of the First Catholic Slovak Union, John A. Sabol, described the Slovak League of America on this occasion as the finest heritage left by its founder Stephen Furdek. 29 This congress too, aproved a comprehensive memorandum in which the League expressed its loyalty to the United States and its government, and at the same time renewed its pleas for the liberation of the Slovak nation. In the memorandum are found the following statements: As Americans we sincerely believe that every nation, large and small, has the inherent, God-given right to freedom and independence, the right to its own nationhood and statehood. We believe, too, that liberty cannot be exercised by proxy and that all nations are entitled to a voice in the determination of their own destinies ... It is only natural that Americans of Slovak descent are vitally interested in the question of the national existence of the nation they are descended from. And since the Slovak nation cannot speak freely for itself, imprisoned as it is behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak League of America has taken upon itself the obligation of pleading for the recognition of and respect for the fundamental rights of the Slovak nation. These rights are predicated in the elementary democratic principle that all peoples, wherever they may be found and however few their numbers, are morally obligated and entitled to speak in the council of nations, there to defend their rights to survival and self-fulfillment.30 Phillip Hrobak was again elected to the post of president of the Slovak League. The preceding five years had witnessed an outbreak 122 SLOVAKIA of considerable feuding among American Slovaks. The strife carried over into the Slovak League, which was thus hampered in the conduct of the activities which clamored for its attention. In the year 1962 all the clashes and disputes in the Slovak press were brought to a close. The 38th congress, convened in Detroit, Michigan, on the 27th to the 29th of May, turned its attention to this problem. It reflects well on the perspicacity of all the groups which sent delegates to this congress, that they were able to reach an agreement and to dispel the belligerence that had discouraged and retarded the cultural and national activities of American Slovaks. Dr. Peter P. Hletko became the new president of the League at this congress. Also, a decision was made to restore the office of the secretary, and to this post was elected Dr. Joseph Pauco. The proceedings of the congress were conducted on a high level. It was visited and addressed by several American politicians, foremost among whom was the Governor of the State of Michigan, J. S . Swainson. In 1963 American Slovaks joined everywhere in the free world in commemorating with appropriate ceremony and solemnity the 1100th anniversary of the advent of the apostles Cyril and Methodius in Slovakia. The League rose to its calling on this occasion, too. Phillip Hrobak, continuing in the post of editor of the periodical Slovakia, dedicated the 1963 issue to the memorable Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee. He himself, along with other contributors, illuminated the importance and far-reaching significance of Christian culture and Christian morals for the Slovak nation. In addition, the Slovak League convoked a national conference in Washington, D.C., on the 5th and 6th of April, 1963, which marked this anniversary with fitting observances, and also commemorated another event of great national significance, the centenary of the founding of the Matica Slovenska, the outstanding Slovak cultural institution. Lectures on the significance of these anniversaries were presented in Slovak by Dr. Joseph Stasko, and in English by Phillip A. Hrobak. The occasion was also observed with religious ceremonies in the National Shrine of the SLOVAKIA 123 Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C., which were conducted by the Reverend Paul Miklosovic, J.C.D., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also on this occasion, a delegation of the Slovak League, led by its president Peter P. Hletko and Phillip A. Hrobak, executive-board member, visited the State Department and again ventilated the demands of the Slovak League in the interest of the liberation of Slovakia. Thanks to the initiative of Phillip A. Hrobak the Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee received a signal commemoration on the floor of the American House of Representatives, when on March 14, 1963, the invocation was spoken by the Very Reverend Joseph Baran, V.F., from Lansford, Pennsylvania. A further project of the Slovak League of America in this connection was developed primarily through the initiative of its secretary: requests were sent to the governors of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan to declare days, weeks or months as commemorative observances of the CyriloMethodian Jubilee. Such observances were in fact proclaimed in all seven of the above-named states, which contain an absolute majority of Slovaks living in the United States. 31 The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee and the Matica centenary called forth the finest efforts of the Slovak League, because the events they commemorate are deeply woven into the fabric of the Slovak national character-they form the pith and substance of the Slovak national heritage. To review: The Cyrilo-Methodian jubilee recalls the historical fact that the Slovaks are one of the oldest nations in Central Europe. Eleven hundred years ago they accepted Christianity and with it also Christian culture and civilization, whereby they definitely joined themselves with the western cultural world. The entire history of the Slovak people is characterized by this orientation. After the advent of the Slovak Apostles, a wealth of Slovak literature emanated in Slovakia which later became also the foundation of the literary culture of the other Slovanic nations. With the fall of Great Moravia, at the beginning of the tenth century, this culture gradually disappeared in Slovakia, because the Slovaks, after the collapse of their first political entity, came under the hegemony of the Magyars in Hungary, where Latin gradually replaced the ancient Slovak language as a literary medium. Politically, however, Slovakia retained 124 SLOVAKIA its independent status for many years. During the reign of Matus (Matthew) Cak of Trencin in the 14th century who controlled a large part of the Slovak country, Slovakia had its own army and its own mint ; and Matus concluded his own treaties with other countries without regard for Hungarian kings. Despite the fact that Slovaks had to suffer the hegemony of the Magyars for long centuries, they never renounced their Cyrilo-Methodian tradition, which became an integral part of their national ideology_ From the fifteenth century they are manifesting their adherence to the glorious past of their ancestors in numerous songs and historical works, thus demonstrating their antiquity and their claim to equality with the Magyars in old Hungary. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Slovaks, under the leadership of Louis Stur, Joseph Miloslav Hurban and Michael Hodfa, declared their independence and broke out in armed revolt against Magyar hegemony. In this struggle the Slovaks fondly recalled their first political entity, Great Moravia of the ninth century, and their national culture which was founded by SS. Cyril and Methodius. In 1863, despite the disfavor and opposition of Magyar authorities, the Slovaks celebrated the Millenium of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in practically every town and hamlet. The same year, to honor their Apostles, the Slovaks established the Matica Slovenska. And in the first half of the nineteenth century the bard of Slovakia, Jan Holly, wrote his great epic "Cyrilo-Methodiada," which is unique in European literature, glorifying the merits of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The cult of SS. Cyril and Methodius is wide-spread not only in Slovakia, but also wherever the Slovaks live, especially in the United States of America. This certainly is proof positive that the Slovaks are conscious of their cultural and .political antiquity. In America this cult is attested to by the numerous churches, schools, monasteries and fraternal societies that bear the name of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The Slovaks in the free world are commemorating the 1,lO0th anniversary of the advent of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Slovakia in a grandiose manner. Besides religious and national celebrations in the United States and Canada, the Slovaks are planning two pilgrimages to Rome, the Eternal City where St. Cyril is buried, where they will dedicate the Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius on September 15, 1963, the seminary made possible by the gifts of Slovaks in the free world to train young men for the priesthood who will one day, God willing, do missionary work in a free Slovakia. Slovak poets of the free world are publishing a collection of poems to honor the memory of the Slovak Apostles; writers and journalists are extending themselves to the utmost to make the cult of 88. Cyril and Methodius better known to the non-Slovak world. All this forcefully stresses the fact that the Slovaks - after 1,100 years - are still spiritually connected with their ancient past, with their own Great Moravian Empire, and with the foundations of the literary culture established by SS. Cyril and Methodius. All these celebrations and commemorations are at the same time a clear expression of the desire of the Slovaks for political freedom, for a free culture, for a free religious life. The Slovaks in the free world, under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, are at this time also reminding the free world that SLOVAKIA 125 their brethren in Slovakia, suffering under the brutal tyranny of the communists of Prague and Moscow, never did and never shall renounce their right to the political independence of Slovakia. This their right emanates from their political history and from their national and cultural antiquity. From Slovakia eleven hundred years ago Christianity spread to the Czech land, to Poland, to Hungary, to Bulgaria, and even to Russia. All these nations enjoyed a more fortunate past, they were able to create their own political states, only the Slovaks - one of the oldest nations in Central Europe - could not validate for long centuries their yearning and their right to their own state, because of the chauvinism and avariciousness of the nations that ruled over them. This year's great jubilee of the Slovak past is again a confirmation of the viability of the Slovak nation, of its loyalty to valid Christian val ues and, at the same time, an expression of the firm will of the Slovak to live an independent life, the kind of life ordained by God for man and for nations, the kind of life all nations of the world have the inherent right to live. The Slovak League of America, fully aware of its responsibility and fully conscious of its historical mission, expresses its profound feelings of fraternal relations with the suffering nation we are descended from, and in this great Slovak year, assembled in Washington, D.C., we again solemnly declare that we shall continue to exert ourselves, by all legal and ethical means at our disposal, for the preservation of the heritage of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Bernolak, and the Matica Slovenska, among American Slovaks, and that we shall continue in our effort to gain the favor of our American Government in the interest of renewing the free Slovak State in which, with the cooperation of all free nations, the Slovaks will fully enjoy the blessings of true freedom, the beginning and the end of which is the Gospel, and the most beautiful fruit of which. is contained in the testament of our Slovak Apostles, SS. Cyril and Methodius.32 Whereas the Slovak League had directed the Washington Declaration of 1963 to the American public at large, it addressed itself anew to topical political demands in a memorandum sent to Secretary-of-State Dean Rusk on October 7, 1963. This memorandum reads in part: As a representative of the United States government the President has asked me to tell you that the United States will continue to support the just aspirations of all people in the world for independence and liberty-aspirations which the Slovaks share today with many other captive nations. We hail and welcome this assurance from our President and we request, Mr. Secretary of State, that you graciously recognize the fact that the Slovak League of America represents over 300,000 organized Americans of Slovak extraction and as such deems it its sacred duty to speak before the American Government in behalf of the Slovak nation which now lives under a Communist form of government and is unable to speak out for its rights and self-determination of its freedom and independence. The movement for an independent Slovakia is very strong at this time in Europe as well as here in America. Just in the past few months -as may be verified by our Ambassador in Prague, a strong wave of 126 SLOVAKIA resistance swept across Slovakia against the Czech Stalinists who for years were represented in Bratislava by their own man, Karel Bacilek, the secretary general of the Communist party. Slovak Communists with strong nationalistic inclinations forced the Prague government to recall Bacilek, and another Stalinist, Premier Viliam Siroky. In addition, they forced the posthumous rehabilitation of the former secretary of foreign affairs, Vlado Clementis, a Slovak, whom the Stalinists have executed. Along with Clementis, other nationalistically inclined Communists in Slovakia, who had been jailed during <the era of the Czech Stalinists, were pardoned, namely: Dr. Gustav Husak and Ladislav Novomesky. Membership in the Communist party was restored to both and their voice is now being heard more and more in Slovakia. Husak was removed some 10 years ago because immediately after the Second World War he clamored for an independent Soviet Slovak Republic and took a stand against the Czecho-Slovak Republic. According to information we have, the situation in Slovakia during the last four months is very similar and almost as explosive as was the situation in Hungary in 1956, which led to the well-known revolt against the Soviets. The Slovaks, of course, have no assurance from the outside world that they would be provided help if they revolted against the Prague and Moscow governments. Without such assurance any attempted revolt must prove foolhardy. The recent retreat of Moscow in Prague, while only in the Communist ranks thus for, is apparent in Slovakia. The nationalists are acquiring a voice and it appears that there is no force that can stop them . Naturally, we in no way support and will not support any Communist movement. But it is apparent and clear to us that Slovak patriotism in the political aspects has deep roots in the anti-Communist movement in Slovakia as well as in the ranks of the Slovak Communists themeselves. For that reason we are stronger and stronger in our conviction that it is our moral duty to come to the defense of the sovereign rights of the Slovak nation from which we have descended and to ask for that much recognition in a practical political sense as was expressed and interpreted to us by the brother of our President, John F. Kennedy. 33 The historic city of Philadelphia hosted the 39th Congress of the Slovak League of America, on the 3rd to the 5th of May, 1964. The highlight of the Congress was a conference of young Americans of Slovak extraction. More than 80 young men and women participated. All walks of American-Slovak life were represented, and the discussion was extremely lively as the young people made suggestions for new forms of work. Out of the conference came a recommendation for the reorganization of courses in the Slovak language at various American centers. And the meeting issued an unanimous affirmation of the political program of the Slovak League: "Independence for Slovakia. This program is the most effective means of upholding Slovak consciousness."34 SLOVAKIA 127 The 39th Congress set forth its sympathetic support of the aspirations of the Slovak nation, when it declared in a special proclamation: 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 officialsnational, 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 yoke 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 membership to solicit their local, state and federal officials for the assistance needed to reestablish, in God's good time, Slovakia as a free state in central Europe, an independent 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.35 1 From the comprehensive report presented to the 39th Congress of the Slovak League by its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, clear evidence emerges that the League had advanced both morally and materially in the period following the Detroit congress. A generally enlivened interest had coursed through the organization, which was reflected in positive responses, from the Slovak man-in-the-street, as well as from American politicians - governors of states to members of Congress. Several regional conferences of the Slovak League were conducted with marked success, and the treasury of the League recorded a gain of over $10,000.00.36 President Hletko declined to run for reelection and in his place the delegates to the 39th Congress elected Mr. Stephen J. Tkac; Dr. Pauco was reelected to the office of Secretary-Treasurer. In 1964 the Slovak League of America commemorated, with a special declaration, the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Andrew Hlinka, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. In the declaration it reaffirmed that: 128 SLOVAKIA The 14th of March remains an extraordinarily important milestone in Slovak history. This is true not only because, after long centuries of subjection, the Slovak nation had once more become master of its own destinies, but also because after March 14, 1939, there is no power on earth that can wipe from the souls of nationally conscious Slovaks the desire for independence and their own democratically administered state.37 The Slovak League and American Slovaks in general suffered painful losses in the year 1964. On January 10, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, died Phillip A. Hrobak. "Only future decades will reveal what a loss for all of us was the death of the zealous, industrious, and noble Phillip Hrobak ... his drive was not after venal mammon, or earthly glory - on the contrary, the work of his life was motivated by sincere conviction and holy enthusiasm", wrote Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B.38 Bishop Andrew Grutka rounded out Hrobak's profile: His departure deprives Slovaks and people of Slovak extraction of a courageous defender and zealous promoter whose weapons and tool was a pen. With the pen he has enshrined himself in the hearts of Slovaks. The world over his name will be indelibly inscribed in the pages of history as one who labored for God and country untiringly and unselfishly.39 Phillip Hrobak "never wavered, never strayed from the Slovak line; never backed down - but stood an unflinching guard over the finest aspirations of his nation; he was the gallant warrior who was not affraid of battle, and who always knew that his place was in the raging center of the battle."40 Another worker of great merit in the spheres of church and nationality, Monsignore Francis Dubosh, spoke the following testimonial: ... a man like Phillip Hrobak is outstanding. To him, an American of Slovak origin, freedom was not an empty word, it was not a fetish, but it was something real. It was an actual right given by the Creator himself, and not by some human government. Some human governments have usurped to themselves the right of granting or denying freedom to men and nations. Against these, Phillip Hrobak, a man of deep faith and love for God and men, took up the cudgel and fought, in season and out of season, to restore the divine right of freedom to all men, and in particular to the Slovak nation, from which he descended, of which he was never ashamed, and which nation he loved.41 Almost never before had an American-Slovak leader received the kind of recognition that came to the deceased Phillip Hrobak, and this was so because, in the words of SLOVAKIA 129 the editor af Slovenska Obrana, "we can say without fear of contradiction that Hrobak performed a service of high merit for his nation. He left behind himself work of lasting value." 42 Shortly after Hrobak another eminent Slovak newspaperman and writer died: the former Secretary of the Slovak League, Constantine culen. Death struck him in the city of New York, on April 7, 1964. In culen the Slovaks lost one of the most aggressive and representative figures of their era. Constantine culen was the first Slovak writer to undertake systematic research in the history of American Slovaks, and the first to write a part of that history. He prepared many rich chapters in the history of parishes, movements, organizations, societies; he wrote biographies of priests; and he steadily pursued this line of work to the end. Even the first biography of the Reverend Stephen Furdek was prepared by Constantine culen. This work was written during the period of the Slovak Republic, when the daily siovak, in particular, regularly featured sketches of American-Slovak past and present, from the pen of Constantine culen. Constantine culen was first to bring about a reapprochement between Slovak America and the land of its origins. And had he accomplished nothing more as a writer and newspaperman, this accomplishment alone would rate him with the best - to be remembered as one of the foremost Slovak intellectuals of our century.43 On May 8, 1964, in the city of New York, died a former vice-president of the Slovak League of America and versatile correspondent of the Slovak newspapers, a man beloved among the Slovak rank-and-file-John Horecky. In Philadelphia the second vice-president-elect of the Slovak League, Dr. Paul Miklosovic, died suddenly on June 26, 1964, not having yet assumed office. He had been one of the most enlightened Slovak priests in America. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of the Slovak Republic he had pronounced the invocation to a session of the Senate of the United States. In it he spoke of the Slovaks, who "had always turned their eyes and hearts to the United States of America, knowing it to be strong, magnanimous, patient, and understanding."44 The new officers of the Slovak League of America addressed both candidates for the Presidency of the United States in a letter dated October 14, 1964, which stated in part: 130 SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America is concerned that up to this time there has not been an announcement by your party about the future of the peoples in Central Europe, where -0ur heritage stems and where over four million Slovaks suffer under Russian Communism and Czech domination and centralization. It is our conviction that the Slovaks have the God-given right to independence, because it is a people with over 1100 years of cultural background and a nation that has been striving for hundreds of years for freedom ... The Slovak League of America requests full recognition of American Slovaks in matters concerning ethnic groups and asks that our foreign policy concerned with oppressed peoples does not forget about the Slovaks in Central Europe and their birthright for independence. On October 21, 1965 the Slovak League addressed a letter to President L. B. Johnson, expressing approval of his policies in Vietnam, but reminding him at the same time of the plight of the Slovaks under Communism and their struggle for freedom and independence. In the spirit of the above-mentioned letters delegations of the Slovak League, headed by its president Stephen J. Tkac, visited the State Department on September 3, 1965 and March 28, 1966, where they presented petitions concerning the Voice of America and other administrative agencies. In these petitions the League requested that the organizational structure of these agencies be adjusted to allow for Slovak sections, separate and apart from existing Czech and Czecho-Slovak counterparts. Likewise, these delegations informed the State Department of the situation in Slovakia, placing particular stress on evidence that the Slovak movement for complete freedom was now much stronger than it had been in the years 1938-1939. The leadership of the League was given assurances that its petitions and related information were under study and had been passed on to the proper channels. In the spirit of the decisions of the 39th Congress of the Slovak League, its chief officers made overtures to the Slovak Lutherans (Evangelicals) of the United States for a strengthening of mutual ties and cooperation. This work was carried on by members of a special committee, which included Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B., Dr. Peter P. Hletko, and Paul Jamriska. Particularly wide-ranging efforts in this direction were developed by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Secretary-Treasurer of the League - through personal and SLOVAKIA 131 official contacts with various religious, national, and fraternal organizations of the Slovak Lutherans of the United States. A special campaign for reapproachment with the Lutherans was conducted on the pages of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, of which Dr. Pauco is publisher. An address which the Secretary-Treasurer presented to the Synod of the Slovak Lutherans held in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on June 2, 1965, was described in their official publication as historic. "All these steps", said the president of the League Stephen J. Tkac in his report to the 40th Congress, "the meetings, articles, discussions and solemn pronouncements, have brought forth fruit. There is noticeable, in the first place, a relaxation of mutual tensions, and in both camps exploration of grounds for cooperation. I think that a most essential step has been taken and we have begun to talk. Our discussions are calm, we are exchanging views and accomplishing in the social and national spheres what has been taking place among Christian church groups in matters of a spiritual nature." 45 Cooperation with Slovak organizations and periodicals between the 39th and 40th congress was very good. Many regional and local units of the League held observances in 1965 and 1966, as in prior years, of March 14, Slovak Independence Day. These observances were designed to call to the American public's attention the fact that free Slovaks earnestly support freedom and independence for the nation from which they are descended. The publication Slovakia was issued in the years 1965 and 1966 under the editorship of Dr. Joseph Pauco, in 160 pages. Many universities, public libraries, and many young Slovak Americans evinced interest in this periodical, which is dedicated to Slovak cultural and national matters of the past and present. Financially the Slovak League entered the 40th Congress with a cash balance of over $18,000.00. The 40th Congress of the Slovak League was conducted on the 15th to the 17th of May, 1966, in the city of Youngstown, Ohio. A second conference of young people was 132 SLOVAKIA attended by over 100 participants. With Dr. Peter Hletko at the chair many matters of interest to young American Slovaks were debated and the participants expressed their viewpoints. Attorney Edward J. Behuncik, first vice-president of the League, delivered a talk on Slovak self-respect and pride. The young people requested further such conferences, in conjunction with congresses of the League, and outside them. The Slovak League also arranged with representatives of organizations which lively interest was developed for in the preservation of Slovak cultural in America. special conferences and periodicals, at further cooperation and national values The Congress approved the establishment of a scholarship fund for American college students of Slovak extraction, who would study Slovak history and arts, and would write serious studies in these fields. Discussion in the Congress was constructive and favorable to the strengthening of ecumenical ideas. At the closing banquet the benediction was invoked by a Lutheran Dean, Rev. August skodacek; another Lutheran pastor, the Reverend Andrew Rolik sent written salutations; and the Reverend Rudolph Flachbarth came to extend personal well-wishes, and to sit with the League's leaders in work sessions. At the banquet of the 40th Congress the principal address was presented by Congressman Michael A. Feighan, who evaluated the patriotic program of the Slovak League, expressed high praise for the Christian ideals of the Slovak nation, and announced that he had presented a demand to the Administration for a separate Slovak section in the Voice of America. In closing he declared: While the evil hand of Russian Communism continues its attempts to destroy the very spirit of Saints Cyril and Methodius and to reduce the Slovak people to a state of complete servility, the Slovak people refuse to surrender that which, over a thousand years, they have continued to fi ght for - their spirit of independence, of justice and of freedom.46 The 40th Congress too approved a meaningful memorandum, in which the delegates noted, among other things: The eventual liberation of our brethren and kinfolk, and, in the SLOVAKIA 133 ecumenical spirit, all mankind from the tyranny and yoke of atheistic materialism of Communism must and will be our continuous goal. The reestablishment of an independent Slovakia as a free state in a united Europe must be, and, in God's good time, will be brought about through the efforts of our members and the peoples of other God fearing, oppressed ethnic groups and nations.4 7 The local American press, as well as radio and television, brought noteworthy attention to the 40th Congress of the Slovak League of America. From this standpoint it was one of the most successful congresses in the history of the League. The delegates in Youngstown approved a motion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the League in the month of May 1966, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Preparations were started immediately after the conclusion of the congress and the executive board shifted most of its energies to this purpose. Nevertheless, oranizational and cultural work was by no means neglected, and further contacts with Administration people were steadily cultivated. President Stephen J. Tkac and Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Pauco wrote to President Lyndon Johnson to remind him that 20 years had passed since American-Slovak periodicals had been banned in Slovakia, while Communists continued to freely spread their propaganda throughout the free world. The honorary president of the League, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, had preserved in his possession a copy of a film produced by the Matica Slovenska (The Slovak Institute) titled Zem spieva (Song of the Earth). The League held showings of this film at various locations in the period preceding its jubilee celebration. The film arroused lively interest particularly among Slovak oldtimers and contributed to the enlivening of Slovak life in America. On the eve of the jubilee observance, held on the 27th and 28th of May, 1967, the publication Slovakia issued from the presses, again under the editorship of SecretaryTreasurer Pauco. This issue presents a compact history of the Slovak League of America, from its founding to the present, as well as other noteworthy contributions. The pre-jubilee mood among American Slovaks reflected a spirit of harmony, which had in recent years 134 SLOVAKIA become noticeable along the whole line of Slovak endeavors. The observance of the 60th anniversary of the Slovak League was conducted without the participation of a most prominent personality, one who had played an eminent role in Slovak life, particularly in the Slovak League of America: On January 17, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois died Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, perennial first lady of the League's Women's Auxiliary, the Vcielky (Bees), for many years vice-president of the League itself, and since 1966, its honorary vice-president. More than half a century of educational, organizational and charitable work is associated with the name of Julia Krajcovic. The charitable and patriotic work of the Vcielky under her leadership, as is pointed out elsewhere in this issue of Slovakia, comprises one of the finest chapters in the history of the Slovak League of America. One instance was the Vcielky's effective and substantial aid to Slovak victims of World War II, which presented a shining example of Slovak unity and harmony. Without Julia Krajcovic Slovak life in Chicago and all of America would hardly have flourished as it had during the days of the fullness of her vigor and elan. She was everywhere, and she did everything possible to promote love for the Slovak people and the Slovak word, to strengthen it, and to demonstrate it to the world.48 In its 60th year the Slovak League of America was poorer by many a distinguished colleague, including precious workers of the distaff side - but its momentum was full-forward, and its posture reflected readiness to continue its work for the preservation of Slovak consciousness, Slovak culture and Slovak traditions in America, and for a free Slovakia. FOOTNOTES 1. Zprava predsedu S'lovenskej Ligy v Amerike podana na XXIX . kongrese. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Presented to the 29th Congress.), Cleveland, Ohio, 1947. Published for distribution. Yurchak, Peter P. The Truth about Slovakia. 1947. Jednota. November 12, 1947. Jednota. March 12, 1947 "Prve vyrocie smrti Jana A. Kocura. " (The First Anniversary of the Death of John A. Kocur.) Jednota, July 20, 1949. Pauco, Joseph. Slovcici a komunizmus. (The Slovaks and Communism), Middletown, Pa., 1957, pg. 306. SLOVAKIA 135 7. "Vedieme boj a z boja neustt'.ipime." (We Are Engaged in Battle and Will Never Retreat from the Field), Jednota, April 27, 1947. 8. "The Czechoslovak Council." America, March 19, 1949. 9. Report on the American Slav Congress and Associated Organizations. Prepared and released by the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., 1949. 10. Pauco, Joseph. Sfovcici a komunizmus. pg. 307. 11. Full text in Jednota, January 31, 1951. 12. "To the President and Congress of the United States." Jednota, May 9, 1951. 13. Report on the conference in Jednota, May 28, 1952. 14. Jednota. May 6, 1953. 15. The memorandum was published for distribution under the title : Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United States of America. Issued by the Thirty-Third Congress of the Slovak League of America, April 28, 1953, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 16. Jednota. June 9, 1954. 17. Declaration of the National Conferenc e of Americans of Slovak Descent. May 24-25, 1954, Washington, D.C. Eight-page publication with photostatic copies of the signatures of the participants. 18. Memorandum Concerning the Czech-Communist Military Intervention in Slovakia. Presented to the United Nations General Assembly by the Slovak League of America and Slovak National Council Abroad . Middletown, Pa., December 22, 1956. Published for distribution. 19. "Za Dr. Frantiskom Hrusovskym." (In Memoriam to Dr. Francis Hrusovsky.) , Kalendcir Jednota 1957, pg. 23. 20. "Biskup Grutka na kongrese Slovenskej Ligy." (Bishop Grutka at the Congress of the Slovak League,), Jednota, May 29, 1957. 21. "Slovenskej Lige v Amerike." (To the Slovak League of America.), Jednota, May 22, 1957. 22. Memorandum to the President of the United States of America, the Hon. Secretary of State of the United States of America, and the Hon. Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations by the Thirty-Fifth Congress of the Slovak League of America. Cleveland, Ohio, May 28, 1957. Published for distribution. 23. Golden Jubilee and the XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America. May 26-28, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio, 96 pp. Contributors: Phillip A. Hrobak, Msgr. Francis Dubosh, Julia Krajcovic, Paul Jamriska, and Dr. Joseph A. Mikus. The publication is bi-lingual. 24. From the speech of Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum, as quoted in Jednota, March 27, 1957. 25. "Czech Trials Seen as Sign of Red Fears." Sunday News. New York City, March 16, 1958. 26. Jednota. June 24, 1959. 27. Full text in Jednota, March 16, 1960. 28. From an eulogy by Bishop Andrew Grutka, as quoted in Jednota, May 18, 1960. 29. The complete text of Sabol's salutation in Jednota, June 7, 1961. 30. Memorandum to the President and the Congress of the United 136 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. SLOVAKIA States of America. The XXXVII Congress of the Slovak League of America, May 29-30, 1961, New York, N. Y., 4 pp. "Slovenska Liga oznamuje." (The Slovak League Announces.), Jednota, August 7, 1963. "Proclamation of the Slovak League of America, Washington, D.C., April 5, 1963." Jednota, April 17, 1963. The full text of the memorandum in Jednota, October 16, 1963. From a report published in Jednota, May 6, 1964. Proclam ati on of May 5, 1964. 39th Congress - Slovak League of America. Philadelphia, Pa., 4 pp. Jednota published the full text of Dr. Peter Hletko's report in its issues of May 20 and 27, 1964. "Na pamat' storocnice Andreja Hlinku a 25. vyrocia vyhlasenia Slovenskej Republiky." (In Commemoration of the Hlinka Centennial and the 25th Anniversary of the Declaration of Slovak Independence.), Jednota, March 11, 1964. The declaration was signed by the chief officers and executive board of the Slovak League of America, as well as by the presidents of all its affiliated organizations. "Nad smrt'ou Filipa Hrobaka. " (Reflections on the Death of Phillip Hrobak.),Jednota, January 22, 1964. "In Memoriam." Ibid. " Tryzna za Filipom Hrobakom." (An Elegy to Phillip Hrobak. ), Mikulas Sprinc, Jednota, January 29, 1964. " Phillip Anthony Hrobak." Jednota, February 12, 1964. "Za Filipom Hrobakom." (In Memory of Phillip Hrobak. ), Slov enska Obr ana, Scranton, Pa., January 21, 1964. Additional data from the life of Phillip Hrobak appears in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v A m erike, Middletown, Pa., 1967, pp. 157-158. Jednota. April 15, 1964. More about Constantine Culen in the abovecited Literarny Alm anach Slovaka v Amerike, pp. 129-130. Jedn ota. April 1, 1964. 45. Zprav a preds edu Slovensk ej L i gy v Amerike Stefana J. Tkaca na 40. kongrese v o Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, 16. maja 1966. (Report of the President of the Slovak League of America Stephen J. Tkac at the 40th Congress in the Voyager Motor Inn, Youngstown, Ohio, May 16, 1966.), pg. 7. 46. Slov akia. Middletown, Pa., Volume XVI, 1966. pp. 126-127. 47. M emorandum Adopted Unani mously by the 40th Congress of the Slov ak League of America. Youngstown, Ohio, May 17, 1966. 4 pp. 48. " Chicago stratilo najpoprednejsiu Slovenku." (Chicago Loses its Foremost Slovak Lady.)), Nase Hlasy, February 1967. Anna Kolena eulogized the life and work of Julia Krajcovic in an extensive necrology titled "Za Juliou Krajcovicovou." (In Memory of Julia Krajcovic ), Slovak v Amerike, February 1, 1967. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Under Dynamic Leadership Description An account of the resource Joseph Paučo, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967 pp. 104-136 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paučo, Jozef, 1914-1975 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 Relation A related resource This article is one of five from this special issue republished as a monograph: Paučo, Jozef, ed. 1967. <em>Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America.</em> Middletown Pennsylvania: Slovak League of America. <a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616" target="_blank" title="Link to WorldCat" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616</a> 60years SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/52ea442fca9b65f3b5732d6af78d86f3.pdf a63f14f90cdd0d3b8a28bbfb76fcbc53 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Twenty Years of the Slovak Institute in CI eve land Joseph Pa u co, Ph.D. It was not by mere chance that on September 15, 1952, the Slovak Institute was founded at St. Andrew Svorad Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. For years the Slovak Benedictine abbey had been a center for Slovak books, periodicals, publications and materials of historic value. But since lines of communication were practically terminated with Slovakia in the postwar era after World War II it was deemed necessary to establish an institution that would be, in some measure at last, a substitute, temporarily, for the Matica Slovenska and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha for the purpose of giving moral support to Slovak writers, artists and all cultural workers in the Slovak world in exile. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. called a special meeting to establish the Slovak Institute. The Charter members were: Abbot Kojis, who was elected president, Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D. ,whom the president named immediately as director, and members Rev. Mikulas ~princ, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D. and Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B. A decade later a branch of the Institute was formed in Rome and approved by the executive council in Cleveland. Known far and wide as a prominent leader among American Slovaks and the builder of St. Andrew's Abbey, Abbot Kojis became vitally interested in promoting American Slovak culture. It was mainly through his initiative, vision and leadership that a grant of $50,000 was made by the Abbey chapter to build the Slovak SS. Cyril and Methodius center in Rome. This action inspired individuals and organizations among Slovaks through the free world to pour out approximately a million dollars for the new religious and cultural Slovak enterprise in the Eternal City. �SLOVAKIA 17 The Abbot, a lover and patron of good books, promoted the publication of a number of works that proved invaluable as solid historical sources of the true story of the Slovak nation's destiny in central Europe. These were distributed to various public and university libraries throughout the U.S. and Canada. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. represented the Slovak Institute publicly as its president and privately as a generous host to an ever-increasing stream of guests who discovered his ready willingness to promote Slovak cultural projects in the interest of the common Slovak cause. In the Church he was an authoritative spokesman for the Slovak people. Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., author of the first complete scholarly history of the Slovak nation, continued to draw upon his extensive knowledge of the historical background of the Slovaks by writing many articles for American Slovak newspapers and publications on a variety of themes relating to the glorious past of his native homeland of Slovakia. His Slovak history (Slovenske dejiny) in no small measure helped to intensify and enrich the national consciousness of the Slovak people during the eventful era of the Slovak Republic. As a matter of record, his historical work in several editions ( exceeding the publication of more than 100,000 volumes) was a complete sellout before World War II. In Cleveland, Ohio, in less than a decade of untiring work and relentless effort, Dr. Hrusovsky made a lasting impression on American Slovak life before his untimely death at the age of 53 on September 9, 1956. In addition to his many articles which appeared regularly in the Slovak press he was in constant demand as an eloquent speaker. Moreover, he succeeded in correcting many misconceptions about the Slovak people and their native country. The documented history of Slovak Religious Orders in America, published in 1955, was perhaps the crowning achievement of his monumental work in America. Konstantin Culen, a leading Slovak journalist and publicist, as well as a dynamic patriot, succeeded the eminent Dr. Hrusovsky as the second director of the Slovak Institute. Konsto Culen, author of a popular history of �18 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks before World War II that won a national award in his native homeland of Slovakia, continued to collect, classify and publish a series of historical articles on the early beginnings of Slovak life in America. Far-reaching plans into the future by Culen were inaugurated by a Slovak Exhibition of books and art under the sponsorship in the Slovak Institute in the Benedictine High School auditorium in 1957. The Exhibit in which Dr. Cincik collaborated with the help of the Slovak Brothers at the Abbey was a pronounced success and a manifestation of culen's great love of Slovak culture, as well as his deep and unquestioned appreciation of the contributions of the American Slovaks to our common national heritage. His was unquestionably a true idealism, unbridled enthusiasm and genuine attachment to the cultural values of the Slovak nation. Unfortunately, tragedy marked the life of Konstantin Culen. What he planned he was unable to complete. He envisioned a grandiose program: a new, revised and detailed history of the American Slovaks and a series of biographies of leading Slovaks. He planned to accomplish all this under the aegis of the Slovak Institute with the help of an ever-increasing staff of research scholars and co-workers. But Culen vanished from sight like a meteor in the heavens. Nonetheless, neither Dr. Hrusovsky nor culen lived in vain. Their names are immortalized by their works and will live forever in the annals of Slovak history. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. placed the Slovak Institute into the hands of his religious colleague, Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S.B. in 1958. The third director of the Institute had much in common with his illustrious predecessors. He shared with them a common love for Slovak culture and, like both of them, he, too, was an indefatigable, energetic and enthusiastic worker. Today the Slovak Institute continues to enlarge its library and archives (over 10,000 items) which are in the process of being organized and systematically classified and cataloged each summer by a library staff under the �SLOVAKIA 19 direction of Sister Angelina Burak, SS.C.M. from Villa Sacred Heart, Danville, Pa. Originally the nucleus for the present creditable library of Slovak books at the Institute was provided by the Matica Slovenska and Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegations that came to America in 1935 and 1937 respectively. Each contributed several hundred volumes directly from Slovakia. Year by year individuals and organizations continue to send in books, periodicals and souvenirs (such as ceramics, pictures, photos, etc.) and these are added to the valuable collection at the Institute. As director of the Slovak Institute, Father Pir, O.S.B. has taken care of the library in the traditional spirit of the sons of St. Benedict who have always manifested special concern for books, manuscripts, etc. down through the centuries. A decade ago the Slovak Institute sponsored a Book Fair in the Benedictine High School auditorium, the first public ethnic display of books in the city of Cleveland. Father Pir is in touch with many cultural-minded persons and has the opportunity to meet students who do research in the Slovak fields of literature, art, history, science, politics, economics, industry, religion and education. He has been a steady contributor of articles to Slovak periodicals on assorted Slovak subjects for the past thirty years. In Cleveland he has been the director of a speaker's bureau for the Cleveland Slovak Cultural Radio Club (Station WERE) for more than a quarter of a century. Under his supervision approximately a hundred speakers have delivered more than a total of 1,250 speeches since 1947. He has been the editor of the Ave Maria religious magazine the past 15 years. His "Slovak News and Views" weekly column, which began in 1947 as a feature in the Katolicky Sokol weekly and was tranferred to the Jednota weekly newspaper in 1959, is a true reflection of Slovak contemporary life here and elsewhere. For many this column has been an inspiration for the study of their own background, particularly among Slovak youth. Although the Slovak Institute is primarly an American Slovak institution in Cleveland, it has a branch in Rome. �20 SLOVAKIA This gives it somewhat of an international flavor and offers scholars a wide field of research in problems that effect the destiny of the Slovak nation. Needless to add, this gives the Slovak Institute added prestige both here and abroad. Abbot Jerome Koval, O.S.B., who succeeded Abbot Kojis as president of the Slovak Institute, retained both Father Pir as director and Dr. Karol Strme:n, Ph.D. as secretary of the Institute. Both are closely associated as co-editors of the Ave Maria magazine published by St. Andrew's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D. rightfully enjoys a high place in Slovak culture. He is a talented poet and a versatile translator of the leading poets of the world. There is scarcely a poet of renown in the West or East with whose work he is not acquainted, and whose poems are not represented in Slovak literature through his translations. Both his original poems and those he has translated are veritable pearls in Slovak literature. There is no doubt that Dr. Strmen is the most qualified person for the office of secretary of the Slovak Institute. For years he has been associated with its director. For the most part of a decade (1949-1959) he was a member of the triumvirate (Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B., Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D.) that edited the Slovenske noviny-Slovak News weekly. Dr. Strmen is a multi-faceted personality whom it is difficult to classify or emulate. It is no exaggeration to claim that he is unique, and irreplaceable in Slovak literature. Father Mikulas sprinc, a life-long friend of Dr. Strmen, may be called his "literary twin." He, too, is one of the Charter members of the Slovak Institute and belongs in the brightest constellation of the Slovak literary world. Father sprinc's prolific works in poetry and prose surpass practically all of his contemporaries here, in his native Slovakia or abroad. Each year for the past quarter of a century he has published at least one book. Literary critics have given his works favorable reviews through the years. His productivity is surely impressive. �SLOVAKIA 21 Comparison of sprinc and Strmen as poets leaves us puzzled. Both have their admirers, and one would find it difficult to choose whose poetry excels. Their styles and subjects are quite different. Both, however, are truly poets. New laurels have been won by Father sprinc by the continuous editorship of the Most, a Slovak cultural quarterly, the past nineteen years. After a succession of several publishers, the Slovak Institute adopted it as an official publication during the past decade. Many of the best writings of Slovak authors and artists in exile have appeared in this excellent cultural periodical. Contemporaries, perhaps, are not aware of the difficulties that have to be overcome in editing a cultural publication of classical quality. Literary critics and keen observers of the Slovak emigrants' struggles in a strange world, however, appreciate the sacrifices of the editor and his staff, and contributors, who have produced a worthwhile work at a time when wars and revolutions raged and political disturbances everywhere buffeted us on every side and threatened to wrest the pens and palettes of Slovak writers and artists from our hands. Charismatic gifts of Father sprinc are quite manifest in his eloquent preaching of the Word of God, as well as in his public speeches. He has travelled throughout the United States and Canada, sowing the seed of truth everywhere and performing invaluable service to the Slovak cause in a twofold manner: a) By arousing, informing and inspiring his hearers and readers; b) By obtaining ideas for new works. He is a true analyst of the thoughts and feelings of the American Slovaks to whom he belongs heart and soul, both as a priest of God and as a literary genius. Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., a Charter member, too, has done yeoman work by his unique work in art in the common cause of Slovak advancement in cultural endeavor far from his native homeland. His work bears the indelible mark of a rich personality and is an integral part of our American Slovak heritage. A number of Slovak churches have the unmistakable 'Dr. Cincik' stamp of artistic design emanating from his deep knowledge of the history of Slovak art and the science of archeology. Through many of his discoveries in the latter field he has helped to place �2.2 SLOVAKIA Slovakia on the map as an important archeological center in the very heart of central Europe. In his native homeland of Slovakia where he was a prominent member of the Matica Slovenska and the Slovak University staff, Dr. Cincik's imprint of genius is evident in many church edifices, public buildings, and illustrations of books and engravings of the currency and banknotes of the Slovak Republic. If there is anything regrettable in the career of Dr. Cincik it is certainly the cruel fate that drove him into exile, thus depriving his country of his rich creative talents at a time when they are needed the most. No one can deny that Dr. Cincik is eminently capable of expressing his unusual artistic talents in works of arts and in his writings, but he excels, too, in his ability to turn on a veritable torrent of words in his native Slovak tongue. Moreover, he is a living Slovak encyclopedia. To catch every word requires at least a pair of wide-awake listeners. It will surely be a great loss not to register his informal lectures, which on occasion he gives spontaneously and with a brilliant display of imaginative and dramatic flourishes that add color to his profound, scholarly and extemporaneous talks in an intimate gathering of friends . So much for the historic background of the Slovak Institute's Charter members. In the past twenty years many outstanding personalities and authorities in various fields of science, literature, art, history, music, religion and public life have become intimately associated with the Institute. The list is long enough to merit a volume or two of memoirs. But that is not our mission. On the 20th anniversary of the Slovak Institute we cannot pass over reference to a vital role played by its branch in Rome where Reverend Michael Lacko, S. J., Ph.D., has done notable work in editing the Slovak Studies. It is a pioneer project and appears annually, mainly in the English language. A variety of important articles by authorities in various fields is proof of the merit of this timely issue. As a program for the future it would be quite worthwhile to extend its efforts by the publication of its contents in leading modern languages. This could, indeed, �SLOVAKIA 23 become the main purpose of the Roman branch of the Slovak Institute. As we pause on the occasion of its 20th anniversary to express our congratulations and gratitude to the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, for its achievements in behalf of Slovak culture in the free world, we note with satisfaction that is has fulfilled its avowed purpose of existence as expressed precisely in the Constitution and by-laws: "The Slovak Institute at St. Andrew's Abbey wants to support Slovak cultural life by inviting all Slovak cultural workers living in the free world outside Slovakia to membership, and promises to aid them in every possible manner in their cultural, scientific, literary and artistic endeavors because the Slovak nation in itll historic homeland after World War II cannot freely rule its own destiny according to its own principles, spirit or ideals, and consequently cannot direct its own proper cultural development." No program of dynamic action in the next forseeable fifty or seventy years can excel the idealism incorporated in the original Constitution and by-laws of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland as adopted a score of years ago. • • • SLOVAK 'INSTANT John Mizerak, a retired factory worker who became an instant millionaire via MILLIONAIRE' DIES the New York state lottery last September, died February 5, 1973 in Little Falls (N.Y.) Hospital. He was 77. Mizerak, blinded by glaucoma for several years, had been hospitalized since January 10 with an undisclosed illness. Mizerak, his wife Anna and their only child, John W. "Rusty" Mizerak, a musician and former baseball player in the Cincinnati Reds organization, won $1 million in the 1972 "summer special" lottery after the number of their $3 ticket was drawn. � SLOVAKIA Twenty Years of the Slovak Institute in CI eve land Joseph Pa u co, Ph.D. It was not by mere chance that on September 15, 1952, the Slovak Institute was founded at St. Andrew Svorad Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. For years the Slovak Benedictine abbey had been a center for Slovak books, periodicals, publications and materials of historic value. But since lines of communication were practically terminated with Slovakia in the postwar era after World War II it was deemed necessary to establish an institution that would be, in some measure at last, a substitute, temporarily, for the Matica Slovenska and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha for the purpose of giving moral support to Slovak writers, artists and all cultural workers in the Slovak world in exile. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. called a special meeting to establish the Slovak Institute. The Charter members were: Abbot Kojis, who was elected president, Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D. ,whom the president named immediately as director, and members Rev. Mikulas ~princ, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D. and Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B. A decade later a branch of the Institute was formed in Rome and approved by the executive council in Cleveland. Known far and wide as a prominent leader among American Slovaks and the builder of St. Andrew's Abbey, Abbot Kojis became vitally interested in promoting American Slovak culture. It was mainly through his initiative, vision and leadership that a grant of $50,000 was made by the Abbey chapter to build the Slovak SS. Cyril and Methodius center in Rome. This action inspired individuals and organizations among Slovaks through the free world to pour out approximately a million dollars for the new religious and cultural Slovak enterprise in the Eternal City. �SLOVAKIA 17 The Abbot, a lover and patron of good books, promoted the publication of a number of works that proved invaluable as solid historical sources of the true story of the Slovak nation's destiny in central Europe. These were distributed to various public and university libraries throughout the U.S. and Canada. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. represented the Slovak Institute publicly as its president and privately as a generous host to an ever-increasing stream of guests who discovered his ready willingness to promote Slovak cultural projects in the interest of the common Slovak cause. In the Church he was an authoritative spokesman for the Slovak people. Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., author of the first complete scholarly history of the Slovak nation, continued to draw upon his extensive knowledge of the historical background of the Slovaks by writing many articles for American Slovak newspapers and publications on a variety of themes relating to the glorious past of his native homeland of Slovakia. His Slovak history (Slovenske dejiny) in no small measure helped to intensify and enrich the national consciousness of the Slovak people during the eventful era of the Slovak Republic. As a matter of record, his historical work in several editions ( exceeding the publication of more than 100,000 volumes) was a complete sellout before World War II. In Cleveland, Ohio, in less than a decade of untiring work and relentless effort, Dr. Hrusovsky made a lasting impression on American Slovak life before his untimely death at the age of 53 on September 9, 1956. In addition to his many articles which appeared regularly in the Slovak press he was in constant demand as an eloquent speaker. Moreover, he succeeded in correcting many misconceptions about the Slovak people and their native country. The documented history of Slovak Religious Orders in America, published in 1955, was perhaps the crowning achievement of his monumental work in America. Konstantin Culen, a leading Slovak journalist and publicist, as well as a dynamic patriot, succeeded the eminent Dr. Hrusovsky as the second director of the Slovak Institute. Konsto Culen, author of a popular history of �18 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks before World War II that won a national award in his native homeland of Slovakia, continued to collect, classify and publish a series of historical articles on the early beginnings of Slovak life in America. Far-reaching plans into the future by Culen were inaugurated by a Slovak Exhibition of books and art under the sponsorship in the Slovak Institute in the Benedictine High School auditorium in 1957. The Exhibit in which Dr. Cincik collaborated with the help of the Slovak Brothers at the Abbey was a pronounced success and a manifestation of culen's great love of Slovak culture, as well as his deep and unquestioned appreciation of the contributions of the American Slovaks to our common national heritage. His was unquestionably a true idealism, unbridled enthusiasm and genuine attachment to the cultural values of the Slovak nation. Unfortunately, tragedy marked the life of Konstantin Culen. What he planned he was unable to complete. He envisioned a grandiose program: a new, revised and detailed history of the American Slovaks and a series of biographies of leading Slovaks. He planned to accomplish all this under the aegis of the Slovak Institute with the help of an ever-increasing staff of research scholars and co-workers. But Culen vanished from sight like a meteor in the heavens. Nonetheless, neither Dr. Hrusovsky nor culen lived in vain. Their names are immortalized by their works and will live forever in the annals of Slovak history. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. placed the Slovak Institute into the hands of his religious colleague, Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S.B. in 1958. The third director of the Institute had much in common with his illustrious predecessors. He shared with them a common love for Slovak culture and, like both of them, he, too, was an indefatigable, energetic and enthusiastic worker. Today the Slovak Institute continues to enlarge its library and archives (over 10,000 items) which are in the process of being organized and systematically classified and cataloged each summer by a library staff under the �SLOVAKIA 19 direction of Sister Angelina Burak, SS.C.M. from Villa Sacred Heart, Danville, Pa. Originally the nucleus for the present creditable library of Slovak books at the Institute was provided by the Matica Slovenska and Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegations that came to America in 1935 and 1937 respectively. Each contributed several hundred volumes directly from Slovakia. Year by year individuals and organizations continue to send in books, periodicals and souvenirs (such as ceramics, pictures, photos, etc.) and these are added to the valuable collection at the Institute. As director of the Slovak Institute, Father Pir, O.S.B. has taken care of the library in the traditional spirit of the sons of St. Benedict who have always manifested special concern for books, manuscripts, etc. down through the centuries. A decade ago the Slovak Institute sponsored a Book Fair in the Benedictine High School auditorium, the first public ethnic display of books in the city of Cleveland. Father Pir is in touch with many cultural-minded persons and has the opportunity to meet students who do research in the Slovak fields of literature, art, history, science, politics, economics, industry, religion and education. He has been a steady contributor of articles to Slovak periodicals on assorted Slovak subjects for the past thirty years. In Cleveland he has been the director of a speaker's bureau for the Cleveland Slovak Cultural Radio Club (Station WERE) for more than a quarter of a century. Under his supervision approximately a hundred speakers have delivered more than a total of 1,250 speeches since 1947. He has been the editor of the Ave Maria religious magazine the past 15 years. His "Slovak News and Views" weekly column, which began in 1947 as a feature in the Katolicky Sokol weekly and was tranferred to the Jednota weekly newspaper in 1959, is a true reflection of Slovak contemporary life here and elsewhere. For many this column has been an inspiration for the study of their own background, particularly among Slovak youth. Although the Slovak Institute is primarly an American Slovak institution in Cleveland, it has a branch in Rome. �20 SLOVAKIA This gives it somewhat of an international flavor and offers scholars a wide field of research in problems that effect the destiny of the Slovak nation. Needless to add, this gives the Slovak Institute added prestige both here and abroad. Abbot Jerome Koval, O.S.B., who succeeded Abbot Kojis as president of the Slovak Institute, retained both Father Pir as director and Dr. Karol Strme:n, Ph.D. as secretary of the Institute. Both are closely associated as co-editors of the Ave Maria magazine published by St. Andrew's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D. rightfully enjoys a high place in Slovak culture. He is a talented poet and a versatile translator of the leading poets of the world. There is scarcely a poet of renown in the West or East with whose work he is not acquainted, and whose poems are not represented in Slovak literature through his translations. Both his original poems and those he has translated are veritable pearls in Slovak literature. There is no doubt that Dr. Strmen is the most qualified person for the office of secretary of the Slovak Institute. For years he has been associated with its director. For the most part of a decade (1949-1959) he was a member of the triumvirate (Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B., Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D.) that edited the Slovenske noviny-Slovak News weekly. Dr. Strmen is a multi-faceted personality whom it is difficult to classify or emulate. It is no exaggeration to claim that he is unique, and irreplaceable in Slovak literature. Father Mikulas sprinc, a life-long friend of Dr. Strmen, may be called his "literary twin." He, too, is one of the Charter members of the Slovak Institute and belongs in the brightest constellation of the Slovak literary world. Father sprinc's prolific works in poetry and prose surpass practically all of his contemporaries here, in his native Slovakia or abroad. Each year for the past quarter of a century he has published at least one book. Literary critics have given his works favorable reviews through the years. His productivity is surely impressive. �SLOVAKIA 21 Comparison of sprinc and Strmen as poets leaves us puzzled. Both have their admirers, and one would find it difficult to choose whose poetry excels. Their styles and subjects are quite different. Both, however, are truly poets. New laurels have been won by Father sprinc by the continuous editorship of the Most, a Slovak cultural quarterly, the past nineteen years. After a succession of several publishers, the Slovak Institute adopted it as an official publication during the past decade. Many of the best writings of Slovak authors and artists in exile have appeared in this excellent cultural periodical. Contemporaries, perhaps, are not aware of the difficulties that have to be overcome in editing a cultural publication of classical quality. Literary critics and keen observers of the Slovak emigrants' struggles in a strange world, however, appreciate the sacrifices of the editor and his staff, and contributors, who have produced a worthwhile work at a time when wars and revolutions raged and political disturbances everywhere buffeted us on every side and threatened to wrest the pens and palettes of Slovak writers and artists from our hands. Charismatic gifts of Father sprinc are quite manifest in his eloquent preaching of the Word of God, as well as in his public speeches. He has travelled throughout the United States and Canada, sowing the seed of truth everywhere and performing invaluable service to the Slovak cause in a twofold manner: a) By arousing, informing and inspiring his hearers and readers; b) By obtaining ideas for new works. He is a true analyst of the thoughts and feelings of the American Slovaks to whom he belongs heart and soul, both as a priest of God and as a literary genius. Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., a Charter member, too, has done yeoman work by his unique work in art in the common cause of Slovak advancement in cultural endeavor far from his native homeland. His work bears the indelible mark of a rich personality and is an integral part of our American Slovak heritage. A number of Slovak churches have the unmistakable 'Dr. Cincik' stamp of artistic design emanating from his deep knowledge of the history of Slovak art and the science of archeology. Through many of his discoveries in the latter field he has helped to place �2.2 SLOVAKIA Slovakia on the map as an important archeological center in the very heart of central Europe. In his native homeland of Slovakia where he was a prominent member of the Matica Slovenska and the Slovak University staff, Dr. Cincik's imprint of genius is evident in many church edifices, public buildings, and illustrations of books and engravings of the currency and banknotes of the Slovak Republic. If there is anything regrettable in the career of Dr. Cincik it is certainly the cruel fate that drove him into exile, thus depriving his country of his rich creative talents at a time when they are needed the most. No one can deny that Dr. Cincik is eminently capable of expressing his unusual artistic talents in works of arts and in his writings, but he excels, too, in his ability to turn on a veritable torrent of words in his native Slovak tongue. Moreover, he is a living Slovak encyclopedia. To catch every word requires at least a pair of wide-awake listeners. It will surely be a great loss not to register his informal lectures, which on occasion he gives spontaneously and with a brilliant display of imaginative and dramatic flourishes that add color to his profound, scholarly and extemporaneous talks in an intimate gathering of friends . So much for the historic background of the Slovak Institute's Charter members. In the past twenty years many outstanding personalities and authorities in various fields of science, literature, art, history, music, religion and public life have become intimately associated with the Institute. The list is long enough to merit a volume or two of memoirs. But that is not our mission. On the 20th anniversary of the Slovak Institute we cannot pass over reference to a vital role played by its branch in Rome where Reverend Michael Lacko, S. J., Ph.D., has done notable work in editing the Slovak Studies. It is a pioneer project and appears annually, mainly in the English language. A variety of important articles by authorities in various fields is proof of the merit of this timely issue. As a program for the future it would be quite worthwhile to extend its efforts by the publication of its contents in leading modern languages. This could, indeed, �SLOVAKIA 23 become the main purpose of the Roman branch of the Slovak Institute. As we pause on the occasion of its 20th anniversary to express our congratulations and gratitude to the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, for its achievements in behalf of Slovak culture in the free world, we note with satisfaction that is has fulfilled its avowed purpose of existence as expressed precisely in the Constitution and by-laws: "The Slovak Institute at St. Andrew's Abbey wants to support Slovak cultural life by inviting all Slovak cultural workers living in the free world outside Slovakia to membership, and promises to aid them in every possible manner in their cultural, scientific, literary and artistic endeavors because the Slovak nation in itll historic homeland after World War II cannot freely rule its own destiny according to its own principles, spirit or ideals, and consequently cannot direct its own proper cultural development." No program of dynamic action in the next forseeable fifty or seventy years can excel the idealism incorporated in the original Constitution and by-laws of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland as adopted a score of years ago. • • • SLOVAK 'INSTANT John Mizerak, a retired factory worker who became an instant millionaire via MILLIONAIRE' DIES the New York state lottery last September, died February 5, 1973 in Little Falls (N.Y.) Hospital. He was 77. Mizerak, blinded by glaucoma for several years, had been hospitalized since January 10 with an undisclosed illness. Mizerak, his wife Anna and their only child, John W. "Rusty" Mizerak, a musician and former baseball player in the Cincinnati Reds organization, won $1 million in the 1972 "summer special" lottery after the number of their $3 ticket was drawn. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SLOVAKIA Twenty Years of the Slovak Institute in CI eve land Joseph Pa u co, Ph.D. It was not by mere chance that on September 15, 1952, the Slovak Institute was founded at St. Andrew Svorad Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. For years the Slovak Benedictine abbey had been a center for Slovak books, periodicals, publications and materials of historic value. But since lines of communication were practically terminated with Slovakia in the postwar era after World War II it was deemed necessary to establish an institution that would be, in some measure at last, a substitute, temporarily, for the Matica Slovenska and the Spolok sv. Vojtecha for the purpose of giving moral support to Slovak writers, artists and all cultural workers in the Slovak world in exile. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. called a special meeting to establish the Slovak Institute. The Charter members were: Abbot Kojis, who was elected president, Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D. ,whom the president named immediately as director, and members Rev. Mikulas ~princ, Dr. Joseph Cincik, Ph.D., Dr. Karol Strmen, Ph.D. and Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B. A decade later a branch of the Institute was formed in Rome and approved by the executive council in Cleveland. Known far and wide as a prominent leader among American Slovaks and the builder of St. Andrew's Abbey, Abbot Kojis became vitally interested in promoting American Slovak culture. It was mainly through his initiative, vision and leadership that a grant of $50,000 was made by the Abbey chapter to build the Slovak SS. Cyril and Methodius center in Rome. This action inspired individuals and organizations among Slovaks through the free world to pour out approximately a million dollars for the new religious and cultural Slovak enterprise in the Eternal City. SLOVAKIA 17 The Abbot, a lover and patron of good books, promoted the publication of a number of works that proved invaluable as solid historical sources of the true story of the Slovak nation's destiny in central Europe. These were distributed to various public and university libraries throughout the U.S. and Canada. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. represented the Slovak Institute publicly as its president and privately as a generous host to an ever-increasing stream of guests who discovered his ready willingness to promote Slovak cultural projects in the interest of the common Slovak cause. In the Church he was an authoritative spokesman for the Slovak people. Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Ph.D., author of the first complete scholarly history of the Slovak nation, continued to draw upon his extensive knowledge of the historical background of the Slovaks by writing many articles for American Slovak newspapers and publications on a variety of themes relating to the glorious past of his native homeland of Slovakia. His Slovak history (Slovenske dejiny) in no small measure helped to intensify and enrich the national consciousness of the Slovak people during the eventful era of the Slovak Republic. As a matter of record, his historical work in several editions ( exceeding the publication of more than 100,000 volumes) was a complete sellout before World War II. In Cleveland, Ohio, in less than a decade of untiring work and relentless effort, Dr. Hrusovsky made a lasting impression on American Slovak life before his untimely death at the age of 53 on September 9, 1956. In addition to his many articles which appeared regularly in the Slovak press he was in constant demand as an eloquent speaker. Moreover, he succeeded in correcting many misconceptions about the Slovak people and their native country. The documented history of Slovak Religious Orders in America, published in 1955, was perhaps the crowning achievement of his monumental work in America. Konstantin Culen, a leading Slovak journalist and publicist, as well as a dynamic patriot, succeeded the eminent Dr. Hrusovsky as the second director of the Slovak Institute. Konsto Culen, author of a popular history of 18 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks before World War II that won a national award in his native homeland of Slovakia, continued to collect, classify and publish a series of historical articles on the early beginnings of Slovak life in America. Far-reaching plans into the future by Culen were inaugurated by a Slovak Exhibition of books and art under the sponsorship in the Slovak Institute in the Benedictine High School auditorium in 1957. The Exhibit in which Dr. Cincik collaborated with the help of the Slovak Brothers at the Abbey was a pronounced success and a manifestation of culen's great love of Slovak culture, as well as his deep and unquestioned appreciation of the contributions of the American Slovaks to our common national heritage. His was unquestionably a true idealism, unbridled enthusiasm and genuine attachment to the cultural values of the Slovak nation. Unfortunately, tragedy marked the life of Konstantin Culen. What he planned he was unable to complete. He envisioned a grandiose program: a new, revised and detailed history of the American Slovaks and a series of biographies of leading Slovaks. He planned to accomplish all this under the aegis of the Slovak Institute with the help of an ever-increasing staff of research scholars and co-workers. But Culen vanished from sight like a meteor in the heavens. Nonetheless, neither Dr. Hrusovsky nor culen lived in vain. Their names are immortalized by their works and will live forever in the annals of Slovak history. Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S.B. placed the Slovak Institute into the hands of his religious colleague, Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S.B. in 1958. The third director of the Institute had much in common with his illustrious predecessors. He shared with them a common love for Slovak culture and, like both of them, he, too, was an indefatigable, energetic and enthusiastic worker. Today the Slovak Institute continues to enlarge its library and archives (over 10,000 items) which are in the process of being organized and systematically classified and cataloged each summer by a library staff under the SLOVAKIA 19 direction of Sister Angelina Burak, SS.C.M. from Villa Sacred Heart, Danville, Pa. Originally the nucleus for the present creditable library of Slovak books at the Institute was provided by the Matica Slovenska and Spolok sv. Vojtecha delegations that came to America in 1935 and 1937 respectively. Each contributed several hundred volumes directly from Slovakia. Year by year individuals and organizations continue to send in books, periodicals and souvenirs (such as ceramics, pictures, photos, etc.) and these are added to the valuable collection at the Institute. As director of the Slovak Institute, Father Pir, O.S.B. has taken care of the library in the traditional spirit of the sons of St. Benedict who have always manifested special concern for books, manuscripts, etc. down through the centuries. A decade ago the Slovak Institute sponsored a Book Fair in the Benedictine High School auditorium, the first public ethnic display of books in the city of Cleveland. Father Pir is in touch with many cultural-minded persons and has the opportunity to meet students who do research in the Slovak fields of literature, art, history, science, politics, economics, industry, religion and education. He has been a steady contributor of articles to Slovak periodicals on assorted Slovak subjects for the past thirty years. In Cleveland he has been the director of a speaker's bureau for the Cleveland Slovak Cultural Radio Club (Station WERE) for more than a quarter of a century. Under his supervision approximately a hundred speakers have delivered more than a total of 1,250 speeches since 1947. He has been the editor of the Ave Maria religious magazine the past 15 years. His "Slovak News and Views" weekly column, which began in 1947 as a feature in the Katolicky Sokol weekly and was tranferred to the Jednota weekly newspaper in 1959, is a true reflection of Slovak contemporary life here and elsewhere. For many this column has been an inspiration for the study of their own background, particularly among Slovak youth. Although the Slovak Institute is primarly an American Slovak institution in Cleveland, it has a branch in Rome. 20 SLOVAKIA This gives it somewhat of an international flavor and offers scholars a wide field of research in problems that effect the destiny of the Slovak nation. Needless to add, this gives the Slovak Institute added prestige both here and abroad. Abbot Jerome Koval, O.S.B., who succeeded Abbot Kojis as president of the Slovak Institute, retained both Father Pir as director and Dr. Karol Strme:n, Ph.D. as secretary of the Institute. Both are closely associated as co-editors of the Ave Maria magazine published by St. Andrew's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D. rightfully enjoys a high place in Slovak culture. He is a talented poet and a versatile translator of the leading poets of the world. There is scarcely a poet of renown in the West or East with whose work he is not acquainted, and whose poems are not represented in Slovak literature through his translations. Both his original poems and those he has translated are veritable pearls in Slovak literature. There is no doubt that Dr. Strmen is the most qualified person for the office of secretary of the Slovak Institute. For years he has been associated with its director. For the most part of a decade (1949-1959) he was a member of the triumvirate (Dr. Francis Hrusovsky, Ph.D., Rev. Andrew Pir, O.S.B., Dr. Karol Strmefl, Ph.D.) that edited the Slovenske noviny-Slovak News weekly. Dr. Strmen is a multi-faceted personality whom it is difficult to classify or emulate. It is no exaggeration to claim that he is unique, and irreplaceable in Slovak literature. Father Mikulas sprinc, a life-long friend of Dr. Strmen, may be called his "literary twin." He, too, is one of the Charter members of the Slovak Institute and belongs in the brightest constellation of the Slovak literary world. Father sprinc's prolific works in poetry and prose surpass practically all of his contemporaries here, in his native Slovakia or abroad. Each year for the past quarter of a century he has published at least one book. Literary critics have given his works favorable reviews through the years. His productivity is surely impressive. SLOVAKIA 21 Comparison of sprinc and Strmen as poets leaves us puzzled. Both have their admirers, and one would find it difficult to choose whose poetry excels. Their styles and subjects are quite different. Both, however, are truly poets. New laurels have been won by Father sprinc by the continuous editorship of the Most, a Slovak cultural quarterly, the past nineteen years. After a succession of several publishers, the Slovak Institute adopted it as an official publication during the past decade. Many of the best writings of Slovak authors and artists in exile have appeared in this excellent cultural periodical. Contemporaries, perhaps, are not aware of the difficulties that have to be overcome in editing a cultural publication of classical quality. Literary critics and keen observers of the Slovak emigrants' struggles in a strange world, however, appreciate the sacrifices of the editor and his staff, and contributors, who have produced a worthwhile work at a time when wars and revolutions raged and political disturbances everywhere buffeted us on every side and threatened to wrest the pens and palettes of Slovak writers and artists from our hands. Charismatic gifts of Father sprinc are quite manifest in his eloquent preaching of the Word of God, as well as in his public speeches. He has travelled throughout the United States and Canada, sowing the seed of truth everywhere and performing invaluable service to the Slovak cause in a twofold manner: a) By arousing, informing and inspiring his hearers and readers; b) By obtaining ideas for new works. He is a true analyst of the thoughts and feelings of the American Slovaks to whom he belongs heart and soul, both as a priest of God and as a literary genius. Dr. Jozef Cincik, Ph.D., a Charter member, too, has done yeoman work by his unique work in art in the common cause of Slovak advancement in cultural endeavor far from his native homeland. His work bears the indelible mark of a rich personality and is an integral part of our American Slovak heritage. A number of Slovak churches have the unmistakable 'Dr. Cincik' stamp of artistic design emanating from his deep knowledge of the history of Slovak art and the science of archeology. Through many of his discoveries in the latter field he has helped to place 2.2 SLOVAKIA Slovakia on the map as an important archeological center in the very heart of central Europe. In his native homeland of Slovakia where he was a prominent member of the Matica Slovenska and the Slovak University staff, Dr. Cincik's imprint of genius is evident in many church edifices, public buildings, and illustrations of books and engravings of the currency and banknotes of the Slovak Republic. If there is anything regrettable in the career of Dr. Cincik it is certainly the cruel fate that drove him into exile, thus depriving his country of his rich creative talents at a time when they are needed the most. No one can deny that Dr. Cincik is eminently capable of expressing his unusual artistic talents in works of arts and in his writings, but he excels, too, in his ability to turn on a veritable torrent of words in his native Slovak tongue. Moreover, he is a living Slovak encyclopedia. To catch every word requires at least a pair of wide-awake listeners. It will surely be a great loss not to register his informal lectures, which on occasion he gives spontaneously and with a brilliant display of imaginative and dramatic flourishes that add color to his profound, scholarly and extemporaneous talks in an intimate gathering of friends . So much for the historic background of the Slovak Institute's Charter members. In the past twenty years many outstanding personalities and authorities in various fields of science, literature, art, history, music, religion and public life have become intimately associated with the Institute. The list is long enough to merit a volume or two of memoirs. But that is not our mission. On the 20th anniversary of the Slovak Institute we cannot pass over reference to a vital role played by its branch in Rome where Reverend Michael Lacko, S. J., Ph.D., has done notable work in editing the Slovak Studies. It is a pioneer project and appears annually, mainly in the English language. A variety of important articles by authorities in various fields is proof of the merit of this timely issue. As a program for the future it would be quite worthwhile to extend its efforts by the publication of its contents in leading modern languages. This could, indeed, SLOVAKIA 23 become the main purpose of the Roman branch of the Slovak Institute. As we pause on the occasion of its 20th anniversary to express our congratulations and gratitude to the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, for its achievements in behalf of Slovak culture in the free world, we note with satisfaction that is has fulfilled its avowed purpose of existence as expressed precisely in the Constitution and by-laws: "The Slovak Institute at St. Andrew's Abbey wants to support Slovak cultural life by inviting all Slovak cultural workers living in the free world outside Slovakia to membership, and promises to aid them in every possible manner in their cultural, scientific, literary and artistic endeavors because the Slovak nation in itll historic homeland after World War II cannot freely rule its own destiny according to its own principles, spirit or ideals, and consequently cannot direct its own proper cultural development." No program of dynamic action in the next forseeable fifty or seventy years can excel the idealism incorporated in the original Constitution and by-laws of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland as adopted a score of years ago. • • • SLOVAK 'INSTANT John Mizerak, a retired factory worker who became an instant millionaire via MILLIONAIRE' DIES the New York state lottery last September, died February 5, 1973 in Little Falls (N.Y.) Hospital. He was 77. Mizerak, blinded by glaucoma for several years, had been hospitalized since January 10 with an undisclosed illness. Mizerak, his wife Anna and their only child, John W. "Rusty" Mizerak, a musician and former baseball player in the Cincinnati Reds organization, won $1 million in the 1972 "summer special" lottery after the number of their $3 ticket was drawn.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Twenty Years of the Slovak Institute in Cleveland Description An account of the resource Joseph Paučo, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 23 (No. 46), 1973 pp. 16-23 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paučo, Jozef, 1914-1975 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/dc541fd2e71d2c00090d420de2da30a9.pdf cac54aba1bfb86d539c94e9176e54ead PDF Text Text 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the �SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first �80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the �SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- �82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, �SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated �84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ �SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. �86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" �SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from �88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 �SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- �90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes �SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 �92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit. � 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the �SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first �80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the �SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- �82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, �SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated �84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ �SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. �86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" �SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from �88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 �SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- �90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes �SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 �92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. 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 1965 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 18 SLOVAKIA TWENTY YiEJAIRS OF CZECH .AJND COMMUNIST RULE 1N SLOVAK1!.A. J. M. Kirschbaum The manner in which Slova,kia, 20 years ago, became a part of the restored Czecho-'S lovakia ruled by the Czech:!! and by Communists, ·a nd the disappearaJilce of the Slovak r epu:blic from the maip of post-war Europe, offers the experts of mternational law and ,political science an interesting subject for study and analysis. Having been diplomaticrully recognized 1b y 30 states, of which more than 1half were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak republic became, according to intemational law, a member of the international community rund subject as such to the princiiples and customs of international law. Consequently, in 1945 the Slovak republic was de jure and de facto a defeated state, just as Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. Due respect for international law aind for the principles declared in the Atlantic charter would have required that Slovakia receive the same treatment as Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria i.e., and that Slovakia's status as an existing state under military occupation be preserved :until Peace treaties had been concluded. Instead, the Allies favormg the Czech exiles, decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Oharter to the Slovak people amd, although recognition of a state cannot •b e revoked, they treated Slovakia as if the Slovaik .Republic had never existed. The British Government advised the Slovak Counsel General in London, Milan Harminc, on October 12, 1939, that "he will continue to be recognized as the Slovak Counsul in London. " 1 It showed great caution for a long time during the war in its attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Committee which, after the fall of France, moved to London, and left "open the question whether the Slovak State shall enjoy its independence in union with a Czech State, or in another form". 2 Under pressure from Moscow, 3 the Allies neverthe-less recognized a group of Czech and Slovak refugees as the government-in-exile, allowed Dr. Benes to assume the SLOVAKIA 79 functions of the President of Czechoslovakia-although he resigned on October 5, 1938 of his own will-and the Soviet armies saw to it that the Slovak territory was incorporated into the state, which, according to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had disintegrated from within on March 14, 1939, by the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia by the Slovak Diet.4 The disregard for the principles of international law, as well as for wartime declarations promising independence and territorial integrity after the victory, together with disrespect for the aspirations of the 'Slovak people, created in Slovakia a situation which, from the juridical point of view, allowed the formulation of the controversial views that: 1. The Slovak Republic legally did not cease to exist; 5 2. Slovakia should be considered a territory occupied by the Czechs and Soviets; 3. The legal representatives of the Slovak Republic are outside Slovakia, as President Tiso stressed in his broadcrust from the America,n Zone in Austria in A,pril 1945.6 These ·views were held very strongly among the Slovaks in exile in 1945, and the Slovak representatives even presented a memorandum to the Peace Conference in Paris, ask,i ng for a Peace Treaty witJh Slovakia. 7 It also was in line with these views that the Slovak Government surrendered to the American Army. Against these views, principles amd political aspirations, si.ands the fact of Slova,kia's incorporation into a restored Czecho-Slovakia, governed, except for a limited cultural autonomy, by the Czechs from Prague, or by the Communist Party, led :b y Czech Communists. Slovak diplomatic missions and consulates were closed; the symbols, orgams and the Government of the Slovak Republic disappeared; and the President was jailed and executed. The Slovak State remained only in the hearts and aspirations of the Slovak people. The manner in which this happened is a sad and bloody story. It is a tragedy of a small nation whose politiciams and ·people believed that high principles of justice, democracy, international law and equality of peoples would be respected after the war in Central Europe. The Russians were aware of the feelings and aspirations of the Slovak population, and tried to make a deal, first 80 SLOVAKIA with President Tiso, a,nd later in 1944, with the fo:r,mer Minister of External Affairs, Dr. Durcansky. Emissaries of the Soviet Government gave assurances that the Slovak Republic would not be a,bolished, amd that Slova:kia would remain an independent state if the Slovak Govenment came to term with Russia the way Rumaniia did. If Russia left a ruling k,i ng in IRumania-the Soviet emissaries :pointed out-it would also tolerate a Catholic monsignor in Slovakia. 8 Mainly because of their firm conviction that a compromise with Bolshevism was morally and politically unaccepta;ble for the Slovaik nation and its government; also because of their hopes that the Western !Powers would not, in their own interest, allow Communist domination of Central Europe; and would, therefore, enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the leading Slovaik personalities refused any compromise with Communism. When the Red Army, in its fast advance from Hungary, approached the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava, the President, Government, Parliarrnent, lea,ders of the party, army, gendarmerie and the Hlinka Guards' units, together with numerous civil servants, university professors, writers and youth organization Ieaiders, began moving west, to Austria, where provisional hea:dquarters of the Government were ,p repared in the monastery of Kremsmiinster. If capitulation was inevitable, the Slovaks wished to surrender or come to terms wiith the W estem AHies. "I left Slo,va,kia," declared President Tiso during his trial, "because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak illation to its own way of llfe better known and more understandable to the Western Powers." 9 Im1tead of renouncing the right to independence and self-government, or accepting Communism, the leading Slovak circles .p referred to leave their homeland in search of justice and respect for .Slovaikia's right to independence on the side of the Western Allies. It was along this line of reasoning that the Slov:ak Government and the American commander, General W. A. Collier, on May 8, 1945, signed a document of "protection" or "surrender" to the Allied High Command. 10 Coosideri!ng the circumstances, we can ha<rdly speak of surrender in the sense the word was used at the end of the SLOVAKIA 81 war, because Slovakia was not at war with Western AlliesGrerut Br1baiin, Frrunce or the Unirte<l. States. 11 Dr. Benes and his supporters in the United States misused a report broad-cast by the German News Agency rD. N. B., and reprinted by the New York Times on Decemlber 13, 1941, according to whkh Slovakia had declared war on the United States and Great Britain. 'Dhe truth is that neither the President 11or the Parliament of the Slovak Republic~the only constitutional authorities which can declare war-ever dealt with any declaration of war on the United States or GTeat Britain. It haJS been proven amd recognized by the U. S. authol'ies that never, at any moment, and in no area., was there any military ,a ction between the 'S lovak and American or British units. Unscrupulous propaganda was, of course, unconcerned vl!ith the faiet:s, and Slovakia was presented time and again as a country at war with the Western Allies; this in spite of the fact that Slovakia tried to inform the Western Allies, through diplomatic chamnelis, that she wanted to remain neutral with regard to the Western Powers ;12 and in spite of the fact that the Slovak President, in his public speech to the district governors of Slova:kia, called even the participation in the war against the Soviet Union "but a symbolic one". 1 In view of this, we cannot speak of a military, but rather a political surrooder. The Slovak Gnvernment looked for political protection and recognition of the right of the Slovak people to freedom and self-government. They surrendered to the American military command because they expected maximum undenstandi!Ilg from the American authorities and also because it was the first Allied authority with which they came into contact. 13 For reasons which have never been explained, the doooment, signed on behalf of the Allied High Command iby three high-ranking American officers, was not honored in any form. The President of the Slovak Republic, members of the Slovak Government, Parliament, army officers, civil servant.s, writers, artists, etc., on the !basis of a simple denunciahon ·b y the Czech police and intelligence agents, who were sent by Dr. Benes to Austria for the ,p mipose of denouncing or kidnaping, were arrested, put into concentration C!limps, .and many of them were extradited to the Prague Govern- 82 SLOVAKIA ment. In November 1945, the President of the Slovak Republic, and all 1but one member of the Slovruk Government, together with their secretaries, were transported to Prague in chains and handcuffs like "criminals". The Communist people's courts, after humiliation amd mental torture, either liquidated them on the gallows (Dr. Tiso, Dr. Tuka), or shot them or condemned them to life imprisonment amd forced labor camps. The attempts to save Slovakia's status as an independent state and to obtain recognition of the right to self-government by the Western Allies failed tragically. Regardless of the will of the Slovak people, Slovakia became again a part of Czecho-Slovakia, ruled by Prague and by the Communist party. The Restoration of the Czech Rule in Slovakia and the Road to Enslavement of Slovaks While the origin of Czecho.JSlovakia in 1918 was due in the first place to the ,policy of the victorious Powers of the First World War, especially to France, the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1945 was ,undoubtedly due to the Soviet Union. Dr. Benes and his government-in-exile returned to Prague from London via Moscow on the heels of the Red Army. In Eastern Slovakia the Communists had him sign the so-called Kosice Pro~ram14 which stated that CzechoSlovrukia was to be ra state of two separate nations--C2echs and Slovaks-with Sla·vic orientation and a socialist system of economy. Back in Prague, Dr. Benes was ,a pproved in his new position by a "Parliament", from which were eliminated in advance all the parti~ and politicians suspected of resistance to the policy of "National Front" government and sub.servience to Moscow. Having been formally established, the new government, composed of Communist, Dr. Benes' Na'tional Secialists, Social Democrats and representatives ot the Czech peoples Party and the Slovli:k Democratic party, SLOVAKIA 83 began to liquidate, by irregular "People's Courts," every.one who was suspected of some res-ervations towards the new political course. As president, Dr. Benes hereafter introduced, by a number of decress, the newstyled ",People's Democracy," and, gradually, also the socialist system of economy, freely applying the confiscation and "nationalization" of industries and private property. At first, the new Czec,ho-Slovak "People's Democracy" allowed only two political parties in Slovakia-Slovak Democratic /Party and Commll!Ilist Party. Although neither the Communists nor the small group of former Agrarians, who appointed themselves leaders of the Democratic Party, ever played a role of any importance in Slovak politics until the fall of 1944-- when they organized, in cooperation with ~oviet partisans, the t11prising~a,nd they imposed on .Slovakia a s ystem which ena,bled them. to share in ·a ll Slova;k political 1nstitutions on a /50-50 basis. The traditional conservative parties, such as the Slovak People's Party, the Agrariam Party, the Artisan Party, and S1ovak National Party, were suppressed. Favored by the Red Anmy which looted a,nd raped in Slovakia without precedent in Slovak history, both the Communists and the Democrats began to carry out the Kosice Agreement. The "Slova:k National Council," a revolutionary body of the organizers of the uprising, :b ecame the legislature and its presidium served as the executive. By Decr ee No. 33, they created organs of the so-called "people's justice," and freely used a charge of collaboration wit!h Germainy as pretext for imprisoning a,nd condemming all potential opposition. By Decree No. 51, they dissolved all associations expect those ~hich were enthusiastic for the new regime; they suppressed the religious (parochial) schools ( mostly Catholic), and institutions; a,nd confiscated their property and created forced labor camps (,Decree No. 33, .Article 5) for the re-education ·o f political adversaries. 15 Through these measures the way for tlhe Communist rule was paved in accordance with the agreement between Dr. Benes and Klement Gottwald. They decided in Moscow ,i n 1943 that the state administration would be replaced 'b y '.'national committees"-Soviets; the former right-of-center parties W?uld be eliminated; the Communist and tolerated 84 SLOVAKIA non-commUiilist parties would for,m a "governmen of· Na:tional Front", and ".p eople's courts" would be established to OOinmaJte "waT criminals." While the new regime was accepted with enthusi1a sm in Bohemia, there was only bitterness and uncertainty in Slovakia. The persecution of Catholic dergy and intelligentsia reached an inhuman fury; a wave of arrests took place throughout the country; and the leaders of the :Slova:k Republic died an gallows, in front of the firing squads, and filled jails and concentration camps. Thousands were deported to the Soviet Union in 1'945, many were executed by Soviet :partisans on simple Communist denunciation, and hundreds of Catholic intellectuals were arrested ibecause of "the conspiracy against the State and people's democracy." Occupying the most important positions in the Government, the Communists had no difficulty preparing the socalled "February Revolution" of 1948, since the Ozech nonCommunist politicians, including Dr. Benes, and the leaders of the Slovak Democratic Party offered or.ly a weak and insignificant ·opposition, if any at all. The Special Report of the U.S. Congress leaves no doubt in this regard: "It should be pointed out," says the report, "that the Communist advance in Czedhoslovakia was greatly facilitated by the behaviour of the non-Communist .p olitical .p arties and their lea:ders. Especially the naive 1b elief in the possibility of co-existence with the Communists, shared in different degrees by practically all Czech politicians, was responsilble for the extreme ease with which the Communist Party took power in 1948. The sig,ning of the Soviet-Czechoslovak agreement on December 12, 1943, and especially the proclamation of the Kosice program of April 5, 1945, opened the door for an ,unobserved drive on the part of the Communists to seize full power in the country." 16 In Slovakia the Communist Party obtained 30.4 % votes in the elections of 1946 and consequently garve a solid basis for establishment of a democratic regime. The situation in Bohemia and Morav1a was, however, quite different. Why the Czech population did not resist the complete Communist iake-over and practically voted the Communists into power by giving the communist and the Socialist Democrats, who united with the Communists, a majority of votes, 17 was ex~ SLOVAKIA 85 plained by the Czech exiles18 ai well as iby several foreign writers. One interesting reason was given lby the English historian and exipert in Central European ,p roblems, Hugh Seton-Watson, who writes that it was fear of future Gernnan revenge for "the mass expulsion of the Gernnan population of the Bohemia borderlands (who lived there since the Middle Ages) which was accompanied by much brutality and led to tens of thousands of deaths" .19 H. Seton-Watson argues, of .course, with the validity of such an argument and writes: "But just •a s in Germany in 1932 there was no practical prospect of communists attaining power, so in Europe in 1948 there was no practical prospect of Germans revenging themselves on Czechs. The widespread Czech argument was that, as Germany would one day seek revenge, Czechoslovakia anust maintain ibs alliance with Russia, and as the Russians wanted the Communists in power in Czechoslovakia and this must be accepted. But this meant that in order to avoid a hypothetical revenge in the future, the Czech people must accept communist tyranny in the present; and in order to ensure their independence from a non-existent German menace, they must hand their country over to the agents of Soviet imperiialism. It was this that was decisive rather than the aJbsence of Western military aid against the Soviet Union. A few months later, •a .potential crisis arose in Finland through the same cause which had started the crisis in Czecho-Slovakia-packing of the .police by a communist Minister of Interior. Finland was militarily no less at the mercy of Russia than Czechoslovakia had been, and no Western aid was conceiv,able. But the :Fiinns refrused to be intimidated. They voted in parliament against the Minister, he resigned, there was no crisis and no Soviet intervention. The F.inns suffered from none of the iHu.sions a!bout Russia, that afflicted the Czechs. " 20 However, irrespective of the reason which led the Czech population to accept Communism, they he1ped to make of Czecho-Slovakia the most faithful satellite of Moscow. Slovakia suffered from now on not only for her opposition to Communism, but also under the revenge laws persecuting every Slovak who in the past or in the "new" Czecho-Slovakia showed any opposition to the Czech rule in Slovakia. 86 SLOVAKIA lit was for this reason thaJt the fiirst wave of Slovak exiles vvas followed in 1948 by those Slovaik ipoliticians who 1beHeved in co-operation with the Communists and since 1944 helped them to govern the country. ln their sub-servience to_Moscow and in their desire to i:m~tate, if not surpass, Stalin's methods and general ;policy, the Communist leaders in ,Prague went further than any other satellite. No enemy of Czecho-iSlovakia, the Canadian professor H. Gordon Skilling, after several long months study behind the Iron Curtain in 1961-1962, wrote that "Ozechoslovakia occUlpied the ll!Ilenvi~ble ,positiion of being unique in its rigidity -and uniformity, in its orthodoxy to the old ideas of Communism, and its loyaLty to IMoscow". 21 1 Ln his view Czechoslova,kia ,p resented "a picture sharply in contraJSt to that of 1Poland, iHUJI1.gary, and Yugoslavia, or even A1bania. Unlike these four states, eaoh of which has at various times resisted Moscow, there was no evtl.dence, in October 1961, or six months later, in April 1962, of any spark of resistance by Czechoslovakia to the general line of the U.S.S.R. in international affairs, or in bloc relations. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had to he classified with East Germany, Rumania, and Bulgaria, in the category of the most loyal and subservient satellites. Neither was there any sign of a serious relaxation in domestic affairs, in the spirit of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, such as has manifested itself in Poland and iHung,a ry, and even to some extent in Rumania and Bulgaria. In this respect, Czechoslovakia, O'Ilce regarded as an island of democracy in eastern Europe, had regretfully to be classified with Albania, East Germany, and Rumania, as a state tihat had hardly changed at all since the death of Stalin." III. After Tw~nty Years of the Czech and Communist Rule What kind of political regiim e Prague imposed on Slova'k we ca,n see best from recent conf<.IS5ions of Slovak communists themselves. 22 'Dhe Communist denunciations refer, of course, only to the ,period of so-called "personality cult" SLOVAKIA 87 when for "bourgeois nationalism" they were hanged or put in prison (Novomesky, Husak, Oka.Ii etc.). This .p eriod of "personality cult" was, however, not much different from the other iperiods of the communist rule in Slovakia for noncommunists. It was "monstrous and horrible" as N ovomesky wrote recently and "wiped out trust, confidence, understanding, yes, even loyalty in the life and conciousness of thousands and thousands of ipeople".23 The "inhuman methods" denounced by the Slov·a k Wviters Congress in April, 1963, were applied against non-communists during the whole 20 years a,nd that "terrible curse on· the life of the country", as N ovamesky called the period of ;the so-called cult, for wh!i~h there will be "an eternal stain on the good name of everyone of us," as confessed •M:na,cko, does not refer to only a few years of Prague's persecution by Communists in Slovakia.2-l Prague and the Communist Party systematically used their power "to sweeip away from the !history of Slovak cul.: ture an entire past", to quote Novomesky again from the very beginning of the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia. 25 Reviewing the twenty years of Czech and Communist rule in Slovakia.; the political ,p ersecution of no1'l.-communist; the anti-religious measures and the tpersecution of clergy and believers alike; we can accept the conclusion of the leading Slovak intellectuals in exile tlhat "the Slovak ,p eople were ,n ever before subject to such political and religious oppression ,and economic exiploitation, a,nd life was never as hard in Slovakia as during the past 20 years". 26 In spite of this situation, there w~s no revolution similar to that ·in Hrungary and we can understand this only if we take into account the following facts: 1) Slovakia has been under constant occupation by Czech armed forces; 2) The true leaders of Slovak people were either. hanged, imprisoned or exiled; 3) 85,000 Slovak citi:zens were put mto labor and con-: centration campus; 4) 20,000 Slovaks were deported to the Soviet Union; 5) over 100,000 · Slovaik citizens of German ancestry, going back to the middle ages, were expelled from 88 SLOVAKIA Slovakia; over 120,000 Slovak citizens of Hungiarian ancestry were e~patniated, and close to 600,000 Slovaks were transferred into those parts of Bohemia and !Moravia from whicih the Czechs expelled over 3 mil1ion Sudeten Germans. 27 There is haroly a family which did not suffer under the organized terror of !P rague except those few "ruparatchiky" who helped the Communist and Czech occupation a.nd were not accused of bourgeois .nationalism. Only by means of tJhe gallows and firing squads, concentration camps and organized terror were Prague and Moscow able to keep ,a n appearance of tranquility aind maintain their rule in Slova:kia, against whiClh over 30 Slov-ak conspiracies were discovered, according to the Communists themselves, in the first decade. This treatment of Slovakia could not, of course, influence the Slovaks for Czecho.:s1ovakia or Communism. On the contrary. "Even the slight concessions of 1956-1B58 were bound to leave the Slovaks unimpressed and could in no way detract from Slovtak bitterness toward the treatment to which they had 1b een exiposed ever since the K!SC leaders abandoned their calculative support of Slovak autonomism in 1946. Ample evidence of continued Slovak resentment (against Czechs) is provided by recurrent warnmgs, criticisms, aind extortations deli'Vered by ,Party leaders and the communist press, ,a s well as by reports from underground Souivces" as admitted by Prof. E. Ta:borsky, 211 and those Czech ,i ntellectuals in exile who soberly analyze the situation (Prof. B. Chudoba etc.) "The touchy problem of Czecho.iSlova:k relations," writes Taboralky-and the ",p oison of 1bomgeois nationalism" ha.Ne figured high on the agenda of all the Slovak Communist Party congresses and Central Committee meetings held since 1948. The evidence was provided by t'he Commll.lil'ist themselves. "We ,are sbill frequently faced with dangerous ex,pression of .bourgeois nationalism in the shaipe of populd.st separatism del:i.beraJtely implanted Ml!d maintained in Slovakia by the church hierarchy," complained Siroky at the Con• gress of the ,Slovak P,a rty in April 1955. One year later, Pravda used the solemn occasion of the !May First festi'Vities 1 SLOVAKIA 89 to deplore the "lack of confidence and the susp1c10n of fear" between the Czechs and the Slovaks and lay 1b lame on "the neglect of Leninist principles."28 According to bitter complaints made 'by the Slovak P ,a:r,ty',s Firat Seoretairy, Kar~l Ba!Cilek, at the session of the Central Committee in January 1958, "bourgeois nationalistic tendencies" have penetrated "various fields of our cultural, poliitical and scientific life; sports; the state apparatus; economic organs; and so on." They have infiltrated "the films, press, and radio" and "have recently appeared even in some ,commissioners' offices" and the Party itself. 30 Slovaks could not be gained for Czechoslovakia even by a sharp retrospective attack on "Czecho.!Slovak,i sm", the concept that the Slovaks and tihe Czechs were ethnically, linguiistieally and cUllturaHy one nation, which ia:Henated Slovaks to Mrusaryk's republic, and which Vaclav Kopecky, speaking on b'e half of the KSc's Czech hierarchy, called in 1958 "an imperialist conception of national oppression of the Slovaks". 31 "While such declaration might have flattered the Slov,a.,ks in 1945, they fell on deaf ears in 1958", writes Taborsky. Nor coUlld t:he commll!Ilist leaders de riive much comfort from the "improvement" in the Slovak class structure resulting from the communist .industrializatioo. and collectivization drive. The transfovmation of the 1p redominantly agraria.,n Slovakia of prewar days into a province where industrial output accounted for 70 percent of the iprovince's production by 1956, and over 80 percent of all aralble land was collectivi.zed 1by the end of 1959, did substantially increase the number of tih e industrial proletal'iat, who, together with the collective farmers, are supposed to be the backbone of the communi,s t system. But the communist hopes that these "two friendly <!lasses of workers and (collective) peasants" would rise in resolute defence of proletarian internationalism against the dire threat of "bourgeois natiionalis,m" have failed to ma teria:lize.32 On the contrary, Slovak Communist newspapers as well as speeches of the leading Czech communists comiplained time and again that t!here were conflicts among the Czech and Slovak workers and that even "some of the leading (Slo- 90 SLOVAKIA vak) personalities have . evinced a wrong and negative aittitude ,t owards the Czeohs." 33 We cannot but agree with the conclusion of Prof. E. Taborsky, who certainly has no sympathies for Slovak nationalism or for the Slovak aspirations for independence, when he writes that "aside from confiivmimg the obvfous fact that the communist fights ag,a inst Slovak nationalism had made no headway, aimong the Slovak peasaintry, these reports indicate that the communist industrial,1zation d~ive had backfired in am unexpected manner. By building up Slovakia's economic potential and bringing new industries to the province's backwoods areas, the regime has unwittingly prodded the Slovaks' pride and self-confidence, a'l'ld thus helped to underpin the same Slova:k nationalism it has been trying so hard to blot out. Having acquired the knowhow and the a:bility to run the system themselves, the Slovak-Communists and non-communists alike-resent being ordered around by their elder Czech brethern. " 34 To sum up, we might say with certainty that the exiled Slovak leadevs are right when they emphasize that "the Slovak ipeople did not renounce their rights to freedom and independence, ,b ecause there is no nation on earth which would prefer tyranny instead of freedom" and that "even if someone 'has a different view with regard to the Slovak republic ood her war-regime, there is no justification for enslaving Slovakia and for opposing the aspirations of the Slovak people to live free and independent according to their own traditions". (Appeal to the free World). FOOTNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. See Document No. 23 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. p. 269. C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth, Edinburg, 1956, p. 376. In 1940 Moscow advised the Slovak Communists "they should fight for a full sovereignty of the Slovak State" and "against the world imperialism and Benes", and tried to win on her side the Slovak Government even at a time when the Soviets had diplomatic relations with the Czechoslovak Government in exile, as we shall see further. Cf. Historicky casopis, XII, 3, Bratislava, 1964 Speech in the House of Commons on March 15, 1939. The former Minister for External Affairs, Dr. F. Durcansky, writes SLOVAKIA 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. in this regards as follows : "Inasmuch as the Slovak Republic was formed in peace time, and was recognized by many countries, it can legally cease to exist only through a treaty in which its liquidation is established. Until such time the Slovak Republic should be considered as a territory occupied by the Soviets and the Czechs. This is valid, especially as the Slovaks are not willing to give up their independence."-F. Durcansky, The International Aspects of the Slovak Question, New York, 1954, p. 26. "The Slovaks at home and abroad know," declared President Tiso, "that their legal representatives today are abroad and those at present act as rulers at home are only usurpers of power aided by the Bolsheviks." Aide-Memoire sur l'existence de la Repub lique slovaque et sur la necessite de conclure le traite de paix avec eUe, Paris, Comite d'Action slovaque, 1946. K. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava. (Biography of Dr. J . Tiso,) Middletown, Pa., 1947 p. 281 and J . A. Mikul;, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l'Europe, p. 202. Dr. Joseph Pauco, (Ed.) Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe. (Dr. Jozef Tiso Speaks of Himself,) and article by J . M. Kirschbaum in Slovakia, Vol. 7, March 1957. See Document No. 38 in my book Slovakia-Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe . p. 295. See Documents of the Department of State No. 50, 51, 52. in my book Slovakia, p. 318-320. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, No. 205, Document No. 30. in my book Slovakia, p. 280. Charles Murin, "A Belated Report," in Slovakia, Vol 7, June 1957, p. 34. (Dr. Tiso's secretary, professor Charles Murin, who accompanied the President not only to Austria, but also to prison, and was definitely a man possessing the President's confidence, later testified to this respect: "There were two points around which revolved the thinking of Dr. Joseph Tiso in regards to the future of the Slovak people. First, it was the confidence in the United States as to the country of Washington, Lincoln, etc., and last, but not least, as to the country of the American Slovaks. In other words, the Slovaks had expected that the Government of the United States would not oppose the will of a na tion to freedom. •Secondly, Dr. Tiso ruled out in his thinking the possibility of creating a political vacuum in Europe after the war, because he knew that any political vacuum would be but an invitation to the Soviets who would not fail to intervene, if not opposed by a military force superior to their own." For details and an analysis, favorable to the present regime, see William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, 1947. For the Slovak point of view, see J . A. Mikul;. Op. cit., pp. 205-254, as well as the English translation Slovakia....A Political History, Marquette University-Press, 1964. An objective description of the religious situation in Slovakia after 1945 is to be found in several scholarly works : Prof. T. Zubek, The Church of Silence in Slovakia, published by Rev. J . J. Lach, 1 14. 15. 91 92 SLOVAKIA Whiting, Ind., Stefano Nahalka, La Slovacchia d'Oggi, Editrice Slovacca dei SS. Cirillo e Metodio, Roma, 1957, J . A. Mikus, Op. cit., and Dr. Joseph Pauco, Christian Slovakia, Valparaiso, Ind. 1959. 16. Special Report No. 8 of the Select Committee, House of Representatives, 83 Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C., 1958. 17. For details See Wm. Diamond, Op. cit. and J. A. Mikus, SlovakiaA Political History. 18. See books by E. Taborsky, H. Ripka, y. Busek etc. 19. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace, p. 205. Ibidem. p. 205. See also K. Glaser, op. cit. and W. Jaksch, op. cit. 20. Op. cit. p. 205, See also K. Glaser, Op. cit. and W. Jaksch, Op. cit. 21. Ibidem, p. 32. 22. See H. Gordon Skilling, Communism National and International. chapter "Ferment among Czechs and Slovaks", pp. 113-130. 23. Ibidem, p. 114. 24. See the proceedings of the Slovak Writers Congress, published in Kulturny Zivot, April 27, and May 4, 1963. 25. "In Slovakia-as prof. Skilling confirms-the policy of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (C.P.C.) after 1947 subordinated the Slovaks to increasingly centralist rule from Prague and trod underfoot the nationalist feelings even of Slovak communists" H. G. Skilling, op. cit. p. 88. 26. See Appeal of the Slovak Liberation Council to the World Opinion, March 1964 Munich 2, Germany, Signed by Dr. F. Durcansky and the writer. 27. See Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia-A Critical History, The Caxton Printers Limited Caldwell, Idaho, 1961 and Wenzel Jaksch, Europe's Road to Potsdam, New York, N. Y., 1963. 28. See Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948-1960, Princeton, University Press, 1961, chapter Slovakia-the everdisgruntled stepdaughter. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Pravda, May 1, 1956. Pravda, Jan. 10 and 11, 1958. See teskoslovensky prehled, V., 5. article by P. Berka. Ibidem. See also Bacilek's report at the Slovak Party Congress of April 1957, Prague News Letter 13, 10, May 11, 1957; teskoslovensky prehled III, 3 (1956), pp. 15If. Rocenka, 1960, p. 261. Pravda, March 30, 1958. English translation in East Europe, 7, 6, (1958), p. 37. Ceskoslovensky prehled, v, 2 (1958), pp. 12ff; also J . Safranek. op. cit.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Twenty Years of Czech and Communist Rule in Slovakia Description An account of the resource J. M. Kirschbaum Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 78-92 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 1965 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5dd66bc6cf625bb29ac28ec7a9800065.pdf 0c3354164566bf13826593df39835ab0 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 61 TRUTH AND LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZEOHO-SLOVA.KIA (Jk) On October 28th some ot the Bene§ Czechs and the so-calJed Czech Slovaks (Czechoslovaks ! ) celebrated the 32nd anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic. Patrlotlc and democratlc Czechs and Slovaks, however, had nothlng to celebrate on that date. In fact, they were glad to forget about it. And yet, less than flfteen years ago that day was a Slovak holiday. Of course, the majority of the Slovak natlon already then dld not celebrate the event wlth enthusiasm, because the short-sighted policy of the Prague reglmes had been unbel!evably successful in making enemies of the entlre non-Czech populatlon - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - and especially of the Slovaks. But even under the prevailing clrcumstances, the Slovaks still were In favor of the Czechoslovak Republ!c. And it probably would b e safe to say that the Slovaks at home were as much for Czechoslovakia at that Ume as the Slovaks in the Unlted States, Russia, Italy and the AJUed fronts were in lts establishment durlng World War I. A State, however, is not the supreme value in the democratlc and Christlan books of values. It is, accordlng to modern, democratlc scl• ence on statecraft, only a means that 1s supposed to make posslble the physlcal and splrltual Ufe of a natlon. And a natlon must not dle wlth the support of lnstltutions whlch were ordained to preserve it. (vd. Paul Janet, HISTOIRE DE LA SCIENCE POLITIQUE DANS SES RAPPORTS AVEC LA MORALE, PARIS, 1887). But the Masaryk and Beneš reglmes did place the Czechoslovak State above the Slovak natlon. Thelr pol!cy did seek the destructlon of the Slovak nation. Such a policy certalnly could not be expected to galn the sympathy of the Slovak people. The Slova.ks reslsted lt resolutely. And that was only natural. The Czech professor, Dr. J. Bušek, sald the Slovak natlon was performing a mira.cle whlch in no small measure must be credlted to bad Czech pol!tlcs. The more Prague oppressed lt, the more self-consclous the Slovak natlon became. And thls enhanced the pol!tical development of the Slovaks. The Slovak nation, whlch Dr. Bušek claimed had developed more in the twenty years withln the framework of Czechoslovakla than 1t had in the entlre century of Magyar domination, could not be satlsfled wlth a solutlon that prevented its spirltual and materlal expansion. lt traveled the same path taken by other Central-European natlons and wended lts way from cohabltatlon In common unlts to autonomy and then to independence. When the Slova.ks proclalmed their independence, they were fully aware of the fact that lt was the result of a natural tendency of polltical development, and, therefore, that they were dolng what was rlght. October 28, 1918, was a mllestone in the national development of the Slovaks. But only one of the mllestones marking thelr hlstorlcal trek from !oss of thelr independence in the tenth century to tbe acqulsltlon of lt aga.In in 1939. March 14, 1939 - Slovak Independence Day - became the State hollday. The clrcnmstances under which the Slovak Republlc was born wlll not alter the slgnlficance of thls date in the least. In tbe la.st centuries, all the states ot centra! and �62 SLOVAKIA eastern Europe or!ginated In much the same way. And so dld the Czechoslovak Republlc. There exlsts a varlety of legends about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republ!c, but the truth !s only one. THE LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA Prof. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Beneš created a legend about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republlc. Accordlng to that legend, the "Czechoslovak natlon" exlsted already ln the nlnth century. That natlon was overcome by the Germans and Hungarlans, and the Slovak "branch" was separated from the Czech natlon. After a thousand years of enslavement, during World War I, Czech Knlghts, led by Masaryk and Beneš, waged a hero!c struggle against the German and Magyar tyrants and liberated the "Czechoslovak nat!on" and reestabllshed its independence. Thls fable was propagated as the holy truth not only at horne, but also abroad. Here and there slight varlatlons were allowed, but the substance of the legend always had to remaln the same: the "Czechoslovak nat!on", after belng subjugated in the nlnth century, yearned for a thousand years to live In lts own State; lt was llberated by the two Czech heroes, Masaryk and Beneš, who fulfllled the anclent dream of the unlted "Czechoslovak natlon" for a common homeland. A cltlzen of Czechoslovakla doubt!ng thls fable was consldered a traltor and an enemy ot the State. In bis first publlcatlon for lnternatlonal consumptlon ("Détrulsez l'Autrlche"), Dr. Edward Beneš had stated that the Czechs and Slovaks were "ONE" natlon, the Slovaks were only a "BRANCH" of the Czech natlon and the Slovak language was only a "DIALECT" of the Czech language, and so it had to be, according to Masaryk and Beneš. To seek equallty and justlce for the Slovavks was punishable, because they were destlned - by Masaryk and Beneš - to strengthen the number of Czechs and perish in the Czech nation so that hlstory once might write another chapter about the heroic exploits of Masaryk and Beneš! Llfe, however, bls dlspelled that legend. Just as !t has the rest of the Czech attempts to falslfy history, whether "manuscripts" or any other famous deeds were concerned which were supposed to be the foundat!on of the greatness and clalms of some Czech generation. Llfe does not respect historical romantlclsms and does not confuse them with reality. It has its own laws and evolutionary ways, and these hold even in the case of Czechoslovakia. Truth has prevalled, lndeed, but lt was not the truth acclalmed by Masaryk, who even "orlginated" the wlsdom that "States are preserved by the ldeas whlch origlnated them" by borrowlng lt from Sallust! THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA A part of the Czech emlgration - the Beneš Czechs and the Czech Slovaks - are trylng to revlve the fable of the orlgin of the Czechoslovak Republic, the mlsslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak Republlc, the misslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak natlon." But the truth remalns what lt was: t he Czechoslovak Republic did not come lnto being as the result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the " Czechoslovak natlon", because such a nation never �SLOVAK IA 63 existed. International conditio ns, and especially the intervention of France, were responslble for lts origin. Of course, smooth, perslstent propaganda has beclouded the truth and supported the legend. The same Dr. Edwar d Beneš - w ho in 1916 pr oposed to "Destroy Austria" and created t he fable th at Czechoslovakla was t h e result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the "Czechoslovak nat!on" - just a few years prior to that time wrote in his book "Le Probléme Autrich en et la Question Tcheque" that he dld not belleve Austria would collapse, b ecause In Bohemla " they saw in independence the greatest dange r to national existence and, with the exception of a few radicals, this was the opinion of all sensible (Czech ) politici.ins." This stand of the Czech natlon, no t even mentloníng that of the Slovak nation, did not change even after Masaryk and Beneš went ab road In 1916 to begin the cam paign for the creatlon of a Czechoslovak Republlc. During the entire first World War, Czech politlclans and cultural leaders contlnued to p roclaim thelr loyalty to Austria. "Närodni Listy," one of the leading Czech papers, wrote early in 1917: " lt is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the Czec h nation. The enemies have lcarned that the love of a ll Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their Fatherland is firm and unshakab le. The enemies ha ve realized that those who abroad make contradictory statements are liars and impostors." Late in 1916, a ll the Czech par t!es In t he Austrlan parllament, without a slngle exception, lssued a solem n declaration: "The basis a nd guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." And in J anuary 1917, the assoclation of Czech members of par llament sent the following letter to the forelgn minister of AustriaH ungary: "In view of the Allied answer to Preside nt Wilson in which the liberatlon of the Czechs figures as a war aim, we reject this lnsinuation which 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 deve lopment only un der th e Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy." T he same part!es asked P rime Ministe r Clam-Mar tlnitz, a Czech hlmself, to arrange an audlence with the emperor, becau se "we want to teli His Majesty, that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our d emands shall a lways be compatible wlth the interests of the Habsburg dynasty and of the realm ; that we are loyal servants of King and Country, that our complaints have never s haken our belief that after victory the c laims of the Czech people shali find satisfaction w ithin the framework of the rea lm and under the Habsburg crown." Furthermore, the delegates of the Czech soclalists a t the Stockholm Conference or the Socialist In ternatlonal, In J u ne 1917, volced t heir demand for " a n indepe nde nt Czec h State w ithin a federated Austria-Hungary." AU this caused F. Peroutka, Czech journallst, to ,v-rlte the f ollowing sad commentary in bis book "Budováni státu" (Buildlng of the State): "In all these manlfestations the one essential lack ln g generally �64 S LOVAKIA. was: a clearly expre11ed w ill for freedom. T helr leading motlve was a perslstent effort to have the Austrlan Government recognlze the Joyalty of the Czech nation. During the three years (1914-1917), from what was resoundlng at home, lt was not possible to prove even weakly that the nation at home had any sympathies for the action abroad. lt would be muc h eaaler t o pr ove that t he a ction abroad w as repudiate d by th ese manifeatatlon1." Prof. Bohdan Chudoba, a representative of the younger Czech lntellectuals. states only an objectlve truth, the reality, when he says that the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic "was a rather unexpected event." Thomas Masaryk, contlnues Prof. Chudoba, contlnued to assure "the leadlng American personalltles as late as the summer of 1918 that there would not be any partltlon of the Habsburg monarchy. Even the manlfesto of the Czech wrlters, lssued In May, 1917, a very radlcal declaration, dld not mention an independent State. And the tenth of Presldent Wllson's famous fourteen polnts spoke only of an autonomous development of the peoples of AustrlaH ungary." And that !s how lt actually was. T he forelgn activlty of the Czechs and Slovaks, in whlch American Slovaks along wlth Gen. M. R. štefá.nlk and t he Slovak leglonalres played a major role, was not very successful as far as the matter of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon' 'was concerned. In the flrst place, there was no such nation and, secondly, the Czechs were voclferously proclalming thelr loyalty to Austria. In Slovakla there was pol!tlcal stagnatlon. The destructlon of the Habsburg Monarchy was favored by French polltlclans, especlally by Clemenceau. To weaken Germany and galn allles In centra! Europe In J uly 1918, the French supported the pian to establlsh natlonal States on the rulns of Austrla-Hungary. The prlnciple of the rlght of self-determlnatlon was supposed to be t he basis of thls dlv1slon of the Habsburg Monarchy. Thls, however, was not adhered to and the new organization of centra! Europe, ot whlch the Czechoslovak Republic and Yugoslavla were supposed to be the bulwark, proved ltself lncapable of preservatlon and collapsed wlth the flrst attack from the outslde. Czechoslovakla fell flrst. No one defended her. And when the Republlc was reestabllshed In 1945, by the grace ot Moscow, and annexed by the very same Moscow In 1948, agaln not a slngle shot was flred In her defense, nay, not even a slngle manly protest was made In the defense of Czechoslovakla. Why should the Slovaks want to live In such a State? And why 1Should they celebrate the annlversary of lts orlgin? In the Ufe of the Slovak natlon, the Czechoslovak State was an lmportant mllestone. They attalned much In Czechoslovakla, but never as much as they were entltled to and as much as they mlght attaln In thelr own Independent State In an European or Centra! European federatlon . • • • GET THE STORY ABOUT "CZECHOSLOVAK DEMOCRACY" FROM THE PIOOPLE WHO SU FFERED UNDER IT AND WERE PERSECUTED BY TT ! SUBSCRIBE TO T HE. SL OVA K NEWSLETTER AT ONCE ! � SLOVAKIA 61 TRUTH AND LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZEOHO-SLOVA.KIA (Jk) On October 28th some ot the Bene§ Czechs and the so-calJed Czech Slovaks (Czechoslovaks ! ) celebrated the 32nd anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic. Patrlotlc and democratlc Czechs and Slovaks, however, had nothlng to celebrate on that date. In fact, they were glad to forget about it. And yet, less than flfteen years ago that day was a Slovak holiday. Of course, the majority of the Slovak natlon already then dld not celebrate the event wlth enthusiasm, because the short-sighted policy of the Prague reglmes had been unbel!evably successful in making enemies of the entlre non-Czech populatlon - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - and especially of the Slovaks. But even under the prevailing clrcumstances, the Slovaks still were In favor of the Czechoslovak Republ!c. And it probably would b e safe to say that the Slovaks at home were as much for Czechoslovakia at that Ume as the Slovaks in the Unlted States, Russia, Italy and the AJUed fronts were in lts establishment durlng World War I. A State, however, is not the supreme value in the democratlc and Christlan books of values. It is, accordlng to modern, democratlc scl• ence on statecraft, only a means that 1s supposed to make posslble the physlcal and splrltual Ufe of a natlon. And a natlon must not dle wlth the support of lnstltutions whlch were ordained to preserve it. (vd. Paul Janet, HISTOIRE DE LA SCIENCE POLITIQUE DANS SES RAPPORTS AVEC LA MORALE, PARIS, 1887). But the Masaryk and Beneš reglmes did place the Czechoslovak State above the Slovak natlon. Thelr pol!cy did seek the destructlon of the Slovak nation. Such a policy certalnly could not be expected to galn the sympathy of the Slovak people. The Slova.ks reslsted lt resolutely. And that was only natural. The Czech professor, Dr. J. Bušek, sald the Slovak natlon was performing a mira.cle whlch in no small measure must be credlted to bad Czech pol!tlcs. The more Prague oppressed lt, the more self-consclous the Slovak natlon became. And thls enhanced the pol!tical development of the Slovaks. The Slovak nation, whlch Dr. Bušek claimed had developed more in the twenty years withln the framework of Czechoslovakla than 1t had in the entlre century of Magyar domination, could not be satlsfled wlth a solutlon that prevented its spirltual and materlal expansion. lt traveled the same path taken by other Central-European natlons and wended lts way from cohabltatlon In common unlts to autonomy and then to independence. When the Slova.ks proclalmed their independence, they were fully aware of the fact that lt was the result of a natural tendency of polltical development, and, therefore, that they were dolng what was rlght. October 28, 1918, was a mllestone in the national development of the Slovaks. But only one of the mllestones marking thelr hlstorlcal trek from !oss of thelr independence in the tenth century to tbe acqulsltlon of lt aga.In in 1939. March 14, 1939 - Slovak Independence Day - became the State hollday. The clrcnmstances under which the Slovak Republlc was born wlll not alter the slgnlficance of thls date in the least. In tbe la.st centuries, all the states ot centra! and �62 SLOVAKIA eastern Europe or!ginated In much the same way. And so dld the Czechoslovak Republlc. There exlsts a varlety of legends about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republ!c, but the truth !s only one. THE LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA Prof. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Beneš created a legend about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republlc. Accordlng to that legend, the "Czechoslovak natlon" exlsted already ln the nlnth century. That natlon was overcome by the Germans and Hungarlans, and the Slovak "branch" was separated from the Czech natlon. After a thousand years of enslavement, during World War I, Czech Knlghts, led by Masaryk and Beneš, waged a hero!c struggle against the German and Magyar tyrants and liberated the "Czechoslovak nat!on" and reestabllshed its independence. Thls fable was propagated as the holy truth not only at horne, but also abroad. Here and there slight varlatlons were allowed, but the substance of the legend always had to remaln the same: the "Czechoslovak nat!on", after belng subjugated in the nlnth century, yearned for a thousand years to live In lts own State; lt was llberated by the two Czech heroes, Masaryk and Beneš, who fulfllled the anclent dream of the unlted "Czechoslovak natlon" for a common homeland. A cltlzen of Czechoslovakla doubt!ng thls fable was consldered a traltor and an enemy ot the State. In bis first publlcatlon for lnternatlonal consumptlon ("Détrulsez l'Autrlche"), Dr. Edward Beneš had stated that the Czechs and Slovaks were "ONE" natlon, the Slovaks were only a "BRANCH" of the Czech natlon and the Slovak language was only a "DIALECT" of the Czech language, and so it had to be, according to Masaryk and Beneš. To seek equallty and justlce for the Slovavks was punishable, because they were destlned - by Masaryk and Beneš - to strengthen the number of Czechs and perish in the Czech nation so that hlstory once might write another chapter about the heroic exploits of Masaryk and Beneš! Llfe, however, bls dlspelled that legend. Just as !t has the rest of the Czech attempts to falslfy history, whether "manuscripts" or any other famous deeds were concerned which were supposed to be the foundat!on of the greatness and clalms of some Czech generation. Llfe does not respect historical romantlclsms and does not confuse them with reality. It has its own laws and evolutionary ways, and these hold even in the case of Czechoslovakia. Truth has prevalled, lndeed, but lt was not the truth acclalmed by Masaryk, who even "orlginated" the wlsdom that "States are preserved by the ldeas whlch origlnated them" by borrowlng lt from Sallust! THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA A part of the Czech emlgration - the Beneš Czechs and the Czech Slovaks - are trylng to revlve the fable of the orlgin of the Czechoslovak Republic, the mlsslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak Republlc, the misslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak natlon." But the truth remalns what lt was: t he Czechoslovak Republic did not come lnto being as the result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the " Czechoslovak natlon", because such a nation never �SLOVAK IA 63 existed. International conditio ns, and especially the intervention of France, were responslble for lts origin. Of course, smooth, perslstent propaganda has beclouded the truth and supported the legend. The same Dr. Edwar d Beneš - w ho in 1916 pr oposed to "Destroy Austria" and created t he fable th at Czechoslovakla was t h e result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the "Czechoslovak nat!on" - just a few years prior to that time wrote in his book "Le Probléme Autrich en et la Question Tcheque" that he dld not belleve Austria would collapse, b ecause In Bohemla " they saw in independence the greatest dange r to national existence and, with the exception of a few radicals, this was the opinion of all sensible (Czech ) politici.ins." This stand of the Czech natlon, no t even mentloníng that of the Slovak nation, did not change even after Masaryk and Beneš went ab road In 1916 to begin the cam paign for the creatlon of a Czechoslovak Republlc. During the entire first World War, Czech politlclans and cultural leaders contlnued to p roclaim thelr loyalty to Austria. "Närodni Listy," one of the leading Czech papers, wrote early in 1917: " lt is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the Czec h nation. The enemies have lcarned that the love of a ll Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their Fatherland is firm and unshakab le. The enemies ha ve realized that those who abroad make contradictory statements are liars and impostors." Late in 1916, a ll the Czech par t!es In t he Austrlan parllament, without a slngle exception, lssued a solem n declaration: "The basis a nd guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." And in J anuary 1917, the assoclation of Czech members of par llament sent the following letter to the forelgn minister of AustriaH ungary: "In view of the Allied answer to Preside nt Wilson in which the liberatlon of the Czechs figures as a war aim, we reject this lnsinuation which 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 deve lopment only un der th e Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy." T he same part!es asked P rime Ministe r Clam-Mar tlnitz, a Czech hlmself, to arrange an audlence with the emperor, becau se "we want to teli His Majesty, that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our d emands shall a lways be compatible wlth the interests of the Habsburg dynasty and of the realm ; that we are loyal servants of King and Country, that our complaints have never s haken our belief that after victory the c laims of the Czech people shali find satisfaction w ithin the framework of the rea lm and under the Habsburg crown." Furthermore, the delegates of the Czech soclalists a t the Stockholm Conference or the Socialist In ternatlonal, In J u ne 1917, volced t heir demand for " a n indepe nde nt Czec h State w ithin a federated Austria-Hungary." AU this caused F. Peroutka, Czech journallst, to ,v-rlte the f ollowing sad commentary in bis book "Budováni státu" (Buildlng of the State): "In all these manlfestations the one essential lack ln g generally �64 S LOVAKIA. was: a clearly expre11ed w ill for freedom. T helr leading motlve was a perslstent effort to have the Austrlan Government recognlze the Joyalty of the Czech nation. During the three years (1914-1917), from what was resoundlng at home, lt was not possible to prove even weakly that the nation at home had any sympathies for the action abroad. lt would be muc h eaaler t o pr ove that t he a ction abroad w as repudiate d by th ese manifeatatlon1." Prof. Bohdan Chudoba, a representative of the younger Czech lntellectuals. states only an objectlve truth, the reality, when he says that the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic "was a rather unexpected event." Thomas Masaryk, contlnues Prof. Chudoba, contlnued to assure "the leadlng American personalltles as late as the summer of 1918 that there would not be any partltlon of the Habsburg monarchy. Even the manlfesto of the Czech wrlters, lssued In May, 1917, a very radlcal declaration, dld not mention an independent State. And the tenth of Presldent Wllson's famous fourteen polnts spoke only of an autonomous development of the peoples of AustrlaH ungary." And that !s how lt actually was. T he forelgn activlty of the Czechs and Slovaks, in whlch American Slovaks along wlth Gen. M. R. štefá.nlk and t he Slovak leglonalres played a major role, was not very successful as far as the matter of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon' 'was concerned. In the flrst place, there was no such nation and, secondly, the Czechs were voclferously proclalming thelr loyalty to Austria. In Slovakla there was pol!tlcal stagnatlon. The destructlon of the Habsburg Monarchy was favored by French polltlclans, especlally by Clemenceau. To weaken Germany and galn allles In centra! Europe In J uly 1918, the French supported the pian to establlsh natlonal States on the rulns of Austrla-Hungary. The prlnciple of the rlght of self-determlnatlon was supposed to be t he basis of thls dlv1slon of the Habsburg Monarchy. Thls, however, was not adhered to and the new organization of centra! Europe, ot whlch the Czechoslovak Republic and Yugoslavla were supposed to be the bulwark, proved ltself lncapable of preservatlon and collapsed wlth the flrst attack from the outslde. Czechoslovakla fell flrst. No one defended her. And when the Republlc was reestabllshed In 1945, by the grace ot Moscow, and annexed by the very same Moscow In 1948, agaln not a slngle shot was flred In her defense, nay, not even a slngle manly protest was made In the defense of Czechoslovakla. Why should the Slovaks want to live In such a State? And why 1Should they celebrate the annlversary of lts orlgin? In the Ufe of the Slovak natlon, the Czechoslovak State was an lmportant mllestone. They attalned much In Czechoslovakla, but never as much as they were entltled to and as much as they mlght attaln In thelr own Independent State In an European or Centra! European federatlon . • • • GET THE STORY ABOUT "CZECHOSLOVAK DEMOCRACY" FROM THE PIOOPLE WHO SU FFERED UNDER IT AND WERE PERSECUTED BY TT ! SUBSCRIBE TO T HE. SL OVA K NEWSLETTER AT ONCE ! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 61 TRUTH AND LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZEOHO-SLOVA.KIA (Jk) On October 28th some ot the Bene§ Czechs and the so-calJed Czech Slovaks (Czechoslovaks ! ) celebrated the 32nd anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic. Patrlotlc and democratlc Czechs and Slovaks, however, had nothlng to celebrate on that date. In fact, they were glad to forget about it. And yet, less than flfteen years ago that day was a Slovak holiday. Of course, the majority of the Slovak natlon already then dld not celebrate the event wlth enthusiasm, because the short-sighted policy of the Prague reglmes had been unbel!evably successful in making enemies of the entlre non-Czech populatlon - the majority of the population of Czecho-Slovakia - and especially of the Slovaks. But even under the prevailing clrcumstances, the Slovaks still were In favor of the Czechoslovak Republ!c. And it probably would b e safe to say that the Slovaks at home were as much for Czechoslovakia at that Ume as the Slovaks in the Unlted States, Russia, Italy and the AJUed fronts were in lts establishment durlng World War I. A State, however, is not the supreme value in the democratlc and Christlan books of values. It is, accordlng to modern, democratlc scl• ence on statecraft, only a means that 1s supposed to make posslble the physlcal and splrltual Ufe of a natlon. And a natlon must not dle wlth the support of lnstltutions whlch were ordained to preserve it. (vd. Paul Janet, HISTOIRE DE LA SCIENCE POLITIQUE DANS SES RAPPORTS AVEC LA MORALE, PARIS, 1887). But the Masaryk and Beneš reglmes did place the Czechoslovak State above the Slovak natlon. Thelr pol!cy did seek the destructlon of the Slovak nation. Such a policy certalnly could not be expected to galn the sympathy of the Slovak people. The Slova.ks reslsted lt resolutely. And that was only natural. The Czech professor, Dr. J. Bušek, sald the Slovak natlon was performing a mira.cle whlch in no small measure must be credlted to bad Czech pol!tlcs. The more Prague oppressed lt, the more self-consclous the Slovak natlon became. And thls enhanced the pol!tical development of the Slovaks. The Slovak nation, whlch Dr. Bušek claimed had developed more in the twenty years withln the framework of Czechoslovakla than 1t had in the entlre century of Magyar domination, could not be satlsfled wlth a solutlon that prevented its spirltual and materlal expansion. lt traveled the same path taken by other Central-European natlons and wended lts way from cohabltatlon In common unlts to autonomy and then to independence. When the Slova.ks proclalmed their independence, they were fully aware of the fact that lt was the result of a natural tendency of polltical development, and, therefore, that they were dolng what was rlght. October 28, 1918, was a mllestone in the national development of the Slovaks. But only one of the mllestones marking thelr hlstorlcal trek from !oss of thelr independence in the tenth century to tbe acqulsltlon of lt aga.In in 1939. March 14, 1939 - Slovak Independence Day - became the State hollday. The clrcnmstances under which the Slovak Republlc was born wlll not alter the slgnlficance of thls date in the least. In tbe la.st centuries, all the states ot centra! and 62 SLOVAKIA eastern Europe or!ginated In much the same way. And so dld the Czechoslovak Republlc. There exlsts a varlety of legends about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republ!c, but the truth !s only one. THE LEGEND ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA Prof. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Beneš created a legend about the orlgln of the Czechoslovak Republlc. Accordlng to that legend, the "Czechoslovak natlon" exlsted already ln the nlnth century. That natlon was overcome by the Germans and Hungarlans, and the Slovak "branch" was separated from the Czech natlon. After a thousand years of enslavement, during World War I, Czech Knlghts, led by Masaryk and Beneš, waged a hero!c struggle against the German and Magyar tyrants and liberated the "Czechoslovak nat!on" and reestabllshed its independence. Thls fable was propagated as the holy truth not only at horne, but also abroad. Here and there slight varlatlons were allowed, but the substance of the legend always had to remaln the same: the "Czechoslovak nat!on", after belng subjugated in the nlnth century, yearned for a thousand years to live In lts own State; lt was llberated by the two Czech heroes, Masaryk and Beneš, who fulfllled the anclent dream of the unlted "Czechoslovak natlon" for a common homeland. A cltlzen of Czechoslovakla doubt!ng thls fable was consldered a traltor and an enemy ot the State. In bis first publlcatlon for lnternatlonal consumptlon ("Détrulsez l'Autrlche"), Dr. Edward Beneš had stated that the Czechs and Slovaks were "ONE" natlon, the Slovaks were only a "BRANCH" of the Czech natlon and the Slovak language was only a "DIALECT" of the Czech language, and so it had to be, according to Masaryk and Beneš. To seek equallty and justlce for the Slovavks was punishable, because they were destlned - by Masaryk and Beneš - to strengthen the number of Czechs and perish in the Czech nation so that hlstory once might write another chapter about the heroic exploits of Masaryk and Beneš! Llfe, however, bls dlspelled that legend. Just as !t has the rest of the Czech attempts to falslfy history, whether "manuscripts" or any other famous deeds were concerned which were supposed to be the foundat!on of the greatness and clalms of some Czech generation. Llfe does not respect historical romantlclsms and does not confuse them with reality. It has its own laws and evolutionary ways, and these hold even in the case of Czechoslovakia. Truth has prevalled, lndeed, but lt was not the truth acclalmed by Masaryk, who even "orlginated" the wlsdom that "States are preserved by the ldeas whlch origlnated them" by borrowlng lt from Sallust! THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA A part of the Czech emlgration - the Beneš Czechs and the Czech Slovaks - are trylng to revlve the fable of the orlgin of the Czechoslovak Republic, the mlsslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak Republlc, the misslon of Czechoslovakla and the "Czechoslovak natlon." But the truth remalns what lt was: t he Czechoslovak Republic did not come lnto being as the result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the " Czechoslovak natlon", because such a nation never SLOVAK IA 63 existed. International conditio ns, and especially the intervention of France, were responslble for lts origin. Of course, smooth, perslstent propaganda has beclouded the truth and supported the legend. The same Dr. Edwar d Beneš - w ho in 1916 pr oposed to "Destroy Austria" and created t he fable th at Czechoslovakla was t h e result of a 1000-year-old struggle of the "Czechoslovak nat!on" - just a few years prior to that time wrote in his book "Le Probléme Autrich en et la Question Tcheque" that he dld not belleve Austria would collapse, b ecause In Bohemla " they saw in independence the greatest dange r to national existence and, with the exception of a few radicals, this was the opinion of all sensible (Czech ) politici.ins." This stand of the Czech natlon, no t even mentloníng that of the Slovak nation, did not change even after Masaryk and Beneš went ab road In 1916 to begin the cam paign for the creatlon of a Czechoslovak Republlc. During the entire first World War, Czech politlclans and cultural leaders contlnued to p roclaim thelr loyalty to Austria. "Närodni Listy," one of the leading Czech papers, wrote early in 1917: " lt is amazing how indefatigably Masaryk endeavors to defile the honor of the Czec h nation. The enemies have lcarned that the love of a ll Austrian peoples for their inherited dynasty and their Fatherland is firm and unshakab le. The enemies ha ve realized that those who abroad make contradictory statements are liars and impostors." Late in 1916, a ll the Czech par t!es In t he Austrlan parllament, without a slngle exception, lssued a solem n declaration: "The basis a nd guaranty of the national existence of the Czech people are the dynasty, called to the throne centuries ago, and the indivisibly constituted Monarchy." And in J anuary 1917, the assoclation of Czech members of par llament sent the following letter to the forelgn minister of AustriaH ungary: "In view of the Allied answer to Preside nt Wilson in which the liberatlon of the Czechs figures as a war aim, we reject this lnsinuation which 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 deve lopment only un der th e Habsburg scepter and within the Habsburg Monarchy." T he same part!es asked P rime Ministe r Clam-Mar tlnitz, a Czech hlmself, to arrange an audlence with the emperor, becau se "we want to teli His Majesty, that we shall always stand by him and his successors; that our d emands shall a lways be compatible wlth the interests of the Habsburg dynasty and of the realm ; that we are loyal servants of King and Country, that our complaints have never s haken our belief that after victory the c laims of the Czech people shali find satisfaction w ithin the framework of the rea lm and under the Habsburg crown." Furthermore, the delegates of the Czech soclalists a t the Stockholm Conference or the Socialist In ternatlonal, In J u ne 1917, volced t heir demand for " a n indepe nde nt Czec h State w ithin a federated Austria-Hungary." AU this caused F. Peroutka, Czech journallst, to ,v-rlte the f ollowing sad commentary in bis book "Budováni státu" (Buildlng of the State): "In all these manlfestations the one essential lack ln g generally 64 S LOVAKIA. was: a clearly expre11ed w ill for freedom. T helr leading motlve was a perslstent effort to have the Austrlan Government recognlze the Joyalty of the Czech nation. During the three years (1914-1917), from what was resoundlng at home, lt was not possible to prove even weakly that the nation at home had any sympathies for the action abroad. lt would be muc h eaaler t o pr ove that t he a ction abroad w as repudiate d by th ese manifeatatlon1." Prof. Bohdan Chudoba, a representative of the younger Czech lntellectuals. states only an objectlve truth, the reality, when he says that the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic "was a rather unexpected event." Thomas Masaryk, contlnues Prof. Chudoba, contlnued to assure "the leadlng American personalltles as late as the summer of 1918 that there would not be any partltlon of the Habsburg monarchy. Even the manlfesto of the Czech wrlters, lssued In May, 1917, a very radlcal declaration, dld not mention an independent State. And the tenth of Presldent Wllson's famous fourteen polnts spoke only of an autonomous development of the peoples of AustrlaH ungary." And that !s how lt actually was. T he forelgn activlty of the Czechs and Slovaks, in whlch American Slovaks along wlth Gen. M. R. štefá.nlk and t he Slovak leglonalres played a major role, was not very successful as far as the matter of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon' 'was concerned. In the flrst place, there was no such nation and, secondly, the Czechs were voclferously proclalming thelr loyalty to Austria. In Slovakla there was pol!tlcal stagnatlon. The destructlon of the Habsburg Monarchy was favored by French polltlclans, especlally by Clemenceau. To weaken Germany and galn allles In centra! Europe In J uly 1918, the French supported the pian to establlsh natlonal States on the rulns of Austrla-Hungary. The prlnciple of the rlght of self-determlnatlon was supposed to be t he basis of thls dlv1slon of the Habsburg Monarchy. Thls, however, was not adhered to and the new organization of centra! Europe, ot whlch the Czechoslovak Republic and Yugoslavla were supposed to be the bulwark, proved ltself lncapable of preservatlon and collapsed wlth the flrst attack from the outslde. Czechoslovakla fell flrst. No one defended her. And when the Republlc was reestabllshed In 1945, by the grace ot Moscow, and annexed by the very same Moscow In 1948, agaln not a slngle shot was flred In her defense, nay, not even a slngle manly protest was made In the defense of Czechoslovakla. Why should the Slovaks want to live In such a State? And why 1Should they celebrate the annlversary of lts orlgin? In the Ufe of the Slovak natlon, the Czechoslovak State was an lmportant mllestone. They attalned much In Czechoslovakla, but never as much as they were entltled to and as much as they mlght attaln In thelr own Independent State In an European or Centra! European federatlon . • • • GET THE STORY ABOUT "CZECHOSLOVAK DEMOCRACY" FROM THE PIOOPLE WHO SU FFERED UNDER IT AND WERE PERSECUTED BY TT ! SUBSCRIBE TO T HE. SL OVA K NEWSLETTER AT ONCE !  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Truth and Legend About the Origin of Czecho-Slovakia Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1), May 1951 pp. 61-64 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/4ed4d7dcdf0a45d96faf6421fb49f590.pdf 0329af3b400ed22655aa5339538259ca PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by �SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. �SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early �SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made �SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the �76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- �SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- �78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. �SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of �80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of �SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became �SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It �SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, �84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- �85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the �86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on �SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting �88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream �SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, �90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. �SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with �92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- �94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. �SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- �96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis �SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . �SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. �DOCUMENTATION �� SLOVAKIA 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by �SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. �SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early �SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made �SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the �76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- �SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- �78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. �SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of �80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of �SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became �SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It �SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, �84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- �85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the �86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on �SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting �88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream �SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, �90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. �SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with �92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. �SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- �94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. �SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- �96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis �SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . �SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. �DOCUMENTATION �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 71 Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Martin Votruba The transition from the rule of censorship to the rule of the free market after the collapse of Communism thirteen years ago has been more painful for Slovak filmmakers than for other artists. Filmmaking requires a substantially higher initial investment than other performing and fine arts. People are ready to pay much less for a movie ticket or rental than to buy a book or painting. This puts small countries like Slovakia at a great disadvantage. In a world where feature films in a language other than English have difficulty finding an audience outside their own language areas, even if they are in French, German or Spanish, the same-language audience for films in Slovak is the size of a single frame. A film in the Slovak language costs as much as a comparable film in any other language, but the chances that it will recoup its costs are minimal. Yet, several dedicated filmmakers have managed to find institutional and private support, perhaps resigned to the fact that profits will remain elusive, while hoping to make a statement, push the envelope, create Art. Filmmaking began in Slovakia while it was still part of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. According to film historians, the first motion picture shows in the Slovak counties took place in Kosice in December, 1896 and a few days later in Bratislava (then called Presporok by the Slovaks, Pressburg by the Germans). That was only a year after . the Lumiere brothers' first-ever public picture show in Paris and just six months after a similar showing in New York. The early shows were organized by SLOVAKIA 72 traveling entrepreneurs, often in cafes or similar venues, but also under tents. People's visual perceptions of the world were being changed forever and those making and showing the films knew it. A show in Nitra in 1903 still touted the advent of the modern world, when it was advertised as "Hungary's 1st Scientific Electrical Theater Modeled on the Grand American Bioscope Awarded the Grand Prix at the World Fair in Paris." At that time, a linguistic barrier was not crucial to the films' distribution in the multinational Kingdom of Hungary. Silent movies were largely self-explanatory and most people would have been able to understand the few captions in Magyar or German, the two dominant languages in the Kingdom, or have them translated by other viewers. The shows consisted of several separate films, some colorized by hand, each of which were about two minutes long. For example, the first show in Kosice was a series of twelve such very, very brief films with titles like "The Arrival of a Train," "The Czar Arrives in Paris," "The Training of the French Infantry," "Four Ladies Dancing the French Cancan" and "An Interrupted Date." Clearly, foreign films dominated Central Europe from the start. The first title was the kind of film intended to create a spectacle - similar to some of the uses of special effects today: the engine would rush towards the camera, scaring an audience not accustomed to viewing images of moving trains at that angle and at such close quarters. The next two titles played a role similar to later newsreels shown before the main feature , or to contemporary world news and documentaries on, say, CNN or the Discovery Chanel. The last two titles were of the kind that - the filmmakers found - attracted the largest number of viewers: entertainment, fun and a rudimentary story. The proportion of such shorts quickly grew. SLOVAKIA 73 The first permanent movie theater in Bratislava, Elektro Bioskop, was opened in a remodeled fencing hall in September, 1905. It had about 200 seats. The site is still in business. After a hiatus, an arts movie theater was opened in the same hall in the 1970s and is still in operation, now called Mladost' ("Youth"), on Hviezdoslav Square opposite the US Embassy. Theaters, hotel halls, storage buildings and other premises were remodeled in other towns, to become permanent movie theaters. In the absence of hi-fi sound and hi-tech projection systems, the competition often relied on interior decoration. An advertisement for the Bratislava movie theatre Fidelio (later Urania and now Hviezda) lured the audience thus: "427 upholstered seats in 3 colors , Alhambrastyle walls decorated with Oriental landscapes, live and man-made flowers." The fact that the theater showed two new releases a week was relegated to the bottom of the page. Attendance at traditional theater performances dropped after the introduction of motion pictures. Theater directors appealed to the authorities to disallow movie shows during the time of regular plays. In 1901 , the Ministry of the Interior (in charge of police and local government in Central Europe) issued a decree meeting their demands . The Viscount of Nitra went so far as to ban movie shows during the whole theater season , but the local movie-theater operators successfully appealed his decision. For a time, film producers thought they could benefit from a symbiosis of film and theater in "cinema-sketches." Actors would play on the stage, then the story would be picked up on the screen with the same actors and the conclusion would be played by live actors again. One such cinema-sketch from 1909 depicted night life in Kosice "The Kosice Promenade on the Screen." Walking on Main Street in one's Sunday best was a common pastime before the advent of TV and mass entertainment. It was among the few early SLOVAKIA 74 motion pictures linked with Slovak territory. The limited production of cinema-sketches did not survive World War I and did not continue after the creation of Czecho-Slovakia (later renamed Czechoslovakia) in l 9 l 8 . Rather than cinema-sketches or story-based films , most of the early films linked to Slovakia were travel specials with titles like "The High Tatras," "Skiing in Tatranska Lomnica," "Traveling through the Vah Valley," or "The Kosice Institute of Corrections for Children," "Testing the Police Dogs in Bratislava," and news . Movies proved successful. The number of movie theaters in Slovakia reached about 100 by the end of World War I and two schools - the Mining Academy in Banska Stiavnica and a high school in Lucenec - had already used film as a teaching tool. When movies were still shown by traveling entrepreneurs, a copy of the film was bought and owned by them. With the establishment of permanent movie theaters, film distributors appeared, as well as a kind of 'film exchange' where copies of film were traded as on the stock market. The advent of copyright problems and foreign competition was heralded in 1913, in the first published complaint about illegal importation of foreign films , especially from France. As elsewhere in Central Europe, French films dominated the market. Legal power to regulate what movies were screened in Hungary was invested in the hands of the local authorities by a law from l 90 l , which required the traveling movie entrepreneurs to obtain permits for their shows . On the whole, a license was issued to anyone who applied for it. Local bans and complaints surfaced for a variety of reasons, including some familiar today. A city councilor in Kosice worried that worthless caper movies had a bad influence on boys, while dramas about sex ruined girls, be cause such movies extinguished their sense of morality and made SLOVAKIA 75 them vulnerable to unconscionable seducers. In 1912, a priest and principal of a Roman Catholic boys' school in Nitra threatened his students with a bad grade in behavior if they went to the movies, even if accompanied by their parents. His ban extended to traditional theater performances as well. Censorship was also exercised by the authorities in Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom, who were able to ban individual titles from being shown all over Hungary , including the Slovak counties. In line with the traditions of Central European monarchies, politics was among the reasons for censorship. Among the banned titles were "King Ludwig II," depicting a story too similar to the life and mysterious death of Ludwig II of Bavaria and a film offensive to the prime minister of Hungary. However, the Kingdom did not follow suit when the rest of the Habsburg monarchy introduced formal film censorship in 1912. Among other things, it required that a license to open a movie theater be issued to individuals and institutions that would secure a respectable use of the profits. Its intent was to support charities and various associations. Budapest adopted the law in Apri l of 1918, half a year be fore the defeat and collapse of Austria-Hungary and the founding of Czec ho-Slovakia. The law empowered the censors to ban films offending patriotic interests, public order and morality. Children under sixteen were allowed to see only movies designated as suitable for them and only when accompanied by an adult. Despite a variety of problems , Czecho-S lovakia proved to be more democratic than the former Kingdom of Hungary and the whole Habsburg monarchy. But the new freedom , which benefited other forms of Slovak culture, proved even more difficult for Slovak film than the post-communist period after 1989. The film industry developed in Prague, which had been an important German-Czech cultural center, a university town and capital of the 76 SLOVAKIA Holy Roman Empire's Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries, attracting business and artistic talent. By comparison, Slovakia's new capital and largest city, Bratislava, was much smaller; moreover, it was only forty miles from the former Habsburg monarchy's large, vibrant and influential capital of Vienna. Given that artists and entrepreneurs flocked to it from all over the monarchy, Vienna must have created a degree of artistic brain-drain in its immediate vicinity. As with the Pittsburgh Agreement of 1918, which was a key document in the separation of the Slovak counties from the Habsburg monarchy, Slovak-Americans had an impact on Slovakia's nascent film industry. Andrej Sustek from Chicago founded the Selig Company with the intent to make historical films in Slovakia. It was subsequently incorporated in the new Slovak-American Tatra Film Corporation with a capital of about $30,000 from US investors . Their first and only film was Janosfk. It captured the legend of an 18th-century highwayman from Terchova in the northern Slovak County of Orava who gave rise to Carpathian legends comparable to those about Robin Hood in England. In 1919 Tatra Film's Daniel and Jaroslav Siakel' arrived in Slovakia to start filming in their native village of Blatnica near Martin in Central Slovakia, where they also built sets, and in the castle of Stiavnicka near Ruzomberok. The leading role was given to popular Theodor Pistek, who starred in nine other films that year. Maria Fabryova, an amateur actress from Martin, played Anka, Janosfk's girlfriend. The film was finished in the A-B studios in Prague . The screenplay by Jozef Zak-Marusiak was to be based on a novel by Slovak-American author and editor of the popular Amerikansko-Slovcnske Noviny "(American-Slovak News)", Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky (1862-1916). But it was much closer to the ac- SLOVAKIA 77 tual local legends , which also inspired Slovak Romantic poets in the 19th century. Moreover, the play Janosfk - premiered in Brno in 1910 and written by Moravian playwright, poet and journalist Jiri Mahen - was well known by the l 920s and may have been a major source for the film's story . Janosfk was shown to the filmmakers' team in November 1921 in the city of Vrutky . It opened a few days later in Zilina and in December 1921 in Chicago - to be more specific , in Cicero, IL, then with a large Slovak-American population , at the Atlantic movie theater, now replaced by the Atlantic Mall at W. 26th St. and S. Pulaski Rd . The screenplay relied on the folk motif of ' taking from the rich and giving to the poor,' and greatly reinforced the hints present in 19th-century Slovak Romantic poems about Janosfk : the film fused feudal exploitation in the more distant past with the drive by the Magyar-speaking government in Budapest in the 19th century to suppress the Kingdom' s other languages and cultures . The latter became particularly forceful during the last decades of the Kingdom's existence and ultimately contributed to its demise. Unlike feudalism , that experience was still very fresh in people's memories and was among the reasons why Slovaks immigrated to the United States. By comparison to Czech films preserved from the early Czecho-Slovak period, Janosfk showed the authors' experience with American movies : in camera work, in the use of parallel narratives, as well as in shots inspired by Westerns . It had two directors of photography with two cameras: Oldrich Benes with a European camera and Daniel Siakel', who used a camera made by Andrej Sustek's company in Chicago. In effect, the two cameramen shot two parallel films - scenes were acted separately for each camera and the difference between the "Slovak" and "American" versions increased after separate editing. But the film's handling of the eth- 78 SLOVAKIA nic motif may have been too didactic, or the issue too recent to be successfully mythologized as entertainment on the silver screen. Janosik did not recover its costs and remained Tatra Film's only product, as well as Slovakia' s first preserved silent movie. It was thought to have been lost, but in 1975 it was discovered and restored from both versions by Ivan Rumanovsky in Bratislava. Until after World War II, attempts to set up film companies, occasionally with Slovak-American involvement, followed the same path. One film would be made and then the company folded, because the film was not profitable and the company lacked sufficient capital to sustain it through a few flops. The situation did not change after the emergence of sound in the movies. While about 30-50 sound films were made each year in Czechoslovakia between 1933 - 1938, fewer than one a year was in Slovak. Czech films occasionally featured Slovak actors. Among them, with eleven musicals to his credit, was Frantisek Kristof Vesely, who reached the level of stardom in Czechoslovakia. Documentaries fared better: partly because the costs were lower and partly thanks to occasional government funding for shorts featuring its officials. For example, Kvetna nedela vo Vajnoroch (Palm Sunday in Yajnory) recorded a folkloristic celebration of the holiday attended by Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia, Vavro Srobar. A potentially steady source of funding opened up in 1935 when Prague decided that each newsreel commonly shown before the main feature had to devote at least 20% of its length to items about Czechoslovakia. But this so urce remained untapped by Slovak filmmakers : most of the reports came from Bohemia and Moravia. However, government or institutional funding and fascination with village life proved to be a mix that worked for filmmakers in Slovakia on more than one occasion, right through the present. SLOVAKIA 79 The first Slovak film to reach international acclaim relied on both. The potential of the Slovak countryside as a backdrop had already been discovered by non-native filmmakers and at least two of their films have become classics of world cinema. The early German horror Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu the Vampire) directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was filmed at Orava Castle and in the High Tatras in 1922, and Czech director Gustav Machaty chose Slovakia as a location for his daring exploration of sexuality Extase (Ecstasy) in 1932. The second one propelled the career of Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiester), who became one of the most successful Hollywood stars. The Matica slovenska (by that time an eminent, mostly government-sponsored cultural, academic and archival institution) employed Karel Plicka (1894-1987) as its ethnographer, who was able to make documentary shorts from about 1926. He obtained funding from the President's Office in 1928 to produce an hourlong documentary about village life Po horach, po dolach (Through Mountains and Valleys). It was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in Florence and received an Honorable Mention at the International Venice Film Festival in 1932. The favorable reception of his production, along with more funding from both the Matica slovenska and the President's Office, enabled Plicka to make Zem spieva (The Earth Sings) in 1933, a romanticized semi-documentary panorama of selected folk customs through the four seasons. Unlike Slovak feature movies of that period, Zem spieva struck a chord with the audience and topped it with another award at the International Venice Film Festival as part of a collection of films from Czechoslovakia that included Extase, mentioned above. But after this success, the Matica s/ovcnska was unable to raise sufficient funding and Plicka's hopes that he was laying the foundations of 80 SLOVAKIA Slovakia' s film industry were thwarted. He went on to make a documentary in the United States Za Slovakmi od New Yorku po Mississippi (Tracing Slovaks from New York to the Mississippi) in 1937 and then became a professor in the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia and the third such department in Europe, at the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava in 1938. But the Department's potential for Slovak cinema was lost when the College was closed after Slovakia became a separate country in 19 39 . Plicka then resettled permanently in Prague, Bohemia, which was incorporated into the Third Reich during World War II. Czechoslovakia's only other Slovak-language blockbuster before World War II was a new Janosfk in 1935, funded from Prague and directed by the Czech Martin Frie (1902-1968). It was indicative of the volume of Czech film production that Frie finished three other films during the same year, having previously directed 23. Frie and Plicka were two of the authors of the screenplay based on the same play by Mahen, mentioned earlier, on which the first Janosfk may have been based. Plicka also found a policeman and amateur actor, Pal'o Bielik (1910-1983), in the village of Senica for the leading role. The film combined idealized images of villagers with action scenes to show their and Jan osik ' s resistance against Hungarian landlords. In spite of Budapest's protestations, it was screened at the International Venice Film Festival and was successfully released in Germany . During the existence of the Slovak Republic ( 1939-1945), movie theaters grew by more than 60% but no feature films were made. The government sponsored the film company Nastup (Line-up), which produced short films and weekly newsreels . The authorities, who described their own rule as "authoritarian and totalitarian," mandated that a newsreel be shown before every feature film and tightened censorship and ideological supervision of SLOVAKIA 81 their production. The newsreel was customarily followed by a short film, a pattern that was picked up by the communist authorities after the war and survived through the collapse of Communism. The government's alliance with Germany meant that it became Slovakia's main source of films even before the war changed world trade patterns. At the same time, the number of imports dropped from about 400 a year in the former CzechoSlovakia (whose original hyphenated name was restored in 1938) to less than 150 after independence. In 1940, Slovakia still imported 15 "cultural-educational" films from the U.S., and a few more from countries other than Germany, but then German feature films were supplemented by just about a dozen films from Italy and Romania, and several Czech "oldies" from before the war. The film company Nastup was conscientious about training its employees, among whom was Pal'o Bielik, and sent them regularly to several studios in Germany as interns - including to neighboring Vienna and formerly Czechoslovak Prague, which were now ruled from Berlin. After World War II, Slovakia was re-joined with the Czechspeaking lands and Czech director Martin Frie returned to make Vanij. .. ! (Beware ... !) with folkloristic highlights similar to his successful Janosfk from 1935. The film was based on Ivan Stodola' s popular play Bacova iena (The Shepherd's Wife) and Palo Bielik played the leading role again . Things changed dramatically after Czechoslovakia became communist in 1948. The government nationalized all but the tiniest companies, including the film studios. It saw film as an important medium to indoctrinate the population and ideological control - under strict financed film production in the Slovak, as well as in the Czech part of the country. Directors, screenwriters, actors and other people connected with film production became SLOVAKIA 82 state employees as everyone else, with a regular salary regardless of how many films were produced and whether they earned any profits or not - a concept born out of communist accounting. Although the authorities paid the salaried filmmakers more money for the films they made - separate contracts were signed for each one - from the American perspective, this was closer to bonuses than anything known in Hollywood today. The "bonuses" were higher for films considered particularly effective in showing the communist rule as benefiting the population and had nothing to do with ticket sales. The authorities mandated that the method used in all art be socialist realism. In general, its goal was to educate people to the benefits of communism and, before it was reached , socialism, which was what they called their existing political system. This was strictly enforced, especially in fiction and film, because these mediums reached the widest audience. The topics were to emphasize the need to work for the good of the 'collective,' i.e., communist society. Topics focusing on the individual and on personal feelings and concerns were deemed harmful, as was depicting anything negative about society. Love was considered such a topic: not only because it was personal and, therefore, did not educate the audience about the benefits of working on behalf of the collective, but also because it may have brought sex into the story, a definite 'no' in socialist realism. The official support of socialist-realist art and the transformation of filmmakers into salaried employees meant that a steady stream of feature films began to appear in the newly-established studios in Bratislava. Pal'o Bielik, the former star of Janosfk, who expanded his moviemaking experience in the newsreel studios during World War II, directed Vicic dicry (Wolves' Lairs), one of the first two films made after the communist takeover in 1948. It SLOVAKIA 83 was the beginning of a succession of films about the 1944 antiGerman uprising in Slovakia, but because it was made so early during the Communist Party ' s drive to establish ideological dominance, the film still managed to include 'negative,' as well as 'positive' characters among both the Slovak insurgents and the German soldiers suppressing the uprising - something that did not get past the censors again for more than a decade. Bielik, as director, leaned away from the folkloristic style of the films in which he starred: the style of V/cie diery was inspired by early Italian neo-realism. After two feature films in 1948 and another two in 1949, the yearly output grew to 3-6 per year in the 1950s. 'Negative' characters could not be central in the plots, and the story had to prove them wrong. Central characters had to be 'positive' from the start or be seen discovering Marxist-Leninist solutions to any problems they encountered. Such problems had to be few and marginal, the general view of society had to be happy. If the central characters were not Communists from the start, a 'tutor' and Communist Party member would often be present, who helped them find the Marxist-Leninist way. Topics commonly dealt with World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, or with the imposition of Communism - the 'collectivization' of farms, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of most land larger than the immediate surroundings of one's house and garden. Farmers were to be shown as opening their eyes to the fact that this was actually good for them. The Communists proclaimed a classless society, which meant that everyone would eventually become a 'worker.' The three recognized social groups were the laborers, the farmers, and the intelligentsia, i.e., white-collar workers and college-educated people, but the Communist Party officials, although working in offices, classified themselves as laborers. The bourgeoisie, 84 SLOVAKIA i.e. , the private entrepreneurs, disappeared by virtue of their property being 'nationalized,' i.e., taken over by the government, but the - now former - bourgeoisie were persecuted never- theless . The intelligentsia was often suspected of harboring bourgeois ideas and persecuted, too . Since the bourgeoisie were often described as incapable of shedding their reactionary, i.e. anti-Communist skins, films about contemporary life generally focused on the villages and farmers. Marxism-Leninism saw in them the ' next best class' after the laborers, on their way to becoming agricultural laborers . Their initial qualms about any benefits of collectivization provided some meager source of conflict for the plots. The films about the past often returned to the uprising in Slovakia during World War II, which was depicted as organized by the Communists and aided by the Soviet Union. Plots that concerned the communist period had to end on an optimistic note. Since a former entrepreneur always remained at least suspect, their joyful transformation into a group auxiliary to the working class was essentially unacceptable as a topic, which - in effect - also kept town s and cities away from most of the scripts. Even socialist-realist authors felt that a ccnflict drives a story, but avoided settings that did not provide for politically acceptable conflicts . Socialist realism was strongly enforced during the first 10-15 years of communism . Unlike neighboring Poland and Hungary, communist Czechoslovakia saw little of the ideological thaw triggered by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in February of l 956. The thaw did not reach Czechoslovakia until the early l 960s, during which time Bratislava produced 6- l O feature film s per year, and the first manifestations of the thaw in literature and film came from Slovakia. After more than a decade of socialist- 85 SLOVAKIA realist filmmaking, Sinko v sieti (The Sun in a Net) directed by Stefan Uher (1930-1993) in 1962 became a milestone in both Slovak and Czech filmmaking. It inspired a whole generation of students at the Film Academy in Prague, who soon followed with a series of films which attained international recognition as the "Czech New Wave." Sinko v sieti was Stefan Uher's second film . His first was about the life of a group of fifteen year-old students and their school My z deviate) A (We from Grade 9, Study Group A; 1961). The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednar (1914-1989), was a successful writer who published mildly non-conformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. The film is based on his three short stories Fajolov prfspevok (Fajolo's Contribution), Pon- t6novy deii (Pontoon Day) and Zlata brana (Golden Gate). Uher's film depicted a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes : distant - perhaps uncaring - parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly-run collectivized farm , and the requirement that a child attend summer 'voluntary work camps ' to make up for his parents belonging to the intelligentsia. Moreover, none of these issues were resolved in a 'positive' manner. The ending was rather somber, if not depressing, with the barest hint of optimism found only in the last sentence and possibly on the film's symbolic level, which was handled rather unevenly. It attempted a complex interplay of sun and clouds, vision and blindness, truth and lies, centered around a solar eclipse (Central Europe actually experienced a 95% solar eclipse on the morning of February 15, 196 l ). Contemporary critics found the symbolism difficult to decipher, and much of it was probably lost on the viewers. But the core story line - the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers - the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the 86 SLOVAKIA hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience and cannot have been lost on the censors. Sinko v sieti not only pushed the envelope, but also established for other artists and showed to the Slovaks and Czechs at large what the authorities could now be pushed to permit. According to Uher, Karol Bacflek, the head of the Communist Party in Slovakia at that time, attacked the film, saying it contained coded messages that conspirators were able to decipher precisely. For example, Bacflek thought the solar eclipse . was to indicate the twilight of communism and the pontoon on the dried-up riverbed stood for the state of communist rule in Czechoslovakia at that time. Communist officials believed that the blind mother was supposed to symbolize the blindness of their Party, which did not see the realities of life under communism. Because a political thaw had begun in Slovakia, other communist officials with enough influence dared to differ and the film was released. Besides Stefan Uher's efforts to get past the strict requirements of socialist realism, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in Western European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them was his focus on the symbolism of light and darkness, adherence to a low-key style, a hint of fashi0nablc quasi-existentialism in Fajolo's dialogues with Bela, and an attempt at serious cinema-verite: in the beer-drinking scenes in .1 tavern, the background soundtrack includes taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. Uher mostly chose inexperienced actors or nonactors. Only one of them, I.:,ubo Roman in a supporting role (b . 1944, then a student of acting), became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician - Member of Parlia- ment, Minister of Culture, and since 2001, County Chief of Bratislava. Actual music in the film included Western rock played on SLOVAKIA 87 the radio. The film's score was by llja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of 'concrete music.' While Slnko v sieti became a prologue to the first minimalist, quasi-realist, and eventually more experimental Czechoslovak New Wave made by film students in Prague, in Slovakia the film was followed by several increasingly critical social commentaries by established filmmakers , by more films about contemporary urban life, and by increasingly intellectual and abstract films seen as Art. The most daring among the films that replaced socialist realism with social criticism was Peter Solan's Prfpad Barnabas Kos (The Case of Barnabas Kos; 1964), which removed the veil from arbitrary decision-making in communist society. Among contemporary topics, a potential for an approachable and successful film was lost with Nylonovy mesiac (Nylon Moon; 1965) directed by Eduard Greener. Its story, as well as the title came from a novel by Jaroslava Blazkova published in 1960, the first best-seller about contemporary life since the communist takeover. But there was entertainment in film , too, none more popular than Janosik II directed in 1963 by Pal'o Bielik, the star in the previous version of the story. In spite of its title, it was not a sequel: the film re-told the centuries-old legend. The theme of the brigand hero retains its attraction through the present day. Slovakia 's most successful producer, Rudolf Bierman, is currently producing The True Story al Janosfk and Uhorcfk, directed by the success[ul Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her daughter Kasia Adamik with an estimated budget of $2.4 million, $800,000 of which came from the Slovak Parliament and the Ministry of Culture. The first film to earn an Oscar for Czechoslovakia was Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street; 1965; Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1966; Special Mention for Acting 88 SLOVAKIA Performance, Cannes Film Festival 1965; New York Film Critics Circle A ward for Best Foreign Film in 1966). It was co-directed by Slovak Jan Kadar and Czech Elmar Klos , who had directed films together since the 1950s. Their earlier film was the groundbreaking Smrt' sa vola Engelchen (Death is Called Engelchen, 1963) based on a novel by Ladislav Mnacko, which diverted from the communist interpretation of the 1944 uprising in Slovakia as infallibly glorious and showed some aspects that brought about human tragedy. Along similar lines, Obchod na korze placed the politics of World War II in the background and focused on the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps . After the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia, a simple carpenter named Tona is made the owner of a tiny haberdashery, until then owned by an old, almost deaf Jewish woman named Rozalia who has no comprehension of the contemporary political developments. After a crisis, the local Jewish community begins to pay Tono not to surrender his ownership, to prevent Rozalia 's store from being passed on to a ruthless Aryanizer. A tender friendship develops between Tono and Rozalia: she keeps selling buttons without realizing Tana's legal status, and he becomes her man about the house. When deportations begin, Roz.ilia remains oblivious of real life, and Tona is faced with the choice between sending her off, or probably facing his own and his wife ' s death, if he were discovered trying to hide a person incapable of understanding why she should live in hiding. The film starred Slovak Jozef Kroner ( 1924-1998) and Polish Ida Kaminska ( 1899-1980) with a Slovak cast and was shot on location in the town of Trebisov, Eastern Slovakia, and in the Prague studios. The film presents its captivating, morally complex story in a straightforward style, with a sprinkling of symbolism and dream SLOVAKIA 89 sequences. It was an indication of changes in the political climate that Obchod na korze was able to get away without the mandated focus on criticism of the Slovak authorities during World War II , previously an inevitable feature of socialist realist work about that period, as well as without highlighting a central, resolute procommunist character. It has remained the most awarded and internationally successful Slovak film to the present day . The late l 960s reflected the direction filmmaking may take with little censorship and steady funding . An increasing number of - especially younger - filmmakers took advantage of the situation to experiment without concern about a need to target a specific audience or about how large their audience was going to be. They enjoyed the same creative luxury as the writers or painters convinced of the significance of their work, who manage to earn their living elsewhere. In a democratic society, this is rarely the case in cinema because of the extraordinary amounts of money even a low-budget film requires. But during the occasional relaxation of control in communist countries while the principles of the system remained in place, filmmakers were given substantial fund s to make films relatively free from prescription , as well as of a need to bring in profit. An early nonconformist film seen mostly by students in art theaters was Stefan Uher's Panna zazracnica (The Miraculous Virgin, 1966), soon followed by Juraj Jakubisko's (b. 1938) Kristove roky ("Christ's Years" or "Crucial Years," 1967), Elo Havetta's Slavnost' v botanickej zahrade (A Celebration in the Botanical Garden, 1969), and Dusan Hanak's 322 (the number identifying cancer in medical statistics of diseases, l 969). During this period (however brief) of almost total collapse of communist control, the Koliba Film Studio in Bratislava co-produced films with avantgarde filmmakers from abroad. Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, 90 SLOVAKIA whose government was then significantly more repressive than Czechoslovakia, directed one story in Dialog 20-40-60, along with Czech Zbynek Brynych and Slovak Peter Solan in 1968 . Frenchman Alain Robbe-Grillet directed two films, including Mui, ktory Jute (The Man Who Lies, L 'homme qui ment; codirected with Martin Holly in 1968) with a Slovak and French cast. And 1969 saw the release of Juraj Jakubisko's Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools), considered by most Slovaks to be the best Slovak film. Jakubisko's preferences bounce between experiment, abstraction and ambitious intellectualism, as in this film , and less numerous popular crowd-pleasers. "Birds, Orphans and Fools" had the briefest of theater run s, not because of the audience, but because of the authorities. Conceived when communist control was at its weakest in Czechoslovakia, it was completed well after the Soviet-led invasion in August of 1968, by which time many of the mechanisms of authoritarian rule were at work again. Vtackovia, siroty a blazni takes place in an apparent historical vacuum in a desolate world with war raging somewhere outside the camera's field of vision and the director's focus. The two male and one female central characters , not unlike some of the hippies in the U.S.A. <1.t that time, live in a decrepit apartment, go through a series of bizarre encounters, sexual experiences and discuss a range of topics. When their lives begin to appear closer to normalcy, one of them murders the girl and commits suicide. The film is deliberately ex perimental in its style: it varies screen sizes, shots are taken at awkward angles with a hand-held or agitated camera, distortion lenses alter screen images, filmmakers ' equipment remains in the frame, characters talk to the camera. The adjectives surrealist and post-apocalyptic are perhaps representative of the filmmakers' intent. SLOVAKIA The 1970s witnessed a re-introduction 91 of strict communist control in Czechoslovakia, called normalization . People were demoted at work or fired, if they had expressly supported the relaxation in the late 1960s or denounced the Soviet-led invasion in 1968, and their children often suffered, too. In an effort to a void repercussions, many repudiated their past views. Although persecution was somewhat milder in Slovakia than in the Czech-speaking areas, it had a stifling effect on art. Gone were the efforts of the 1960s to push the envelope of what was allowed. The population at large had learned its lesson : with the help of the Soviet Union, the Communists were able to pull the whole country back from unprecedented freedom of expression and the brink of a multi-party system in 1968 to a situation more reminiscent of the late 1950s, and those who resisted were punished. This repression lasted at least through the late 1970s, and Czechoslovakia remained more politically backward , although with a better standard of living, than Communist Poland or Hungary until the collapse of communism in 1989 . Cinema was affected like the rest of society, while the number of film releases grew. Slovakia produced 8-12 films per year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Jakubisko still managed to finish Dovidenia v pek/e, priatelia (See You in Hell, Friends) in 1970, but hardly anyone saw it. The film was banned and Jakubisko was not allowed to make another feature film until 1979 . Although the early 1970s are sometimes compared to the 1950s, the authorities did not demand that Slovak filmmakers make socialist-realist films critical of the period of relaxation - the way films in the 1950s tried to discredit private enterprise and democracy which were abolished in 1948. Only one film was made about 1968, Honicka (Fever) directed by Martin Holly, Jr. (b. 1931) and based on a novel by Jozef Kot. In a country with 92 SLOVAKIA freedom of expression, the film could have been perceived as just focusing on a relatively plausible plot from 1968 and pushing a particular point of view - there indeed were people who did not support the pro-democratic reforms, or saw many flaws among the reformers. But under totalitarian control, which did not allow opposing points of view, it was impossible to distinguish the touting of the official view in film from just propaganda. Regardless, Honicka shared the destiny of the overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech films produced during the forty years of Communism: after a couple of weeks in mostly empty theaters, it was not seen again . While the 1960s witnessed a desire to bring contemporary and urban themes to film, the 1970s began to solidify an inclination among a segment of the Slovak critics and filmmakers to emulate the centuries-old urban fashion in Europe of the 'return to nature:' well educated intellectuals living in Bratislava make and admire films with images of the countryside and villagers whose lives appear to be somehow more authentic than in towns. The trend-setter was the still admired hour-long documentary Obrazy stareho sveta (Pictures of the Old World, 1972) directed by Dusan Hanak who, suspicious to the authorities because of his films from the 1960s, found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive in the margins of official production and yet, sufficiently non-conforn1ist and enamored with village life to please especially the chic audiences. Part of its additional attraction within the context of Communist Czechoslovakia rested in the fact that it offered snapshots from the lives of several highlanders, whose very existence belied the official claims of equal wealth for everyone. But Obrazy stareho sveta has a much more universal appeal and has received critical acclaim from Slovakia, Switzerland and France to Toronto and Los Angeles. SLOVAKIA 93 A singular exception among about 90 domestic feature films that briefly flickered in Slovak theaters in the 1970s was Dusan Hanak's Ruto ve sny (Rosy Dreams, 1976). Although its style was poetic, it may have been the first film in the communist bloc with a de-romanticized portrayal of the Roma (Gypsies). It dove into the cultural barriers between them and the non-Romany population - an issue that, twenty years later, proved to be one of the key problems of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Two teenagers - a young Slovak postman and a Romany girl - fall in love. The film tells the viewers that it will not work due to different cultural expectations each of the two have of their budding relationship. Its imaginative filmmaking and affecting, slightly sentimental story might have been easy to understand and appreciate by a wider audience, but Rutove sny was shown only in limited release at the order of the authorities. The most popular film in that decade was yet another variation on the legend about a heroic highwayman Pacho, hybskf z bojnfk (Pacho, the Highwayman of Hybe; 1975) directed by Martin Tapak. In 1980, the authorities shelved fa milujem, ty milujes (I Love, You Love) directed by Dusan Hanak because of its focus on marginal social groups and eroticism. When it was released shortly before the collapse of communism, it received the highest international recognition for a Slovak film since The Shop on Main Street, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. However, the strict Communist control typical of the 1970s began to relax slowly, and the early 1980s brought two domestic blockbusters whose role in Slovak culture finally matched that of some of the films in the l 960s. In 1982 Stefan Uher directed Pas/a kone na bet6ne ("She. Grazed Horses on Concrete," or "A Ticket to Heaven"). The title used the first few words from an irreverent tune with just a few verses depicting impossible acti- 94 SLOVAKIA vities - the song continues " ... she bathed in razor blades." The story is about a single mother fending for herself in an East Slovak village, determined not to allow her teenaged daughter to follow in her footsteps . Partly a comedy and partly a candid portrayal of contemporary village life, it oscillates between humorous depictions of social customs and ceremonies, and the more serious issues of a woman's capacity to hold her own in a small community, and of abortion. Although co-written and directed by Uher, the film is largely the work of Milka Zirnkova, an author and actress, who wrote the original story, worked with Uher on the script, and starred in the leading role. Among the novelties in Slovak moviemaking was an extensive use of the East Slovak dialect in the film. Although Slovak has several highly recognizable regional accents, filmmakers - before and after this film - have the actors speak the standard, neutral variety of Slovak common in the news media, regardless of where in Slovakia the story of their film takes place. A success comparable to the handful of foreign blockbusters permitted by the authorities each year was Juraj Jakubisko's Tisfcrocna vce/a (A Thousand-Year Old Bee;l983). It is a 162-minute long saga of the life of a farmer's family covering three generations from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. It picked up on and reinforced a myth recurrent in Slovak cinema for several decades, in films from both popular and artsy filmmakers . Villagers are mostly good, while those who live in or move to town (perhaps the screenwriters and directors bowed to communist authorities) become entrepreneurial and tum out to be cold and corrupt. It was the first Slovak film with a comprehensive narrative that a large number of viewers were ready to perceive as their national, as well as local and family past, because it echoed themes they had encountered in literature and history classes at school. SLOVAKIA 95 Moreover, it was a comforting past. The title was a parable, overplayed in the film with brief expensive special effects with a gigantic honey-bee created in the Bavarian Film Studios in Munich . Those sequences hammered in the symbolic thread in the storyline. They could have been be richer and more content, the film gave the viewers to understand, were it not for the cumulative effects of past injustice: the fruits of their hard-working ancestors' labor was periodically taken away from them for a thousand years, like honey from the bees. But as long as they stayed in the villages, they were an honest, sometimes whimsical bunch doing as well as they could . It helped that several popular actors starred in the film, including Jozef Kr6ner (Tona in The Shop on Main Street). Tisicrosmi vce/a received a Gold Phoenix for art and cinematography from the Cultural Center of the City of Venice awarded in tandem with the prestigious International Venice Film Festival. After decades of government-funded and censored production, Bratislava still produced twelve films in 1990, the year after the collapse of Communism. With no censorship, but also hardly any funding, the number of feature films ranged between one and three for most of the 1990s. Slovakia's theaters are now flooded with foreign , especially American, films and while the population might be ready for a domestic production addressing them specifically, perhaps along the lines of A Thousand-Year Old Bee, there is not enough money for a film on that scale, and perhaps even less interest on the part of the filmmakers . With one exception, the films made in the 1990s generally follow one of two thematic lines . The most successful film was Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 (A Fountain for Susan 2; 1993) directed by Dusan Rapos as a sequel to his more sedate Fontana pre Zuzanu from 1985, still limited by communist censorship. He released Fontana pre Zuza- 96 SLOVAKIA nu 3 in 1999. Both fall in the group of films with contemporary themes and are obviously interested in generating ticket sales. They rely on sex and crime to achieve that. Although it remained behind major foreign blockbusters , Fontana pre Zuzanu 2 sold 380,000 tickets in a country with 5.4 million inhabitants, which is comparable to a film that brings in over $130 million in the U.S.A. Titanic sold about 550,000 tickets in Slovakia and The Matrix 130,000. Another film with a contemporary theme is indicative of how times have changed since the collapse of communism. Rivers of Babylon (the tile is in English) directed by Vladimir Balco in 1998 was based on the first post-communist bestseller in l 990 by Peter Pistanek. Sequels of the novel had lower sales, because the novelty of the topic - Bratislava's underworld - and expressive presentation wore off, and because they had to compete with a growing number of translated foreign bestsellers. However, the filmmakers picked up on a particular aspect of the sequels vitriolic political commentary . The story of the rise of a skillful stoker and wheeler-dealer to political power was seen as a parable of the government in Bratislava at that time. Only about eight years earlier, a release of such a strongly critical film would have been either unthinkable, or a major event attracting huge crowds . Yet, Rivers of Babylon sold only 50,000 tickets and met with a lukewarm reception abroad. The other thematic line in contemporary Slovak cinema is the 'return to nature. ' Its main protagonist is director Martin Sulfk (b . 1962) whose films generally attract fewer viewers at home than Rivers of Babylon, but are favored by critics and have attained a degree of viewers' acclaim at film festivals organized by European cities. His most successful Zahrada (Garden; l 995), the earlier Neha (Tenderness ; 199 l ), as well as the more recent Orbis SLOVAKIA 97 Pictus (Latin title, 1997) and Krajinka ("Landscape" or "A Small piece of the Country," 2000) are intellectualized continuations of the theme of the desirability of a return to, journey through, or life in a rural setting. Krajinka is the most accessible of Sulfk ' s films . Although it may be based on memories, as the opening sequence suggests, the discrete stories are not made to gel into a cohesive sequence for the audience. But each is readable on its own. Zahrada, the first Slovak film since the collapse of communism to be released abroad , and especially Orbis Pictus, break with traditional story-telling and show the main characters - a rather passive adult man living with his parents in Zahrada and a young girl released from a boarding school , perhaps for abandoned teenagers, in Orbis Pictus - find education in nature and disappointment in urban settings . With surreal scenes, philosophizing scripts, and a dedication to the filmmaker's expressive whim, Sulfk 's films re-package the theme of national rural bliss, recurrent in Slovak culture and education , in a form palatable for trendy audiences. The theme has had an incessant, powerful attraction for a segment of directors since the beginnings of filmmaking in Slovakia, whether they have leaned towards the popular and mythologizing approach from The Earth Sings 1933, through the decades of films about Janosik and similar productions, to The Thousand-Year Old Bee - or whether they take the approach aimed at art theaters, traceable to Organ directed by Stefan Uher in 1964. Due to the general drop in film production and to Martin Sulik ' s capacity to attract funding, films for art theatres have become more prevalent in the 1990s than in the earlier decades . SLOVAKIA 98 Bibliography Author's interview with film producer Marian Urban, July 12, 2000. "Bandit pie to shoot." Daily Variety, March 7, 2002, p. 48. Bartosek, L.: Nas film - Kapitoly z dejin (1896-1945). Praha: Mlada fronta, 1985. Grega, A. : Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskej kinematografie, M.A. thesis at the FAMU in Prague,1968 . Havelka, J.: Kronika naseho filmu. Praha: Filmovy ustav, 1967. Macek, V.: Stefan Uher 1930-1993. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, 1994. Macek, V. and J. Pastekova: Dejiny slovenskej kinematografie. Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1997. Mihalik, P. : Vznik slovenskej narodnej kinematografie 1896- 1948. Bratislava: Kabinet divadla a filmu SA V, 1994 . Rumanovsky, I.: "Z najstar.sfch dejfn kinematografie na Slovensku. " Panorama, #3, 1977. Janosik 21 a filmove podnikanie na Slovensku. Kinema, #3, 1982 . Slivka, M.: Karol Plicka - basnik obrazu. Martin: Vydavatel'stvo Osveta, 1982. Smatlakova, Renata: Katal6g slovenskych celovecemych filmov 1921-1999. Bratislava: Slovensky filmovy ustav, l 999. Young, C.: The films of Hedy Lamarr. Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, 1978. DOCUMENTATION  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Trends in 20th Century Slovak Filmmaking Description An account of the resource Martin Votruba Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 71-98 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Votruba, Martin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5b07e17d4fa04511d00a112ba3599b8b.pdf 6ca9b798de2435a9585f1b1ea60c2e69 PDF Text Text 140 SLOVAKIA religion, and their national identification. Perhaps it is only in this ability to maintain their distinctive characteristics that the Slovaks will ever realize their independence. Even more than geographical position, and greedy neighbors, these distinctive Slovak characteristics-described as easy-going, honest, idealistic, deeply religious, imaginative, open-hearted, soft-hearted, emotional, and music-loving-will equip them for the task of building a strong and independent nation in the midst of hard and cruel world. Tourist Trade of Slovakia George A. P o d h d j s k y Countries like Switzerland and Austria, which are endowed with exquisite beauty in their natural setting, devote considerable attention in terms of economic activity to the development of a high level of tourist trade. A significant proportion of their Gross National Product comes from the tourist trade, internal and especially foreign. For that purpose these two countries have steered their economic activity in such a way as to support an unprecedented development of their respective tourist trade industries. Of the Communist countries, Yugoslavia was particularly successful in developing a very attractive program for tourist trade, especially from foreign countries. A similar·potential for developing tourist trade also exists in the Slovak economy. The natural beauty of Slovak Tatra Mountains and the adjacent valleys which spread over most of the country, doubled with the proverbial hospitality of the Slovak people, are a good basis for the development of tourist trade in this country. Apart from this, there is an old tradition of internal and foreign tourism developed through the centuries. It is the purpose of this paper to assess the present situation of the Slovak tourist trade and its potential for future development. I. The following figures may sum up the state of tourist trade of Czecho-Slovakia for the years 1960-1964. 1 �SLOVAKIA 141 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 From Abroad (in Mill.) 1.3 1.6 1.7 1.8 3.7 To Foreign Countries .5 .6 .7 .7 2.0 From the above table one can see that the foreign tourists by far exceeded the number of people from CzechoSlovakia visiting foreign countries. From the breakdown of the above figures, one can also see that most of the foreign tourist trade was stemming mostly from the Sociallist block countries. However, there was some tourist trade stemming from Western countries like the United States, France, Austria, and West Germany. The figures show that there were more tourists from these countries going to Czecho-Slovakia rather than the other way around. Of course, there was an unprecedented upsurge in the inflow of Western tourists in 1968, when the gates opened for the foreigners. The facilities available for the tourists in CzechoSlovakia were not always adequate, especially during the period of 1955-1963, when the number of guests far outweighed the number of available beds. 1963 is the first year showing an excess of beds over the number of guests. The following diagram shows this picture quite clearly. 2 THE NUMBER OF GUESTS AND BEDS AVAILABLE Guests in Millions Beds in Thousands 4f - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - --,/3f _ _ _ _ guests - - - - - - - beds "7 I I I I I I ___ ,, ,,. ," ,, ,, , ,,,,.1 'fo 7S' �142 SLOVAKIA This diagram shows the varying degree of the ratio between the number of guests and available beds. Although, from the diagram, it cannot be ascertained what ratio would be considered as optimal, other sources3 show that there was a shortage of not only beds but also other facilities to adequately care for the ever-increasing tourist t rade. II. From the above information, it is evident that the tourist trade to Czecho-Slovakia underwent some fluctuation but also an overall growth in the number of guests and available facilities . The figures are for Czecho-Slovakia, but we can safely assume that at least half of this trade belonged to Slovakia which seemed to concentrate in tourist trade in the past having been endowed with more potential than Bohemia and Moravia. At this point it would be good to see if there is enough potential and incentive in Slovakia to develop tourist trade to its optimal size. The 1970 winter Olympics in the Tatra mountains prepared on short notice by the leaders of Slovakia has proven beyond any doubt that Slovaks can produce adequate facilities for such an important event as winter Olympics. Most of the facilities created are of lasting value as they may be used and reused by further similar sport activities though not necessarily on an international level. The organizers have shown not only the ability and the know-how but also good taste in creating efficient facilities. The good taste has also been demonstrated in the building of several tourist hotels at various geographical points in Slovakia. Almost without exception, hotel buildings have at last one masterpiece of art by a known artist in the foyer or elsewhere for the inspection of an appreciative customer. Such hotels usually are built with the most modern approach, and the service in such hotels is supposed to match the style. However, there is ample evidence4 that the service of high consumer satisfaction is not always present. In this respect, the potential of the Slovak trade is hampered by other services that go hand in hand with the tourist trade and which were more or less adequately solved by the Swiss or the Austrians. Bus service, cool drink and snack service at various points of movements �SLOVAKIA 143 of tourists are just a few among to be mentioned. However, this may be solved comperatively easily if the tourist planners are given enough scope and competence to develop them. There is, of course, a more important problem which the Slovak tourist planners will have to face. This is the problem of seasonal fluctuations in the tourist trade. A breakdown of the 1963 figures, for example, shows that the winter and fall quarters were very low in tourist activity in comparison to the other two quarters. This poses a problem of optimum capacity of facilities for tourist trade. This capacity will have to be determined by the spring and summer demand for them. From the point of view of the rate of return on investment, those facilities should get the priority of development which can be operated all year. Thus, the spas, sanatoriums and other hospitals are examples in question. Since tourist trade in Slovakia has shown in the past centuries an excellent tradition in this field, this development could prove very profitable indeed. Piest'any, where Beethoven composed his 7th Symphony, is an example of such tradition. This portion of the tourist trade activity taking shape of its past reputation can become the backbone of the total activity in this field. Having stressed this kind of activity, the rest of tourist trade may be taken in stride inspite of the seasonal fluctuations. However, even in this direction, a lot can be done by a good planner or economist by envisaging such tourist activity which can take place all year around. This kind of seasonal fluctuation may be at least partially curtailed by using the same facilities during the summer and winter. Since the structure of the Slovak tourist scenery in such that it can be enjoyed for skiing in winter and other activities in summer, it may be possible to create year-around tourist activity in such areas. However, in the respect a lot of planning and research should be done, as many areas have not been explored for safety reasons. All in all, a careful analysis may show that the seasonal fluctuations may turn out to appear more smoothed out than at first sight. In that case one may expect a full and optimal development of the Slovak tourist trade which would possibly make it one of the most important components of the Slovak Gross National Product. �144 SLOVAKIA The demand for Slovak facilities could prove quite high. In fact, for many years to come the Slovak tourist trade could prove an important and favorable competitor to the Swiss tourist trade, and only Austria could challenge this position of Slovakia. It is the prices of various services that are expected to be much lower than the Swiss and somewhat lower than the Austrian. In such situations, Slovakia could prove a seeked for tourist attraction filling the capacity available, provided that the services match the Swiss standards. Since this is very hard to achieve because of high Swiss standards, one may allow for some discrepancy in this respect. At the same time, one may point out that given the scope of development and authority into the hands of the tourist trade planners, they may show that they can achieve the Swiss standards. In that case, with lower prices, Slovaks are in an excellent competitive position with the Swiss. In the past, the Swiss journalists themselves have uttered such thoughts. Other non-monetary aspects of this trade are also very important. For example, the rustic setting untouched by the most modern civilization may have a point in question. The availability of concerts and other activities which are not scheduled withing the tourist trade may be another. Good and reasonable shopping activities for handicraft products may prove an excellent attraction. This of course may give an impetus to further development of other industries. The above mentioned goals in terms of foreign tourist trade may be achieved effectively in a given period of time only if other noneconomic factors are developed to give the economic development a necessary background and environment. Thus, in the respect, political measures must allow the development of tourist trade activity. The managers of smaller summer resorts must have enough opportunity to be able to decide quickly on their policy changes concerning tourist trade activities if such changes are brought about without further notice. In order to avoid unnecessary waste, such decentralized decision-making process must be inherent in the system of planning and production of the tourist trade. Since the cultural background is closely related to this one, a combination of the two may prove a stimulating factor in the development of the Slovak tourist trade. Given these conditions, there �SLOVAKIA 145 are enough qualified people in Slovakia to do it, and others can easily be trained. In order to achieve some significant result in terms of Slovak foreign trade, one will have to reorganize all present facilities, improve them and then build new ones . In this respect the Slovak economy is quite negligent as the informed sources maintain.5 Most deficiencies are in the organization itself; 6 in terms of service, 7 in public relations especially advertising,8 etc. On the other hand, there has been quite a bit done to attract the hunters into Slovakia for various kinds of activities9 and other services. These kinds of details may have to be ironed out before tourist trade can achieve the desired results. The best possible approach in this respect would be to develop the various kinds of services to such an extent that the internal tourist trade demand may be satisfied. Having achieved these standards, one may proceed to expand for foreign consumption. This is quite possible as the Slovaks proved in the past as informed tourists, demanding a high standard of service. This kind of supply-demand interaction may create the necessary base for development for foreign oriented tourist trade. Since the potential for developing the Slovak tourist trade does exist, it will depend mostly on the wisdom of those people who are in decision-making positions. They seemed sympathetic to such development in the past. NOTES 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) Statisticka rocenka Ibid, p. 405. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Ibid. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, c SSR 1965, Prague 1965, p. 4-04. March 14, 1969, p. 5. March 26, 1969, p. 5. February April 25, February February 19, 1969, p. 2. 1969, p. 1. 6, 1970, p. 2. 14, 1969, p. 2. * 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. � 140 SLOVAKIA religion, and their national identification. Perhaps it is only in this ability to maintain their distinctive characteristics that the Slovaks will ever realize their independence. Even more than geographical position, and greedy neighbors, these distinctive Slovak characteristics-described as easy-going, honest, idealistic, deeply religious, imaginative, open-hearted, soft-hearted, emotional, and music-loving-will equip them for the task of building a strong and independent nation in the midst of hard and cruel world. Tourist Trade of Slovakia George A. P o d h d j s k y Countries like Switzerland and Austria, which are endowed with exquisite beauty in their natural setting, devote considerable attention in terms of economic activity to the development of a high level of tourist trade. A significant proportion of their Gross National Product comes from the tourist trade, internal and especially foreign. For that purpose these two countries have steered their economic activity in such a way as to support an unprecedented development of their respective tourist trade industries. Of the Communist countries, Yugoslavia was particularly successful in developing a very attractive program for tourist trade, especially from foreign countries. A similar·potential for developing tourist trade also exists in the Slovak economy. The natural beauty of Slovak Tatra Mountains and the adjacent valleys which spread over most of the country, doubled with the proverbial hospitality of the Slovak people, are a good basis for the development of tourist trade in this country. Apart from this, there is an old tradition of internal and foreign tourism developed through the centuries. It is the purpose of this paper to assess the present situation of the Slovak tourist trade and its potential for future development. I. The following figures may sum up the state of tourist trade of Czecho-Slovakia for the years 1960-1964. 1 �SLOVAKIA 141 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 From Abroad (in Mill.) 1.3 1.6 1.7 1.8 3.7 To Foreign Countries .5 .6 .7 .7 2.0 From the above table one can see that the foreign tourists by far exceeded the number of people from CzechoSlovakia visiting foreign countries. From the breakdown of the above figures, one can also see that most of the foreign tourist trade was stemming mostly from the Sociallist block countries. However, there was some tourist trade stemming from Western countries like the United States, France, Austria, and West Germany. The figures show that there were more tourists from these countries going to Czecho-Slovakia rather than the other way around. Of course, there was an unprecedented upsurge in the inflow of Western tourists in 1968, when the gates opened for the foreigners. The facilities available for the tourists in CzechoSlovakia were not always adequate, especially during the period of 1955-1963, when the number of guests far outweighed the number of available beds. 1963 is the first year showing an excess of beds over the number of guests. The following diagram shows this picture quite clearly. 2 THE NUMBER OF GUESTS AND BEDS AVAILABLE Guests in Millions Beds in Thousands 4f - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - --,/3f _ _ _ _ guests - - - - - - - beds "7 I I I I I I ___ ,, ,,. ," ,, ,, , ,,,,.1 'fo 7S' �142 SLOVAKIA This diagram shows the varying degree of the ratio between the number of guests and available beds. Although, from the diagram, it cannot be ascertained what ratio would be considered as optimal, other sources3 show that there was a shortage of not only beds but also other facilities to adequately care for the ever-increasing tourist t rade. II. From the above information, it is evident that the tourist trade to Czecho-Slovakia underwent some fluctuation but also an overall growth in the number of guests and available facilities . The figures are for Czecho-Slovakia, but we can safely assume that at least half of this trade belonged to Slovakia which seemed to concentrate in tourist trade in the past having been endowed with more potential than Bohemia and Moravia. At this point it would be good to see if there is enough potential and incentive in Slovakia to develop tourist trade to its optimal size. The 1970 winter Olympics in the Tatra mountains prepared on short notice by the leaders of Slovakia has proven beyond any doubt that Slovaks can produce adequate facilities for such an important event as winter Olympics. Most of the facilities created are of lasting value as they may be used and reused by further similar sport activities though not necessarily on an international level. The organizers have shown not only the ability and the know-how but also good taste in creating efficient facilities. The good taste has also been demonstrated in the building of several tourist hotels at various geographical points in Slovakia. Almost without exception, hotel buildings have at last one masterpiece of art by a known artist in the foyer or elsewhere for the inspection of an appreciative customer. Such hotels usually are built with the most modern approach, and the service in such hotels is supposed to match the style. However, there is ample evidence4 that the service of high consumer satisfaction is not always present. In this respect, the potential of the Slovak trade is hampered by other services that go hand in hand with the tourist trade and which were more or less adequately solved by the Swiss or the Austrians. Bus service, cool drink and snack service at various points of movements �SLOVAKIA 143 of tourists are just a few among to be mentioned. However, this may be solved comperatively easily if the tourist planners are given enough scope and competence to develop them. There is, of course, a more important problem which the Slovak tourist planners will have to face. This is the problem of seasonal fluctuations in the tourist trade. A breakdown of the 1963 figures, for example, shows that the winter and fall quarters were very low in tourist activity in comparison to the other two quarters. This poses a problem of optimum capacity of facilities for tourist trade. This capacity will have to be determined by the spring and summer demand for them. From the point of view of the rate of return on investment, those facilities should get the priority of development which can be operated all year. Thus, the spas, sanatoriums and other hospitals are examples in question. Since tourist trade in Slovakia has shown in the past centuries an excellent tradition in this field, this development could prove very profitable indeed. Piest'any, where Beethoven composed his 7th Symphony, is an example of such tradition. This portion of the tourist trade activity taking shape of its past reputation can become the backbone of the total activity in this field. Having stressed this kind of activity, the rest of tourist trade may be taken in stride inspite of the seasonal fluctuations. However, even in this direction, a lot can be done by a good planner or economist by envisaging such tourist activity which can take place all year around. This kind of seasonal fluctuation may be at least partially curtailed by using the same facilities during the summer and winter. Since the structure of the Slovak tourist scenery in such that it can be enjoyed for skiing in winter and other activities in summer, it may be possible to create year-around tourist activity in such areas. However, in the respect a lot of planning and research should be done, as many areas have not been explored for safety reasons. All in all, a careful analysis may show that the seasonal fluctuations may turn out to appear more smoothed out than at first sight. In that case one may expect a full and optimal development of the Slovak tourist trade which would possibly make it one of the most important components of the Slovak Gross National Product. �144 SLOVAKIA The demand for Slovak facilities could prove quite high. In fact, for many years to come the Slovak tourist trade could prove an important and favorable competitor to the Swiss tourist trade, and only Austria could challenge this position of Slovakia. It is the prices of various services that are expected to be much lower than the Swiss and somewhat lower than the Austrian. In such situations, Slovakia could prove a seeked for tourist attraction filling the capacity available, provided that the services match the Swiss standards. Since this is very hard to achieve because of high Swiss standards, one may allow for some discrepancy in this respect. At the same time, one may point out that given the scope of development and authority into the hands of the tourist trade planners, they may show that they can achieve the Swiss standards. In that case, with lower prices, Slovaks are in an excellent competitive position with the Swiss. In the past, the Swiss journalists themselves have uttered such thoughts. Other non-monetary aspects of this trade are also very important. For example, the rustic setting untouched by the most modern civilization may have a point in question. The availability of concerts and other activities which are not scheduled withing the tourist trade may be another. Good and reasonable shopping activities for handicraft products may prove an excellent attraction. This of course may give an impetus to further development of other industries. The above mentioned goals in terms of foreign tourist trade may be achieved effectively in a given period of time only if other noneconomic factors are developed to give the economic development a necessary background and environment. Thus, in the respect, political measures must allow the development of tourist trade activity. The managers of smaller summer resorts must have enough opportunity to be able to decide quickly on their policy changes concerning tourist trade activities if such changes are brought about without further notice. In order to avoid unnecessary waste, such decentralized decision-making process must be inherent in the system of planning and production of the tourist trade. Since the cultural background is closely related to this one, a combination of the two may prove a stimulating factor in the development of the Slovak tourist trade. Given these conditions, there �SLOVAKIA 145 are enough qualified people in Slovakia to do it, and others can easily be trained. In order to achieve some significant result in terms of Slovak foreign trade, one will have to reorganize all present facilities, improve them and then build new ones . In this respect the Slovak economy is quite negligent as the informed sources maintain.5 Most deficiencies are in the organization itself; 6 in terms of service, 7 in public relations especially advertising,8 etc. On the other hand, there has been quite a bit done to attract the hunters into Slovakia for various kinds of activities9 and other services. These kinds of details may have to be ironed out before tourist trade can achieve the desired results. The best possible approach in this respect would be to develop the various kinds of services to such an extent that the internal tourist trade demand may be satisfied. Having achieved these standards, one may proceed to expand for foreign consumption. This is quite possible as the Slovaks proved in the past as informed tourists, demanding a high standard of service. This kind of supply-demand interaction may create the necessary base for development for foreign oriented tourist trade. Since the potential for developing the Slovak tourist trade does exist, it will depend mostly on the wisdom of those people who are in decision-making positions. They seemed sympathetic to such development in the past. NOTES 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) Statisticka rocenka Ibid, p. 405. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Ibid. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, c SSR 1965, Prague 1965, p. 4-04. March 14, 1969, p. 5. March 26, 1969, p. 5. February April 25, February February 19, 1969, p. 2. 1969, p. 1. 6, 1970, p. 2. 14, 1969, p. 2. * 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 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 140 SLOVAKIA religion, and their national identification. Perhaps it is only in this ability to maintain their distinctive characteristics that the Slovaks will ever realize their independence. Even more than geographical position, and greedy neighbors, these distinctive Slovak characteristics-described as easy-going, honest, idealistic, deeply religious, imaginative, open-hearted, soft-hearted, emotional, and music-loving-will equip them for the task of building a strong and independent nation in the midst of hard and cruel world. Tourist Trade of Slovakia George A. P o d h d j s k y Countries like Switzerland and Austria, which are endowed with exquisite beauty in their natural setting, devote considerable attention in terms of economic activity to the development of a high level of tourist trade. A significant proportion of their Gross National Product comes from the tourist trade, internal and especially foreign. For that purpose these two countries have steered their economic activity in such a way as to support an unprecedented development of their respective tourist trade industries. Of the Communist countries, Yugoslavia was particularly successful in developing a very attractive program for tourist trade, especially from foreign countries. A similar·potential for developing tourist trade also exists in the Slovak economy. The natural beauty of Slovak Tatra Mountains and the adjacent valleys which spread over most of the country, doubled with the proverbial hospitality of the Slovak people, are a good basis for the development of tourist trade in this country. Apart from this, there is an old tradition of internal and foreign tourism developed through the centuries. It is the purpose of this paper to assess the present situation of the Slovak tourist trade and its potential for future development. I. The following figures may sum up the state of tourist trade of Czecho-Slovakia for the years 1960-1964. 1 SLOVAKIA 141 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 From Abroad (in Mill.) 1.3 1.6 1.7 1.8 3.7 To Foreign Countries .5 .6 .7 .7 2.0 From the above table one can see that the foreign tourists by far exceeded the number of people from CzechoSlovakia visiting foreign countries. From the breakdown of the above figures, one can also see that most of the foreign tourist trade was stemming mostly from the Sociallist block countries. However, there was some tourist trade stemming from Western countries like the United States, France, Austria, and West Germany. The figures show that there were more tourists from these countries going to Czecho-Slovakia rather than the other way around. Of course, there was an unprecedented upsurge in the inflow of Western tourists in 1968, when the gates opened for the foreigners. The facilities available for the tourists in CzechoSlovakia were not always adequate, especially during the period of 1955-1963, when the number of guests far outweighed the number of available beds. 1963 is the first year showing an excess of beds over the number of guests. The following diagram shows this picture quite clearly. 2 THE NUMBER OF GUESTS AND BEDS AVAILABLE Guests in Millions Beds in Thousands 4f - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - --,/3f _ _ _ _ guests - - - - - - - beds "7 I I I I I I ___ ,, ,,. ," ,, ,, , ,,,,.1 'fo 7S' 142 SLOVAKIA This diagram shows the varying degree of the ratio between the number of guests and available beds. Although, from the diagram, it cannot be ascertained what ratio would be considered as optimal, other sources3 show that there was a shortage of not only beds but also other facilities to adequately care for the ever-increasing tourist t rade. II. From the above information, it is evident that the tourist trade to Czecho-Slovakia underwent some fluctuation but also an overall growth in the number of guests and available facilities . The figures are for Czecho-Slovakia, but we can safely assume that at least half of this trade belonged to Slovakia which seemed to concentrate in tourist trade in the past having been endowed with more potential than Bohemia and Moravia. At this point it would be good to see if there is enough potential and incentive in Slovakia to develop tourist trade to its optimal size. The 1970 winter Olympics in the Tatra mountains prepared on short notice by the leaders of Slovakia has proven beyond any doubt that Slovaks can produce adequate facilities for such an important event as winter Olympics. Most of the facilities created are of lasting value as they may be used and reused by further similar sport activities though not necessarily on an international level. The organizers have shown not only the ability and the know-how but also good taste in creating efficient facilities. The good taste has also been demonstrated in the building of several tourist hotels at various geographical points in Slovakia. Almost without exception, hotel buildings have at last one masterpiece of art by a known artist in the foyer or elsewhere for the inspection of an appreciative customer. Such hotels usually are built with the most modern approach, and the service in such hotels is supposed to match the style. However, there is ample evidence4 that the service of high consumer satisfaction is not always present. In this respect, the potential of the Slovak trade is hampered by other services that go hand in hand with the tourist trade and which were more or less adequately solved by the Swiss or the Austrians. Bus service, cool drink and snack service at various points of movements SLOVAKIA 143 of tourists are just a few among to be mentioned. However, this may be solved comperatively easily if the tourist planners are given enough scope and competence to develop them. There is, of course, a more important problem which the Slovak tourist planners will have to face. This is the problem of seasonal fluctuations in the tourist trade. A breakdown of the 1963 figures, for example, shows that the winter and fall quarters were very low in tourist activity in comparison to the other two quarters. This poses a problem of optimum capacity of facilities for tourist trade. This capacity will have to be determined by the spring and summer demand for them. From the point of view of the rate of return on investment, those facilities should get the priority of development which can be operated all year. Thus, the spas, sanatoriums and other hospitals are examples in question. Since tourist trade in Slovakia has shown in the past centuries an excellent tradition in this field, this development could prove very profitable indeed. Piest'any, where Beethoven composed his 7th Symphony, is an example of such tradition. This portion of the tourist trade activity taking shape of its past reputation can become the backbone of the total activity in this field. Having stressed this kind of activity, the rest of tourist trade may be taken in stride inspite of the seasonal fluctuations. However, even in this direction, a lot can be done by a good planner or economist by envisaging such tourist activity which can take place all year around. This kind of seasonal fluctuation may be at least partially curtailed by using the same facilities during the summer and winter. Since the structure of the Slovak tourist scenery in such that it can be enjoyed for skiing in winter and other activities in summer, it may be possible to create year-around tourist activity in such areas. However, in the respect a lot of planning and research should be done, as many areas have not been explored for safety reasons. All in all, a careful analysis may show that the seasonal fluctuations may turn out to appear more smoothed out than at first sight. In that case one may expect a full and optimal development of the Slovak tourist trade which would possibly make it one of the most important components of the Slovak Gross National Product. 144 SLOVAKIA The demand for Slovak facilities could prove quite high. In fact, for many years to come the Slovak tourist trade could prove an important and favorable competitor to the Swiss tourist trade, and only Austria could challenge this position of Slovakia. It is the prices of various services that are expected to be much lower than the Swiss and somewhat lower than the Austrian. In such situations, Slovakia could prove a seeked for tourist attraction filling the capacity available, provided that the services match the Swiss standards. Since this is very hard to achieve because of high Swiss standards, one may allow for some discrepancy in this respect. At the same time, one may point out that given the scope of development and authority into the hands of the tourist trade planners, they may show that they can achieve the Swiss standards. In that case, with lower prices, Slovaks are in an excellent competitive position with the Swiss. In the past, the Swiss journalists themselves have uttered such thoughts. Other non-monetary aspects of this trade are also very important. For example, the rustic setting untouched by the most modern civilization may have a point in question. The availability of concerts and other activities which are not scheduled withing the tourist trade may be another. Good and reasonable shopping activities for handicraft products may prove an excellent attraction. This of course may give an impetus to further development of other industries. The above mentioned goals in terms of foreign tourist trade may be achieved effectively in a given period of time only if other noneconomic factors are developed to give the economic development a necessary background and environment. Thus, in the respect, political measures must allow the development of tourist trade activity. The managers of smaller summer resorts must have enough opportunity to be able to decide quickly on their policy changes concerning tourist trade activities if such changes are brought about without further notice. In order to avoid unnecessary waste, such decentralized decision-making process must be inherent in the system of planning and production of the tourist trade. Since the cultural background is closely related to this one, a combination of the two may prove a stimulating factor in the development of the Slovak tourist trade. Given these conditions, there SLOVAKIA 145 are enough qualified people in Slovakia to do it, and others can easily be trained. In order to achieve some significant result in terms of Slovak foreign trade, one will have to reorganize all present facilities, improve them and then build new ones . In this respect the Slovak economy is quite negligent as the informed sources maintain.5 Most deficiencies are in the organization itself; 6 in terms of service, 7 in public relations especially advertising,8 etc. On the other hand, there has been quite a bit done to attract the hunters into Slovakia for various kinds of activities9 and other services. These kinds of details may have to be ironed out before tourist trade can achieve the desired results. The best possible approach in this respect would be to develop the various kinds of services to such an extent that the internal tourist trade demand may be satisfied. Having achieved these standards, one may proceed to expand for foreign consumption. This is quite possible as the Slovaks proved in the past as informed tourists, demanding a high standard of service. This kind of supply-demand interaction may create the necessary base for development for foreign oriented tourist trade. Since the potential for developing the Slovak tourist trade does exist, it will depend mostly on the wisdom of those people who are in decision-making positions. They seemed sympathetic to such development in the past. NOTES 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) Statisticka rocenka Ibid, p. 405. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Ibid. Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, Pravda, Bratislava, c SSR 1965, Prague 1965, p. 4-04. March 14, 1969, p. 5. March 26, 1969, p. 5. February April 25, February February 19, 1969, p. 2. 1969, p. 1. 6, 1970, p. 2. 14, 1969, p. 2. * 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 Tourist Trade of Slovakia Description An account of the resource George A. Podhájsky Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 140-145 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Podhájsky, George A. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/eb1d6340b2bbe1b294801953ebfa8501.pdf a085e310acd3ef0b5c8710012d6b1111 PDF Text Text 46 SLOVAKIA government, the U. S. Department of State ordered the U. S. Army authorities in Austria to surrender Tlso and his group to the CzechoSlovak War Crimes Commlsslon. In November 1945 Dr. Tlso and members of the Slovak government were delivered to Czecho-Slovak authorities as war criminals, though their status was never lnvesti· gated by the U. S. authorities. From Pra.g ue Dr. Tiso and several of hls group were sent to Bra• tislava to stand tria! before the Natlonal Court The tria! began December 2, 1946, and ended March 14, 1947. Sentence was pronounced by the Court on Aplil 15, and Father Tiso, reciting the rosary out loud, was Jed to the gallows at 5: 30 a. m. on April 19, 1947; he was pronounced dead seven mlnutes Jater. SJovaks the world over agree wlth Father Tiso's aged mother: Dr. Tlso died a martyr for the cause of his people and his Church. • • • ;}IJHIIIIIIIIUll ttlllUlltltllll l lllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIHIUII IIIIIIIIIIIIUI IIIUhl lllllll llllUOttlllflllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllflllllHIIIHIIIUIIIIIIIIIUI UIUIUtl. PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO ms PEOPLE " In the spirit of the sacrlfice I am about. to make, 1 aend thl• message to the Slovak natlon : " In harmony and un lson pursue alway,, everywhere and In every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND F-OR THE NATION. I=== _ ::}f;:~~i'.:I~~~.:~;: : : ~.:=;:~•::~~:::;.:~: I===_ "That precept I have ,erved all my llfe and, therefore, 1 '=- != 1 1 ~ ;:;ľi:he;t ~y:f afi:,.:;,. a~~ :h::~:n:: :o:~,.::~~n~:co::~:~,! bolshevism, against which our nation must in all ponlble way, :::•::..:<;:•~;::,:~:: :,:~• ,:~:;:: of 1t, Chri,tlan cha~oto•, '=- 1 "A• 1 beg you to remember me In your praye,.., so do I pro. _ Br atislava, April 18 , 1947, 3 a. m. 1 ~~:~_0[;:t:f:;: : i~}~~};,~f!J~:;.:.1;.:-t: 1 DR. JOSEPH TISO. ~ (ltl1111111UIIIIIHU lllllllllltlllUIIIIIIUUIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIIIINUlllllUlMIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIUIIIIIUHI IIIIIIUll111111111111111111UUl'11WIIIIIIIUIIHUIUlfUUIHIIIIIHfUl l~ � 46 SLOVAKIA government, the U. S. Department of State ordered the U. S. Army authorities in Austria to surrender Tlso and his group to the CzechoSlovak War Crimes Commlsslon. In November 1945 Dr. Tlso and members of the Slovak government were delivered to Czecho-Slovak authorities as war criminals, though their status was never lnvesti· gated by the U. S. authorities. From Pra.g ue Dr. Tiso and several of hls group were sent to Bra• tislava to stand tria! before the Natlonal Court The tria! began December 2, 1946, and ended March 14, 1947. Sentence was pronounced by the Court on Aplil 15, and Father Tiso, reciting the rosary out loud, was Jed to the gallows at 5: 30 a. m. on April 19, 1947; he was pronounced dead seven mlnutes Jater. SJovaks the world over agree wlth Father Tiso's aged mother: Dr. Tlso died a martyr for the cause of his people and his Church. • • • ;}IJHIIIIIIIIUll ttlllUlltltllll l lllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIHIUII IIIIIIIIIIIIUI IIIUhl lllllll llllUOttlllflllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllflllllHIIIHIIIUIIIIIIIIIUI UIUIUtl. PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO ms PEOPLE " In the spirit of the sacrlfice I am about. to make, 1 aend thl• message to the Slovak natlon : " In harmony and un lson pursue alway,, everywhere and In every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND F-OR THE NATION. I=== _ ::}f;:~~i'.:I~~~.:~;: : : ~.:=;:~•::~~:::;.:~: I===_ "That precept I have ,erved all my llfe and, therefore, 1 '=- != 1 1 ~ ;:;ľi:he;t ~y:f afi:,.:;,. a~~ :h::~:n:: :o:~,.::~~n~:co::~:~,! bolshevism, against which our nation must in all ponlble way, :::•::..:<;:•~;::,:~:: :,:~• ,:~:;:: of 1t, Chri,tlan cha~oto•, '=- 1 "A• 1 beg you to remember me In your praye,.., so do I pro. _ Br atislava, April 18 , 1947, 3 a. m. 1 ~~:~_0[;:t:f:;: : i~}~~};,~f!J~:;.:.1;.:-t: 1 DR. JOSEPH TISO. ~ (ltl1111111UIIIIIHU lllllllllltlllUIIIIIIUUIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIIIINUlllllUlMIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIUIIIIIUHI IIIIIIUll111111111111111111UUl'11WIIIIIIIUIIHUIUlfUUIHIIIIIHfUl l~ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1952, Vol. 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO HIS PEOPLE In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. THAT IS NOT ONLY THE UNEQUIVOCAL INTENT OF Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature and has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. That precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God’s law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr of the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that He bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God and for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ. Bratislava, April 18, 1947, 3 a.m. DR. JOSEPH TISO. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tiso's Last Message to His People Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3), March 1952 p. 46 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiso, Jozef, 1887-1947 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1952 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/436cfdbe28d3ca6197b94353de0d98d1.pdf bab154704793155f65b6031dabfeeee9 PDF Text Text 24 SLOVAKIA --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 �SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, �26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: �SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- �28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was �SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also �30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- �SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton �32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the �SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 �34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. �SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL � 24 SLOVAKIA --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 �SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, �26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: �SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- �28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was �SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also �30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- �SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton �32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the �SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 �34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. �SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1974, Vol. 24 Description An account of the resource Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 24 SLOVAKIA --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, 26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- 28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also 30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton 32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tiso's Formative Years and Early Political Career Description An account of the resource Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 24-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sutherland, Anthony X. (Anthony Xavier) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/601134ae37c577a6153dcabc2a4076a4.pdf 4f5b1bad0879a3d825ced9b77393b7c2 PDF Text Text SLOVA.KIA. 13 IN RETlROSPECT TISO ON THE GALWWS (From "EAST EUROPE," London, Apríl 30, 1947) The Western Powers fought the war for a number of principles, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, and not in order to enable one nation to dominate another. But in the post-war world, two tendencies are at work. In the West, neither Great Britain, the U. S. A. nor any other country look for territorial aggrandizement. Britain !s withdrawing from Egypt, Jraq, Trans-Jordanla, India and Burma; the NUEA has recognized the independence of the Philippines, Denmark that of Iceland, China. that of Korea, while France has accepted Syrian and Lebanese self-government. Thls process of decentralizatlon c haracteristic of the Western Democracies, is in complete contrast to the process of centralization which is going on in Soviet Russla and her Zone of lnfluence. In the flrst place, Russia berself has increased her territory by incorporating the Baltic States, Finnlsh Karelia, Eastern Poland, Ruthenia, Bessarabla, and part of the Bukovina. On behal! of tbe Georgian, Armenian and Azerba!jan Republics, she 1s claiming Turklsh and Persian territory. Although wide cultural rights are granted to the Soviet Republics, their administration is completely centralized and dependent on Moscow. Within the Sov.iet Zone, Russia is backing all the territorial claim~ of her satellites: of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The most recent effect of this was the failure of the Foreign Ministers to agree on the Austrian Treaty, because Russia has ldentified herself with Yugoslav territorial demands on Austria. Czecho-Slovakla and Yugoslavia have reestablished thelr rule over Slovakia and Croatia respectlvely, both of which had been Independent between 1938 and 1945. These two trends form the background against which the Czech and Slovak controversy within t he reestablished Republic must be considered. lt illustrates the conflicts whic h the policy of centralization bas to overcome. On April 18th a secret radio transmitter, calling itself "The Voice of the Slovak Republic" broadcast a petition from the Slovak Action Committee. "The Slovak Republic was not the result of external intervention. Its creation called for no foreign support, nor was the approval or consent of Germany .':!ought or deemed necessary. No one can say, that, with the creation of the Slovak Republlc, the Germans overran and occupied the Czech lands, for tbe two events bore no relation to eacb otber. . . . (A simllar point of view is taken in tbe Soviet 'History of Diplomacy,' Vol. III, chapter 24, wbicb deals with the Anschluss and the partitlon of Czecho-Slovakia, compiled by Academician V. P. Potemkin, edition 1945. It holds Britain and France respons!ble for the disintegration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938. - Ed.) The Slovak Republic was recognlzed by 27 Forelgn Powers in a very s hort Ume. Among them, states that were bound by treaty agalnst Germany - Poland, Brltaln, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Holland. the U. S. S. R., and so on - and also by states which, as t he war progressed, remalned neutra! Switzerland, the Vatlcan, Sweden. Spain and others. The Slovak Republic was not recognizecl by the U. S. A., but the reason for this may be found in propaganda directed �14 SLOVAKIA agalnst the Slovak Republic . . . . It !s unthinkable, therefore, that the acts of the representatives o[ t he Slovak Repub lic should b e judged by a court estaiblished by Czecho-Slovak!a, slnce Czecho-Slovak la is n ot the ir countr y. . . . Slovak r epresen tatlves could no t have com• mitted any acts of treason against the Czecho-Slovak Governm ent since they d!d n ot recognize Czecho·Slovak la as th e State to wh ich they belonged, or to which they owed allegiance. On the contrary, they looked upon Ozecho-Slovakla ae a S tate lnto whlch th e Slovak people had been propelled by foroo and dlplomatic lntrigue . .. . The proceedings of the <National Court in Bratislava against Preside nt T iso and other representatives of the S lovak Republic were not designed for the examlnation of war c rimes defined in Art ic le 6 of the Charter of lnternational Military Tribunal. In the Bratislava tria! not only were the persona of President Tiso and other Slovak representatives involved but also the politlca l concept, the idea of a Slova k independent state, and the self-determination of the S lova k nation as such .... Had Ru84ia become the protector of the Slovak state, under the presi• dency of Tiso, there wou ld be no c harge of treason today against the c hief of the Slovak Repub lic .... We c laim the reestab lis hment of a democratic and Christia n Slova k Republic." T hls broadca.!!t reveals the real confllct b etween Slovak and Czech ideas. Accordlng to the Slovaks, Czecho-Slovak legal contln\tlty has been lnterrupted, Independent Slovakia was a reality, and CzechoSlovak relations must be reestabllshed on a completely new basis. Accordlng to t he Czechs , Czecho-Slovakla's Iegal continuity has been s afeguarded, Iegally Independent Slovakla bas never exlsted, and lt v.as a purely ephemeral creation. The Czechs pass over in silence the fact that the third component of the 1918 'Republic, Car pathlan Ruthenia, was taken by Soviet Russia. On February 13, 1947, Presldent Benes dotted the i's and crossed the ťs of the Czech attitude. Speaking of relations between th e Czechs and Slovaks, he said: "Archblshop Dr. Kmetko said in the T lso !rial that the Slovaks would llke t o have thelr own state but accept tbe Czecbo-Slovak Republlc .b ecause there is no way of a chlevlng it. I reject such an argument categorlcally ; I sball never accept it. We could not survlve anotber crlsls In CzechoSlovak reations. After such a crisis there would no longer be a Czecbo. Slovak Repub llc, and Slovakla wou ld not be an independent state In any case; lt wou\d most probably fall lnto Soviet Russia.... The Czechs border on a Germany of seventy milllon people, therefore in t he future the Czechs must be neighbors of Soviet Russla. They could not in consequence accept an independent Slovak state as their ne ighbor. .. . There can be no alternatives today, nor any questlon of pian· ning a Central Euro pean Federatlon. T hese plans bave been dead ever slnce Soviet Russla becam e our nelghbor." The executlon of President Tiso was tbe dramatic consummation of President Benes' policy. Tiso was condemned and e xecuted not a s a war c riminal, but a s the symbol of Slova k ·indepe nde nce. As late as the autumn of 1946, dur ing his visit to Topolcany, Pr eaident Benes dec lared before the Councll of Slovak Commissars that Tiso must be hanged. When one of the Slova k Commissars remarked t hat Slovak public opinion would not stand fo r his e xecution, Benes r eplied, " Perhaps it wll l not stand for it, but it is absolutely necessary." �SLOVAKIA 16 This explains the appointment of Dr. Daxner as Presldent ot the Bratislava court, which tried Tiso. Daxner had sworn vengeance on Tiso for the "wrongs" inflicte<i by the Slovak natíonallsts. And yet, in 1935, Tiao waa reaponaible for the reelectlon of Benea aa Preaident of Czecho-Slovakia. The Slovak People's Party wanted to vote for Dr. Nemecz, the candidate for the Agrarians, but at the last moment Tiso convinced his party that Benes was a better choice trom a fore.ign political point of view. Mr. Sidor was the only member of the S)Rvak People's Party. w,bo abstained trom votlng. Posslbly Benes would have commuted the Tlso sentence, especially in view of Slovak public opinion, had he not had to consider the Russian attitude. It was expressed - aimong others - by Gundorov, t he Presi· dent of the All..Slav Committee in Moscow, who in the Slovak communis t daily " Pravda" demanded ruthless punlshment of the accused. Benea c hose to follow the Ruaaian line. After the occupation of Slovakla by the Soviet Army, Tiso sought refugé in the American Zone of Germany. In November 1945, the American M:ilitary Authoritles handed him over to the Czechs. As the Slovaks regarded this a b erach of the rlghts o! asylum, the Slovak League of America in th e U. S. A. made investigations as to who had authorized it. Neither the State Department, nor the General Staff were responsible for th!s extradition. Apparently the declslon had been taken by the local American commander, in response to the demand of the Czecho-Slovak Government. The Prague Government had place<i at the disposal of the President of the Czecho-Slovak War Crlmes Commission, General Ecer, the sum of 50 mllHon Kcs for the ·1nterception of political emigrés, mainly Slovaks. Flown to Bratislava, Tlso was paraded through the town wlth chains around his wri-sts, from whlch hung a large padlock. He was allowed to attend his father's funeral, but had to march ignominlously in handcuffs. Because of the constant demonstrations In hls favor he was sent letters, telegrams, flowers, food and so on - ·Tiso was transferred to th e prison in Brno and returned to Bratls'1ava only for his tria!. He waa not allowed to chooae hls defenae couael, who waa appoi nted by the Czec h authoritiea. Many of the witnesses gave evidence in his favor. The Archlblshop of Slovak.ia, Kmetko, who is highly res pected by the Czechs as well as the Slovaks, tesutled " Tlao acted and worked in the intereata of Slovakia, and waa never a traltor. Hia election aa Preaident of Slovakia waa the wlll of 90 per cent of the Slovaks at that time." Tis o himself pleaded not guilty. He malntalned that he did not c-ommit treason, and declared the responsJblllty for the fate of Czecho• Slovakla dld not rest witb Slov.akia, but wlth tbe 20 years of Czech domestlc and Coreign pollcy. "lf ·a od allowed me to carry out my policy agaln under simi[ar c.o ndltlona I would do exactly aa I have done," Tis o declared. .,. For th e trlal special security measures were taken In Slovak.la. Czech troops were brought In because the authoritles dld not trust the Slqvak troops. There were large-sc-ale demonstrations In favor ot T lso at Plestany and Puchov, and the Secret Police arrested many people, who were sent to Lalbor Camps. On Aprll 15th Tiso was condemned to death by banging. When asked whether he would a,p.peal for mercy, Tlso replled: "Yes - for �16 SLOVA.KIA mora! reasons." (According to Catholic doctrine a man must defend his llfe by all avallable means.) President Benes rejected Tiso's plea, and he was executed on April 18th. Apríl 18th may prove to be a fateful day in Czecho-Slovak relations. 1n the eyes of the devout Slovak people the hanging of a pri est is an unforgivable act. In the eyes of intelligent Slovaks abroad, it was a cri me against national fee li ngs. Benes' rejection of Tiso's plea for mercy is regarded not as the act of a democrat, but of a tyrant. The Slovaks say that thereby Benes has destroyed his own democratic legend. The unrest whicb was expected to follow Tiso's execution iu Slovakia was checked by very strong measures, but the atmospbere has become very tense and there is much talk of great political changes. Within tbe Democratic Party tbere is strife; tbe Slovak Catholics are expected to go over to the Freedom Party. On April 17th, Soviet opinion, which is tantamount to official iustructions, was thus expressed by the Moscow Radlo: "'On various occasions, and particularly recently the pro-Tiso and Hlinka Guard elements bave behaved witb growing impertinence and daring against the vi tal interests of tbeir own nation.... An ambiguous attitude has been adopted by some Democratic Party circles. Their press directly encourages tbe organizers of anti-Government action (This referred to tbe democratic daily, "Čas." - Ed.) A serious menace to democratic reconstruction in Slovakia arises from the influence or reactionary and fascist ele ments witbin the Democratic Party. Tbe Hlinka Guard, tbe followers of Sidor and Durčanský, undermine the State, cause anti• Czech, anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic provocations and attempts to smash the Czecbo-Slovak RepU1blic. A relentless purge of all fascists is called for, affecting not only the leaders, but their Joyal and still active followers." Opinions may vary about the tria! or Tiso, who was, after all, the protegé of the Germans. But the conception of justice and morality of the average person bas been put to a severe strain. Recent trials in East Europe appear to seek polltical vengeance not justice. This was exemplif'led in the trials of Archbishop Steplnac, or Mibailovitch and most scandalous of all, that of the 16 members of the Polish Underground Govel'hment. World public opinion must never cease to make a stand against injustice and falsehood. In the words of the Gospel, unlesa you go out and meet evil to combat it, evil will enter your house and destroy you." • • • WHO SAID IT? "The Czeehoslovak-Soviet Treaty rorms the BASIS ot our count ry's external securlty and fundamen,t al con trlbutlon to the un!flcatlon ot national forcei.. The alllance with the SOVIET and triendshlp wttb tbe West was w elcomed by ALL classes of tlhe Czechoslovak people In com<plete acoordance w!th thelr CONVICTIONS and wlth sin· cere joy. . . . Thanks to tbe treaty, Czechoslovakla's lnterests are re· celvlng e tfeetlve support" - (H ubert Rlpka, Minister of State, Broadcast on the annlversary or the Czecboslovak-Sovie-t Treaty, London. December H, 1944). � SLOVA.KIA. 13 IN RETlROSPECT TISO ON THE GALWWS (From "EAST EUROPE," London, Apríl 30, 1947) The Western Powers fought the war for a number of principles, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, and not in order to enable one nation to dominate another. But in the post-war world, two tendencies are at work. In the West, neither Great Britain, the U. S. A. nor any other country look for territorial aggrandizement. Britain !s withdrawing from Egypt, Jraq, Trans-Jordanla, India and Burma; the NUEA has recognized the independence of the Philippines, Denmark that of Iceland, China. that of Korea, while France has accepted Syrian and Lebanese self-government. Thls process of decentralizatlon c haracteristic of the Western Democracies, is in complete contrast to the process of centralization which is going on in Soviet Russla and her Zone of lnfluence. In the flrst place, Russia berself has increased her territory by incorporating the Baltic States, Finnlsh Karelia, Eastern Poland, Ruthenia, Bessarabla, and part of the Bukovina. On behal! of tbe Georgian, Armenian and Azerba!jan Republics, she 1s claiming Turklsh and Persian territory. Although wide cultural rights are granted to the Soviet Republics, their administration is completely centralized and dependent on Moscow. Within the Sov.iet Zone, Russia is backing all the territorial claim~ of her satellites: of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The most recent effect of this was the failure of the Foreign Ministers to agree on the Austrian Treaty, because Russia has ldentified herself with Yugoslav territorial demands on Austria. Czecho-Slovakla and Yugoslavia have reestablished thelr rule over Slovakia and Croatia respectlvely, both of which had been Independent between 1938 and 1945. These two trends form the background against which the Czech and Slovak controversy within t he reestablished Republic must be considered. lt illustrates the conflicts whic h the policy of centralization bas to overcome. On April 18th a secret radio transmitter, calling itself "The Voice of the Slovak Republic" broadcast a petition from the Slovak Action Committee. "The Slovak Republic was not the result of external intervention. Its creation called for no foreign support, nor was the approval or consent of Germany .':!ought or deemed necessary. No one can say, that, with the creation of the Slovak Republlc, the Germans overran and occupied the Czech lands, for tbe two events bore no relation to eacb otber. . . . (A simllar point of view is taken in tbe Soviet 'History of Diplomacy,' Vol. III, chapter 24, wbicb deals with the Anschluss and the partitlon of Czecho-Slovakia, compiled by Academician V. P. Potemkin, edition 1945. It holds Britain and France respons!ble for the disintegration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938. - Ed.) The Slovak Republic was recognlzed by 27 Forelgn Powers in a very s hort Ume. Among them, states that were bound by treaty agalnst Germany - Poland, Brltaln, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Holland. the U. S. S. R., and so on - and also by states which, as t he war progressed, remalned neutra! Switzerland, the Vatlcan, Sweden. Spain and others. The Slovak Republic was not recognizecl by the U. S. A., but the reason for this may be found in propaganda directed �14 SLOVAKIA agalnst the Slovak Republic . . . . It !s unthinkable, therefore, that the acts of the representatives o[ t he Slovak Repub lic should b e judged by a court estaiblished by Czecho-Slovak!a, slnce Czecho-Slovak la is n ot the ir countr y. . . . Slovak r epresen tatlves could no t have com• mitted any acts of treason against the Czecho-Slovak Governm ent since they d!d n ot recognize Czecho·Slovak la as th e State to wh ich they belonged, or to which they owed allegiance. On the contrary, they looked upon Ozecho-Slovakla ae a S tate lnto whlch th e Slovak people had been propelled by foroo and dlplomatic lntrigue . .. . The proceedings of the <National Court in Bratislava against Preside nt T iso and other representatives of the S lovak Republic were not designed for the examlnation of war c rimes defined in Art ic le 6 of the Charter of lnternational Military Tribunal. In the Bratislava tria! not only were the persona of President Tiso and other Slovak representatives involved but also the politlca l concept, the idea of a Slova k independent state, and the self-determination of the S lova k nation as such .... Had Ru84ia become the protector of the Slovak state, under the presi• dency of Tiso, there wou ld be no c harge of treason today against the c hief of the Slovak Repub lic .... We c laim the reestab lis hment of a democratic and Christia n Slova k Republic." T hls broadca.!!t reveals the real confllct b etween Slovak and Czech ideas. Accordlng to the Slovaks, Czecho-Slovak legal contln\tlty has been lnterrupted, Independent Slovakia was a reality, and CzechoSlovak relations must be reestabllshed on a completely new basis. Accordlng to t he Czechs , Czecho-Slovakla's Iegal continuity has been s afeguarded, Iegally Independent Slovakla bas never exlsted, and lt v.as a purely ephemeral creation. The Czechs pass over in silence the fact that the third component of the 1918 'Republic, Car pathlan Ruthenia, was taken by Soviet Russia. On February 13, 1947, Presldent Benes dotted the i's and crossed the ťs of the Czech attitude. Speaking of relations between th e Czechs and Slovaks, he said: "Archblshop Dr. Kmetko said in the T lso !rial that the Slovaks would llke t o have thelr own state but accept tbe Czecbo-Slovak Republlc .b ecause there is no way of a chlevlng it. I reject such an argument categorlcally ; I sball never accept it. We could not survlve anotber crlsls In CzechoSlovak reations. After such a crisis there would no longer be a Czecbo. Slovak Repub llc, and Slovakla wou ld not be an independent state In any case; lt wou\d most probably fall lnto Soviet Russia.... The Czechs border on a Germany of seventy milllon people, therefore in t he future the Czechs must be neighbors of Soviet Russla. They could not in consequence accept an independent Slovak state as their ne ighbor. .. . There can be no alternatives today, nor any questlon of pian· ning a Central Euro pean Federatlon. T hese plans bave been dead ever slnce Soviet Russla becam e our nelghbor." The executlon of President Tiso was tbe dramatic consummation of President Benes' policy. Tiso was condemned and e xecuted not a s a war c riminal, but a s the symbol of Slova k ·indepe nde nce. As late as the autumn of 1946, dur ing his visit to Topolcany, Pr eaident Benes dec lared before the Councll of Slovak Commissars that Tiso must be hanged. When one of the Slova k Commissars remarked t hat Slovak public opinion would not stand fo r his e xecution, Benes r eplied, " Perhaps it wll l not stand for it, but it is absolutely necessary." �SLOVAKIA 16 This explains the appointment of Dr. Daxner as Presldent ot the Bratislava court, which tried Tiso. Daxner had sworn vengeance on Tiso for the "wrongs" inflicte<i by the Slovak natíonallsts. And yet, in 1935, Tiao waa reaponaible for the reelectlon of Benea aa Preaident of Czecho-Slovakia. The Slovak People's Party wanted to vote for Dr. Nemecz, the candidate for the Agrarians, but at the last moment Tiso convinced his party that Benes was a better choice trom a fore.ign political point of view. Mr. Sidor was the only member of the S)Rvak People's Party. w,bo abstained trom votlng. Posslbly Benes would have commuted the Tlso sentence, especially in view of Slovak public opinion, had he not had to consider the Russian attitude. It was expressed - aimong others - by Gundorov, t he Presi· dent of the All..Slav Committee in Moscow, who in the Slovak communis t daily " Pravda" demanded ruthless punlshment of the accused. Benea c hose to follow the Ruaaian line. After the occupation of Slovakla by the Soviet Army, Tiso sought refugé in the American Zone of Germany. In November 1945, the American M:ilitary Authoritles handed him over to the Czechs. As the Slovaks regarded this a b erach of the rlghts o! asylum, the Slovak League of America in th e U. S. A. made investigations as to who had authorized it. Neither the State Department, nor the General Staff were responsible for th!s extradition. Apparently the declslon had been taken by the local American commander, in response to the demand of the Czecho-Slovak Government. The Prague Government had place<i at the disposal of the President of the Czecho-Slovak War Crlmes Commission, General Ecer, the sum of 50 mllHon Kcs for the ·1nterception of political emigrés, mainly Slovaks. Flown to Bratislava, Tlso was paraded through the town wlth chains around his wri-sts, from whlch hung a large padlock. He was allowed to attend his father's funeral, but had to march ignominlously in handcuffs. Because of the constant demonstrations In hls favor he was sent letters, telegrams, flowers, food and so on - ·Tiso was transferred to th e prison in Brno and returned to Bratls'1ava only for his tria!. He waa not allowed to chooae hls defenae couael, who waa appoi nted by the Czec h authoritiea. Many of the witnesses gave evidence in his favor. The Archlblshop of Slovak.ia, Kmetko, who is highly res pected by the Czechs as well as the Slovaks, tesutled " Tlao acted and worked in the intereata of Slovakia, and waa never a traltor. Hia election aa Preaident of Slovakia waa the wlll of 90 per cent of the Slovaks at that time." Tis o himself pleaded not guilty. He malntalned that he did not c-ommit treason, and declared the responsJblllty for the fate of Czecho• Slovakla dld not rest witb Slov.akia, but wlth tbe 20 years of Czech domestlc and Coreign pollcy. "lf ·a od allowed me to carry out my policy agaln under simi[ar c.o ndltlona I would do exactly aa I have done," Tis o declared. .,. For th e trlal special security measures were taken In Slovak.la. Czech troops were brought In because the authoritles dld not trust the Slqvak troops. There were large-sc-ale demonstrations In favor ot T lso at Plestany and Puchov, and the Secret Police arrested many people, who were sent to Lalbor Camps. On Aprll 15th Tiso was condemned to death by banging. When asked whether he would a,p.peal for mercy, Tlso replled: "Yes - for �16 SLOVA.KIA mora! reasons." (According to Catholic doctrine a man must defend his llfe by all avallable means.) President Benes rejected Tiso's plea, and he was executed on April 18th. Apríl 18th may prove to be a fateful day in Czecho-Slovak relations. 1n the eyes of the devout Slovak people the hanging of a pri est is an unforgivable act. In the eyes of intelligent Slovaks abroad, it was a cri me against national fee li ngs. Benes' rejection of Tiso's plea for mercy is regarded not as the act of a democrat, but of a tyrant. The Slovaks say that thereby Benes has destroyed his own democratic legend. The unrest whicb was expected to follow Tiso's execution iu Slovakia was checked by very strong measures, but the atmospbere has become very tense and there is much talk of great political changes. Within tbe Democratic Party tbere is strife; tbe Slovak Catholics are expected to go over to the Freedom Party. On April 17th, Soviet opinion, which is tantamount to official iustructions, was thus expressed by the Moscow Radlo: "'On various occasions, and particularly recently the pro-Tiso and Hlinka Guard elements bave behaved witb growing impertinence and daring against the vi tal interests of tbeir own nation.... An ambiguous attitude has been adopted by some Democratic Party circles. Their press directly encourages tbe organizers of anti-Government action (This referred to tbe democratic daily, "Čas." - Ed.) A serious menace to democratic reconstruction in Slovakia arises from the influence or reactionary and fascist ele ments witbin the Democratic Party. Tbe Hlinka Guard, tbe followers of Sidor and Durčanský, undermine the State, cause anti• Czech, anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic provocations and attempts to smash the Czecbo-Slovak RepU1blic. A relentless purge of all fascists is called for, affecting not only the leaders, but their Joyal and still active followers." Opinions may vary about the tria! or Tiso, who was, after all, the protegé of the Germans. But the conception of justice and morality of the average person bas been put to a severe strain. Recent trials in East Europe appear to seek polltical vengeance not justice. This was exemplif'led in the trials of Archbishop Steplnac, or Mibailovitch and most scandalous of all, that of the 16 members of the Polish Underground Govel'hment. World public opinion must never cease to make a stand against injustice and falsehood. In the words of the Gospel, unlesa you go out and meet evil to combat it, evil will enter your house and destroy you." • • • WHO SAID IT? "The Czeehoslovak-Soviet Treaty rorms the BASIS ot our count ry's external securlty and fundamen,t al con trlbutlon to the un!flcatlon ot national forcei.. The alllance with the SOVIET and triendshlp wttb tbe West was w elcomed by ALL classes of tlhe Czechoslovak people In com<plete acoordance w!th thelr CONVICTIONS and wlth sin· cere joy. . . . Thanks to tbe treaty, Czechoslovakla's lnterests are re· celvlng e tfeetlve support" - (H ubert Rlpka, Minister of State, Broadcast on the annlversary or the Czecboslovak-Sovie-t Treaty, London. December H, 1944). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1952, Vol. 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVA.KIA. 13 IN RETlROSPECT TISO ON THE GALWWS (From "EAST EUROPE," London, Apríl 30, 1947) The Western Powers fought the war for a number of principles, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, and not in order to enable one nation to dominate another. But in the post-war world, two tendencies are at work. In the West, neither Great Britain, the U. S. A. nor any other country look for territorial aggrandizement. Britain !s withdrawing from Egypt, Jraq, Trans-Jordanla, India and Burma; the NUEA has recognized the independence of the Philippines, Denmark that of Iceland, China. that of Korea, while France has accepted Syrian and Lebanese self-government. Thls process of decentralizatlon c haracteristic of the Western Democracies, is in complete contrast to the process of centralization which is going on in Soviet Russla and her Zone of lnfluence. In the flrst place, Russia berself has increased her territory by incorporating the Baltic States, Finnlsh Karelia, Eastern Poland, Ruthenia, Bessarabla, and part of the Bukovina. On behal! of tbe Georgian, Armenian and Azerba!jan Republics, she 1s claiming Turklsh and Persian territory. Although wide cultural rights are granted to the Soviet Republics, their administration is completely centralized and dependent on Moscow. Within the Sov.iet Zone, Russia is backing all the territorial claim~ of her satellites: of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The most recent effect of this was the failure of the Foreign Ministers to agree on the Austrian Treaty, because Russia has ldentified herself with Yugoslav territorial demands on Austria. Czecho-Slovakla and Yugoslavia have reestablished thelr rule over Slovakia and Croatia respectlvely, both of which had been Independent between 1938 and 1945. These two trends form the background against which the Czech and Slovak controversy within t he reestablished Republic must be considered. lt illustrates the conflicts whic h the policy of centralization bas to overcome. On April 18th a secret radio transmitter, calling itself "The Voice of the Slovak Republic" broadcast a petition from the Slovak Action Committee. "The Slovak Republic was not the result of external intervention. Its creation called for no foreign support, nor was the approval or consent of Germany .':!ought or deemed necessary. No one can say, that, with the creation of the Slovak Republlc, the Germans overran and occupied the Czech lands, for tbe two events bore no relation to eacb otber. . . . (A simllar point of view is taken in tbe Soviet 'History of Diplomacy,' Vol. III, chapter 24, wbicb deals with the Anschluss and the partitlon of Czecho-Slovakia, compiled by Academician V. P. Potemkin, edition 1945. It holds Britain and France respons!ble for the disintegration of Czecho-Slovakia in 1938. - Ed.) The Slovak Republic was recognlzed by 27 Forelgn Powers in a very s hort Ume. Among them, states that were bound by treaty agalnst Germany - Poland, Brltaln, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Holland. the U. S. S. R., and so on - and also by states which, as t he war progressed, remalned neutra! Switzerland, the Vatlcan, Sweden. Spain and others. The Slovak Republic was not recognizecl by the U. S. A., but the reason for this may be found in propaganda directed 14 SLOVAKIA agalnst the Slovak Republic . . . . It !s unthinkable, therefore, that the acts of the representatives o[ t he Slovak Repub lic should b e judged by a court estaiblished by Czecho-Slovak!a, slnce Czecho-Slovak la is n ot the ir countr y. . . . Slovak r epresen tatlves could no t have com• mitted any acts of treason against the Czecho-Slovak Governm ent since they d!d n ot recognize Czecho·Slovak la as th e State to wh ich they belonged, or to which they owed allegiance. On the contrary, they looked upon Ozecho-Slovakla ae a S tate lnto whlch th e Slovak people had been propelled by foroo and dlplomatic lntrigue . .. . The proceedings of the <National Court in Bratislava against Preside nt T iso and other representatives of the S lovak Republic were not designed for the examlnation of war c rimes defined in Art ic le 6 of the Charter of lnternational Military Tribunal. In the Bratislava tria! not only were the persona of President Tiso and other Slovak representatives involved but also the politlca l concept, the idea of a Slova k independent state, and the self-determination of the S lova k nation as such .... Had Ru84ia become the protector of the Slovak state, under the presi• dency of Tiso, there wou ld be no c harge of treason today against the c hief of the Slovak Repub lic .... We c laim the reestab lis hment of a democratic and Christia n Slova k Republic." T hls broadca.!!t reveals the real confllct b etween Slovak and Czech ideas. Accordlng to the Slovaks, Czecho-Slovak legal contln\tlty has been lnterrupted, Independent Slovakia was a reality, and CzechoSlovak relations must be reestabllshed on a completely new basis. Accordlng to t he Czechs , Czecho-Slovakla's Iegal continuity has been s afeguarded, Iegally Independent Slovakla bas never exlsted, and lt v.as a purely ephemeral creation. The Czechs pass over in silence the fact that the third component of the 1918 'Republic, Car pathlan Ruthenia, was taken by Soviet Russia. On February 13, 1947, Presldent Benes dotted the i's and crossed the ťs of the Czech attitude. Speaking of relations between th e Czechs and Slovaks, he said: "Archblshop Dr. Kmetko said in the T lso !rial that the Slovaks would llke t o have thelr own state but accept tbe Czecbo-Slovak Republlc .b ecause there is no way of a chlevlng it. I reject such an argument categorlcally ; I sball never accept it. We could not survlve anotber crlsls In CzechoSlovak reations. After such a crisis there would no longer be a Czecbo. Slovak Repub llc, and Slovakla wou ld not be an independent state In any case; lt wou\d most probably fall lnto Soviet Russia.... The Czechs border on a Germany of seventy milllon people, therefore in t he future the Czechs must be neighbors of Soviet Russla. They could not in consequence accept an independent Slovak state as their ne ighbor. .. . There can be no alternatives today, nor any questlon of pian· ning a Central Euro pean Federatlon. T hese plans bave been dead ever slnce Soviet Russla becam e our nelghbor." The executlon of President Tiso was tbe dramatic consummation of President Benes' policy. Tiso was condemned and e xecuted not a s a war c riminal, but a s the symbol of Slova k ·indepe nde nce. As late as the autumn of 1946, dur ing his visit to Topolcany, Pr eaident Benes dec lared before the Councll of Slovak Commissars that Tiso must be hanged. When one of the Slova k Commissars remarked t hat Slovak public opinion would not stand fo r his e xecution, Benes r eplied, " Perhaps it wll l not stand for it, but it is absolutely necessary." SLOVAKIA 16 This explains the appointment of Dr. Daxner as Presldent ot the Bratislava court, which tried Tiso. Daxner had sworn vengeance on Tiso for the "wrongs" inflicte<i by the Slovak natíonallsts. And yet, in 1935, Tiao waa reaponaible for the reelectlon of Benea aa Preaident of Czecho-Slovakia. The Slovak People's Party wanted to vote for Dr. Nemecz, the candidate for the Agrarians, but at the last moment Tiso convinced his party that Benes was a better choice trom a fore.ign political point of view. Mr. Sidor was the only member of the S)Rvak People's Party. w,bo abstained trom votlng. Posslbly Benes would have commuted the Tlso sentence, especially in view of Slovak public opinion, had he not had to consider the Russian attitude. It was expressed - aimong others - by Gundorov, t he Presi· dent of the All..Slav Committee in Moscow, who in the Slovak communis t daily " Pravda" demanded ruthless punlshment of the accused. Benea c hose to follow the Ruaaian line. After the occupation of Slovakla by the Soviet Army, Tiso sought refugé in the American Zone of Germany. In November 1945, the American M:ilitary Authoritles handed him over to the Czechs. As the Slovaks regarded this a b erach of the rlghts o! asylum, the Slovak League of America in th e U. S. A. made investigations as to who had authorized it. Neither the State Department, nor the General Staff were responsible for th!s extradition. Apparently the declslon had been taken by the local American commander, in response to the demand of the Czecho-Slovak Government. The Prague Government had place<i at the disposal of the President of the Czecho-Slovak War Crlmes Commission, General Ecer, the sum of 50 mllHon Kcs for the ·1nterception of political emigrés, mainly Slovaks. Flown to Bratislava, Tlso was paraded through the town wlth chains around his wri-sts, from whlch hung a large padlock. He was allowed to attend his father's funeral, but had to march ignominlously in handcuffs. Because of the constant demonstrations In hls favor he was sent letters, telegrams, flowers, food and so on - ·Tiso was transferred to th e prison in Brno and returned to Bratls'1ava only for his tria!. He waa not allowed to chooae hls defenae couael, who waa appoi nted by the Czec h authoritiea. Many of the witnesses gave evidence in his favor. The Archlblshop of Slovak.ia, Kmetko, who is highly res pected by the Czechs as well as the Slovaks, tesutled " Tlao acted and worked in the intereata of Slovakia, and waa never a traltor. Hia election aa Preaident of Slovakia waa the wlll of 90 per cent of the Slovaks at that time." Tis o himself pleaded not guilty. He malntalned that he did not c-ommit treason, and declared the responsJblllty for the fate of Czecho• Slovakla dld not rest witb Slov.akia, but wlth tbe 20 years of Czech domestlc and Coreign pollcy. "lf ·a od allowed me to carry out my policy agaln under simi[ar c.o ndltlona I would do exactly aa I have done," Tis o declared. .,. For th e trlal special security measures were taken In Slovak.la. Czech troops were brought In because the authoritles dld not trust the Slqvak troops. There were large-sc-ale demonstrations In favor ot T lso at Plestany and Puchov, and the Secret Police arrested many people, who were sent to Lalbor Camps. On Aprll 15th Tiso was condemned to death by banging. When asked whether he would a,p.peal for mercy, Tlso replled: "Yes - for 16 SLOVA.KIA mora! reasons." (According to Catholic doctrine a man must defend his llfe by all avallable means.) President Benes rejected Tiso's plea, and he was executed on April 18th. Apríl 18th may prove to be a fateful day in Czecho-Slovak relations. 1n the eyes of the devout Slovak people the hanging of a pri est is an unforgivable act. In the eyes of intelligent Slovaks abroad, it was a cri me against national fee li ngs. Benes' rejection of Tiso's plea for mercy is regarded not as the act of a democrat, but of a tyrant. The Slovaks say that thereby Benes has destroyed his own democratic legend. The unrest whicb was expected to follow Tiso's execution iu Slovakia was checked by very strong measures, but the atmospbere has become very tense and there is much talk of great political changes. Within tbe Democratic Party tbere is strife; tbe Slovak Catholics are expected to go over to the Freedom Party. On April 17th, Soviet opinion, which is tantamount to official iustructions, was thus expressed by the Moscow Radlo: "'On various occasions, and particularly recently the pro-Tiso and Hlinka Guard elements bave behaved witb growing impertinence and daring against the vi tal interests of tbeir own nation.... An ambiguous attitude has been adopted by some Democratic Party circles. Their press directly encourages tbe organizers of anti-Government action (This referred to tbe democratic daily, "Čas." - Ed.) A serious menace to democratic reconstruction in Slovakia arises from the influence or reactionary and fascist ele ments witbin the Democratic Party. Tbe Hlinka Guard, tbe followers of Sidor and Durčanský, undermine the State, cause anti• Czech, anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic provocations and attempts to smash the Czecbo-Slovak RepU1blic. A relentless purge of all fascists is called for, affecting not only the leaders, but their Joyal and still active followers." Opinions may vary about the tria! or Tiso, who was, after all, the protegé of the Germans. But the conception of justice and morality of the average person bas been put to a severe strain. Recent trials in East Europe appear to seek polltical vengeance not justice. This was exemplif'led in the trials of Archbishop Steplnac, or Mibailovitch and most scandalous of all, that of the 16 members of the Polish Underground Govel'hment. World public opinion must never cease to make a stand against injustice and falsehood. In the words of the Gospel, unlesa you go out and meet evil to combat it, evil will enter your house and destroy you." • • • WHO SAID IT? "The Czeehoslovak-Soviet Treaty rorms the BASIS ot our count ry's external securlty and fundamen,t al con trlbutlon to the un!flcatlon ot national forcei.. The alllance with the SOVIET and triendshlp wttb tbe West was w elcomed by ALL classes of tlhe Czechoslovak people In com<plete acoordance w!th thelr CONVICTIONS and wlth sin· cere joy. . . . Thanks to tbe treaty, Czechoslovakla's lnterests are re· celvlng e tfeetlve support" - (H ubert Rlpka, Minister of State, Broadcast on the annlversary or the Czecboslovak-Sovie-t Treaty, London. December H, 1944).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tiso on the Gallows Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3), March 1952 pp. 13-16 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1952 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a15debfb5d6d1ab2940f0d9a0159c322.pdf 764e50b948cc470aff2359cbfcb1c1bd PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 39 THREE MONTHS IN "LIBERAT ED" BRATISLA VA BY: AN EYEWITNES S Urut'hl 1944 tJhe capiW city of S10V1akira, Bralbis1ava, lived far remoived from mililtaey operations. Ltfe wars a,,1together nor,ma;J. both c1.1llltmraUy and sodaiJ.l.y. 'Dhe siltuation dhanged. sU!bstantli.la!ley after Italy wars occuipied, when Bratislava came withi111 the range of the alliied air :f.iorce. Mirl itary oib'jeldt:s of Bratisl ruva were first bombed rby the al'lied aiir force in the focenooo. of June 16, 1944. The "ApO'llo" ref.inery, the adjacenit faotory and lha!1bor quarters we.re hit. But indrirscriminaite Russian 1b om11:iing was more fatal. Soviet flliers did not specialize on miiitairy objects, but let bombs loose anyiw\here in the city. They ce11ba:irillry did not glorify themselves witih the 1bombing of SpitMsrka street, where tlhey destroyed a church, a convent and the hospital of St. EliizaJbeth. Sorviet planes ruppea:red aibove Braitislava on Holy Satu,rdary and peppered the civi[fans on the crowded streets with tlherir deck guns. The front had moved up consideraJblly and Soviielt p:lranes were comin,g over practically every houir to drop their b.ombs into the streets. 1 Easter 1945 in Bratislava During Holy Weelk it. was evident to most of us that the Germa'I1S were preparing ,t o defend Bratisfav.a. The streets were emptied, bM'ricades were constructed , huge g'uns were put u,p The Germans themsel;ves, '.however, did not appear to be very interested in tlhe defense of our ctity and hauled whaitever they couftd out of it. 'Dhe units whkJh remained were to be used to c01Ver the retrea,ting Germans. The Ger-• man com.man.der urged the Slovak Governmen t to leave Bratislava. Since only a small number of Germans remained, it was ~rieved that tJhey were not going to defend the city very lon.g. The poipuilation co'l.tld not decide whether to leave tbe ciity or stay putt. Sa.Jturday evening everything was being taiken into cel10Jrs and hritl!ing places. The monotonou s bomibing of the Russian air force, the ofose booming of cannons annOIUll1Ced that the Russians we.re a:pproachin g steadily U111spea.JkaJble ne:rrV'O!U'Sness gr.~pped the crirty. AH the men h~d �40 SLOVAKIA themselves, booaiuse iJt was said thait the Germans were going to taJke rull 1!he men out of Braitislava. On Easter Sunday, at nine o'dock in the morning, Soviet fliers aigain ffilade them- appearance and in the afternoon huge Russian g,uns were 'bombarding Bralti:slava. The we'l!l-.Jmown Ruissian "Kaltuse", also da!lled "1Sta~ iln'is organs," began to pJ.ay the following day, i.e., Easter Monday. Every. thiinig shook to the foundatio!l'S and fires hroike out in many p'lia;ces. T,h e retreating Germans fired the SloV'ak University and ala the reserwe piiles of food and war maJterials. Thick smoike rose from Bratiis'lruva for three days and three niighlbs, and the fire sprerud because there were neither waiter nor the pe01ple to f,i ght tlhe fires. The heaviiest fii:ghting took place in the ea'S'tern paJI't of the cilty, where praeitiic~ly every factory quariter wrus ruined, the stireets of Trnruva and Krizna, Stein's Brewery and the viJcinity. On 'l'uesday tlhe Gemnans began to f11ee, destroying every;th'i ng that had n~t a-lre'ad,y <been desitvoyed. They blew u1p the bridge ,to PetrizJalka and the last g,rowp bariricruded iltself in the Braitis,la,va Castrle. The Russians aiready were in the sulburbs of Bratislava, when the Germans in the western hil!J.s of the c1ty began cannonading it. Thiis hurl BTati'slava the moist. On Thursday morning fue first Russian d'i•visions were in the very heart oif the city. Graduailly the booming died aiway and the streets began to be filled w1th Russian soldiers. The "Liberation" Begins 1 The SolV'iet soldiers first Hib.e.rated us from our watches with their well-tlmown "Davaj easy" (Give your waltches). EX!cept for solldiers, tlhe streets were empty; on1y coz,pses were being b alked in .the sipring sun. After a few days, when we cra.,wled out of our bunlkers and cellairs., we saiw the ghastly pioture of ruin anld desolation. Sffiloke s,tii-1 ro!Hed out of buildings and 1:lhe atmosphere was. satwrated Wli'th dust and gunpowder. Glass wa·s ground under foolt. Rdl::fueries were in fU'l'l swing. Soviet soidiers brdke windows of business places with their rule butts and sa-cked and pitMaiged everything. A few dats later, not a sitIJ.g1le shop remamed whO'le. Wh'atever could rrot be taken �SLOVAKIA 41 was knocked to pieces. Of course, the l'a wless mob helped very efferdtive1y in thi's work. Reports. olf the raping of women began coming in. It was nothing um.t'sua!l to see franltic W()lffien rUIUNng wildly from their aJttaokeirs; they sm-eamed, k'iciked and fought, -but to no avail. The 'hordes of the RUJSsii'an steppe's were on the loose. Who shall desc,dbe the sta.rk terror- in the eyes of the Slo;v:ak women and girls who 00U!l.1d not get away f,r -()lffi the beasts olf Moscow? Even ii£ I tmoo, I believe that my pen woul:d have to blush if it had to detail the brutalities and abroc'~ties committed. There is no need to exipand on :the fate of many, many women, who remained lya.ng in their bllood aflter such a ba'I1barian shaw of "a!f.feotion" of the Sov,i et soldiers. They to,l d us that it was the "nationa!l duty" o.f the S1avaJk women to repay the So'Vliet arimies rih love! Vinko, Vinko, Vinko Cervene We thOUJght that SlovaJk wiine would not attract the Soviets after tJhey had tasted of strong Tokay in Hurngary. Bult we were mi!stJaken even tJhis time (as usu:a1). Slovak wine memhanits di:d not wanit to sel'l us wine since January, becau:se they had 'hiOiped to sell it at a high price to the Soviet sohliers. But how quijic,k1ly they soibered UJP, when, instead of the jingle-jangle of gCJld 11ulbles, they he:ard shots from rifiles anld. aUlbomaitics in their otherwise irnmcessible ceUars. Barrels were shot wp and the precious liquid o.f the Slova1k earth began flowing; first into pitchers an'<i all so!'ts of containers, dean and uncilean, even bernzine cans. When aU these were fi'1le'd, tlhe wine t11ic'k:led iruto soLdieirs' boots, then flowed over the cellars and vestilbll!les an'<i finaliy onto. the streets. Tos strong aroma mixed w1th the gih:astly stench of decayiing cO'l",pses, whk:h even after a week were stili lying on the sidewaiJ.ks. of the city. The soldiers drank and so d<id the civilians; ch!iMren drank and so did the oldsters. It seemed that the barrels were bottomless. "Viniko, vinko, vinko cerivene" (Wtine, wine, red wine - a popclaT Slovak drinlking song) ! I shail1l never forget tJhe tovaris-comrade who had two botJtles of reld. champaigne stucik in his fuT crup, a bottle in �42 SLOVAKIA eadh. pocket and his hands full. He was approached by another comrade whn .rolblbed hiim on the street of his precious bu.Tden in broad d'a.yuilghlt. The two lashed at each other li'ke antlmals and drew blood on the 'ha.rd pavement of Kapitulska street. Bratishwa wine merchants. 'loolk ed on stupidly and si.'lently ait this Sodiomic destruction of their cellars, and the SO!Ulr odor of the wine reminded them of the old times, when they were s'till:l. bosses of their wine and thought that they themselrves wolU.ld ·haive the honor to treat the "liberat0rs." They rea[irz;eJd tlhe bitter truth that they we·r e "liberated," i.e. comip1etely roiblbed of all their world!ly possessions on the very threshold of a neiw life, the new order promised by the men of the K.re:rnUn. Where Do You Stay, Tovaris? If you were in the aI1II1y, you know w'hat obedience and di'Scilplme means. Withoult bhe:rn, there hardly could be an effecltiive rurmy. A soldier beil.ong,s to some particular company or di'Vlisi:on, must haJVe his gear, be fed and quartered, even th<Ylligh it be under a tent or in a barn. Bult the Soviet soltl!iers wlho swa:runed iiruto Bratislava had no definite quarters and, hence, were everywhere. Usuany aJbout midnight it occurred to· tihe:rn that they had to get some sleep, so the,y began to looik for shelter. Door:s and lodks and bars were no hindrance. Wihether of glass or wood, doors were booted in or smasheJd wiitJh rifile butts, if they were niot opened immediately. "You, bourgeoisie, you did not fighlt ... " Threatened, 1:Jhere wa·s nothing one cou[d c1o bult flee from .h is own home and consider himse1f liUCky if he was not shot- A soldier does not undress for sleep very oflte:n at the fuiont, bult Ivan the RUJSsian never ll!Ildressed even when he had a bed, bwt simply piled on the bed f.wl1y g,ar,bed, 'boots, rifle, pi•s tols, grena:des and a:M. And the frolllt was sixty miles away from us. Investigation After Investigation We thought the war was over when the slh!ooting subsided and the boomdng resounded f.rom a dristanice. We began �SLOVAKIA 43 to clean the streets, coll!lect the dead, and put whatever was left oif ,ouir homes in order. A ,penson slO!Wly fongets what he lost, because onlly then, when he did not die during the bomfbardment, does he reaili.ize that it is beaultiifiu[ to live, even tJhoug'h in feaJr, hunger rund thirst, and in raJgs. Things tha,t were a.ire no more, and other things tfhat were not will oome into being. L'iife is all that matters. On'l,y he knows the reail meamng of water and light who has li,v ed thI10UJgh the terror of the front in hiding wilthoult light and water. I.Me will returm to iits dld ways and time wiH heal aJhl wounds ()If the soiwl a,nd bod,y ()If inld.wii.dUJaJl's and nations. Well, wlh,y shoUJld nO/t a person a:gaJin imagine that liJfe can be beruuttilfiull, when he is sitting on tile 'l'Uins ()If his home ~nd the ashes of hi1s dreams? Why, there is no more bc»nibing and even the streets are lighted up in the evenings. Buit empty a.ire the inns, empty are the ce11'3JI"s, empty are tJhe stores and shops Brolken windows and smashed doors attest tJo the min which the Soviet soldiers had WOOU1ght. But the wihl to live r,i,ses alb,ove all this. We must forget everyttJhing thaJt pruined us, a.IN the in:justi<Ces, subdue om thd,r st for blood, when the sap of a new spring is awakening, when everythfun.g is being ren01Vateld, everything is in bloom, the thrush sings and the chiildren play. Burt aH this is but a dream, an ~lluision. '.Dhe 'b attle has ended on the streets, but just the sa:me a mare fiurious invi:siib1e baittle is going on. As you step out of your home, you are co,nrfronlted with tJhe bayonet o;f a Russian soldier or the various "safety" ciommittees. You look a:rO'llnd and notice that yornr home, nay the whole street is sUJITounded by guards. You re'tl.l!rn h'llITTriedly to your room and wait to see what wiM h'appen. Y.ou wait and wait and waJit unti[ the sUISpense aJlrrnost d11ives you mad. Your blood thins in your veins and you look sadly aJbowt you - and wait! F'iinaMy they came, sO'l1d iers and civiili ians: they go through the house and take whatever they want. '.Dhey ask you whether you are a GeI1IDan or not, whebher any Germans or "coll'<llbaratilonists" a,re in your house. You lod.k them icily in the face. 'Tihey depart but only to come rugruin. �44 SLOVAKIA Organs of Security Mter two weeks oif the Russian occupation everything was phmdered. People had no more than they had buried or secreted in such a place where even the Russian hunters and t,hey are eXlpe'tUy schooled in the art of flinding wailled-in objects - would not come. There was a clirth oif everything, even a serforus lack of bread. But we had plenty o.f police! They sprang Ulp like m:ushrnoms aflter a rain. In t'he first place, ,t he dreaded NKVD (OGPU), the Secret So,vi•e t Police, n10toirioo~ for its birurt:al and ghasitl;y crimes. Woe to him that faHis intto its hanids. The NiKViD goes from home to home, drags peoipile aiway and nolbody ever hears of their fate. Fvom eastern S'JO'V'aJkia alone more tihan 4,000 peo~e were draigiged oiff into Siiberia. I was fonbunate to be 'home during the investigation. AU the en'tralllces to the 'bwil.ding were covered by soldiers wit!h a:utomattics. I •t r:wersed my room ne.rvous•ly. A'lthough I had a c:leair clon1science, yet I was di-squited. (No one is sufficiently olear or safe with the Soviet Po[ice) . Finally I wenlt into the haiJ.llway. I was greeted by a soMier and a civilian. A IDQlfilenrt later came the caiptain. He asked me my naJme, what I wa:s doing here, what my profession was, and wheither I was a mem1ber orf IIlin:ka's People'1s Parity. A mac1hinist l,iived on the same floo,r. His room was locketl. Tlhe caiptain OII'<lered me to open it. "I haven't the key," I told hlm. The maic!hini.st had the key and the soldiers had him in hand alt the gate. I ran to the gate. The NKVD g,u1a rd had an a.ultomatti~ on the machinist. I approached him and said that tlhe c~pta;in wants to open the machinist's room, but the madh~nrist had the key. The latter alre'ardy wanted to hand it to me, when the s:o'ldier suddenly tuirned the aurt:omatiic on me and said: "You ha.ve the key" - "'BUit I dlo not have t'he key, the madhinlist has it" - "No, you will 'h,ruve it, if the caiptain says so." - "But I do not have it; loolk, tovaris, the machimst has. it." - "No, I have a.Qready told you that you wi-11 have the key and will open the door, when the captam orders you to do so." I was dumlbfounded by the profound stU1piclilty and returned without t1he key. I told the captain thait the to:varis �SLOVAKIA 45 wowd not let me take the key from the machinist because, he said, the captain had ordered me and not the machinist to open the room. I also was a sOJldier and I know whait military dbedience means. Bult this cannot be called obedience, but some kind of unmentionaJble stupidilty or i!Illfbecility which wouid be capable of sticking pins under my fingernails just to find a key on me whirch I do not haive. I realized then wlhy people, during the investigaltions in tJhe tortrure cha.im!bers of the NKVD, confess to things which they never committed. The invest1gation began at seven in the morning and lasted un1ti'l nine. I went to town on business arrd returned a1boU1t eleven. Upon my arr,ivai the building was a·gai,n surrounded biy guards, but this time by the Prurtisans Security c:1it. I wanted to enter the bui'1ding, but they wouid not let me. I identified myse1f and said that I ld.ved there. Finailly a boy, about 17, wit:Jh an automatic in his hands, let me enter. It was very liive:ly in the hallways. The partrsa,n captain was giving orders. I did not know wh1at they were seeiking. I went through the investigation tortures again, but qUJite fortunately. Again aftl the rooms, closets, desks, and dressing cabinets were opened. The investigation was over at about one o'ciock. Again some innocent peoiple were taken. But that was not alt That was onJy t'he beginning. Night feJ.,l and the stars shone brighUy over Br.atislava. Finany, a lilttle rest, I thought But there is no restful or peaceful night duiring a Russian occl..llpaition. A'boUJt midnight I was awa.ikened by some one pounding on my door. Another investigaition ! I was on my feet in an instant and <jpened the door. Before me in the semidankness stood a man and a lady. Instead of identifying themselves, t!hey opened their short coats so that I could see the revolvers in leather 'holsters. "But, but, this is a spe:cia l visit, and so laite at night!" "Your documents," said the man. "Here they a,re, t:hank you." "Were you a memlber of IDinka's Party?" - "I was." "Since when?" - "From 1933." - "Were you in the 1 �46 SLOVAKIA Hlinka Guards?" - "I was not." - "Did you be'1ong to Hlinlka's Youth?" - "No." - "Are you a So'ld!ieir?" - "I am an oftfircer in the Sloivalk airnny." - "Did you ta.Ike pa.rt in the revollit ?" - "No." - "Why not?" - "I was on druty in Nitra." - "Are you a Slova;k ?" - "I am." Then they entered my room. On my taJble was a small bust o{ Andrew Hlin!k'a. "And .t his?" - "That is a bust of Andrew Hilinlka." "Hman., we adivi,se you, to destroy irt." - "I don't understand, whiy?" - "Welil, may!be tomorrow you will understand." Wilth that t'.hey depa,rited. Ait thrr-ee in the morning the inrve-stigat'ion olf .tlhe secret police was completed. At eight in the morn.mg came the olffictaJl police, the so-calied "Naitiona1 Secruritiy" po~ice, to find out who i,t was thaJt a1hlowro an in1VestigaJtion at mghit when the ipolice knew nothing aJbout it. "What kind o{ peop1e were they, how did they look, w:hiat did they want?" I was asked. This then was the new oroer - so ter:rrilbly dangerous because iit had so many .srufety biU1reaus thalt one dlid not know aibout the other! Or did they? The Bratislava Commander Complains A month had already passed since the occ'Ulpation of Bratisla1Va , but the streets were stilil wn:swept; dirt and ruiblble were everywhere; liice and infectious diseases were spreading rapidly. 'Ilhe local "National Oommittee" had a loog session to decirle what to do with the riwbbish and rull:fule clutterinig and burning in the streets. But how was the mess to be C'leared ruway, wlhen the Ru'Ssians took an the city dump trucks, a1l pri,v ate cars and al,l wagons and horse's ? Typhoid fever spread danger01Us ly; the numibers of inflicted increased. The Office of P.ropruganda, or, as it was then called, the "Commissary of InfoTfl'nation" pfa'stered the city witJh huge plaic-ards depio'ting a s'keleton poUII"iing lice over BraJtis lava and t'.he wairning : "WATCH THID LICE, THEY SPREAD TYPHOID. '' People stared at the placarids and barked: "Bwt who in �SLOVAKIA 47 tarnation broughlt lice here? Send the lousy Russians baok to their lousy ooumrtey !" 'I.1he first plwcards had liiittle e.fifoot. Severrul druys later new ones appeared: Origanilze energeti'C brig,ades of clearuiness ! But Il!cibodiy paid any atJtenMon. The :riUJbbish iblliI'Iled on and spread its poisonous fiumes over the .popuil.<ati.on. There were no autos, no wrugons wiith which to do the hau[ing. Hiarses, oows and siheeip were kept in the panks. The hot sun blruzeid away and laughingJy loolked at the me!SS, which the "new" government prdbalbly did not dear aJWay to this day. And so the skeleton keipt pouring the lice, and t:Jhe placaros aJb,o ut the brig,a des. of cleanliness were covered witlh new red ones, whicih unged us to attend lec!tUll'es on the moraie of the SoVli.et man, So:vieit woman, and the Soviet youth. The Soviet Russians wasted no time in edlucating the masses accordtinlg to the dootrines orf Marx and Lenin. A Soviet Soldier Confesses lit wrus a bea:urtri.:titd June afternoon in K 1rurl'ova Ves near Bratislava, when a Riu'SSian sOlldier rupproacihed us and struclk up a oonvwsaiti.on. He reproved us saying tha.Jt we Slovruks were Ullldiscipllined amid un.gratefUll. We shOIUJd not siay OII' believe tJhat t:Jhe RJussi,ans rure taikin.g everything that can be ha'l.lll€1d aJWay, booau1se thaJt is only ibrud propaganda. Since he was in a t~aJtiive mood', and did not have a revolver, we dooided to malke WIOrds with him. He spdke at length albout d!i.scipil[n.e in RUISSia, both in thiin.lk.ing and in spealk~ng. In Slovaki·a, he said, everyone says whatever he 'Pleases. "ThaJt does not exist in Ruissia. One must hiO:ld to what St-a!lin says. That is the truth and a.Ill else is ,proprugantla. Sta!lin to-Id UIS thaJt in Russia everything iis fine a!nd dandy, everyrtJhin,g is beaut.if.td, that we have enoUJgh to eait. And even though we know that everything i:s not fine and dan:dy, be.mt'i:fiul, and thtat we do not ha;ve enough to eaJt, yet we must say that everythmg is f,i ne and dandy, and thaJt we have plenty to ea.t. Stalin has so ordered! Stalin has so spdken!" He bec'ame so excited trying to prove his impossible stand that I reaHy pit'ioo. him. I s:m:il.ed and sa,id softly: �48 SLOVAKIA "My dear tovaris! We're a different kind of people, strange to you, indeed. When a tihinrg is white, we say it is white; when it is bladk, we say iJt is black. When we have nothing to eat, we say thaJt we a~ hungry oir that we are starving And if anyone orders us to speak otheirwise, we still. say the truth. Stra'lin telJs you different, so be hruppy in your belief. We believe in God, too, but with reason, never against reason." But our tovaris seemed to be far away; his mouth opened, but he said nothing further. Shaiking hiis head, he pwlled at his ear as he slowly wa;llked away. The Soviet Lady Doct.or We weire oirdered to hand 01Ver the miili'ta,r y hospdital in Bratishwa to the RUJSsians. As we were preparing inventory lists, a Rmlssilan l'ady doctor stepped iruto .the room. After talking for a time, we struck upon religion, belieif in God, and other ba.pics. But my Russian colleague, a lieutenant, !)TOclaimetl thait it was in vain we were trying to convince her, becruuse she wm.tltl nort believe l1'S no matter what the airgumenlts. I assured her that she had nothing to fear, because I had no ruposJtoilic intentions. "Why do we write 1945," I asked her. "I know but I won't tell you!" "Burt even you designalte this year by thaJt numlber." "You won't oon'V'ince me " "I db not want to. But even the unbelieving world admits that Christ was born." "I heard rubout that also; burt I do not believe i,t." "Why?" "Becruuse in the history of the Communist Party there isn't anything aJbout it." "Alh, so!" WhaJt is the use of debating? We looked at each other srgnifioa,ntly, smiled, and talked aibout otheir things. "How long did you study medicine?" "I finished the course during the wair in a year and a haJlf. In peaceful times the study takes aliJ. of two and a half years." �SLOVAKIA 49 We 1,amghed loud1iy amd pitied the prutients who happened to get under her kmfe. Placards: Religious Freedom DtN-ing the veriy first weelk:s of occupatfon the Slovak Communist Party posted placiar:ds everywhere, arnnlQuncing that the ComJmuni'Slts wiant to respect the relii.g,ioos feelings of a!hl the SloviaJk people and, therefore, are c,alloog aU Slovaks, regardless of the:ir religious convictions, into the Party. Nay, eiven Catho'l:ic priests coul'd and shlOuiltl join the party, we were to1ld. People sing a nfoe tune, when they want to catch a biro! But wlhrut if a mira'Cle had rea!Uy happened? Suppose Comrm.mism had made a tll!I"11 for the ,better? May/be Commun:ism was no longer so excilusive; perhrups it was even reipernting and had decided to let itself be baptized in Christian SlO'V'a'l da! We knew that the Communists were not sincere, but the fact is thaJt oultwarilly they did try tb deal humanely with the peopie for a wht[e to convince them that Communism was not as bad as they thought. It was evident that they were instiru~teld not to insult the sacred and traditionai feel'ings of the SlOIVak ,peop1e. But the pretense soon wore off and the Reds opecl,y a1:>t8iC'ked a11 ece'lesfastical instilbutions. Catholic Schools in Nationalized Slovakia lf there were some Sloivaiks who had iHu'Sions a,bout the Communists going sofit., thek tllu1sions eJOPloded like b,u!bbles, W:hen Laoo Novomesky, Commissar ('br:ulsitee) of Exiucation, annOlmceld that ai11 Catholic scbioo[,s m Slovakia were to be aJbo:Iished and their property was to be taken over iby t!he Stale. He was leld to this action, he said, because it wais inadimissaJble that the Ohiurich should o!ffer a different kind of education than the State. The unity of the nation, sa•: d No;voimesky, required a unifo:r,m eduicaJtiona1 system, cultural and religious st!'.ife must cease, etc. What could not be accomplished even during the first Ozooho.jSloV'ruk republk, was done now with one stroke of the pen · in tJhe shadow of Russi8JI1 bayionets. The Cat'ho[ic institrntions were hit first for ob:vious reasoos. The Reds had �50 SLOVAKIA little dififiicuM.y in getting the badking of the non-Caitholiic Christians. Al!l they ha:d to dt> was promise them that they w()IU[d get the CaJthoiJ.ii:c Churelh proiperrt:.ies. So-cailled followers oif Christ a1Jtadking and despoiling the fo1lowers of Christ! The Reds knew what they were doing, but evidently the non.CathoJic Christians did not, because they tooik the bait. Slovaik IJuithera.ns, Jews, Unitarians, Baptists, etic , expected to gain by the deail against the Catho[ic Slovaks (80 per cent oif tJhe poipuliaibi.on) and, therefore, went a'long with the Reds. !Ton mrust be forged while it is hot. After publishing the decree, all diredtors of Cruthoiic sciho01ls were dismissed. Their places were taken over by so-ca;Ued "Czechoslovaks" and Lwtherans. That was done e:spe'Cially in gymna'Sit1ms managed by the reJl'igiorus <YI'ders, for example, alt the UrS'llline s:c!hools in BrrutislJ.ava and Tuna.va. It was done designecily and systemaiticaHy. Fists were clenched and hearts were steeled. Freedom, freedom! The Slova!k Catholic public becrume extremely inili.gnarnt. People were saying that the women of Tmava were getting ready to storm the Ursuline institution there and throw oot tlhe new di!rectre'SIS, who was perseC'lllting and intimidating the reiigioruis Sisters there. The Bishops of Slovakia Protest E:ven though Siova..ks knew that nothing would be accomplished by protests, neverthe'Jess ail Catholics we.re a.rgreed that they simply coufttl ndt a!hlow the fundamental right of the Ohurch to iits own school's be taken away from them without uttering a word. The peopile had to make thernse1ves heard, or else the stones wmcld complain. The CaithOllic Bishop's Collliloil presented a memorandll!In to the government and the Central Cat holic Chancery was organizing a si-grratn.ure C·Mnipaign against the nationaHzing of scllodls. Lerufllets were distmi.lb uted, and on July 8, 1945, 1!he protest aigainst the confiscrution of the schools was read from ahl puipiits. 1 Well, alter Ju:ly 8, the Bratislava radio was heard from. It blasted and attacked the Bishop's Council, using the wellknown phrase: The parish church belongs to the Church, �SLOVAKIA 51 Mlld the school to the StaJte ! Things came to a head and the resrullt Olf the ,protest was that the dirootors Olf the Central Cath~lic Bureau, who teohmca;Ny organi!Zed the action, were jailed. We were again gilven prood' thaJt we were living in a "democracy" and thiaJt the people were dooiding their own fOiitunes. Wlhat a modkery ! Catholic Bishops Imprisoned The ffrst wa,s Hlis ExicellJency John Vojtassak, bjshop of Spis. Hailf of Slwaikia was a'1ready occupied by the Russian rumy. The Sl'O!VaJk National Council was already giving orders from Kosice. At the end of .AipriJ, Dr. Vav,r o Srobar, chalirma.n of the S1ov,aik NaJtiorra1 CouncH at that time, came to the Spisslka Ifupiroula (ISpis Chapter) to gain Bishop Vojtassak for the Slov:aJk Na.lbiona:l COIUnoil and for Dr. Edwa..ro Benes. Srobar wanted ,t hat prilze catch, bec'ause he knew that Bishop Vojttassa'k was an old and 'hard Slovak. As they meit in the corri'd.10r of the bi,s hop's residence, Dr. Srolbar explained why he came and then asked the bishO!p to back the new government. The bishop eyed him co:l d[y for a moment and then srud: "I do nolt reoogni ze any S'1ovruk Nationall Council and president Benes. My government is stilil in Bratislava, and as president of the SlrovaJks I recognize oruy the Siovak, Ms.g r. Dr. Tiso!" The ~ytihe stmrok upon a stone. Dr. Srobar departed, and bishop John VojtassaJk went to his room. Several days later when the bishop received an order from the Slovak N atiorral OownJCirl to beget himsellif to his p1race of confinement i-n Stl,ruvru:k, Vojtassaik replied energetica.!Uy: "I do not have an auto, nor any means of transportation, not even a horse. They -took ever.yrthing from me. I wi'M yie[d only to force." On May 5, 1945, an auto stopped in front oif the Kaipitula; it was a,mned with machine guns and severrul men with auito:matiJc:s. The wovds of Ohris't again rang ou't: You are come out as it were aigain,st a robber with clubs. The good bishop of Spis was forcefuilily talken to Stiaivnik and, later, to the jaml of the federal court in Bratislava. 1 �52 SLOVAKIA What hruppened to him? A1[ I knew at that time was that the commwn1i1,it "Plravd'a" of Bramislava was inciting aigainst h!im., head!linirrug its avticleis thus: "The Lord Bishop is against chi:ldren of tJhe wmikers." It was a brazen lie, designed to U!Ilderunine the 1:Jrnst of the fovthfol in the social ideO'logy of iits bishop, who during hd:s whole life proved himself to be the most social o,f alil episcopa:l dignitaries in Sl0V1aikia. Soon aflter the OOOU1pation of Bratislava by the Russians, the bishoip Ol.f Trnava, Mii.H'.tary Vicar and Rector of the BraJtislaiva seminary, J. E. BwzaLka, was ja1iled. F\irst he wais lodged in the pohce stati'On and tJhen transferred to the federail prison where "heiavy offenders" weire penned. He slept on a spring, no m'aJttress ,b eing availaJble, and the siliveT-haired poet, Va'lentine Beniruk, slept alongside him on the bare stone :flloor. After the bishops, t:he Slwialk National Co'Ullcil "took care" of the oonons and other pre1'aJtes. Among the first to be truken was Joseph Srobar of BraJti.sl'a:va, brother of Dr. Vaviro Srdbar. The old churehman, ail heart, would never hairun even a fly. But bo[shev,rk justice did not consider that. In him it sa,w an "enem:y of the people" and inrcaTcerated him. . Ma:nry othevs foHowed him, among them Dr. Charles Kovper, weH-iknown among .American S:lova\ks, former editor of a Cathoi1'i'c neWS1pruper. Monsignor Marsina of Trenci.n cO'llild not even OOJt for nothing in the jail, but had to work. And what work! He was forced to dig c011pses wit!h his bare hand's firom ma$$ graves, then forced to wash and ·k!iss each one. I have a strong su1S1pidon thalt those mass graives were made lby the Russians and not by the Germans as claimed by the So:vie'ts. "Fascist Post.enyi Arrest.ed" That's what a heai!'line said in the communist "Pravda." And it stumned just albout the whole of Slo.vrukila. The discovery of America O!I' the Law of GI"avitation was no more sensationall. Up to that time nobody knew that Monsignor Postenyi was a fascilSt. Aime11ida,ri Slovaks know Msgr. �SLOVAKIA 53 Postenyi very weiN. He visiited America in the interests of the S't Ada!llbert Society, pulljlisher of Catholiic literature and inrf.cmmat<ion, an origanwation equiivalent to the Book of the Month 01wbs in Amerti!C'a. The Reds knew that his Slovak ,paltriotism was beyond question and that his merits, as far as the l31rgesit CIUll,bural, Slovak, Catholk institution was concerned, were greaJt. Monsignoir Po:s tenyi is an exemplary priest of Gad, a S1ovaik hough and through, and an indefatfJi,gruble worlcer for the common people of his nation. He was pe!I1S€Kmted for his Slovak ,p atriotism when the Commumst leaders and editors of the "Pravda" were strn in the bOSOIIn of Albraham. Never aclmvel.l,y interested in politics, Msg,r. Postenyi sUldden!ly became a "fascist!" We knew whalt the C01Inmunisits wanted to aJOcorrniplish. 'Do put Posteny,i out of the way woold me'an to destroy the Society of St. Ad•rutbert with iJts libraries, priillt sh01ps and origan.izationrul appruratus. And so the SlOViaJk N ationa;l CO'U!Ilici1 appointed the fina.ncirul secretary of the Sooiety, a Ozedh named Wa;gner, as the commissary of the Society. A few days l1ater a new management was named, one that was rucceptaJble to the spirit and program of tJhe C01Inmunist-idk>minia.ted SlovaJk NaJtional Cooncil. This institution which was bui[it by generations of Slov,a ks inrto a going cultural concern wrus wiped oult in a momenit by the ruthilegs Reds The 150.000 members of the Society of St. Ada1be,rtt co:uM not say a word against the action without inviting punishment, either inciariceration or exile into Silberia. That is how the "people's demooracy" of the Soviets operates. Charit,a,ble Ecclesiastical Institutions The la;rgesit oharitalble ooganization in Slovrukia wa,s the Central Charity (Ustredna Karita), the central Catho1.ic institute of al'l the welfare, socitail, anld religious societi'es. It ha;d its own hea11th cenltets, hospiita!ls for incuraJbO.es, children's nurseries, etc. The women'1s "Charilta:s" was a'1so a mem~ of tJhe organi.<Za,tion. 'Dhe CommUll!ists took (Wer ruH soci:ail insbitiuttions of the Church. Some weeks after the ocCUipation, tihe Communist Union of Sloviak Women confi:s- �54 SLOVAKIA cated the children's nuTsery of the Ustredna ~arita in Dornk~le, BraJtislava, and the Union of SloivaJk Y ouith toolk over the ·b oarding sch06l nea,r the forestry school in Koliba, Braltislavia. The hwmanitari.an division oif the city o.f Bratislava comisoated the estate of "Oharitas" in Braltisfava near the Red Bridge. For the women's home of "Charitas" the commissari'at foT Social Welifare named as commissary the Communist Fla:TIIIly Hirusovsky. Dr. Ivan Horvath, the commissary for sooiall welfare, prod.aimed that a:1'1 the charitable, social instituJtions of the Church would be taken over by the state. Protests clid not mean a thing, as usual. "Freedom" of the Press One of the first ,a cts of the Commissariat for Initernal AffaiTs was the suppression o;f aM news,prupers. With th~s general order all Oathollic newpaJpers and :periodicais weTe wiped out aultomalt!roally; noit only cruturrul and literrury periodicals, such as the "Ku!litura" (a.rl.,tmre.) and the "Obroda" (Rffi"ilvaJl), but even an the religious and educational periodicals, such as The MessengeT of the Srucred Heart, The Holy Family, The Queen of May, etc. And, ]ater the only Caltholk Sloivruk weeldy "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News), which had a suibscription of 170,000, was also swppressed and ta:ken 01Ver by 1:!he Reds. Cathollics protested to the authorities, but in. vadn. The Catholic press was gone. Attaclks against the Church and its priests increased daily, but they could not defend themselves; it was an unequa:l strwggk The enemy fought wfth powerfU!l we8lpons, whi[e the Catholics had none. "Freedom" of Conscience The wax was fought, we were told, aga.inst the suppressi~n of consoien.ce by imperial~stic means, and we haJVe lived to see sucll a diclatorship and s:uch a barbaric viOllia.tion of conscience and its inlterrra:l freedom, the likes of whl'C'h perhrups not even the most frurious f:aslci'Slt ever dreamed of. On aH fronts of tlhis terrible wrur died the best sons of humanity for the rigih:t to speak free'ly about the most fundamental questions of 1iife against tlhe fascist terror. Men �SLOVAKIA 55 shed their blood so that concentration camps, wiith all theiT horrors, might never a:ga:in operaJte. But soon aif.ter the war's end aN dliistriot cities in SlovaJlda were ordered to set up a concent.Taition camp and jaill. The war was fol.light for the freed'Olffi of poilft.ic-aiJ. conviotlions, but in Sl'OVlalkia today there are not enOUJgh jai!ls to talke care of aH those, whose only gui,It is that they wilM not swear on the Siclcl.e anld: Hammer, but prefer to rematin loyal to the fupal eneyclilc'als and the fiUJnd:amen'ta:l princiiples of demooraJCy. ln a wore, the Slovaks want to be demO!crat:s and not 'boisiheviks. What has rea;filry changed? Every ni!ght we waited tensely to see whether they were coming for us. We had no peace duirmg the day or night. Forever they were screening and investiigaJting UIS just 'becaUJSe we haippened to live during the past era, and had to wor1k and keeip OUir families. They perseouted us for "co'l:1-aborating" because we recorded oftficiail writings, in some office, or because we were insigruffoant wiheells in the great machinery of life. In Conclusion If I had not seen it, I would not hruve be'liieived it. Those first three months in "l~beraJted" Bra;tislruva were a nightmare. It .st;ilfil hamnts me. The S[ovalk people dild not ha,ve a clharuce. The,i r country was overrun bry bar:barians whom the .AilHes had Wlken on as pa:rtners. Slovalkia was ru!led bry terror and violence f.rom the moment it was "rnberaJted" lby the so-calil ed "Uniiteld Nations," which placed it in the Soviet sphere o!f irufiluence. ]t was ruied 'by the Communist-dominated regime o!f the man who r~gned the presitleTIJCy in 1938 and returned as president..a.venger behind the Soviet ho:rdes in 1945. 'Dhe independenJt Slo.ivaJk Repull:Afc, established by the dully eledted representatives olf t!he Slovak people in 1939 and reoognlizetl by 27 countries, including GreaJt Britain and F,r ance, was wanton!ly destroyed against the wiili of the Slova:k people. The vast majority of the Slovaik nation, the Catholics of Slovakia - representing 80 per cent of the poipll1ation was oulUawed. No politioail parities, newspaipers, organizations, and eilltenprises cou~d exist, except th()[se aUowed by �56 SLOVAKIA Dr. IDdwa,rd Benes and his Communist-dominated regime. The non-Catholic minority in Slovakia - including aN those who ca;Ned t!hemsetlives "Christians" - hel,p ed Benes and the Co!Ir.JII1UJill1S'ts ruin Ca1fud1irc Slovrukia and so helped to ruin themseilves and thetk in:stilbulticms. Whereas, in the beginning, only Crutholics were perisem.uted and onily Cathol'i:c institUJtion:s and enter,prises were nabion:a,lized, laJter the foNowers of ail Christian faiths were crucified and their institulti'ons confiscalted b;y the State. Hi:istor:y repeateld itseJ.if. But ha,tred of the Cathohc Ch'l11l'ch in S'lovakia did n01t solive any of the social or economic probllems, bult oll!l.y aggrawated them; in faot, it only he'lped the Communists realize their ends all the more speedilly. It is high time thait a'11 Christians realized this an:d aoted accordmgly. In Slovalkia tihere sha/U be no rea;l peace, no flI'eedom, as long 3IS 1t is governed by peopte wlho are hostile to the nationa1 traditions of the Slovak nation and its rel:i!gious and political convictions and, hence, are bent on the destru<:tion of the SIJ.O'Vruk people. Slovaikia, one of the oldest Christian countries of Centra1 :Eiu!rope, never sho:uil(l. haive been desbroyed as an independent StaJte. That is more evident today than it was in 1945. No nrution has fought Coonmunism more pel'.sistentily and consistently than the Slovaik nation It's time that this trutlh was recognized by a.Ill freedom-rl<wing, a:ruti-Com:rrmmist coll!Il1Jri-es and that they adj1U1st theiir pOllicies to,w ard the Slovaks to fit the present siitU1aition. Even today the people of Slovruk.ia find iJt ha~d to belrieve that they were sdld oUJt to the men of the Kremlin with the help of file United StaJtes and Great Britain, the great sym'bols of freedom and demooraicy. But they stitl exipect to be liberated by them. • • • "THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an American institu- tion. Its primary interest is America. As an American of Slovak descent, I say again and again that it ls in the interest of Amerlc-a and the democratic world at large to work for the freedom and Independence of Slovakia. The Individuals and organizations affiliated with the Slovak League of America - as true Americans - cannot wish their brethren in Slovakia less fre edom than they themselves enjoy in the U. S. A. We say: Give Slovakia back to the Slovak people!" - (P. A. Hrobak, Detroit. Mich., 11-18-51) � SLOVAKIA 39 THREE MONTHS IN "LIBERAT ED" BRATISLA VA BY: AN EYEWITNES S Urut'hl 1944 tJhe capiW city of S10V1akira, Bralbis1ava, lived far remoived from mililtaey operations. Ltfe wars a,,1together nor,ma;J. both c1.1llltmraUy and sodaiJ.l.y. 'Dhe siltuation dhanged. sU!bstantli.la!ley after Italy wars occuipied, when Bratislava came withi111 the range of the alliied air :f.iorce. Mirl itary oib'jeldt:s of Bratisl ruva were first bombed rby the al'lied aiir force in the focenooo. of June 16, 1944. The "ApO'llo" ref.inery, the adjacenit faotory and lha!1bor quarters we.re hit. But indrirscriminaite Russian 1b om11:iing was more fatal. Soviet flliers did not specialize on miiitairy objects, but let bombs loose anyiw\here in the city. They ce11ba:irillry did not glorify themselves witih the 1bombing of SpitMsrka street, where tlhey destroyed a church, a convent and the hospital of St. EliizaJbeth. Sorviet planes ruppea:red aibove Braitislava on Holy Satu,rdary and peppered the civi[fans on the crowded streets with tlherir deck guns. The front had moved up consideraJblly and Soviielt p:lranes were comin,g over practically every houir to drop their b.ombs into the streets. 1 Easter 1945 in Bratislava During Holy Weelk it. was evident to most of us that the Germa'I1S were preparing ,t o defend Bratisfav.a. The streets were emptied, bM'ricades were constructed , huge g'uns were put u,p The Germans themsel;ves, '.however, did not appear to be very interested in tlhe defense of our ctity and hauled whaitever they couftd out of it. 'Dhe units whkJh remained were to be used to c01Ver the retrea,ting Germans. The Ger-• man com.man.der urged the Slovak Governmen t to leave Bratislava. Since only a small number of Germans remained, it was ~rieved that tJhey were not going to defend the city very lon.g. The poipuilation co'l.tld not decide whether to leave tbe ciity or stay putt. Sa.Jturday evening everything was being taiken into cel10Jrs and hritl!ing places. The monotonou s bomibing of the Russian air force, the ofose booming of cannons annOIUll1Ced that the Russians we.re a:pproachin g steadily U111spea.JkaJble ne:rrV'O!U'Sness gr.~pped the crirty. AH the men h~d �40 SLOVAKIA themselves, booaiuse iJt was said thait the Germans were going to taJke rull 1!he men out of Braitislava. On Easter Sunday, at nine o'dock in the morning, Soviet fliers aigain ffilade them- appearance and in the afternoon huge Russian g,uns were 'bombarding Bralti:slava. The we'l!l-.Jmown Ruissian "Kaltuse", also da!lled "1Sta~ iln'is organs," began to pJ.ay the following day, i.e., Easter Monday. Every. thiinig shook to the foundatio!l'S and fires hroike out in many p'lia;ces. T,h e retreating Germans fired the SloV'ak University and ala the reserwe piiles of food and war maJterials. Thick smoike rose from Bratiis'lruva for three days and three niighlbs, and the fire sprerud because there were neither waiter nor the pe01ple to f,i ght tlhe fires. The heaviiest fii:ghting took place in the ea'S'tern paJI't of the cilty, where praeitiic~ly every factory quariter wrus ruined, the stireets of Trnruva and Krizna, Stein's Brewery and the viJcinity. On 'l'uesday tlhe Gemnans began to f11ee, destroying every;th'i ng that had n~t a-lre'ad,y <been desitvoyed. They blew u1p the bridge ,to PetrizJalka and the last g,rowp bariricruded iltself in the Braitis,la,va Castrle. The Russians aiready were in the sulburbs of Bratislava, when the Germans in the western hil!J.s of the c1ty began cannonading it. Thiis hurl BTati'slava the moist. On Thursday morning fue first Russian d'i•visions were in the very heart oif the city. Graduailly the booming died aiway and the streets began to be filled w1th Russian soldiers. The "Liberation" Begins 1 The SolV'iet soldiers first Hib.e.rated us from our watches with their well-tlmown "Davaj easy" (Give your waltches). EX!cept for solldiers, tlhe streets were empty; on1y coz,pses were being b alked in .the sipring sun. After a few days, when we cra.,wled out of our bunlkers and cellairs., we saiw the ghastly pioture of ruin anld desolation. Sffiloke s,tii-1 ro!Hed out of buildings and 1:lhe atmosphere was. satwrated Wli'th dust and gunpowder. Glass wa·s ground under foolt. Rdl::fueries were in fU'l'l swing. Soviet soidiers brdke windows of business places with their rule butts and sa-cked and pitMaiged everything. A few dats later, not a sitIJ.g1le shop remamed whO'le. Wh'atever could rrot be taken �SLOVAKIA 41 was knocked to pieces. Of course, the l'a wless mob helped very efferdtive1y in thi's work. Reports. olf the raping of women began coming in. It was nothing um.t'sua!l to see franltic W()lffien rUIUNng wildly from their aJttaokeirs; they sm-eamed, k'iciked and fought, -but to no avail. The 'hordes of the RUJSsii'an steppe's were on the loose. Who shall desc,dbe the sta.rk terror- in the eyes of the Slo;v:ak women and girls who 00U!l.1d not get away f,r -()lffi the beasts olf Moscow? Even ii£ I tmoo, I believe that my pen woul:d have to blush if it had to detail the brutalities and abroc'~ties committed. There is no need to exipand on :the fate of many, many women, who remained lya.ng in their bllood aflter such a ba'I1barian shaw of "a!f.feotion" of the Sov,i et soldiers. They to,l d us that it was the "nationa!l duty" o.f the S1avaJk women to repay the So'Vliet arimies rih love! Vinko, Vinko, Vinko Cervene We thOUJght that SlovaJk wiine would not attract the Soviets after tJhey had tasted of strong Tokay in Hurngary. Bult we were mi!stJaken even tJhis time (as usu:a1). Slovak wine memhanits di:d not wanit to sel'l us wine since January, becau:se they had 'hiOiped to sell it at a high price to the Soviet sohliers. But how quijic,k1ly they soibered UJP, when, instead of the jingle-jangle of gCJld 11ulbles, they he:ard shots from rifiles anld. aUlbomaitics in their otherwise irnmcessible ceUars. Barrels were shot wp and the precious liquid o.f the Slova1k earth began flowing; first into pitchers an'<i all so!'ts of containers, dean and uncilean, even bernzine cans. When aU these were fi'1le'd, tlhe wine t11ic'k:led iruto soLdieirs' boots, then flowed over the cellars and vestilbll!les an'<i finaliy onto. the streets. Tos strong aroma mixed w1th the gih:astly stench of decayiing cO'l",pses, whk:h even after a week were stili lying on the sidewaiJ.ks. of the city. The soldiers drank and so d<id the civilians; ch!iMren drank and so did the oldsters. It seemed that the barrels were bottomless. "Viniko, vinko, vinko cerivene" (Wtine, wine, red wine - a popclaT Slovak drinlking song) ! I shail1l never forget tJhe tovaris-comrade who had two botJtles of reld. champaigne stucik in his fuT crup, a bottle in �42 SLOVAKIA eadh. pocket and his hands full. He was approached by another comrade whn .rolblbed hiim on the street of his precious bu.Tden in broad d'a.yuilghlt. The two lashed at each other li'ke antlmals and drew blood on the 'ha.rd pavement of Kapitulska street. Bratishwa wine merchants. 'loolk ed on stupidly and si.'lently ait this Sodiomic destruction of their cellars, and the SO!Ulr odor of the wine reminded them of the old times, when they were s'till:l. bosses of their wine and thought that they themselrves wolU.ld ·haive the honor to treat the "liberat0rs." They rea[irz;eJd tlhe bitter truth that they we·r e "liberated," i.e. comip1etely roiblbed of all their world!ly possessions on the very threshold of a neiw life, the new order promised by the men of the K.re:rnUn. Where Do You Stay, Tovaris? If you were in the aI1II1y, you know w'hat obedience and di'Scilplme means. Withoult bhe:rn, there hardly could be an effecltiive rurmy. A soldier beil.ong,s to some particular company or di'Vlisi:on, must haJVe his gear, be fed and quartered, even th<Ylligh it be under a tent or in a barn. Bult the Soviet soltl!iers wlho swa:runed iiruto Bratislava had no definite quarters and, hence, were everywhere. Usuany aJbout midnight it occurred to· tihe:rn that they had to get some sleep, so the,y began to looik for shelter. Door:s and lodks and bars were no hindrance. Wihether of glass or wood, doors were booted in or smasheJd wiitJh rifile butts, if they were niot opened immediately. "You, bourgeoisie, you did not fighlt ... " Threatened, 1:Jhere wa·s nothing one cou[d c1o bult flee from .h is own home and consider himse1f liUCky if he was not shot- A soldier does not undress for sleep very oflte:n at the fuiont, bult Ivan the RUJSsian never ll!Ildressed even when he had a bed, bwt simply piled on the bed f.wl1y g,ar,bed, 'boots, rifle, pi•s tols, grena:des and a:M. And the frolllt was sixty miles away from us. Investigation After Investigation We thought the war was over when the slh!ooting subsided and the boomdng resounded f.rom a dristanice. We began �SLOVAKIA 43 to clean the streets, coll!lect the dead, and put whatever was left oif ,ouir homes in order. A ,penson slO!Wly fongets what he lost, because onlly then, when he did not die during the bomfbardment, does he reaili.ize that it is beaultiifiu[ to live, even tJhoug'h in feaJr, hunger rund thirst, and in raJgs. Things tha,t were a.ire no more, and other things tfhat were not will oome into being. L'iife is all that matters. On'l,y he knows the reail meamng of water and light who has li,v ed thI10UJgh the terror of the front in hiding wilthoult light and water. I.Me will returm to iits dld ways and time wiH heal aJhl wounds ()If the soiwl a,nd bod,y ()If inld.wii.dUJaJl's and nations. Well, wlh,y shoUJld nO/t a person a:gaJin imagine that liJfe can be beruuttilfiull, when he is sitting on tile 'l'Uins ()If his home ~nd the ashes of hi1s dreams? Why, there is no more bc»nibing and even the streets are lighted up in the evenings. Buit empty a.ire the inns, empty are the ce11'3JI"s, empty are tJhe stores and shops Brolken windows and smashed doors attest tJo the min which the Soviet soldiers had WOOU1ght. But the wihl to live r,i,ses alb,ove all this. We must forget everyttJhing thaJt pruined us, a.IN the in:justi<Ces, subdue om thd,r st for blood, when the sap of a new spring is awakening, when everythfun.g is being ren01Vateld, everything is in bloom, the thrush sings and the chiildren play. Burt aH this is but a dream, an ~lluision. '.Dhe 'b attle has ended on the streets, but just the sa:me a mare fiurious invi:siib1e baittle is going on. As you step out of your home, you are co,nrfronlted with tJhe bayonet o;f a Russian soldier or the various "safety" ciommittees. You look a:rO'llnd and notice that yornr home, nay the whole street is sUJITounded by guards. You re'tl.l!rn h'llITTriedly to your room and wait to see what wiM h'appen. Y.ou wait and wait and waJit unti[ the sUISpense aJlrrnost d11ives you mad. Your blood thins in your veins and you look sadly aJbowt you - and wait! F'iinaMy they came, sO'l1d iers and civiili ians: they go through the house and take whatever they want. '.Dhey ask you whether you are a GeI1IDan or not, whebher any Germans or "coll'<llbaratilonists" a,re in your house. You lod.k them icily in the face. 'Tihey depart but only to come rugruin. �44 SLOVAKIA Organs of Security Mter two weeks oif the Russian occupation everything was phmdered. People had no more than they had buried or secreted in such a place where even the Russian hunters and t,hey are eXlpe'tUy schooled in the art of flinding wailled-in objects - would not come. There was a clirth oif everything, even a serforus lack of bread. But we had plenty o.f police! They sprang Ulp like m:ushrnoms aflter a rain. In t'he first place, ,t he dreaded NKVD (OGPU), the Secret So,vi•e t Police, n10toirioo~ for its birurt:al and ghasitl;y crimes. Woe to him that faHis intto its hanids. The NiKViD goes from home to home, drags peoipile aiway and nolbody ever hears of their fate. Fvom eastern S'JO'V'aJkia alone more tihan 4,000 peo~e were draigiged oiff into Siiberia. I was fonbunate to be 'home during the investigation. AU the en'tralllces to the 'bwil.ding were covered by soldiers wit!h a:utomattics. I •t r:wersed my room ne.rvous•ly. A'lthough I had a c:leair clon1science, yet I was di-squited. (No one is sufficiently olear or safe with the Soviet Po[ice) . Finally I wenlt into the haiJ.llway. I was greeted by a soMier and a civilian. A IDQlfilenrt later came the caiptain. He asked me my naJme, what I wa:s doing here, what my profession was, and wheither I was a mem1ber orf IIlin:ka's People'1s Parity. A mac1hinist l,iived on the same floo,r. His room was locketl. Tlhe caiptain OII'<lered me to open it. "I haven't the key," I told hlm. The maic!hini.st had the key and the soldiers had him in hand alt the gate. I ran to the gate. The NKVD g,u1a rd had an a.ultomatti~ on the machinist. I approached him and said that tlhe c~pta;in wants to open the machinist's room, but the madh~nrist had the key. The latter alre'ardy wanted to hand it to me, when the s:o'ldier suddenly tuirned the aurt:omatiic on me and said: "You ha.ve the key" - "'BUit I dlo not have t'he key, the madhinlist has it" - "No, you will 'h,ruve it, if the caiptain says so." - "But I do not have it; loolk, tovaris, the machimst has. it." - "No, I have a.Qready told you that you wi-11 have the key and will open the door, when the captam orders you to do so." I was dumlbfounded by the profound stU1piclilty and returned without t1he key. I told the captain thait the to:varis �SLOVAKIA 45 wowd not let me take the key from the machinist because, he said, the captain had ordered me and not the machinist to open the room. I also was a sOJldier and I know whait military dbedience means. Bult this cannot be called obedience, but some kind of unmentionaJble stupidilty or i!Illfbecility which wouid be capable of sticking pins under my fingernails just to find a key on me whirch I do not haive. I realized then wlhy people, during the investigaltions in tJhe tortrure cha.im!bers of the NKVD, confess to things which they never committed. The invest1gation began at seven in the morning and lasted un1ti'l nine. I went to town on business arrd returned a1boU1t eleven. Upon my arr,ivai the building was a·gai,n surrounded biy guards, but this time by the Prurtisans Security c:1it. I wanted to enter the bui'1ding, but they wouid not let me. I identified myse1f and said that I ld.ved there. Finailly a boy, about 17, wit:Jh an automatic in his hands, let me enter. It was very liive:ly in the hallways. The partrsa,n captain was giving orders. I did not know wh1at they were seeiking. I went through the investigation tortures again, but qUJite fortunately. Again aftl the rooms, closets, desks, and dressing cabinets were opened. The investigation was over at about one o'ciock. Again some innocent peoiple were taken. But that was not alt That was onJy t'he beginning. Night feJ.,l and the stars shone brighUy over Br.atislava. Finany, a lilttle rest, I thought But there is no restful or peaceful night duiring a Russian occl..llpaition. A'boUJt midnight I was awa.ikened by some one pounding on my door. Another investigaition ! I was on my feet in an instant and <jpened the door. Before me in the semidankness stood a man and a lady. Instead of identifying themselves, t!hey opened their short coats so that I could see the revolvers in leather 'holsters. "But, but, this is a spe:cia l visit, and so laite at night!" "Your documents," said the man. "Here they a,re, t:hank you." "Were you a memlber of IDinka's Party?" - "I was." "Since when?" - "From 1933." - "Were you in the 1 �46 SLOVAKIA Hlinka Guards?" - "I was not." - "Did you be'1ong to Hlinlka's Youth?" - "No." - "Are you a So'ld!ieir?" - "I am an oftfircer in the Sloivalk airnny." - "Did you ta.Ike pa.rt in the revollit ?" - "No." - "Why not?" - "I was on druty in Nitra." - "Are you a Slova;k ?" - "I am." Then they entered my room. On my taJble was a small bust o{ Andrew Hlin!k'a. "And .t his?" - "That is a bust of Andrew Hilinlka." "Hman., we adivi,se you, to destroy irt." - "I don't understand, whiy?" - "Welil, may!be tomorrow you will understand." Wilth that t'.hey depa,rited. Ait thrr-ee in the morning the inrve-stigat'ion olf .tlhe secret police was completed. At eight in the morn.mg came the olffictaJl police, the so-calied "Naitiona1 Secruritiy" po~ice, to find out who i,t was thaJt a1hlowro an in1VestigaJtion at mghit when the ipolice knew nothing aJbout it. "What kind o{ peop1e were they, how did they look, w:hiat did they want?" I was asked. This then was the new oroer - so ter:rrilbly dangerous because iit had so many .srufety biU1reaus thalt one dlid not know aibout the other! Or did they? The Bratislava Commander Complains A month had already passed since the occ'Ulpation of Bratisla1Va , but the streets were stilil wn:swept; dirt and ruiblble were everywhere; liice and infectious diseases were spreading rapidly. 'Ilhe local "National Oommittee" had a loog session to decirle what to do with the riwbbish and rull:fule clutterinig and burning in the streets. But how was the mess to be C'leared ruway, wlhen the Ru'Ssians took an the city dump trucks, a1l pri,v ate cars and al,l wagons and horse's ? Typhoid fever spread danger01Us ly; the numibers of inflicted increased. The Office of P.ropruganda, or, as it was then called, the "Commissary of InfoTfl'nation" pfa'stered the city witJh huge plaic-ards depio'ting a s'keleton poUII"iing lice over BraJtis lava and t'.he wairning : "WATCH THID LICE, THEY SPREAD TYPHOID. '' People stared at the placarids and barked: "Bwt who in �SLOVAKIA 47 tarnation broughlt lice here? Send the lousy Russians baok to their lousy ooumrtey !" 'I.1he first plwcards had liiittle e.fifoot. Severrul druys later new ones appeared: Origanilze energeti'C brig,ades of clearuiness ! But Il!cibodiy paid any atJtenMon. The :riUJbbish iblliI'Iled on and spread its poisonous fiumes over the .popuil.<ati.on. There were no autos, no wrugons wiith which to do the hau[ing. Hiarses, oows and siheeip were kept in the panks. The hot sun blruzeid away and laughingJy loolked at the me!SS, which the "new" government prdbalbly did not dear aJWay to this day. And so the skeleton keipt pouring the lice, and t:Jhe placaros aJb,o ut the brig,a des. of cleanliness were covered witlh new red ones, whicih unged us to attend lec!tUll'es on the moraie of the SoVli.et man, So:vieit woman, and the Soviet youth. The Soviet Russians wasted no time in edlucating the masses accordtinlg to the dootrines orf Marx and Lenin. A Soviet Soldier Confesses lit wrus a bea:urtri.:titd June afternoon in K 1rurl'ova Ves near Bratislava, when a Riu'SSian sOlldier rupproacihed us and struclk up a oonvwsaiti.on. He reproved us saying tha.Jt we Slovruks were Ullldiscipllined amid un.gratefUll. We shOIUJd not siay OII' believe tJhat t:Jhe RJussi,ans rure taikin.g everything that can be ha'l.lll€1d aJWay, booau1se thaJt is only ibrud propaganda. Since he was in a t~aJtiive mood', and did not have a revolver, we dooided to malke WIOrds with him. He spdke at length albout d!i.scipil[n.e in RUISSia, both in thiin.lk.ing and in spealk~ng. In Slovaki·a, he said, everyone says whatever he 'Pleases. "ThaJt does not exist in Ruissia. One must hiO:ld to what St-a!lin says. That is the truth and a.Ill else is ,proprugantla. Sta!lin to-Id UIS thaJt in Russia everything iis fine a!nd dandy, everyrtJhin,g is beaut.if.td, that we have enoUJgh to eait. And even though we know that everything i:s not fine and dan:dy, be.mt'i:fiul, and thtat we do not ha;ve enough to eaJt, yet we must say that everythmg is f,i ne and dandy, and thaJt we have plenty to ea.t. Stalin has so ordered! Stalin has so spdken!" He bec'ame so excited trying to prove his impossible stand that I reaHy pit'ioo. him. I s:m:il.ed and sa,id softly: �48 SLOVAKIA "My dear tovaris! We're a different kind of people, strange to you, indeed. When a tihinrg is white, we say it is white; when it is bladk, we say iJt is black. When we have nothing to eat, we say thaJt we a~ hungry oir that we are starving And if anyone orders us to speak otheirwise, we still. say the truth. Stra'lin telJs you different, so be hruppy in your belief. We believe in God, too, but with reason, never against reason." But our tovaris seemed to be far away; his mouth opened, but he said nothing further. Shaiking hiis head, he pwlled at his ear as he slowly wa;llked away. The Soviet Lady Doct.or We weire oirdered to hand 01Ver the miili'ta,r y hospdital in Bratishwa to the RUJSsians. As we were preparing inventory lists, a Rmlssilan l'ady doctor stepped iruto .the room. After talking for a time, we struck upon religion, belieif in God, and other ba.pics. But my Russian colleague, a lieutenant, !)TOclaimetl thait it was in vain we were trying to convince her, becruuse she wm.tltl nort believe l1'S no matter what the airgumenlts. I assured her that she had nothing to fear, because I had no ruposJtoilic intentions. "Why do we write 1945," I asked her. "I know but I won't tell you!" "Burt even you designalte this year by thaJt numlber." "You won't oon'V'ince me " "I db not want to. But even the unbelieving world admits that Christ was born." "I heard rubout that also; burt I do not believe i,t." "Why?" "Becruuse in the history of the Communist Party there isn't anything aJbout it." "Alh, so!" WhaJt is the use of debating? We looked at each other srgnifioa,ntly, smiled, and talked aibout otheir things. "How long did you study medicine?" "I finished the course during the wair in a year and a haJlf. In peaceful times the study takes aliJ. of two and a half years." �SLOVAKIA 49 We 1,amghed loud1iy amd pitied the prutients who happened to get under her kmfe. Placards: Religious Freedom DtN-ing the veriy first weelk:s of occupatfon the Slovak Communist Party posted placiar:ds everywhere, arnnlQuncing that the ComJmuni'Slts wiant to respect the relii.g,ioos feelings of a!hl the SloviaJk people and, therefore, are c,alloog aU Slovaks, regardless of the:ir religious convictions, into the Party. Nay, eiven Catho'l:ic priests coul'd and shlOuiltl join the party, we were to1ld. People sing a nfoe tune, when they want to catch a biro! But wlhrut if a mira'Cle had rea!Uy happened? Suppose Comrm.mism had made a tll!I"11 for the ,better? May/be Commun:ism was no longer so excilusive; perhrups it was even reipernting and had decided to let itself be baptized in Christian SlO'V'a'l da! We knew that the Communists were not sincere, but the fact is thaJt oultwarilly they did try tb deal humanely with the peopie for a wht[e to convince them that Communism was not as bad as they thought. It was evident that they were instiru~teld not to insult the sacred and traditionai feel'ings of the SlOIVak ,peop1e. But the pretense soon wore off and the Reds opecl,y a1:>t8iC'ked a11 ece'lesfastical instilbutions. Catholic Schools in Nationalized Slovakia lf there were some Sloivaiks who had iHu'Sions a,bout the Communists going sofit., thek tllu1sions eJOPloded like b,u!bbles, W:hen Laoo Novomesky, Commissar ('br:ulsitee) of Exiucation, annOlmceld that ai11 Catholic scbioo[,s m Slovakia were to be aJbo:Iished and their property was to be taken over iby t!he Stale. He was leld to this action, he said, because it wais inadimissaJble that the Ohiurich should o!ffer a different kind of education than the State. The unity of the nation, sa•: d No;voimesky, required a unifo:r,m eduicaJtiona1 system, cultural and religious st!'.ife must cease, etc. What could not be accomplished even during the first Ozooho.jSloV'ruk republk, was done now with one stroke of the pen · in tJhe shadow of Russi8JI1 bayionets. The Cat'ho[ic institrntions were hit first for ob:vious reasoos. The Reds had �50 SLOVAKIA little dififiicuM.y in getting the badking of the non-Caitholiic Christians. Al!l they ha:d to dt> was promise them that they w()IU[d get the CaJthoiJ.ii:c Churelh proiperrt:.ies. So-cailled followers oif Christ a1Jtadking and despoiling the fo1lowers of Christ! The Reds knew what they were doing, but evidently the non.CathoJic Christians did not, because they tooik the bait. Slovaik IJuithera.ns, Jews, Unitarians, Baptists, etic , expected to gain by the deail against the Catho[ic Slovaks (80 per cent oif tJhe poipuliaibi.on) and, therefore, went a'long with the Reds. !Ton mrust be forged while it is hot. After publishing the decree, all diredtors of Cruthoiic sciho01ls were dismissed. Their places were taken over by so-ca;Ued "Czechoslovaks" and Lwtherans. That was done e:spe'Cially in gymna'Sit1ms managed by the reJl'igiorus <YI'ders, for example, alt the UrS'llline s:c!hools in BrrutislJ.ava and Tuna.va. It was done designecily and systemaiticaHy. Fists were clenched and hearts were steeled. Freedom, freedom! The Slova!k Catholic public becrume extremely inili.gnarnt. People were saying that the women of Tmava were getting ready to storm the Ursuline institution there and throw oot tlhe new di!rectre'SIS, who was perseC'lllting and intimidating the reiigioruis Sisters there. The Bishops of Slovakia Protest E:ven though Siova..ks knew that nothing would be accomplished by protests, neverthe'Jess ail Catholics we.re a.rgreed that they simply coufttl ndt a!hlow the fundamental right of the Ohurch to iits own school's be taken away from them without uttering a word. The peopile had to make thernse1ves heard, or else the stones wmcld complain. The CaithOllic Bishop's Collliloil presented a memorandll!In to the government and the Central Cat holic Chancery was organizing a si-grratn.ure C·Mnipaign against the nationaHzing of scllodls. Lerufllets were distmi.lb uted, and on July 8, 1945, 1!he protest aigainst the confiscrution of the schools was read from ahl puipiits. 1 Well, alter Ju:ly 8, the Bratislava radio was heard from. It blasted and attacked the Bishop's Council, using the wellknown phrase: The parish church belongs to the Church, �SLOVAKIA 51 Mlld the school to the StaJte ! Things came to a head and the resrullt Olf the ,protest was that the dirootors Olf the Central Cath~lic Bureau, who teohmca;Ny organi!Zed the action, were jailed. We were again gilven prood' thaJt we were living in a "democracy" and thiaJt the people were dooiding their own fOiitunes. Wlhat a modkery ! Catholic Bishops Imprisoned The ffrst wa,s Hlis ExicellJency John Vojtassak, bjshop of Spis. Hailf of Slwaikia was a'1ready occupied by the Russian rumy. The Sl'O!VaJk National Council was already giving orders from Kosice. At the end of .AipriJ, Dr. Vav,r o Srobar, chalirma.n of the S1ov,aik NaJtiorra1 CouncH at that time, came to the Spisslka Ifupiroula (ISpis Chapter) to gain Bishop Vojtassak for the Slov:aJk Na.lbiona:l COIUnoil and for Dr. Edwa..ro Benes. Srobar wanted ,t hat prilze catch, bec'ause he knew that Bishop Vojttassa'k was an old and 'hard Slovak. As they meit in the corri'd.10r of the bi,s hop's residence, Dr. Srolbar explained why he came and then asked the bishO!p to back the new government. The bishop eyed him co:l d[y for a moment and then srud: "I do nolt reoogni ze any S'1ovruk Nationall Council and president Benes. My government is stilil in Bratislava, and as president of the SlrovaJks I recognize oruy the Siovak, Ms.g r. Dr. Tiso!" The ~ytihe stmrok upon a stone. Dr. Srobar departed, and bishop John VojtassaJk went to his room. Several days later when the bishop received an order from the Slovak N atiorral OownJCirl to beget himsellif to his p1race of confinement i-n Stl,ruvru:k, Vojtassaik replied energetica.!Uy: "I do not have an auto, nor any means of transportation, not even a horse. They -took ever.yrthing from me. I wi'M yie[d only to force." On May 5, 1945, an auto stopped in front oif the Kaipitula; it was a,mned with machine guns and severrul men with auito:matiJc:s. The wovds of Ohris't again rang ou't: You are come out as it were aigain,st a robber with clubs. The good bishop of Spis was forcefuilily talken to Stiaivnik and, later, to the jaml of the federal court in Bratislava. 1 �52 SLOVAKIA What hruppened to him? A1[ I knew at that time was that the commwn1i1,it "Plravd'a" of Bramislava was inciting aigainst h!im., head!linirrug its avticleis thus: "The Lord Bishop is against chi:ldren of tJhe wmikers." It was a brazen lie, designed to U!Ilderunine the 1:Jrnst of the fovthfol in the social ideO'logy of iits bishop, who during hd:s whole life proved himself to be the most social o,f alil episcopa:l dignitaries in Sl0V1aikia. Soon aflter the OOOU1pation of Bratislava by the Russians, the bishoip Ol.f Trnava, Mii.H'.tary Vicar and Rector of the BraJtislaiva seminary, J. E. BwzaLka, was ja1iled. F\irst he wais lodged in the pohce stati'On and tJhen transferred to the federail prison where "heiavy offenders" weire penned. He slept on a spring, no m'aJttress ,b eing availaJble, and the siliveT-haired poet, Va'lentine Beniruk, slept alongside him on the bare stone :flloor. After the bishops, t:he Slwialk National Co'Ullcil "took care" of the oonons and other pre1'aJtes. Among the first to be truken was Joseph Srobar of BraJti.sl'a:va, brother of Dr. Vaviro Srdbar. The old churehman, ail heart, would never hairun even a fly. But bo[shev,rk justice did not consider that. In him it sa,w an "enem:y of the people" and inrcaTcerated him. . Ma:nry othevs foHowed him, among them Dr. Charles Kovper, weH-iknown among .American S:lova\ks, former editor of a Cathoi1'i'c neWS1pruper. Monsignor Marsina of Trenci.n cO'llild not even OOJt for nothing in the jail, but had to work. And what work! He was forced to dig c011pses wit!h his bare hand's firom ma$$ graves, then forced to wash and ·k!iss each one. I have a strong su1S1pidon thalt those mass graives were made lby the Russians and not by the Germans as claimed by the So:vie'ts. "Fascist Post.enyi Arrest.ed" That's what a heai!'line said in the communist "Pravda." And it stumned just albout the whole of Slo.vrukila. The discovery of America O!I' the Law of GI"avitation was no more sensationall. Up to that time nobody knew that Monsignor Postenyi was a fascilSt. Aime11ida,ri Slovaks know Msgr. �SLOVAKIA 53 Postenyi very weiN. He visiited America in the interests of the S't Ada!llbert Society, pulljlisher of Catholiic literature and inrf.cmmat<ion, an origanwation equiivalent to the Book of the Month 01wbs in Amerti!C'a. The Reds knew that his Slovak ,paltriotism was beyond question and that his merits, as far as the l31rgesit CIUll,bural, Slovak, Catholk institution was concerned, were greaJt. Monsignoir Po:s tenyi is an exemplary priest of Gad, a S1ovaik hough and through, and an indefatfJi,gruble worlcer for the common people of his nation. He was pe!I1S€Kmted for his Slovak ,p atriotism when the Commumst leaders and editors of the "Pravda" were strn in the bOSOIIn of Albraham. Never aclmvel.l,y interested in politics, Msg,r. Postenyi sUldden!ly became a "fascist!" We knew whalt the C01Inmunisits wanted to aJOcorrniplish. 'Do put Posteny,i out of the way woold me'an to destroy the Society of St. Ad•rutbert with iJts libraries, priillt sh01ps and origan.izationrul appruratus. And so the SlOViaJk N ationa;l CO'U!Ilici1 appointed the fina.ncirul secretary of the Sooiety, a Ozedh named Wa;gner, as the commissary of the Society. A few days l1ater a new management was named, one that was rucceptaJble to the spirit and program of tJhe C01Inmunist-idk>minia.ted SlovaJk NaJtional Cooncil. This institution which was bui[it by generations of Slov,a ks inrto a going cultural concern wrus wiped oult in a momenit by the ruthilegs Reds The 150.000 members of the Society of St. Ada1be,rtt co:uM not say a word against the action without inviting punishment, either inciariceration or exile into Silberia. That is how the "people's demooracy" of the Soviets operates. Charit,a,ble Ecclesiastical Institutions The la;rgesit oharitalble ooganization in Slovrukia wa,s the Central Charity (Ustredna Karita), the central Catho1.ic institute of al'l the welfare, socitail, anld religious societi'es. It ha;d its own hea11th cenltets, hospiita!ls for incuraJbO.es, children's nurseries, etc. The women'1s "Charilta:s" was a'1so a mem~ of tJhe organi.<Za,tion. 'Dhe CommUll!ists took (Wer ruH soci:ail insbitiuttions of the Church. Some weeks after the ocCUipation, tihe Communist Union of Sloviak Women confi:s- �54 SLOVAKIA cated the children's nuTsery of the Ustredna ~arita in Dornk~le, BraJtislava, and the Union of SloivaJk Y ouith toolk over the ·b oarding sch06l nea,r the forestry school in Koliba, Braltislavia. The hwmanitari.an division oif the city o.f Bratislava comisoated the estate of "Oharitas" in Braltisfava near the Red Bridge. For the women's home of "Charitas" the commissari'at foT Social Welifare named as commissary the Communist Fla:TIIIly Hirusovsky. Dr. Ivan Horvath, the commissary for sooiall welfare, prod.aimed that a:1'1 the charitable, social instituJtions of the Church would be taken over by the state. Protests clid not mean a thing, as usual. "Freedom" of the Press One of the first ,a cts of the Commissariat for Initernal AffaiTs was the suppression o;f aM news,prupers. With th~s general order all Oathollic newpaJpers and :periodicais weTe wiped out aultomalt!roally; noit only cruturrul and literrury periodicals, such as the "Ku!litura" (a.rl.,tmre.) and the "Obroda" (Rffi"ilvaJl), but even an the religious and educational periodicals, such as The MessengeT of the Srucred Heart, The Holy Family, The Queen of May, etc. And, ]ater the only Caltholk Sloivruk weeldy "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News), which had a suibscription of 170,000, was also swppressed and ta:ken 01Ver by 1:!he Reds. Cathollics protested to the authorities, but in. vadn. The Catholic press was gone. Attaclks against the Church and its priests increased daily, but they could not defend themselves; it was an unequa:l strwggk The enemy fought wfth powerfU!l we8lpons, whi[e the Catholics had none. "Freedom" of Conscience The wax was fought, we were told, aga.inst the suppressi~n of consoien.ce by imperial~stic means, and we haJVe lived to see sucll a diclatorship and s:uch a barbaric viOllia.tion of conscience and its inlterrra:l freedom, the likes of whl'C'h perhrups not even the most frurious f:aslci'Slt ever dreamed of. On aH fronts of tlhis terrible wrur died the best sons of humanity for the rigih:t to speak free'ly about the most fundamental questions of 1iife against tlhe fascist terror. Men �SLOVAKIA 55 shed their blood so that concentration camps, wiith all theiT horrors, might never a:ga:in operaJte. But soon aif.ter the war's end aN dliistriot cities in SlovaJlda were ordered to set up a concent.Taition camp and jaill. The war was fol.light for the freed'Olffi of poilft.ic-aiJ. conviotlions, but in Sl'OVlalkia today there are not enOUJgh jai!ls to talke care of aH those, whose only gui,It is that they wilM not swear on the Siclcl.e anld: Hammer, but prefer to rematin loyal to the fupal eneyclilc'als and the fiUJnd:amen'ta:l princiiples of demooraJCy. ln a wore, the Slovaks want to be demO!crat:s and not 'boisiheviks. What has rea;filry changed? Every ni!ght we waited tensely to see whether they were coming for us. We had no peace duirmg the day or night. Forever they were screening and investiigaJting UIS just 'becaUJSe we haippened to live during the past era, and had to wor1k and keeip OUir families. They perseouted us for "co'l:1-aborating" because we recorded oftficiail writings, in some office, or because we were insigruffoant wiheells in the great machinery of life. In Conclusion If I had not seen it, I would not hruve be'liieived it. Those first three months in "l~beraJted" Bra;tislruva were a nightmare. It .st;ilfil hamnts me. The S[ovalk people dild not ha,ve a clharuce. The,i r country was overrun bry bar:barians whom the .AilHes had Wlken on as pa:rtners. Slovalkia was ru!led bry terror and violence f.rom the moment it was "rnberaJted" lby the so-calil ed "Uniiteld Nations," which placed it in the Soviet sphere o!f irufiluence. ]t was ruied 'by the Communist-dominated regime o!f the man who r~gned the presitleTIJCy in 1938 and returned as president..a.venger behind the Soviet ho:rdes in 1945. 'Dhe independenJt Slo.ivaJk Repull:Afc, established by the dully eledted representatives olf t!he Slovak people in 1939 and reoognlizetl by 27 countries, including GreaJt Britain and F,r ance, was wanton!ly destroyed against the wiili of the Slova:k people. The vast majority of the Slovaik nation, the Catholics of Slovakia - representing 80 per cent of the poipll1ation was oulUawed. No politioail parities, newspaipers, organizations, and eilltenprises cou~d exist, except th()[se aUowed by �56 SLOVAKIA Dr. IDdwa,rd Benes and his Communist-dominated regime. The non-Catholic minority in Slovakia - including aN those who ca;Ned t!hemsetlives "Christians" - hel,p ed Benes and the Co!Ir.JII1UJill1S'ts ruin Ca1fud1irc Slovrukia and so helped to ruin themseilves and thetk in:stilbulticms. Whereas, in the beginning, only Crutholics were perisem.uted and onily Cathol'i:c institUJtion:s and enter,prises were nabion:a,lized, laJter the foNowers of ail Christian faiths were crucified and their institulti'ons confiscalted b;y the State. Hi:istor:y repeateld itseJ.if. But ha,tred of the Cathohc Ch'l11l'ch in S'lovakia did n01t solive any of the social or economic probllems, bult oll!l.y aggrawated them; in faot, it only he'lped the Communists realize their ends all the more speedilly. It is high time thait a'11 Christians realized this an:d aoted accordmgly. In Slovalkia tihere sha/U be no rea;l peace, no flI'eedom, as long 3IS 1t is governed by peopte wlho are hostile to the nationa1 traditions of the Slovak nation and its rel:i!gious and political convictions and, hence, are bent on the destru<:tion of the SIJ.O'Vruk people. Slovaikia, one of the oldest Christian countries of Centra1 :Eiu!rope, never sho:uil(l. haive been desbroyed as an independent StaJte. That is more evident today than it was in 1945. No nrution has fought Coonmunism more pel'.sistentily and consistently than the Slovaik nation It's time that this trutlh was recognized by a.Ill freedom-rl<wing, a:ruti-Com:rrmmist coll!Il1Jri-es and that they adj1U1st theiir pOllicies to,w ard the Slovaks to fit the present siitU1aition. Even today the people of Slovruk.ia find iJt ha~d to belrieve that they were sdld oUJt to the men of the Kremlin with the help of file United StaJtes and Great Britain, the great sym'bols of freedom and demooraicy. But they stitl exipect to be liberated by them. • • • "THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an American institu- tion. Its primary interest is America. As an American of Slovak descent, I say again and again that it ls in the interest of Amerlc-a and the democratic world at large to work for the freedom and Independence of Slovakia. The Individuals and organizations affiliated with the Slovak League of America - as true Americans - cannot wish their brethren in Slovakia less fre edom than they themselves enjoy in the U. S. A. We say: Give Slovakia back to the Slovak people!" - (P. A. Hrobak, Detroit. Mich., 11-18-51) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 39 THREE MONTHS IN "LIBERAT ED" BRATISLA VA BY: AN EYEWITNES S Urut'hl 1944 tJhe capiW city of S10V1akira, Bralbis1ava, lived far remoived from mililtaey operations. Ltfe wars a,,1together nor,ma;J. both c1.1llltmraUy and sodaiJ.l.y. 'Dhe siltuation dhanged. sU!bstantli.la!ley after Italy wars occuipied, when Bratislava came withi111 the range of the alliied air :f.iorce. Mirl itary oib'jeldt:s of Bratisl ruva were first bombed rby the al'lied aiir force in the focenooo. of June 16, 1944. The "ApO'llo" ref.inery, the adjacenit faotory and lha!1bor quarters we.re hit. But indrirscriminaite Russian 1b om11:iing was more fatal. Soviet flliers did not specialize on miiitairy objects, but let bombs loose anyiw\here in the city. They ce11ba:irillry did not glorify themselves witih the 1bombing of SpitMsrka street, where tlhey destroyed a church, a convent and the hospital of St. EliizaJbeth. Sorviet planes ruppea:red aibove Braitislava on Holy Satu,rdary and peppered the civi[fans on the crowded streets with tlherir deck guns. The front had moved up consideraJblly and Soviielt p:lranes were comin,g over practically every houir to drop their b.ombs into the streets. 1 Easter 1945 in Bratislava During Holy Weelk it. was evident to most of us that the Germa'I1S were preparing ,t o defend Bratisfav.a. The streets were emptied, bM'ricades were constructed , huge g'uns were put u,p The Germans themsel;ves, '.however, did not appear to be very interested in tlhe defense of our ctity and hauled whaitever they couftd out of it. 'Dhe units whkJh remained were to be used to c01Ver the retrea,ting Germans. The Ger-• man com.man.der urged the Slovak Governmen t to leave Bratislava. Since only a small number of Germans remained, it was ~rieved that tJhey were not going to defend the city very lon.g. The poipuilation co'l.tld not decide whether to leave tbe ciity or stay putt. Sa.Jturday evening everything was being taiken into cel10Jrs and hritl!ing places. The monotonou s bomibing of the Russian air force, the ofose booming of cannons annOIUll1Ced that the Russians we.re a:pproachin g steadily U111spea.JkaJble ne:rrV'O!U'Sness gr.~pped the crirty. AH the men h~d 40 SLOVAKIA themselves, booaiuse iJt was said thait the Germans were going to taJke rull 1!he men out of Braitislava. On Easter Sunday, at nine o'dock in the morning, Soviet fliers aigain ffilade them- appearance and in the afternoon huge Russian g,uns were 'bombarding Bralti:slava. The we'l!l-.Jmown Ruissian "Kaltuse", also da!lled "1Sta~ iln'is organs," began to pJ.ay the following day, i.e., Easter Monday. Every. thiinig shook to the foundatio!l'S and fires hroike out in many p'lia;ces. T,h e retreating Germans fired the SloV'ak University and ala the reserwe piiles of food and war maJterials. Thick smoike rose from Bratiis'lruva for three days and three niighlbs, and the fire sprerud because there were neither waiter nor the pe01ple to f,i ght tlhe fires. The heaviiest fii:ghting took place in the ea'S'tern paJI't of the cilty, where praeitiic~ly every factory quariter wrus ruined, the stireets of Trnruva and Krizna, Stein's Brewery and the viJcinity. On 'l'uesday tlhe Gemnans began to f11ee, destroying every;th'i ng that had n~t a-lre'ad,y <been desitvoyed. They blew u1p the bridge ,to PetrizJalka and the last g,rowp bariricruded iltself in the Braitis,la,va Castrle. The Russians aiready were in the sulburbs of Bratislava, when the Germans in the western hil!J.s of the c1ty began cannonading it. Thiis hurl BTati'slava the moist. On Thursday morning fue first Russian d'i•visions were in the very heart oif the city. Graduailly the booming died aiway and the streets began to be filled w1th Russian soldiers. The "Liberation" Begins 1 The SolV'iet soldiers first Hib.e.rated us from our watches with their well-tlmown "Davaj easy" (Give your waltches). EX!cept for solldiers, tlhe streets were empty; on1y coz,pses were being b alked in .the sipring sun. After a few days, when we cra.,wled out of our bunlkers and cellairs., we saiw the ghastly pioture of ruin anld desolation. Sffiloke s,tii-1 ro!Hed out of buildings and 1:lhe atmosphere was. satwrated Wli'th dust and gunpowder. Glass wa·s ground under foolt. Rdl::fueries were in fU'l'l swing. Soviet soidiers brdke windows of business places with their rule butts and sa-cked and pitMaiged everything. A few dats later, not a sitIJ.g1le shop remamed whO'le. Wh'atever could rrot be taken SLOVAKIA 41 was knocked to pieces. Of course, the l'a wless mob helped very efferdtive1y in thi's work. Reports. olf the raping of women began coming in. It was nothing um.t'sua!l to see franltic W()lffien rUIUNng wildly from their aJttaokeirs; they sm-eamed, k'iciked and fought, -but to no avail. The 'hordes of the RUJSsii'an steppe's were on the loose. Who shall desc,dbe the sta.rk terror- in the eyes of the Slo;v:ak women and girls who 00U!l.1d not get away f,r -()lffi the beasts olf Moscow? Even ii£ I tmoo, I believe that my pen woul:d have to blush if it had to detail the brutalities and abroc'~ties committed. There is no need to exipand on :the fate of many, many women, who remained lya.ng in their bllood aflter such a ba'I1barian shaw of "a!f.feotion" of the Sov,i et soldiers. They to,l d us that it was the "nationa!l duty" o.f the S1avaJk women to repay the So'Vliet arimies rih love! Vinko, Vinko, Vinko Cervene We thOUJght that SlovaJk wiine would not attract the Soviets after tJhey had tasted of strong Tokay in Hurngary. Bult we were mi!stJaken even tJhis time (as usu:a1). Slovak wine memhanits di:d not wanit to sel'l us wine since January, becau:se they had 'hiOiped to sell it at a high price to the Soviet sohliers. But how quijic,k1ly they soibered UJP, when, instead of the jingle-jangle of gCJld 11ulbles, they he:ard shots from rifiles anld. aUlbomaitics in their otherwise irnmcessible ceUars. Barrels were shot wp and the precious liquid o.f the Slova1k earth began flowing; first into pitchers an'<i all so!'ts of containers, dean and uncilean, even bernzine cans. When aU these were fi'1le'd, tlhe wine t11ic'k:led iruto soLdieirs' boots, then flowed over the cellars and vestilbll!les an'<i finaliy onto. the streets. Tos strong aroma mixed w1th the gih:astly stench of decayiing cO'l",pses, whk:h even after a week were stili lying on the sidewaiJ.ks. of the city. The soldiers drank and so d<id the civilians; ch!iMren drank and so did the oldsters. It seemed that the barrels were bottomless. "Viniko, vinko, vinko cerivene" (Wtine, wine, red wine - a popclaT Slovak drinlking song) ! I shail1l never forget tJhe tovaris-comrade who had two botJtles of reld. champaigne stucik in his fuT crup, a bottle in 42 SLOVAKIA eadh. pocket and his hands full. He was approached by another comrade whn .rolblbed hiim on the street of his precious bu.Tden in broad d'a.yuilghlt. The two lashed at each other li'ke antlmals and drew blood on the 'ha.rd pavement of Kapitulska street. Bratishwa wine merchants. 'loolk ed on stupidly and si.'lently ait this Sodiomic destruction of their cellars, and the SO!Ulr odor of the wine reminded them of the old times, when they were s'till:l. bosses of their wine and thought that they themselrves wolU.ld ·haive the honor to treat the "liberat0rs." They rea[irz;eJd tlhe bitter truth that they we·r e "liberated," i.e. comip1etely roiblbed of all their world!ly possessions on the very threshold of a neiw life, the new order promised by the men of the K.re:rnUn. Where Do You Stay, Tovaris? If you were in the aI1II1y, you know w'hat obedience and di'Scilplme means. Withoult bhe:rn, there hardly could be an effecltiive rurmy. A soldier beil.ong,s to some particular company or di'Vlisi:on, must haJVe his gear, be fed and quartered, even th<Ylligh it be under a tent or in a barn. Bult the Soviet soltl!iers wlho swa:runed iiruto Bratislava had no definite quarters and, hence, were everywhere. Usuany aJbout midnight it occurred to· tihe:rn that they had to get some sleep, so the,y began to looik for shelter. Door:s and lodks and bars were no hindrance. Wihether of glass or wood, doors were booted in or smasheJd wiitJh rifile butts, if they were niot opened immediately. "You, bourgeoisie, you did not fighlt ... " Threatened, 1:Jhere wa·s nothing one cou[d c1o bult flee from .h is own home and consider himse1f liUCky if he was not shot- A soldier does not undress for sleep very oflte:n at the fuiont, bult Ivan the RUJSsian never ll!Ildressed even when he had a bed, bwt simply piled on the bed f.wl1y g,ar,bed, 'boots, rifle, pi•s tols, grena:des and a:M. And the frolllt was sixty miles away from us. Investigation After Investigation We thought the war was over when the slh!ooting subsided and the boomdng resounded f.rom a dristanice. We began SLOVAKIA 43 to clean the streets, coll!lect the dead, and put whatever was left oif ,ouir homes in order. A ,penson slO!Wly fongets what he lost, because onlly then, when he did not die during the bomfbardment, does he reaili.ize that it is beaultiifiu[ to live, even tJhoug'h in feaJr, hunger rund thirst, and in raJgs. Things tha,t were a.ire no more, and other things tfhat were not will oome into being. L'iife is all that matters. On'l,y he knows the reail meamng of water and light who has li,v ed thI10UJgh the terror of the front in hiding wilthoult light and water. I.Me will returm to iits dld ways and time wiH heal aJhl wounds ()If the soiwl a,nd bod,y ()If inld.wii.dUJaJl's and nations. Well, wlh,y shoUJld nO/t a person a:gaJin imagine that liJfe can be beruuttilfiull, when he is sitting on tile 'l'Uins ()If his home ~nd the ashes of hi1s dreams? Why, there is no more bc»nibing and even the streets are lighted up in the evenings. Buit empty a.ire the inns, empty are the ce11'3JI"s, empty are tJhe stores and shops Brolken windows and smashed doors attest tJo the min which the Soviet soldiers had WOOU1ght. But the wihl to live r,i,ses alb,ove all this. We must forget everyttJhing thaJt pruined us, a.IN the in:justi<Ces, subdue om thd,r st for blood, when the sap of a new spring is awakening, when everythfun.g is being ren01Vateld, everything is in bloom, the thrush sings and the chiildren play. Burt aH this is but a dream, an ~lluision. '.Dhe 'b attle has ended on the streets, but just the sa:me a mare fiurious invi:siib1e baittle is going on. As you step out of your home, you are co,nrfronlted with tJhe bayonet o;f a Russian soldier or the various "safety" ciommittees. You look a:rO'llnd and notice that yornr home, nay the whole street is sUJITounded by guards. You re'tl.l!rn h'llITTriedly to your room and wait to see what wiM h'appen. Y.ou wait and wait and waJit unti[ the sUISpense aJlrrnost d11ives you mad. Your blood thins in your veins and you look sadly aJbowt you - and wait! F'iinaMy they came, sO'l1d iers and civiili ians: they go through the house and take whatever they want. '.Dhey ask you whether you are a GeI1IDan or not, whebher any Germans or "coll'<llbaratilonists" a,re in your house. You lod.k them icily in the face. 'Tihey depart but only to come rugruin. 44 SLOVAKIA Organs of Security Mter two weeks oif the Russian occupation everything was phmdered. People had no more than they had buried or secreted in such a place where even the Russian hunters and t,hey are eXlpe'tUy schooled in the art of flinding wailled-in objects - would not come. There was a clirth oif everything, even a serforus lack of bread. But we had plenty o.f police! They sprang Ulp like m:ushrnoms aflter a rain. In t'he first place, ,t he dreaded NKVD (OGPU), the Secret So,vi•e t Police, n10toirioo~ for its birurt:al and ghasitl;y crimes. Woe to him that faHis intto its hanids. The NiKViD goes from home to home, drags peoipile aiway and nolbody ever hears of their fate. Fvom eastern S'JO'V'aJkia alone more tihan 4,000 peo~e were draigiged oiff into Siiberia. I was fonbunate to be 'home during the investigation. AU the en'tralllces to the 'bwil.ding were covered by soldiers wit!h a:utomattics. I •t r:wersed my room ne.rvous•ly. A'lthough I had a c:leair clon1science, yet I was di-squited. (No one is sufficiently olear or safe with the Soviet Po[ice) . Finally I wenlt into the haiJ.llway. I was greeted by a soMier and a civilian. A IDQlfilenrt later came the caiptain. He asked me my naJme, what I wa:s doing here, what my profession was, and wheither I was a mem1ber orf IIlin:ka's People'1s Parity. A mac1hinist l,iived on the same floo,r. His room was locketl. Tlhe caiptain OII'<lered me to open it. "I haven't the key," I told hlm. The maic!hini.st had the key and the soldiers had him in hand alt the gate. I ran to the gate. The NKVD g,u1a rd had an a.ultomatti~ on the machinist. I approached him and said that tlhe c~pta;in wants to open the machinist's room, but the madh~nrist had the key. The latter alre'ardy wanted to hand it to me, when the s:o'ldier suddenly tuirned the aurt:omatiic on me and said: "You ha.ve the key" - "'BUit I dlo not have t'he key, the madhinlist has it" - "No, you will 'h,ruve it, if the caiptain says so." - "But I do not have it; loolk, tovaris, the machimst has. it." - "No, I have a.Qready told you that you wi-11 have the key and will open the door, when the captam orders you to do so." I was dumlbfounded by the profound stU1piclilty and returned without t1he key. I told the captain thait the to:varis SLOVAKIA 45 wowd not let me take the key from the machinist because, he said, the captain had ordered me and not the machinist to open the room. I also was a sOJldier and I know whait military dbedience means. Bult this cannot be called obedience, but some kind of unmentionaJble stupidilty or i!Illfbecility which wouid be capable of sticking pins under my fingernails just to find a key on me whirch I do not haive. I realized then wlhy people, during the investigaltions in tJhe tortrure cha.im!bers of the NKVD, confess to things which they never committed. The invest1gation began at seven in the morning and lasted un1ti'l nine. I went to town on business arrd returned a1boU1t eleven. Upon my arr,ivai the building was a·gai,n surrounded biy guards, but this time by the Prurtisans Security c:1it. I wanted to enter the bui'1ding, but they wouid not let me. I identified myse1f and said that I ld.ved there. Finailly a boy, about 17, wit:Jh an automatic in his hands, let me enter. It was very liive:ly in the hallways. The partrsa,n captain was giving orders. I did not know wh1at they were seeiking. I went through the investigation tortures again, but qUJite fortunately. Again aftl the rooms, closets, desks, and dressing cabinets were opened. The investigation was over at about one o'ciock. Again some innocent peoiple were taken. But that was not alt That was onJy t'he beginning. Night feJ.,l and the stars shone brighUy over Br.atislava. Finany, a lilttle rest, I thought But there is no restful or peaceful night duiring a Russian occl..llpaition. A'boUJt midnight I was awa.ikened by some one pounding on my door. Another investigaition ! I was on my feet in an instant and <jpened the door. Before me in the semidankness stood a man and a lady. Instead of identifying themselves, t!hey opened their short coats so that I could see the revolvers in leather 'holsters. "But, but, this is a spe:cia l visit, and so laite at night!" "Your documents," said the man. "Here they a,re, t:hank you." "Were you a memlber of IDinka's Party?" - "I was." "Since when?" - "From 1933." - "Were you in the 1 46 SLOVAKIA Hlinka Guards?" - "I was not." - "Did you be'1ong to Hlinlka's Youth?" - "No." - "Are you a So'ld!ieir?" - "I am an oftfircer in the Sloivalk airnny." - "Did you ta.Ike pa.rt in the revollit ?" - "No." - "Why not?" - "I was on druty in Nitra." - "Are you a Slova;k ?" - "I am." Then they entered my room. On my taJble was a small bust o{ Andrew Hlin!k'a. "And .t his?" - "That is a bust of Andrew Hilinlka." "Hman., we adivi,se you, to destroy irt." - "I don't understand, whiy?" - "Welil, may!be tomorrow you will understand." Wilth that t'.hey depa,rited. Ait thrr-ee in the morning the inrve-stigat'ion olf .tlhe secret police was completed. At eight in the morn.mg came the olffictaJl police, the so-calied "Naitiona1 Secruritiy" po~ice, to find out who i,t was thaJt a1hlowro an in1VestigaJtion at mghit when the ipolice knew nothing aJbout it. "What kind o{ peop1e were they, how did they look, w:hiat did they want?" I was asked. This then was the new oroer - so ter:rrilbly dangerous because iit had so many .srufety biU1reaus thalt one dlid not know aibout the other! Or did they? The Bratislava Commander Complains A month had already passed since the occ'Ulpation of Bratisla1Va , but the streets were stilil wn:swept; dirt and ruiblble were everywhere; liice and infectious diseases were spreading rapidly. 'Ilhe local "National Oommittee" had a loog session to decirle what to do with the riwbbish and rull:fule clutterinig and burning in the streets. But how was the mess to be C'leared ruway, wlhen the Ru'Ssians took an the city dump trucks, a1l pri,v ate cars and al,l wagons and horse's ? Typhoid fever spread danger01Us ly; the numibers of inflicted increased. The Office of P.ropruganda, or, as it was then called, the "Commissary of InfoTfl'nation" pfa'stered the city witJh huge plaic-ards depio'ting a s'keleton poUII"iing lice over BraJtis lava and t'.he wairning : "WATCH THID LICE, THEY SPREAD TYPHOID. '' People stared at the placarids and barked: "Bwt who in SLOVAKIA 47 tarnation broughlt lice here? Send the lousy Russians baok to their lousy ooumrtey !" 'I.1he first plwcards had liiittle e.fifoot. Severrul druys later new ones appeared: Origanilze energeti'C brig,ades of clearuiness ! But Il!cibodiy paid any atJtenMon. The :riUJbbish iblliI'Iled on and spread its poisonous fiumes over the .popuil.<ati.on. There were no autos, no wrugons wiith which to do the hau[ing. Hiarses, oows and siheeip were kept in the panks. The hot sun blruzeid away and laughingJy loolked at the me!SS, which the "new" government prdbalbly did not dear aJWay to this day. And so the skeleton keipt pouring the lice, and t:Jhe placaros aJb,o ut the brig,a des. of cleanliness were covered witlh new red ones, whicih unged us to attend lec!tUll'es on the moraie of the SoVli.et man, So:vieit woman, and the Soviet youth. The Soviet Russians wasted no time in edlucating the masses accordtinlg to the dootrines orf Marx and Lenin. A Soviet Soldier Confesses lit wrus a bea:urtri.:titd June afternoon in K 1rurl'ova Ves near Bratislava, when a Riu'SSian sOlldier rupproacihed us and struclk up a oonvwsaiti.on. He reproved us saying tha.Jt we Slovruks were Ullldiscipllined amid un.gratefUll. We shOIUJd not siay OII' believe tJhat t:Jhe RJussi,ans rure taikin.g everything that can be ha'l.lll€1d aJWay, booau1se thaJt is only ibrud propaganda. Since he was in a t~aJtiive mood', and did not have a revolver, we dooided to malke WIOrds with him. He spdke at length albout d!i.scipil[n.e in RUISSia, both in thiin.lk.ing and in spealk~ng. In Slovaki·a, he said, everyone says whatever he 'Pleases. "ThaJt does not exist in Ruissia. One must hiO:ld to what St-a!lin says. That is the truth and a.Ill else is ,proprugantla. Sta!lin to-Id UIS thaJt in Russia everything iis fine a!nd dandy, everyrtJhin,g is beaut.if.td, that we have enoUJgh to eait. And even though we know that everything i:s not fine and dan:dy, be.mt'i:fiul, and thtat we do not ha;ve enough to eaJt, yet we must say that everythmg is f,i ne and dandy, and thaJt we have plenty to ea.t. Stalin has so ordered! Stalin has so spdken!" He bec'ame so excited trying to prove his impossible stand that I reaHy pit'ioo. him. I s:m:il.ed and sa,id softly: 48 SLOVAKIA "My dear tovaris! We're a different kind of people, strange to you, indeed. When a tihinrg is white, we say it is white; when it is bladk, we say iJt is black. When we have nothing to eat, we say thaJt we a~ hungry oir that we are starving And if anyone orders us to speak otheirwise, we still. say the truth. Stra'lin telJs you different, so be hruppy in your belief. We believe in God, too, but with reason, never against reason." But our tovaris seemed to be far away; his mouth opened, but he said nothing further. Shaiking hiis head, he pwlled at his ear as he slowly wa;llked away. The Soviet Lady Doct.or We weire oirdered to hand 01Ver the miili'ta,r y hospdital in Bratishwa to the RUJSsians. As we were preparing inventory lists, a Rmlssilan l'ady doctor stepped iruto .the room. After talking for a time, we struck upon religion, belieif in God, and other ba.pics. But my Russian colleague, a lieutenant, !)TOclaimetl thait it was in vain we were trying to convince her, becruuse she wm.tltl nort believe l1'S no matter what the airgumenlts. I assured her that she had nothing to fear, because I had no ruposJtoilic intentions. "Why do we write 1945," I asked her. "I know but I won't tell you!" "Burt even you designalte this year by thaJt numlber." "You won't oon'V'ince me " "I db not want to. But even the unbelieving world admits that Christ was born." "I heard rubout that also; burt I do not believe i,t." "Why?" "Becruuse in the history of the Communist Party there isn't anything aJbout it." "Alh, so!" WhaJt is the use of debating? We looked at each other srgnifioa,ntly, smiled, and talked aibout otheir things. "How long did you study medicine?" "I finished the course during the wair in a year and a haJlf. In peaceful times the study takes aliJ. of two and a half years." SLOVAKIA 49 We 1,amghed loud1iy amd pitied the prutients who happened to get under her kmfe. Placards: Religious Freedom DtN-ing the veriy first weelk:s of occupatfon the Slovak Communist Party posted placiar:ds everywhere, arnnlQuncing that the ComJmuni'Slts wiant to respect the relii.g,ioos feelings of a!hl the SloviaJk people and, therefore, are c,alloog aU Slovaks, regardless of the:ir religious convictions, into the Party. Nay, eiven Catho'l:ic priests coul'd and shlOuiltl join the party, we were to1ld. People sing a nfoe tune, when they want to catch a biro! But wlhrut if a mira'Cle had rea!Uy happened? Suppose Comrm.mism had made a tll!I"11 for the ,better? May/be Commun:ism was no longer so excilusive; perhrups it was even reipernting and had decided to let itself be baptized in Christian SlO'V'a'l da! We knew that the Communists were not sincere, but the fact is thaJt oultwarilly they did try tb deal humanely with the peopie for a wht[e to convince them that Communism was not as bad as they thought. It was evident that they were instiru~teld not to insult the sacred and traditionai feel'ings of the SlOIVak ,peop1e. But the pretense soon wore off and the Reds opecl,y a1:>t8iC'ked a11 ece'lesfastical instilbutions. Catholic Schools in Nationalized Slovakia lf there were some Sloivaiks who had iHu'Sions a,bout the Communists going sofit., thek tllu1sions eJOPloded like b,u!bbles, W:hen Laoo Novomesky, Commissar ('br:ulsitee) of Exiucation, annOlmceld that ai11 Catholic scbioo[,s m Slovakia were to be aJbo:Iished and their property was to be taken over iby t!he Stale. He was leld to this action, he said, because it wais inadimissaJble that the Ohiurich should o!ffer a different kind of education than the State. The unity of the nation, sa•: d No;voimesky, required a unifo:r,m eduicaJtiona1 system, cultural and religious st!'.ife must cease, etc. What could not be accomplished even during the first Ozooho.jSloV'ruk republk, was done now with one stroke of the pen · in tJhe shadow of Russi8JI1 bayionets. The Cat'ho[ic institrntions were hit first for ob:vious reasoos. The Reds had 50 SLOVAKIA little dififiicuM.y in getting the badking of the non-Caitholiic Christians. Al!l they ha:d to dt> was promise them that they w()IU[d get the CaJthoiJ.ii:c Churelh proiperrt:.ies. So-cailled followers oif Christ a1Jtadking and despoiling the fo1lowers of Christ! The Reds knew what they were doing, but evidently the non.CathoJic Christians did not, because they tooik the bait. Slovaik IJuithera.ns, Jews, Unitarians, Baptists, etic , expected to gain by the deail against the Catho[ic Slovaks (80 per cent oif tJhe poipuliaibi.on) and, therefore, went a'long with the Reds. !Ton mrust be forged while it is hot. After publishing the decree, all diredtors of Cruthoiic sciho01ls were dismissed. Their places were taken over by so-ca;Ued "Czechoslovaks" and Lwtherans. That was done e:spe'Cially in gymna'Sit1ms managed by the reJl'igiorus <YI'ders, for example, alt the UrS'llline s:c!hools in BrrutislJ.ava and Tuna.va. It was done designecily and systemaiticaHy. Fists were clenched and hearts were steeled. Freedom, freedom! The Slova!k Catholic public becrume extremely inili.gnarnt. People were saying that the women of Tmava were getting ready to storm the Ursuline institution there and throw oot tlhe new di!rectre'SIS, who was perseC'lllting and intimidating the reiigioruis Sisters there. The Bishops of Slovakia Protest E:ven though Siova..ks knew that nothing would be accomplished by protests, neverthe'Jess ail Catholics we.re a.rgreed that they simply coufttl ndt a!hlow the fundamental right of the Ohurch to iits own school's be taken away from them without uttering a word. The peopile had to make thernse1ves heard, or else the stones wmcld complain. The CaithOllic Bishop's Collliloil presented a memorandll!In to the government and the Central Cat holic Chancery was organizing a si-grratn.ure C·Mnipaign against the nationaHzing of scllodls. Lerufllets were distmi.lb uted, and on July 8, 1945, 1!he protest aigainst the confiscrution of the schools was read from ahl puipiits. 1 Well, alter Ju:ly 8, the Bratislava radio was heard from. It blasted and attacked the Bishop's Council, using the wellknown phrase: The parish church belongs to the Church, SLOVAKIA 51 Mlld the school to the StaJte ! Things came to a head and the resrullt Olf the ,protest was that the dirootors Olf the Central Cath~lic Bureau, who teohmca;Ny organi!Zed the action, were jailed. We were again gilven prood' thaJt we were living in a "democracy" and thiaJt the people were dooiding their own fOiitunes. Wlhat a modkery ! Catholic Bishops Imprisoned The ffrst wa,s Hlis ExicellJency John Vojtassak, bjshop of Spis. Hailf of Slwaikia was a'1ready occupied by the Russian rumy. The Sl'O!VaJk National Council was already giving orders from Kosice. At the end of .AipriJ, Dr. Vav,r o Srobar, chalirma.n of the S1ov,aik NaJtiorra1 CouncH at that time, came to the Spisslka Ifupiroula (ISpis Chapter) to gain Bishop Vojtassak for the Slov:aJk Na.lbiona:l COIUnoil and for Dr. Edwa..ro Benes. Srobar wanted ,t hat prilze catch, bec'ause he knew that Bishop Vojttassa'k was an old and 'hard Slovak. As they meit in the corri'd.10r of the bi,s hop's residence, Dr. Srolbar explained why he came and then asked the bishO!p to back the new government. The bishop eyed him co:l d[y for a moment and then srud: "I do nolt reoogni ze any S'1ovruk Nationall Council and president Benes. My government is stilil in Bratislava, and as president of the SlrovaJks I recognize oruy the Siovak, Ms.g r. Dr. Tiso!" The ~ytihe stmrok upon a stone. Dr. Srobar departed, and bishop John VojtassaJk went to his room. Several days later when the bishop received an order from the Slovak N atiorral OownJCirl to beget himsellif to his p1race of confinement i-n Stl,ruvru:k, Vojtassaik replied energetica.!Uy: "I do not have an auto, nor any means of transportation, not even a horse. They -took ever.yrthing from me. I wi'M yie[d only to force." On May 5, 1945, an auto stopped in front oif the Kaipitula; it was a,mned with machine guns and severrul men with auito:matiJc:s. The wovds of Ohris't again rang ou't: You are come out as it were aigain,st a robber with clubs. The good bishop of Spis was forcefuilily talken to Stiaivnik and, later, to the jaml of the federal court in Bratislava. 1 52 SLOVAKIA What hruppened to him? A1[ I knew at that time was that the commwn1i1,it "Plravd'a" of Bramislava was inciting aigainst h!im., head!linirrug its avticleis thus: "The Lord Bishop is against chi:ldren of tJhe wmikers." It was a brazen lie, designed to U!Ilderunine the 1:Jrnst of the fovthfol in the social ideO'logy of iits bishop, who during hd:s whole life proved himself to be the most social o,f alil episcopa:l dignitaries in Sl0V1aikia. Soon aflter the OOOU1pation of Bratislava by the Russians, the bishoip Ol.f Trnava, Mii.H'.tary Vicar and Rector of the BraJtislaiva seminary, J. E. BwzaLka, was ja1iled. F\irst he wais lodged in the pohce stati'On and tJhen transferred to the federail prison where "heiavy offenders" weire penned. He slept on a spring, no m'aJttress ,b eing availaJble, and the siliveT-haired poet, Va'lentine Beniruk, slept alongside him on the bare stone :flloor. After the bishops, t:he Slwialk National Co'Ullcil "took care" of the oonons and other pre1'aJtes. Among the first to be truken was Joseph Srobar of BraJti.sl'a:va, brother of Dr. Vaviro Srdbar. The old churehman, ail heart, would never hairun even a fly. But bo[shev,rk justice did not consider that. In him it sa,w an "enem:y of the people" and inrcaTcerated him. . Ma:nry othevs foHowed him, among them Dr. Charles Kovper, weH-iknown among .American S:lova\ks, former editor of a Cathoi1'i'c neWS1pruper. Monsignor Marsina of Trenci.n cO'llild not even OOJt for nothing in the jail, but had to work. And what work! He was forced to dig c011pses wit!h his bare hand's firom ma$$ graves, then forced to wash and ·k!iss each one. I have a strong su1S1pidon thalt those mass graives were made lby the Russians and not by the Germans as claimed by the So:vie'ts. "Fascist Post.enyi Arrest.ed" That's what a heai!'line said in the communist "Pravda." And it stumned just albout the whole of Slo.vrukila. The discovery of America O!I' the Law of GI"avitation was no more sensationall. Up to that time nobody knew that Monsignor Postenyi was a fascilSt. Aime11ida,ri Slovaks know Msgr. SLOVAKIA 53 Postenyi very weiN. He visiited America in the interests of the S't Ada!llbert Society, pulljlisher of Catholiic literature and inrf.cmmat<ion, an origanwation equiivalent to the Book of the Month 01wbs in Amerti!C'a. The Reds knew that his Slovak ,paltriotism was beyond question and that his merits, as far as the l31rgesit CIUll,bural, Slovak, Catholk institution was concerned, were greaJt. Monsignoir Po:s tenyi is an exemplary priest of Gad, a S1ovaik hough and through, and an indefatfJi,gruble worlcer for the common people of his nation. He was pe!I1S€Kmted for his Slovak ,p atriotism when the Commumst leaders and editors of the "Pravda" were strn in the bOSOIIn of Albraham. Never aclmvel.l,y interested in politics, Msg,r. Postenyi sUldden!ly became a "fascist!" We knew whalt the C01Inmunisits wanted to aJOcorrniplish. 'Do put Posteny,i out of the way woold me'an to destroy the Society of St. Ad•rutbert with iJts libraries, priillt sh01ps and origan.izationrul appruratus. And so the SlOViaJk N ationa;l CO'U!Ilici1 appointed the fina.ncirul secretary of the Sooiety, a Ozedh named Wa;gner, as the commissary of the Society. A few days l1ater a new management was named, one that was rucceptaJble to the spirit and program of tJhe C01Inmunist-idk>minia.ted SlovaJk NaJtional Cooncil. This institution which was bui[it by generations of Slov,a ks inrto a going cultural concern wrus wiped oult in a momenit by the ruthilegs Reds The 150.000 members of the Society of St. Ada1be,rtt co:uM not say a word against the action without inviting punishment, either inciariceration or exile into Silberia. That is how the "people's demooracy" of the Soviets operates. Charit,a,ble Ecclesiastical Institutions The la;rgesit oharitalble ooganization in Slovrukia wa,s the Central Charity (Ustredna Karita), the central Catho1.ic institute of al'l the welfare, socitail, anld religious societi'es. It ha;d its own hea11th cenltets, hospiita!ls for incuraJbO.es, children's nurseries, etc. The women'1s "Charilta:s" was a'1so a mem~ of tJhe organi.<Za,tion. 'Dhe CommUll!ists took (Wer ruH soci:ail insbitiuttions of the Church. Some weeks after the ocCUipation, tihe Communist Union of Sloviak Women confi:s- 54 SLOVAKIA cated the children's nuTsery of the Ustredna ~arita in Dornk~le, BraJtislava, and the Union of SloivaJk Y ouith toolk over the ·b oarding sch06l nea,r the forestry school in Koliba, Braltislavia. The hwmanitari.an division oif the city o.f Bratislava comisoated the estate of "Oharitas" in Braltisfava near the Red Bridge. For the women's home of "Charitas" the commissari'at foT Social Welifare named as commissary the Communist Fla:TIIIly Hirusovsky. Dr. Ivan Horvath, the commissary for sooiall welfare, prod.aimed that a:1'1 the charitable, social instituJtions of the Church would be taken over by the state. Protests clid not mean a thing, as usual. "Freedom" of the Press One of the first ,a cts of the Commissariat for Initernal AffaiTs was the suppression o;f aM news,prupers. With th~s general order all Oathollic newpaJpers and :periodicais weTe wiped out aultomalt!roally; noit only cruturrul and literrury periodicals, such as the "Ku!litura" (a.rl.,tmre.) and the "Obroda" (Rffi"ilvaJl), but even an the religious and educational periodicals, such as The MessengeT of the Srucred Heart, The Holy Family, The Queen of May, etc. And, ]ater the only Caltholk Sloivruk weeldy "Katolicke Noviny" (The Catholic News), which had a suibscription of 170,000, was also swppressed and ta:ken 01Ver by 1:!he Reds. Cathollics protested to the authorities, but in. vadn. The Catholic press was gone. Attaclks against the Church and its priests increased daily, but they could not defend themselves; it was an unequa:l strwggk The enemy fought wfth powerfU!l we8lpons, whi[e the Catholics had none. "Freedom" of Conscience The wax was fought, we were told, aga.inst the suppressi~n of consoien.ce by imperial~stic means, and we haJVe lived to see sucll a diclatorship and s:uch a barbaric viOllia.tion of conscience and its inlterrra:l freedom, the likes of whl'C'h perhrups not even the most frurious f:aslci'Slt ever dreamed of. On aH fronts of tlhis terrible wrur died the best sons of humanity for the rigih:t to speak free'ly about the most fundamental questions of 1iife against tlhe fascist terror. Men SLOVAKIA 55 shed their blood so that concentration camps, wiith all theiT horrors, might never a:ga:in operaJte. But soon aif.ter the war's end aN dliistriot cities in SlovaJlda were ordered to set up a concent.Taition camp and jaill. The war was fol.light for the freed'Olffi of poilft.ic-aiJ. conviotlions, but in Sl'OVlalkia today there are not enOUJgh jai!ls to talke care of aH those, whose only gui,It is that they wilM not swear on the Siclcl.e anld: Hammer, but prefer to rematin loyal to the fupal eneyclilc'als and the fiUJnd:amen'ta:l princiiples of demooraJCy. ln a wore, the Slovaks want to be demO!crat:s and not 'boisiheviks. What has rea;filry changed? Every ni!ght we waited tensely to see whether they were coming for us. We had no peace duirmg the day or night. Forever they were screening and investiigaJting UIS just 'becaUJSe we haippened to live during the past era, and had to wor1k and keeip OUir families. They perseouted us for "co'l:1-aborating" because we recorded oftficiail writings, in some office, or because we were insigruffoant wiheells in the great machinery of life. In Conclusion If I had not seen it, I would not hruve be'liieived it. Those first three months in "l~beraJted" Bra;tislruva were a nightmare. It .st;ilfil hamnts me. The S[ovalk people dild not ha,ve a clharuce. The,i r country was overrun bry bar:barians whom the .AilHes had Wlken on as pa:rtners. Slovalkia was ru!led bry terror and violence f.rom the moment it was "rnberaJted" lby the so-calil ed "Uniiteld Nations," which placed it in the Soviet sphere o!f irufiluence. ]t was ruied 'by the Communist-dominated regime o!f the man who r~gned the presitleTIJCy in 1938 and returned as president..a.venger behind the Soviet ho:rdes in 1945. 'Dhe independenJt Slo.ivaJk Repull:Afc, established by the dully eledted representatives olf t!he Slovak people in 1939 and reoognlizetl by 27 countries, including GreaJt Britain and F,r ance, was wanton!ly destroyed against the wiili of the Slova:k people. The vast majority of the Slovaik nation, the Catholics of Slovakia - representing 80 per cent of the poipll1ation was oulUawed. No politioail parities, newspaipers, organizations, and eilltenprises cou~d exist, except th()[se aUowed by 56 SLOVAKIA Dr. IDdwa,rd Benes and his Communist-dominated regime. The non-Catholic minority in Slovakia - including aN those who ca;Ned t!hemsetlives "Christians" - hel,p ed Benes and the Co!Ir.JII1UJill1S'ts ruin Ca1fud1irc Slovrukia and so helped to ruin themseilves and thetk in:stilbulticms. Whereas, in the beginning, only Crutholics were perisem.uted and onily Cathol'i:c institUJtion:s and enter,prises were nabion:a,lized, laJter the foNowers of ail Christian faiths were crucified and their institulti'ons confiscalted b;y the State. Hi:istor:y repeateld itseJ.if. But ha,tred of the Cathohc Ch'l11l'ch in S'lovakia did n01t solive any of the social or economic probllems, bult oll!l.y aggrawated them; in faot, it only he'lped the Communists realize their ends all the more speedilly. It is high time thait a'11 Christians realized this an:d aoted accordmgly. In Slovalkia tihere sha/U be no rea;l peace, no flI'eedom, as long 3IS 1t is governed by peopte wlho are hostile to the nationa1 traditions of the Slovak nation and its rel:i!gious and political convictions and, hence, are bent on the destru<:tion of the SIJ.O'Vruk people. Slovaikia, one of the oldest Christian countries of Centra1 :Eiu!rope, never sho:uil(l. haive been desbroyed as an independent StaJte. That is more evident today than it was in 1945. No nrution has fought Coonmunism more pel'.sistentily and consistently than the Slovaik nation It's time that this trutlh was recognized by a.Ill freedom-rl<wing, a:ruti-Com:rrmmist coll!Il1Jri-es and that they adj1U1st theiir pOllicies to,w ard the Slovaks to fit the present siitU1aition. Even today the people of Slovruk.ia find iJt ha~d to belrieve that they were sdld oUJt to the men of the Kremlin with the help of file United StaJtes and Great Britain, the great sym'bols of freedom and demooraicy. But they stitl exipect to be liberated by them. • • • "THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an American institu- tion. Its primary interest is America. As an American of Slovak descent, I say again and again that it ls in the interest of Amerlc-a and the democratic world at large to work for the freedom and Independence of Slovakia. The Individuals and organizations affiliated with the Slovak League of America - as true Americans - cannot wish their brethren in Slovakia less fre edom than they themselves enjoy in the U. S. A. We say: Give Slovakia back to the Slovak people!" - (P. A. Hrobak, Detroit. Mich., 11-18-51)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Three Months in "Liberated" Bratislava Description An account of the resource By: An Eyewitness Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 2 (7), July 1953 pp. 39-56 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/26765bd5010a2a7822479dc74800ceae.pdf 11edbc7e2cceb27a544c1ea73479a25c PDF Text Text 12 SLOVAKIA Three Kinds of Slovak Folk Literature Eva Susan Kucekova The following categories of Slovak folklore represent some of its oldest forms. Lyrical genres, such as m agical formul ae or incantations , ceremonial calendar poetry , and ceremonial fa mily poetry, a re of ritual and ceremonial character. The sample selections introduced in this pa per were taken from a comprehensive modern collection of Slovak folkl ore entitled Slovensky folk16r: Chrestomatia, and edited b y the foremost authority on the subj ect, the late Andrej Melichercfk . 1 Melichercfk based hi s anthology on Pavo! Dobsinsky' s publications , as well a s on other collections of Slovak folklore, for example those edited by Jozef I:. . Holuby, Jan Kollar and Jirf Polfvka . 2 The folklori c material collected by Dobsinsky and others is rendered in the dialect of the region from which it originated. MAGICAL FORMULAE Magical fo rmulae a re incantations associated with ritu als. These non-narrative forms are very ancient and are closely related to ce rem onial calendar poetry. M agical formulae were u sually connec ted with special rites and performed on spec ific occasions and/or holidays . They were often perform ed by semiprofessional m en and women (" wi se m en " and " wise wom en ") who were well versed in m agic. There are two types of incantations: tho se which were supposed to bring a desired effect( " sympathethic magic" ), and those which were supposed to preve nt undes irable and ha rmful effects (" preve ntive magic" ). Incantations we re u sed to brin g a hu sba nd , m ake one fall in love, prevent and cure illness , increase the yield of the fi elds, and also bring illness or bad lu ck upon a n enem y . Some incan tations were chanted primarily by girls or young women. " Puddle, Puddle," " Will ow, Willow," and " And You , Elm ," are typical examples of love incantations. Once m arried , a bride would chant an incanta tion " I Sow the Seed " and wish for good lu ck and prosperity . �SLOVAKIA 13 Magical formulae are rhythmical and based on syntactic parallelisms ; they rely extensively on various euphonic and semantic devices. Due to the fact that magical formulae are so closely associated with magic, their ritual form remains unchanged throughout the centuries . Magical incantations contain many pre-Christian elements, upon which a new layer of C hri st ian symbols has been added . Love Incantations This love incantation shows water as a powerful source of magic. T aken from fords at midnight , water was believed to attract lovers and help a girl get married . While bathing, girls chanted the following incantation: Puddle , puddle,' get me a husband! Above the bridge, below the bridge, let him go nowhere but to our house! Above th e footbrid ge, below th e footbr idge, don 't let him rest but in ou r house 1 I 'm not pouring away, I 'm pouring in: bachelors , wid owers, merchants, fiddlers, even those small boys I call after me, after my body , aft er my clothes , after my heels, a ft er this hou se of ours. Not by my power do I say this, but I say it by the divine power, from J es us Christ till m idn ight. And help me in this God th e Father, the Son , a nd the H oly Ghost!' H oly Trini ty , help me reach hap piness and get married. 1 Kaluza, kalu za, daj muza 1 Vyse mosta, ni ze mosta, aby nemal nikde miesta len u nas! Vyse lavky, ni ze lavky, aby nem al nikd e stavky len u nas 1 Neod lievam, ale prilievam: mladencov, vdovcov, kupcov , aj hudcov , aj tych malickych chlapcov za sebou volam, za mym telom , za m ymi satami, za mym i patami, za tym nasfm domom . J a to nehovorfm ze svej moc1, lez to hovorfm z bozskej m oci, od pana J ezisa Kri sta do pol noci. A k tomu mi dopomahaj Boh otec , Boh sy n , Boh du ch svaty! Svata troj ica , bud mi dobra pomocnica k vse tkemu dobremu, k stavu manzelskemu! p. 54 �14 SLOVAKIA On the eve of St. George ' s Day (April 24) , young girls made wreaths from different kinds of flowers and boughs. Later, wreaths were tossed into the air. It was believed that the girl whose wreath was caught on a tree branch would get married within a year. To attract a beloved, girls would make wreaths from nine different boughs and chant the following incantation: 2 A ty vaz - ty ho vaz, a ty hrab - se m ho hrab , a ty kJen - se m ho zen , a ty svfb - se m ho sib, a ty sip - ty ho stfp , a ty tfn - sem ho hrn , a ty dub - ty ho l'ub , a ty bez - za nim bez, a ty lieska - za nim vri es kaj ! And you, elm - you bind him , and you, hornbeam - rake him here, and you , maple - drive him here, and you , red dogwood - whip him here, and you , wild rose - you prick him, and you , thorn bush - push him here , and you , oak - you love him , and you , lilac - run aft er him , a nd you , hazel, - yell aft er him p . 57 Bridal Incantation A woman married into her husband's family . As soon as the bride entered her husband's house after the wedding, she would scatter flaxs6ed, millet and poppy seed in the yard for good luck , while chanting the following: 2 I sow the seed , to succeed with all my breed ; I sow millet, for others to beg m y fav or; I sow poppy seed , for this to last foreve r. Sejem se m eno, ab y sa mi viedl o vsetko ple meno; sej em proso, aby sa mi vse tci prosili ; sej em m ak, aby bolo vzdycky tak . p . 61 Incantation by the Willow To make sure that they would grow beautiful long hair, young girls would comb their hair under a willow on Good Friday at dawn. While combing their hair, they wished for a good husband . Willow, willow , ge t m e a m an , red as a rose , white as a fl ower, a nd good as honey. ' Vfba, vfb a , d aj mi mu za, ce rve neho a ko ru za a bieleho a ko kve t, a dobreho ako med . p . 62 �SLOVAKIA 15 CEREMONIAL CALENDAR POETRY Ceremonial calendar poetry celebrates different festivals of the year. The original calendar festivals coincided with the solstices and equinoxes. Calendar poetry contains many pre-Christian mythological elements which have been intertwined with and sometimes replaced by Christia n elements. In the calendar poetry of Slovakia a nd other Slavic countries which have been under Catholic influence, Christian features pred ominate. The traditions connected with calendar poetry are still being practi ced in some Slovak villages , particularly around holidays such as Christmas, New Year ' s and Easter. The classification of calendar poetry corresponds to the agricultural cycles, and all four seasons of the year are represented. In the poetry , three seasons are associated with the cultivation of the soil, while the last one is concerned with the harvest itself. The poetry is full of incantations and magical formulae meant to secure a good harvest and placate nature , which was often thought of as hostile. In the pre-Christian era the peasants turned for h elp to their gods and during Christian times to the numerous Christian saints. They would ask for good and prosperous years , abundant harvest, a nd good health and happy family life. Along with incantations and magical formulae, calendar poetry also contains chants , recitations , songs, riddles, and prognostications . In this poetry each season has its own characteristic customs . The winte r solstice cycle , beginning in November , is best represented. Its poetry is of a prophetic nature, and touche s on both family life and the prosperity of the homestead. The most important days of the season were the last 12 before Christmas since they represented the 12 months of the year; these days were used to judge what the weather would be like for the w hole next year. Children went caroling from hou se to house, a nd it was important that they b e healthy for if they were, they would bring good health to the fa rm ers ' fa milies as well . Moreover, the living room h a d to be cleaned a nd whitewashed in eve ry house to preve nt any kind of illn ess from ente rin g. Numerous C hri stmas customs were practiced o n C hristmas Eve . Basicall y , they were meant to express the farmer ' s thanksgiv in g for good crops in the preceding season, a nd to h elp assure a nd predict a good harvest in the forthcoming year. The latter kind were u su ally connected wit h magic . There we re rules of condu ct which were st ri ctl y followed �16 SLOVAKIA on Christmas Eve. For example, one could not light the house unless the Christmas Eve dinner - the biggest meal of the year - was already set on the table. The numerous courses of the meal had to follow acertain sequence . Christmas carolers were offered food and drink , and the boys were also given money. Many of the Christmas carols have a joking tone - besides bringing best wishes they expressly ask for a reward as in ''I Am a Very Small Boy,'' or ''I'm Just a Little Boy .' ' Sometimes they would ask expressly for money as in the carol "We Have Brought You Some News . '' New Year's wishes were also humorous in tone and expressed the good mood which prevailed in every household on that day . It was believed that if one felt happy on New Year's Day , he or she would be happy during the coming year. One song jokingly suggests that the farmer's stove burn out from too much cooking and baking: "I wish you in this/ coming New Year / that a side of your oven / may fall out." Carols for the eve of the Three Magi combine religious and secular motifs. Thus, in " Lord , Grant Us a Merry Evening," best wishes are expressed for everyone in the house, including the servants. Immediately after come Epiphany motifs, dealing with the birth of Christ and the arrival of the Three Kings. The Epiphany carol is concluded with a rather anticlimatic ending: the old man (probably the patriarch of the house) is not at home and has gone hunting. Very often , the boys were masked as the Three Kings, Joseph and Mary, and would perform a co medy based on the ancient legend . The Christmas ceremonial cycle ended with the Three Kings motif. Thematically, then , Slovak ceremonial calendar poetry focuses upon the four cycles of the year and the agricultural tradition con nected with them . It also contains the themes of love and fertility, and elements of ancestor worship, which are not treated here. From the formal point of view, calendar poetry is characte rized by symm etric bipartite verse and the frequent use of asso nance . Pre-Christmas Period The winter cycle of calendar poetry begins with St. Thomas's Day (December 21 ) , the shortest day of the year. Small boys walked around the village with a piece of steel, wishing farmers good lu ck in the next farming year : �SLOVAKIA 17 I have b rought you a piece of steel' so th a t you would not fall out of bed. Have as m a n y calves on yo ur farm as there a re spoons on your shelf. Have as man y oxen in your stable as there are logs in your shed. Let your girls have as many suito rs as there are dishes on your rack. May yo ur lads own as many hafts' as there are hearths in you r house. May as man y youn g men wear feathers in their caps• as you have number of dau ght ers. Have as m a ny more ears of corn in you r backyard as there are pictures on your walls. I ask onl y as many kreuzers' 0 as there are mirrors here. I wish you a good morning 1 Doniesou som vam ocele, aby ste nevypadli z postele. Kol'ko mate za ramom lyz iciek, tol'ko mate vo dvore teliciek; kol'ko mate na sope kolov, tol'ko mate V mastali volov; kol'ko mate za ramom tanierov , tol'ko maju vase dievky frajero v ; kol'ko mate vo vasom dome ohnisk, tol'ko maju vas i parobci porisk ; kol'ko zije vasich deer, tol'ko maju mladenci pier ; kol'ko ma te na stene obrazov , tol'ko raz vo vasom humne kl asov; kol'ko mate tuna zrkadov, !en tol'ko mi dajte krajciarov. Dobro rano vinsujem 1 p. 70 Christmastime Many Christmas carols and son gs are connected with the Christm as season. Both children and ad ults went from house to hou se caroling M erry C hristmas. For their service they expected som e reward. Many of these carols are joking in character, as is evident from the following carols: �18 SLOVAKIA I a m a very sm all boy. M y fa th er has se nt me to you , to ge t so methin g from you , but m ake it qui ck, for m y stomach rumbl es. J a som chl apec ve l'mi m aly, mn a moj otec k vam poslali, zeby ste mi dafo dali , ale chytro , lebo m i uz v bru chu svitlo. p. 70 2 I ' m ju st a little boy. I'm askin g fo r my sm all bag : a pi ece of cake a nd piece o f pie. T omorrow , I ' ll b rin g yo u a bird . If th at see m s too little, I will brin g you so me pork ; and if tha t 's not enough , I 'll b ri ng yo u a cat's ta il. J a so m maly, nevelicky, pyta m se be do ka psicky: kus kola.ca, kus kabaca, d onesiem vam zajtra vtaca. Ak sa vam to ma.lo vid f, d onesiem vam porfov iny; ak je vam to ni e dost', d onesiem va m z m acky chvost. p . 71 3 W e have b rought you so me news, we have come to you r feas t . The Saviour desce nded from H eave n , and we ca me to be your gues ts. A jug of wine is on th e table , and we are under your farm yard window, but you don ' t offer us a n y win e, nor do you have an y brand y th a t we ca n trea t ourselves to, and sing you songs eve n ni ce r . W e don ' t want your past ry, we' ll crac k a few nu ts.'' H ey, we a re not little ki ds , wh o get j ust a kreu ze r apiece. If yo u don ' t give us twe n ty we wo n ' t co me on New Yea r's Day. D oni esli sm e vam novinu , prisli sm e k vam na hos tinu , Sos tupi l Spasti el' z vysosti . M y sm e prisli k va m za hos ti . Krcah s vfn om j e na stole, m y sme pod oblokom v dvore , a nam vina nedavate, palenky ti ez ni c nem a te, co b y sme sa castu va]i a vam krajsie zaspievali . O pekance va m nechcem e, oriesky si poklcieme. A my sme ni e chl a pci m ali, ze by Ste nam krajc iar d ali. Ak na m dvads ia tnik ned a te, na Novy rok nas nema te. p. 71 New Year's Wish es Early in th e m ornin g on New Year's D ay, m en a nd youn g boys went from house to hou se, w ishin g lo ts of lu ck, p rosperity , a nd good h ealth to everyon e in the house . M ost of th eir w ishes foc u sed upon su ccessfu l fa rmin g a nd m a n age m e n t. I wish you in th is coming New Year, V in sujem vam V tento nas tavajuc i nov y rok , �SLOVAKIA that a side of your ove n may fall out , " that your wife may get pregna nt this year! Give us foo d and drink and stay well! 19 aby va m vypadol z pece bok, aby vam bola vasa gazdin a na te nto rok samod ruh a 1 Vypit', zajest' na m d ajte, a dob re sa tu m aj te 1 p . 78 2 l wish you plenty of hemp , bu shels of beets, a whole bin of blossoms, and a ba rnful of children' Vinsujem va m moc konopi, mecu repy , zacinok puckov, plevienec deti 1 p. 79 3 This l wish to all'' with vigo r and joy : to peasants, bags for their shoulders ; to shep herd s, porridge; to cows, good pasture; to pigs, lots of mast to make them fat. Vinsujem smele vse tk ym vese le : sedliakom vrece, pine na piece; pastiero m kase a kravam pase; svi niam zaludu, ze tu cne budu . p . 79 The Three Magi On the eve of Epiphany, children went from house to house, singing carols in which the Epiphany motifs were interspersed with such commonplace motifs as farming and the farmer's eve ryday activity. Lord, grant us a merry eve ning ," to the farmer, first of all! And then to th e farmwife, and then to all the se rvants! The Three M agi a rri ve from the East, wo rshippin g this fam il y. Do not worship this fa mil y but worship only the beloved Lo rd! " And you , bright star, go before us, Lord , Jesus C hri st, grant us a good ni ght! And you , Joseph , I say to you , do not leave the Virgin M ary 1 D on ' t you kn ow who is going to be bo rn ? The Virgin M ary is to bear a so n . There is a red rose on your table , �SLOVAKIA 20 let you r daught er marry a handsome man 1 There is a tu li p atop your table , yo ur son is ge ttin g read y to see his love. There is a handso me fe llow in this house , perhaps he ' d give us six kreu ze rs for a wrea th . God wi ll give him a lovely wife , whether it ' s Anna o r Susanna. The old man is not at home , he went out hunting . D aj nam Boh vecer diz vesely, najprv panu hospodarov i I A poto m aj tej hospod ince, po hospodin ce vseckej cel'adce 1 ldu tri a krali od vychod u , kl a naju sa tomut o rod u. Nekla naj te sa tom uto rod u , len sa kl a najte mil emu Bohu! A ty, j as na hviezd a, predchadzaj nas, pane J ezu Kri ste, dob ru noc nam d as 1 A ty , J ozefe, j a mlu vim tebe, neopust'aj pann y M a rie ! Nevid, co sa m a na sve t narod it'? M a panna Maria sy na porodit'. Na vaso m stole ce rve na ru za, daj vasej panenk e sva rn eho mu za 1 Na vaso m stole tulipan stoji, vas m lad enecek se k fraj erce strojL J est V tomto dome sva rn y ml adenec, azda nam on d a ses tak na veniec. D a jemu Panboh svarnu zenu , Annu alebo Zu za nu . Sta reho pana doma neni, isli oni po pol'uvanL pp. 79-80 Carnival Season Th e post-Chri stmas period does not present as m a n y cerem onies as th e C hri stmas season. The tim e of fasiangy (carni val season) was ch aracte rized b y a m asked procession which was to secure a good harvest. Th e carniv al processio n h ad mu sical accompaniment , u su all y a n accordi on . Most en gaged couples were also married during carnival season , sin ce there w as rela tively plenty of time for elaborate weddi n g celebration s, w hi ch las ted for several d ays. At the e nd of th e carnival seaso n , young m e n in ce re monial m asks we nt from ho u se to ho u se, collecting eggs, bacon , a nd m o ney. They �SLOVAKIA 21 would sing humorous songs, such as " Shrovetide, P entecost. . m which they would ask for a piece of bacon . From these donations they would arrange a feast for the youth of the entire village. The main course was bacon and eggs, while the money paid for the music . Shrovetide, P entecos t, and Easter pass by, 16 he who has no fur coat , feels cold . I have none, I have none, I ' m shakin g all over, give me some bacon " to fill my belly . H ere I got nothin g, over there something, maybe. They killed a m osqu ito , a nd got some bacon . There up the chimney," a tom cat sits on the bacon , go chase him away and cut me a piece; if you cut me too sm all a piece, you will cut your fin gers. Give to the teacher " a piece as big as a d oo r , to me , a piece as big as a goose. Fasangy, Turice, V el'ka noc byva, kto nem a kozucha, zima mu byva. Ja nemam, ja nem a m , !en sa tak tras im , daj te mi slaninky, nech sa popasim . Tuto mi nedali , tuto mi d aj u, K om a ra zabili , slaninku m aj u . A ta m hore na komin e, sedi kocur na sla nin e, h ybajte ho zohn at' a mne ku s odrezat', az mi mal y odrezete, svoje prsty poreze te. R echtorovi j ako dve re a mn e ku s - ako hus 1 pp . 82-83 Easter The spring custom s include taking out Morena (the goddess of dea th in the p agan Slavic traditio n) , ta king out the old m a n (dedko - possibly a m ale equivalent of Moren a), and welcoming in the n ew summe r . However , the sprin g ce remonial cycle is cente red prim a rily around Easter , the most important religious holiday of the season . Easte r customs still co nta in m a ny pre -Christia n ele m e nts, which have been prese rved up to the 20th century . For example, on Good Friday a t d awn, girls would chant incantations while ba thing, wishing for a hu sba nd (see " Pud- �22 SLOVAKIA dle, Puddle" in the preceding section). On Easter Monday, groups of ten to fifteen men and boys went from house to house, wishing the womenfolk a Happy Easter. It was a part of the tradition that they flogged women's legs with a birch switch and doused their heads with fresh water. This proced ure had a symbolic purifying function . If a young man was courting a particular young woman, he was expected to visit her house , thus showing his interest and affection. Then, the girl would reward her favorite suitor with the most lavishly decorated Easter egg. Besides the eggs, everybody would also receive drinks, food, sweets, and little boys would get money. Easter, Easter, will it come soon? which lad will pour water over me] Pour the water , pour the water, on my hair and head , but do spare my nice new skirt. Vel'ka noc , Vel'ka noc, kedyze uz bude? ktoryze ma suhaj oblievati prfde? Oblievaj, oblievaj, vlasy aj hlavicku , ale mi zasanuj tu novu suknicku. p . 93 Pentecost marked the beginning of the summer cycle. Many traditions were centered around the summer solstice and St. John's Eve CTune 24). On that day, love incantations were chanted and the future was foretold . Also, magic was practiced against witches whose power was believed very strong on that day. The later part of the summer season is poorer in folklore because of increased work in the fields . Harvest The autum cycle begins with the harvest season . During the harvest season, songs were sung in the fields, or on the way home after a day 's work. Thematically , they are associated with the work itself, love between two young people ("We Reaped Here") , or the feast following the work ("Master, Make Ready for a Feast "). Some of these songs are joking in tone . The songs sung around the harvest wreath reflect old Slovak customs . After the harvest, a procession of harvesters would walk from the fields to the house of the farmer who had hired them . Led by a young man who was carrying a colorful flag and a young woman wearing a wreath made of wild flowers , they would sing songs and some- �SLOVAKIA 23 times play music ("For Which Girl Shall We Weave a Wreath Today?"). In these songs, the peasants expressed their joy and happiness over a rich harvest. They also expressed their hope for the same bounty for the years to come. Harves t time offers a whole series of songs connected with this important agricultural season. They may refer to the work itself, or love between a young girl and a young man from the same village, or else the rest during the break or at the end of the day . W e reaped here , we reaped the re , in the valley, in th e valley, and the birdie, mottled birdie keeps singing, kee ps singin g. Kde sm e zali , tu sme fali , na doline , na doline , a ten vtacik, jarabacik pres pevuje , prespevuje. As the birdie , mottled birdie goes around th e tree , a rou nd the tree , so does m y d ea r, m y beloved go around me, around me . J ak ten vtacik, jarabacik okolo pna , okolo pna , tak moj mil y, najmilejsf okolo mna , okolo mn a. We reaped here , we reaped th ere, behind a path , behind a path , whoever will be our master, our clerk, our clerk? Kde sme zali , tu sme fali, za chonnfkom , za chonnfkom , ktoze bude nas fm panom , ura nnfkom , ura nnfkom ? p . 99 2 Master, make read y for a feas t, for a feast , we ' ve don e all the work for you . Master , prepa re the repast , th e repas t , a twelve- pound roas t. Add to it pints of wine , pints of wine, and a roasted capon. H otuj , pa ne , oldomas, oldomas , zrob ili sme , kd e co mas. H otuj , pa ne , veceru , vece ru, d vanas t' funtov pecenu . Este k tom u pint vfna, pint vfna, peceneho kapuna . p. 100 Around the h arvest wreath might be sung the foll owing song: 3 For which girl shall we weave a wreath today? For th e one chose n by the handsom es t young ma n . Wh o shall we let ca rry th e fl ag tod ay ? The one who hands hi s ri ght ha nd to her . T hat Ond1·is Slavik a nd Anna Bl ahej , �SLOVAKIA 24 they would make a nice couple would Lord grant it. Masters, our masters , open the gates, we bring you a gift - a nice pair of reapers. Harvesters back from the fields , cover the tables, the mapl e tables with linen tabl e-cloths. Ktorejze dnes, ktorej uvijeme veniec~ Tej, ktoru vyberie najkrajsi mladenec . Komuze dnes , komu dame niest' zastavu? Tomu , co jej poda svoju rucku pravu. Ten Ondris Slavike, ta Anna Blaheje, to by bou pekny par, keby im Panboh dau! Pani nasi, pani, otvarajte brany, nesieme vam darik, zencov pekny parik. Idu zenci z roli, prestierajte stoly, stoly javorove, obrusy kmentove. p. 100 CEREMONIAL FAMILY FOLKLORE Ceremonial family folklore focuses primarily on the most important events in an individual's life: birth, marriage and death . While only songs are discussed here (they are the most common form), the Slovak ceremonial family tradition is expressed in poems, proverbs, sayings, riddles, and short dramatic performances as well. Christening Songs In the distant past , the birth of a child was accompanied by rituals and many magic practices . Such practices, it was believed, would protect the mother and her child, and would also secure health and happiness for the child as he or she matured. These magic practices gradually developed into joyful, social celebrations to welcome the new member of the family . 10 Thematically, the christening songs are directly connected with the child's birth and prospects. They frequently mention the responsibilities and problems connected with his or her upbringing, and wish the child a happy life, prosperity, and even a good spouse. Some songs stress the importance attached to having male offspring: '' And if you my wife,/would have a boy ... " If the child is a girl, the song may wish her beauty, or possibly stress the importance of chastity or industrious- �25 SLOVAKIA ness: " Freedom and chastity prevail everywhere, / whichever girl has them , let her guard them .'' Other songs may express the abruptly felt loss of freedom experienced by the young parents , especially the new mother: '' ... m y freedom is crying in the cradle.'' M any songs are j okin g in tone and form the less serious part of the christening ceremony in Slovak villages . H ere, for example, the new parents tease each other a bout their responsibility for rocking the baby: '' Rock him , m y dear . .. I'm his mother.'' And here again, the m other m ockin gly compares her situation with that of the carefree life of unm arried m en and women: " I used to have a good time , ... m y maiden name/ is blotted out," or " As the maiden s d ance . . . while I , poor thing , / rock a baby ." Slovak christening songs usually have the following rhyme pattern : aa-bb-cc-dd. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. Man y songs use assonance and employ colloquial express10ns . J ano , J ano, mily Jano! Donesu ti chl apca rano. K ed donesu , budem mati , vychova ho moja mati. A ked puojdem dolinami , vychovam ho malina mi , a ked puojdem sfrym svetom vychovam ho bielym kvetom . J ohn, John dear J ohn" They will bring you a boy tomorrow. Wh en they bring him, I'll keep him ," my mother wi ll raise him . And when I go down the valleys, I will raise him on raspberri es, and when I go in the wide world , I will raise him on white flo wers. p. 143 2 If you , m y wife," would have a boy, I would hire a wet nurse , a chef, a cook, a caretaker , and a house keeper. K eby si ty, zena moja , chlapca mal a, drzau by ti dojku , kuchara , kucharku, i safa ra i safarku. p. 144 3 Freedom and chastity prevail everyw here," whichever girl has th em, let her guard them . I would have protected mine, but it is too late. my freedom is crying in th e cradle. Sloboda, poctivost', ta vsade panuj e, kt ore j u di evca ma, nech si ju va ruje. I ja bych si moju , uz je ponecase, uz moja slobod a V belcove m i place. p . 144 �26 SLOVAKIA 4 As the maidens dance," they whirl around in circles, while I, poor thing, rock a baby. J a k tie panny tancuju, do kola sa zvrcuju, a ja neboz ia tko kolfsem diet'at ko. Rock him, my d ea r husband , he is such a lovely boy. Rock him yourself, you are his mother . Kolfbaj ho moj mily, vsak je synak spanily. Kolfbaj si sama, vsak si mu ty mama. I would be a fool to rock him by myself, You surely are his father just as I 'm his mother. Bola by ja blazon kolfba ti sama, vsak si mu ty otec jako i ja mama . I used to have a good time when luck served me, sitting by the window, with a handsome young man . Byvalo mi, byvalo, ked' mi stestia sluzilo, sedajfcej v okne, s mladeneckom pekne. I used to sit with him , now I am married to him , m y maiden name was blotted out. Sedala som, sedala, u z sem ho i dostala, me panenske jmeno bolo vymazano. pp. 144-45 Wedding Songs Of the three areas of ceremonial family folklore discussed here, the wedding ceremony offers the greatest variety of folklore material. This is because in Slovakia the wedding ceremonies of most villages and towns contained traditions that were peculiar to that particular locale . There were often specific differences between the ceremonies of neighboring villages even within a relatively small geographic area. 16 The entire ritual consisted of three parts: the period before the wedding during which a wedding contract was m ade between the future inlaws; the wedding ceremo ny itself, and the feast after the young couple had retired. The wedding actually began when the wedding guests gathered and the bride and groom left for the ceremony in the church. The first five selections under the headin g "Wedding Songs" are examples of what the wedding party might sing along the way. After the ceremony the bride and groom as well as the guests would arrive at the bride groom's h ouse , where the festivities would take place . The feast was and still is the culmination of the whole wedding. The structure of the entire wedding ceremon y was originally quite �SLOVAKIA 27 rigid . There were dan ces, ceremonial speeches, dramatic speeches and acts, as well as songs. All proceeded according to a traditionally fixed pattern . 1 7 Today, the songs themselves are no longer a part of the ceremony, and while many of the other forms remain (such as dances and speeches) the rigid , traditional patterns are no longer followed . Thematically, the bride is the focus of the often-lyrical and teasing ceremonial songs. Her beauty , upbringing, future as a married woman, and her character are all described in these songs: "Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter''; ''Mother, mother, you may be proud . . . '' The most frequently mentioned virtues on the bride's part are modesty , diligence , obedience, and chastity. Some of the songs, especially those following the taking of the wreath and placing of the bonnet on the bride's head (when she symbolically becomes a woman), are permeated with laments: ''I lost my headdress . .. I like wearing it.'' Other songs picture the bride taking leave of her parents, relatives and friends: thanking her parents for her upbringing, expressing her sorrow about leaving them, and sometimes also expressing apprehension about her future with the bridgegroom' s family. Wedding songs and speeches employ rhymed verse, often of the following pattern : aa-bb-cc. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. As in christening songs, wedding songs also employ assonance. Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter , we will take her from you even if you hide her. Should you lock her behind four locks, we sure will get her with fin e words. Mamicka , mamicka, peknu dceru mate, m y vam ju vezmeme , co ju aj schovate . Co by ste ju zamkli aj styrma zamka mi , my ju dostaneme peknymi slova mi. p. 151 2 G et married , ge t ma rried , m y love, well will you learn what tyranny is. Get m arried , get m arri ed, my love , a birch switch awaits you behind th e door. V ydaj sa !en, vydaj , frajeruock a rn oj a, sak sa ve ru dozvies , aka je to zvola. V ydaj sa !en , vyd aj, fraj eruocka moj a, caka t'a za dve rmi ta b rezova hola. p. 151 �28 SLOVAKIA 3 I kept it a sec ret, a secret, but I won't anymore, mother, ge t the feath erbeds" read y, I ' m ge ttin g m ar ried. Thank you , mother , thank you, d ea r , for taking care of me wh ile I was a child . T aj ila som , taji la, uz tajit' nebudem , chystaj , m am ka, perin y, vydavat' sa budem . Dakujem va m , mamicka, dakujem va m sta ra, co ste vy mna chovali , kym so m bola mala . p . 152 4 M ot he r, mot her, you may be proud th at yo ur girl 's gettin g married still chaste. Chaste , she's getting ma rri ed to a you ng man , they both will be wearing a rosemary wreat h .'" Mamicka, mamicka , pekn a vasa chvala , ze sa vafa d ieuka poct iva vydava. Poctiva vyd ava, be ri e ju ml ade nec, budu mat' obidva z rozmarinu ve ni ec. p . 152 5 Whateve r yo u give me, oh, eternal Lord , just don ' t give me a n old hag with children . An old hag rumbl es like a ba rrel of bee r a nd a young girl ' s jumpy like a squirrel. I ' II give the old hag a fl a tca ke 10 to chew on, and th e yo ung gi rl a pair of boots to jump in . Co mi das, to das, pa ne boze vecny, !en ze mi nedavaj staru babu s det'mi. A ta stara dud le, ako z piva bocka a ta mlada skace a ko veve ru ocka. D am starej Osucha , aby ho fova la , ml ad ej na cizmicky, aby si skaka la. p. 152 On the way back from the church , the weddin g party sings songs like the following: 6 Now you a re ours, Ann ie, now you are ours, we a re tak in g you home from the wedd ing. They paid a lotll for your wedd ing, we have tied your hands with a stole . 1 ' Uz si ty, An icka, uz si teraz nasa, uz t'a my ved ieme domov ze sobasa . Od tvojho sobasa tvrdy toliar dali, uz sme tvoje rucky stolou poviazali. p . 153 �SLOVAKIA 29 7 Jaj , co si plakala, ked t'a sobasili? Var si si m ys lela l'ubit' sa s inymi ? A ja som sa bala tej tvojej materi, ked' ona ma jazyk zo samej oceli . Oh , why did you cry at your wedding? Maybe you thought of loving others? No, I was afraid of your moth er , becau se she has a tongue of steel. p. 154 During the wedding feast the bridgegroom and bride may sing to each other: 8 Bridegroom: Welcome, d ear little dove," half of my heart 1 I'm fl ying from bu sh to bush to see your cheeks. As soon as my heart spotted you, it looked back with joy , m y wish was fulfill ed. I want to ask you , Molly , are you willing to m a rry m e? will your fat her let you go? do you want to be my wife? Vitaj, mila holubicka, muojho srdca polovicka 1 Lietam od kricka do kricka, abych videl tvoje licka . J ak t'a moje srdce zrelo , od radosti zas pozrelo , podl'a vuoli sa mi stalo. Chcem sa, Marka, t'a p ytati, m as ty vuolu za mna iti , ci t'a otec chce pu stiti , ci chces mojou zenou byti? p. 161 Bride: You can't find fault with me, yo u can do as you please. Wh y should I spare myself, 34 when I like to see you. You can profit from m e Wh a t ca n I d o? I can tear old shirts to rags , throw wood into the stove, in the kitchen I have good luck, I can cook cabbage wit hout lard, and you wi ll li ck your fingers. l can make scrambled eggs , as my fat her knows . You , m y fat her , tell them what a special di sh it is 135 Nieto na mne ziadna chyba , mozes robit', co ti treba. Co by lutovala seba, ked' ja rada vidim teba . Zo mn a m ozes osoh vziati, co zo mn a moze vystati? Viem starie kosele driapat', dreva do peci nam eta t', aj v ku chyni sa mi stescf, mozem navar it' kapusty bez mas ti , oblfzes prsty. Viem spravit' praze ni cu z vaj ec. o com vie svadobny otec. T y pan svadobny otec povedz , aka je to obzvlastna vec 1 p. 161 The bonneting of the bride had its own special songs . 36 �SLOVAKIA 30 9 I lost m y headdress," m y green wreath, " the best m an" fo und it , a ha ndso me yo ung m an . H ey, bes t m an , best ma n , I beg of you , give me bac k that headb and , I like wearing it. If you like wearing that head ba nd so mu ch , surely you ' d ask the best man more ni cely . Stratila som partu, zeleny ve ni ec, nasiel mi ju dru zba, sva rny ml adenec. H ej , dru zba, hej, dru zba, pekn e t'a prosfm , d ajze mi tu partu , rad a ju nosfm 1 K eby si ty pa rtu rada nosila, ve ru by si druzbu krajsie prosila . p . 163 10 The bell s of r.upca' 0 have a ve ry ni ce rin g," 1 Annie , they ' ll kn ock off yo u r head ba nd . They will kn ock it off with nin e bells, so you won ' t go out with oth er yo un g men . So you won't go out , just love your husband , th e handso me J ohnn y, who is d evo ted to you . Tie lupcian ske zvo ny vel'mi pekne zvo ni a, u z tebe, Ani cka, tvoju pa rtu zro ma . Zronia ti ju , zronia deviatimi zvo ncf, abys nechodil a s cudzfmi mladencf. Abys nechodil a, mu za si l'ubila , Janfcka svarnyho, tebe oddan yho. p . 163 Wailing Over the Dead The practice of wailing over the dead form ed a n integral p a rt of the fun e ral ceremony , a nd according to the Muran Articles of the Protestant Church from 1585 , wailing had been widely practiced in Slovakia.42 The lam ents were performed by semi-professional wailers , usually by older women , who wailed a t the funeral for a fe e. Some times , the laments were perform ed by rela tives. The laments over the d ead were generally improvi sed on the spur of the moment , with the hired person attempting to express lyrically the dee p sorrow felt by the relatives and friends of the deceased. They also m e ntioned the good traits of the deceased, the progress of hi s or her illn ess (as in " Oh , My D ear Child "), and would dram atize the actual d emise of the deceased , portraying him as he took leave of hi s fa mily, relatives, and friends. The laments over the d ead are st ru ctured differentl y from other folklore genres . Since they h ad to be open for improvisa tions , they are �SLOVAKIA 31 free in form. They usuall y do not have regular stanzas or rhyme. Assonance predominates over rhym e and they are sung as melodic recitations. Laments can be characterized not only b y the lack of formal structure, but also by a certain degree of looseness and incoherency, possibly utilized to stress the depth of sorrow felt by the relatives and friends . This looseness is demonstra ted in the poem "George , George" in which the last two stanzas are only vaguely related to the theme of the first two stanzas. Oh , my dear child , beloved Angel," what shall I do without you , my dear souJ? My hea rt was bleeding while you were suffering, you looked at me, I couldn ' t help. Your fath er was walking stunned in the yard , walkin g aimlessly, not saying a word . You chattered to me your sweet words th e wh ole day, you dear innocent ch ild , a nd when you r father came home from th e fi elds, you smiled so that he would take you in his arms , and th ere was no end to your talking, and your father took d elight in you, hi s treasure. Ach, moj e drah uo diet'a, anjel premileny, cuo pocnem bez teba, moj a draha dusa, srdce mi zatislo, ked si sa trapilo, hl'adelo si na mna, nemohla som pomuoct'. Otec ti po dvore omrace ny chodiu , nikde miesta nemau, slov ka nepovedau. Stebotalo si mi slad uskymi recmi cely den, ty draha nevinnost ' premila , a ked otec z pol'a do domu sa vratiu, usmi evalo si sa, kym t'a k sebe nevzau, a n ebolo recom tvojim dlh o konec , a otec sa tesiu v tebe drahy poklad. p. 164 2 George, George, yo ur godfather ca me ," for yo u to plow hi s fi elds. You a re through with plowing since the Lord called you. Juro , Juro , km otor prise!, aby si mu orat' isol. A ty si uz dooral , ked' t'a panboh povolal. Ycs te rd ay you ate three sa usages," a nd a lot of bread. 46 Today you lie on th e bier, like a hog on a ca rt . Y ce ra si zjel tri jelita , aj chl eba z polk yky zita. Dnes uz lezis na marach ako bravec na karach. �32 SLOVAKIA M y dea r go lde n m oustache" would be fit fo r strin gs, my ve r y d ear ha ir , would be good fo r ropes. M oje m ile, zlate fuzy, boli ze by na mot u zy, moj e premile vlasy boli by na povrazy. Wh en he bega n to play hi s bagpipe: " tati -lat i, ta ti-l a ti ," he go t a farth ering" to bu y spices, he dropped it behind his shirt. K ed si pocal gajdovati : ta ti -lati , ta ti-l ati , ma! turak na koreni a, vsy pal ho do zahreni a. p . 165 NOTES ' Andrej M elichercfk , ed. , Slo vensky Folkl6r: Chrestomatia (Bra tislava: Slove nska Akademi a Vied, 1959) . ' J ozef r. . Holuby, Folklore studi es published ma inl y in Slovenske Pohl'ad y between 1883 a nd 1897; Jan Kolla r , N arodnie spievanky, I-II (Bra ti slava, 1953); Jii'i Polivka, Supis slo ven skych rozpravok I-V (Turciansky Svaty M artin , 1923 -1932). ' The fo lkloric ma teri al collected by Dobsinsky a nd oth ers is re ndered in th e dialec t o f the region fro m which it origina ted . The page reference to M elichercfk is give n in th e tex t a ft er th e Slovak ori ginal. ' " Puddle, Puddle ." In the Slova k, this love inca nta ti on has an irregul a r rhym e (aabbb-c-ddd-c-ee-fff- e-g-hh-g- iii -j- k-ll -m m) whi ch was sac rificed in th e tra nsla ti on fo r the sake of accuracy. • Although th e magical for mulae are pagan in origin , they contain refe rences to C hristi a nit y. ' Lit. · " H oly T rinity,/be a good helpe r to me/ to eve rythin g good,/ to the state of m a trimon y" (II. 26-29). 6 The colors refer to the body: red or pink cheeks were considered a sign of good health , a nd a white co m plex ion was much valued by both men and women, partl y as a sign of class di stin ction . O nly feuda l lords and wealth y merchants who di d not have to work in th e fi elds could afford to have white skin a ll year aro un d. " H oney " is a traditi onal refe rence to good te mper . 7 " I have brought you a piece of steel. . " With the exce ption of the wishes in the las t lin e, the Slova k poe m co nsis ts of rh ym in g co upl ets. All bu t 11 . 1 and 2 a re revised in order to con vey a prope r word order in English . Steel (iron) was co ns idered p ro tect ion aga ins t evil and fa iries in Europe (Maria Tymocz ko). ' H a ft is a ha nd le of a hoe, ax, scyt he, and oth er ag ricultu ral tools. H ere the number of hafts represen ts the far mer 's pros perity. 9 A typical orname n t a mong young marri ed village me n . Wh en give n by a you ng unm a r ried women, th e feather was co nside red a sign of affect ion. '° K re u ze r (o r kreutzer) was a small cop per coin in Aust ri a and Ge rmany, the 100th part of th e fl orin . It was so called because th e coin had th e fi gu re of a cross on it. A penny wou ld be probabl y the closest co n temporary eq ui valent to the kreuzer. " Wal nu ts and hazlenu ts were trad itionally eaten at C hristmas tim e after the ma in meal. �SLOVAKIA 33 " " I wi sh you in thi s/comin g New Yea r " : This is a very popular N ew Year 's wish . The unu su al wi sh , " that a side of your oven/ m ay fa ll out" (11 .3 -4) probably ha s the same conn otat ion as th e En gli sh '' break a leg!'' It also sugges ts a wi sh of prosperity to the farm er , i.e., th a t hi s oven m ay be fill ed to burstin g, or ove rh eated with con stant cooki ng a nd baking. " Fo rmall y, thi s poe m is arran ged in rh ymin g coupl ets but asson an ce plays a m o re impo rtant role . " This carol is loosely a rra nged in rh yming couplets. Again, the assonance a nd the rhym e take precedence ove r m eanin g, and thi s ex plains why such seemingly unrela ted them es as th e Three Kings, the Star of Bethlehem , J oseph and M a ry o n the one hand, and the rose, th e tulip on the ta ble, and the old man's huntin g expedition on th e other ha nd , fo und their place in thi s carol. The carol is a mi xture of religious and secular m otifs. " C hildren , dressed as the Three Magi, arrive a t a farmh ou se and sing. Yet they mu st no t sin g a bout the fa rm er ' s fa mil y, but the H oly Famil y of the Na tivity. 16 ' ' Sh rovetide, Pentecos t, and Easter ... '' This j okin g carnival song is ar ranged in rh ym in g coupl ets. 11 Fatback bacon (usual ly with no lean m eat) was a staple diet , often a snack, fo r village peo ple. It was ofte n eaten with baked potatoes a nd _onio ns, o r j ust plain bread . 18 Fa tback baco n u sed to be sm oked (cured ) in th e chimn ey. 19 The teac her , alo ng with the p riest a nd th e m ayo r , was amon g th e m ost prominent peo ple in th e vill age. 0 ' S loven sko: l', ud - II. cast', ed s. Boze na Filova et al. (B ra ti slava: O bzo r , 1975). " In the Slovak o ri ginal, thi s son g has a regula r rh yme pat tern: aa-b b-cc-dd . The first two lines ad d ress th e m a in speaker . " J oh n" is appa ren tl y a youn g fath er whose wife d ied in childbirth . T he fat her says that he will kee p his so n , but the boy ' s grandmoth er will have to bring him up . Them a ticall y, the so ng expresses conce rn fo r th e boy ' s upbringin g. In the seco nd stan za , the speake r ind icates that he m ay have to leave hi s nat ive vill age, probably in search of wo rk . T hi s was a co mm on prac ti ce among im poverished village rs. " Lit .: " I 'll have. " In 11. 3 an d 4 coll oqui al form s of the ve rb " to have " and the nou n " m other" have bee n used. The forms a re iden tical: mati , wh ich fac il itates th e rh ym e and keeps th e sam e num ber of syll a bles in each line. There a re eight sylla bles in each line, and th e standa rd m o nosy lla bic word m at' wo uld have redu ced th e syll a bles dow n to seven in 11 .3 a nd 4 . " The origin al son g uses assonance ra ther th an rh ym e. A fat her-to-be is th e speaker in this so ng . H alf-jokin g , he stresses the importance of a male offspring. H e p rom ises to pa m pe r hi s wife if she bears him a son . " The original so ng uses asson a nce . T he speaker , proba bly an un wed m o th er, po nders her fat e a nd talks a bout social conve nti on s. " W ith th e excepti o n of stanza 3, the so ng has a near regul a r rh ym e: aa-bb-cc-dd-e -fg- f-hh- ii -jj- kk. T he speaker in th is so.ig is the ba by 's moth er who regrets th e loss of her freedo m as a mother and/or a wife . It is not qu ite clear from the context wheth er she is m a rri ed o r no t. I n either case, it was not proper of her to joi n the ca refree d a nce of unm arri ed m en a nd wome n . �34 6 SLOVAKIA Slovensko: E,ud, p. 1057. " Melichercfk , p. 26 " A featherbed is a strong cloth con tainer thi ckly filled with goose feathers and down and used as a bed cover in lieu of blankets. Featherbeds were a part of the bride's dowry, which also included pillows, sheets, towels, cloths, etc . The dowry was collected throughout the years practically after the day the girl was born . Goose down and stripped feathers were collected ever y year from the fami ly's fl ock of geese and stashed in a special bag for each d aughter in the family. The wealthier the bride , the higher the pile of featherbeds and pillows atop her bed . " A rosemary wreath was a decoration used on such occasions as weddings and funerals . H ere it is a symbol of chastity. 0 ' A fl atcake (osuch ) is a simple, flat cake, usually round. It is baked from bread dough , which is sometimes mixed with a different type of fl our or else potatoes. " Lit .: "They paid a hard thaler for your wedding ," obviously meaning the dowry. Thaler (also taler) was a large silver coin u sed in various German states and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was worth 30 silver groschen, worth about 3s. sterling . The word "dollar" is derived from " th aler." " R efe rring to the priest's vestments durin g the wedding ce remony, the stole is a long, decorated strip of cloth worn like a scarf by officiating clergymen of various chu rches. 33 In the Slovak original, each line consists of eight syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aaaa-bbb-cccc. " The meaning is not quite clear here. It probably indicates the bride's submission to the groom . 35 In this poem, each line consists of eight syllables . The rh yme pattern is: aaaa-bb-ccbbb-dddd. 36 Bonneting of the bride is the culmination of the wedding ceremony. The bride becomes a married woman when her wreath is replaced by a bonnet. 31 Headband or headdress is a wreath decorated with colorful ribbons, worn by un married women and brides. Married women wore bonnets or scarves. 38 Each line in this song consists of eleven syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-cc. 39 It was customary that the best man led the bride to the wedding and took off her wreath or headband. H e led the bride down the aisle, whereas the bridesmaid led the bridegroom down the aisle. He was referred to as the " leading " best man and wore a sword to distinguish himself from other best men who wore sticks decorated with scarves . '° Cupca is a town in Central Slovakia, where many local customs and traditions have been preserved. 41 Each line in this song consists of twelve syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-c-d. " Melichercfk, p . 142. 43 This lame ntation has a sporadic rhyme pattern: a-b-c-d-ee-f-g-ee- h-i. The lines consist of 12 to 13 syllables. 44 The poem has the following rhym e pattern: aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff-gg-hh . The lines consist of seven to eight syllables. 45 Pork sausage in natural casing. It is made of rice or grits combined with ground meat , liver, blood and spices. The sausages were usu all y made in winter or early ' �SLOVAKIA 35 spring when the fatt ened pigs were slaughtered . " '' ... a lot of bread.'' This is a free translation due to the discrepancy in the printed word indicating the amount of rye from which the bread was made . The original version of this song, titled, " W a iling over a D ead Husband" (Sbomik slovenskych n arodnych piesnf, povestf, prfslovf, porekadiel, hadok, hier, obycajov a povier [A Collection of Slovak Folk Songs, Riddles, Games, Customs, and Superstitions], II , (Turciansky Sva ty Martin : Matica slovenska, 18741) spells the wordpolkyly, which would mean half a kilo. On the other hand , Melichercik's edition lists the word polkyky (fem. gen. sg. ), which was an old , popula r measure in Slovak villages . The word k yky is of Ukrainian ori gin (a Ukrainian word for a scarf worn by village women, "babushka" type). ·since scales were a luxury item in the past, the amount of rye from which a loaf of bread was m ade was m easured in the scarf. Pol means half, i.e., the bread was made from half the amount measured by the scarf. 47 The poem , somewhat joking in character, shows the improvising character of funeral recitations. The stanzas wander from one subject to another, touching some memories of the dead man that may o r may not be relevant for the occasion of the funeral, but they are important in the eyes of the wailer. " " Farthing" is a free translation, indicating that the coin was small. In the Slovak original , turak was a small coin , worth one and a half groschen . It was used in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This paper is based on a doctoral dissertation , " Slovak Folklore : An Anthology, " at the Un iversity of M assachuset ts in Amh erst , 1982. I th ank especially Professors Sarah N. Lawall a nd Zdenek Salzmann . Presented in part in P anel 128 , " Slovak Literature as a Mirror of the National Awakening ," at the AAASS co nvention in Philadelphia on 8 November 1980 , and in Panel 65 , "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asiloma r , California on 2 1 September 1981. � 12 SLOVAKIA Three Kinds of Slovak Folk Literature Eva Susan Kucekova The following categories of Slovak folklore represent some of its oldest forms. Lyrical genres, such as m agical formul ae or incantations , ceremonial calendar poetry , and ceremonial fa mily poetry, a re of ritual and ceremonial character. The sample selections introduced in this pa per were taken from a comprehensive modern collection of Slovak folkl ore entitled Slovensky folk16r: Chrestomatia, and edited b y the foremost authority on the subj ect, the late Andrej Melichercfk . 1 Melichercfk based hi s anthology on Pavo! Dobsinsky' s publications , as well a s on other collections of Slovak folklore, for example those edited by Jozef I:. . Holuby, Jan Kollar and Jirf Polfvka . 2 The folklori c material collected by Dobsinsky and others is rendered in the dialect of the region from which it originated. MAGICAL FORMULAE Magical fo rmulae a re incantations associated with ritu als. These non-narrative forms are very ancient and are closely related to ce rem onial calendar poetry. M agical formulae were u sually connec ted with special rites and performed on spec ific occasions and/or holidays . They were often perform ed by semiprofessional m en and women (" wi se m en " and " wise wom en ") who were well versed in m agic. There are two types of incantations: tho se which were supposed to bring a desired effect( " sympathethic magic" ), and those which were supposed to preve nt undes irable and ha rmful effects (" preve ntive magic" ). Incantations we re u sed to brin g a hu sba nd , m ake one fall in love, prevent and cure illness , increase the yield of the fi elds, and also bring illness or bad lu ck upon a n enem y . Some incan tations were chanted primarily by girls or young women. " Puddle, Puddle," " Will ow, Willow," and " And You , Elm ," are typical examples of love incantations. Once m arried , a bride would chant an incanta tion " I Sow the Seed " and wish for good lu ck and prosperity . �SLOVAKIA 13 Magical formulae are rhythmical and based on syntactic parallelisms ; they rely extensively on various euphonic and semantic devices. Due to the fact that magical formulae are so closely associated with magic, their ritual form remains unchanged throughout the centuries . Magical incantations contain many pre-Christian elements, upon which a new layer of C hri st ian symbols has been added . Love Incantations This love incantation shows water as a powerful source of magic. T aken from fords at midnight , water was believed to attract lovers and help a girl get married . While bathing, girls chanted the following incantation: Puddle , puddle,' get me a husband! Above the bridge, below the bridge, let him go nowhere but to our house! Above th e footbrid ge, below th e footbr idge, don 't let him rest but in ou r house 1 I 'm not pouring away, I 'm pouring in: bachelors , wid owers, merchants, fiddlers, even those small boys I call after me, after my body , aft er my clothes , after my heels, a ft er this hou se of ours. Not by my power do I say this, but I say it by the divine power, from J es us Christ till m idn ight. And help me in this God th e Father, the Son , a nd the H oly Ghost!' H oly Trini ty , help me reach hap piness and get married. 1 Kaluza, kalu za, daj muza 1 Vyse mosta, ni ze mosta, aby nemal nikde miesta len u nas! Vyse lavky, ni ze lavky, aby nem al nikd e stavky len u nas 1 Neod lievam, ale prilievam: mladencov, vdovcov, kupcov , aj hudcov , aj tych malickych chlapcov za sebou volam, za mym telom , za m ymi satami, za mym i patami, za tym nasfm domom . J a to nehovorfm ze svej moc1, lez to hovorfm z bozskej m oci, od pana J ezisa Kri sta do pol noci. A k tomu mi dopomahaj Boh otec , Boh sy n , Boh du ch svaty! Svata troj ica , bud mi dobra pomocnica k vse tkemu dobremu, k stavu manzelskemu! p. 54 �14 SLOVAKIA On the eve of St. George ' s Day (April 24) , young girls made wreaths from different kinds of flowers and boughs. Later, wreaths were tossed into the air. It was believed that the girl whose wreath was caught on a tree branch would get married within a year. To attract a beloved, girls would make wreaths from nine different boughs and chant the following incantation: 2 A ty vaz - ty ho vaz, a ty hrab - se m ho hrab , a ty kJen - se m ho zen , a ty svfb - se m ho sib, a ty sip - ty ho stfp , a ty tfn - sem ho hrn , a ty dub - ty ho l'ub , a ty bez - za nim bez, a ty lieska - za nim vri es kaj ! And you, elm - you bind him , and you, hornbeam - rake him here, and you , maple - drive him here, and you , red dogwood - whip him here, and you , wild rose - you prick him, and you , thorn bush - push him here , and you , oak - you love him , and you , lilac - run aft er him , a nd you , hazel, - yell aft er him p . 57 Bridal Incantation A woman married into her husband's family . As soon as the bride entered her husband's house after the wedding, she would scatter flaxs6ed, millet and poppy seed in the yard for good luck , while chanting the following: 2 I sow the seed , to succeed with all my breed ; I sow millet, for others to beg m y fav or; I sow poppy seed , for this to last foreve r. Sejem se m eno, ab y sa mi viedl o vsetko ple meno; sej em proso, aby sa mi vse tci prosili ; sej em m ak, aby bolo vzdycky tak . p . 61 Incantation by the Willow To make sure that they would grow beautiful long hair, young girls would comb their hair under a willow on Good Friday at dawn. While combing their hair, they wished for a good husband . Willow, willow , ge t m e a m an , red as a rose , white as a fl ower, a nd good as honey. ' Vfba, vfb a , d aj mi mu za, ce rve neho a ko ru za a bieleho a ko kve t, a dobreho ako med . p . 62 �SLOVAKIA 15 CEREMONIAL CALENDAR POETRY Ceremonial calendar poetry celebrates different festivals of the year. The original calendar festivals coincided with the solstices and equinoxes. Calendar poetry contains many pre-Christian mythological elements which have been intertwined with and sometimes replaced by Christia n elements. In the calendar poetry of Slovakia a nd other Slavic countries which have been under Catholic influence, Christian features pred ominate. The traditions connected with calendar poetry are still being practi ced in some Slovak villages , particularly around holidays such as Christmas, New Year ' s and Easter. The classification of calendar poetry corresponds to the agricultural cycles, and all four seasons of the year are represented. In the poetry , three seasons are associated with the cultivation of the soil, while the last one is concerned with the harvest itself. The poetry is full of incantations and magical formulae meant to secure a good harvest and placate nature , which was often thought of as hostile. In the pre-Christian era the peasants turned for h elp to their gods and during Christian times to the numerous Christian saints. They would ask for good and prosperous years , abundant harvest, a nd good health and happy family life. Along with incantations and magical formulae, calendar poetry also contains chants , recitations , songs, riddles, and prognostications . In this poetry each season has its own characteristic customs . The winte r solstice cycle , beginning in November , is best represented. Its poetry is of a prophetic nature, and touche s on both family life and the prosperity of the homestead. The most important days of the season were the last 12 before Christmas since they represented the 12 months of the year; these days were used to judge what the weather would be like for the w hole next year. Children went caroling from hou se to house, a nd it was important that they b e healthy for if they were, they would bring good health to the fa rm ers ' fa milies as well . Moreover, the living room h a d to be cleaned a nd whitewashed in eve ry house to preve nt any kind of illn ess from ente rin g. Numerous C hri stmas customs were practiced o n C hristmas Eve . Basicall y , they were meant to express the farmer ' s thanksgiv in g for good crops in the preceding season, a nd to h elp assure a nd predict a good harvest in the forthcoming year. The latter kind were u su ally connected wit h magic . There we re rules of condu ct which were st ri ctl y followed �16 SLOVAKIA on Christmas Eve. For example, one could not light the house unless the Christmas Eve dinner - the biggest meal of the year - was already set on the table. The numerous courses of the meal had to follow acertain sequence . Christmas carolers were offered food and drink , and the boys were also given money. Many of the Christmas carols have a joking tone - besides bringing best wishes they expressly ask for a reward as in ''I Am a Very Small Boy,'' or ''I'm Just a Little Boy .' ' Sometimes they would ask expressly for money as in the carol "We Have Brought You Some News . '' New Year's wishes were also humorous in tone and expressed the good mood which prevailed in every household on that day . It was believed that if one felt happy on New Year's Day , he or she would be happy during the coming year. One song jokingly suggests that the farmer's stove burn out from too much cooking and baking: "I wish you in this/ coming New Year / that a side of your oven / may fall out." Carols for the eve of the Three Magi combine religious and secular motifs. Thus, in " Lord , Grant Us a Merry Evening," best wishes are expressed for everyone in the house, including the servants. Immediately after come Epiphany motifs, dealing with the birth of Christ and the arrival of the Three Kings. The Epiphany carol is concluded with a rather anticlimatic ending: the old man (probably the patriarch of the house) is not at home and has gone hunting. Very often , the boys were masked as the Three Kings, Joseph and Mary, and would perform a co medy based on the ancient legend . The Christmas ceremonial cycle ended with the Three Kings motif. Thematically, then , Slovak ceremonial calendar poetry focuses upon the four cycles of the year and the agricultural tradition con nected with them . It also contains the themes of love and fertility, and elements of ancestor worship, which are not treated here. From the formal point of view, calendar poetry is characte rized by symm etric bipartite verse and the frequent use of asso nance . Pre-Christmas Period The winter cycle of calendar poetry begins with St. Thomas's Day (December 21 ) , the shortest day of the year. Small boys walked around the village with a piece of steel, wishing farmers good lu ck in the next farming year : �SLOVAKIA 17 I have b rought you a piece of steel' so th a t you would not fall out of bed. Have as m a n y calves on yo ur farm as there a re spoons on your shelf. Have as man y oxen in your stable as there are logs in your shed. Let your girls have as many suito rs as there are dishes on your rack. May yo ur lads own as many hafts' as there are hearths in you r house. May as man y youn g men wear feathers in their caps• as you have number of dau ght ers. Have as m a ny more ears of corn in you r backyard as there are pictures on your walls. I ask onl y as many kreuzers' 0 as there are mirrors here. I wish you a good morning 1 Doniesou som vam ocele, aby ste nevypadli z postele. Kol'ko mate za ramom lyz iciek, tol'ko mate vo dvore teliciek; kol'ko mate na sope kolov, tol'ko mate V mastali volov; kol'ko mate za ramom tanierov , tol'ko maju vase dievky frajero v ; kol'ko mate vo vasom dome ohnisk, tol'ko maju vas i parobci porisk ; kol'ko zije vasich deer, tol'ko maju mladenci pier ; kol'ko ma te na stene obrazov , tol'ko raz vo vasom humne kl asov; kol'ko mate tuna zrkadov, !en tol'ko mi dajte krajciarov. Dobro rano vinsujem 1 p. 70 Christmastime Many Christmas carols and son gs are connected with the Christm as season. Both children and ad ults went from house to hou se caroling M erry C hristmas. For their service they expected som e reward. Many of these carols are joking in character, as is evident from the following carols: �18 SLOVAKIA I a m a very sm all boy. M y fa th er has se nt me to you , to ge t so methin g from you , but m ake it qui ck, for m y stomach rumbl es. J a som chl apec ve l'mi m aly, mn a moj otec k vam poslali, zeby ste mi dafo dali , ale chytro , lebo m i uz v bru chu svitlo. p. 70 2 I ' m ju st a little boy. I'm askin g fo r my sm all bag : a pi ece of cake a nd piece o f pie. T omorrow , I ' ll b rin g yo u a bird . If th at see m s too little, I will brin g you so me pork ; and if tha t 's not enough , I 'll b ri ng yo u a cat's ta il. J a so m maly, nevelicky, pyta m se be do ka psicky: kus kola.ca, kus kabaca, d onesiem vam zajtra vtaca. Ak sa vam to ma.lo vid f, d onesiem vam porfov iny; ak je vam to ni e dost', d onesiem va m z m acky chvost. p . 71 3 W e have b rought you so me news, we have come to you r feas t . The Saviour desce nded from H eave n , and we ca me to be your gues ts. A jug of wine is on th e table , and we are under your farm yard window, but you don ' t offer us a n y win e, nor do you have an y brand y th a t we ca n trea t ourselves to, and sing you songs eve n ni ce r . W e don ' t want your past ry, we' ll crac k a few nu ts.'' H ey, we a re not little ki ds , wh o get j ust a kreu ze r apiece. If yo u don ' t give us twe n ty we wo n ' t co me on New Yea r's Day. D oni esli sm e vam novinu , prisli sm e k vam na hos tinu , Sos tupi l Spasti el' z vysosti . M y sm e prisli k va m za hos ti . Krcah s vfn om j e na stole, m y sme pod oblokom v dvore , a nam vina nedavate, palenky ti ez ni c nem a te, co b y sme sa castu va]i a vam krajsie zaspievali . O pekance va m nechcem e, oriesky si poklcieme. A my sme ni e chl a pci m ali, ze by Ste nam krajc iar d ali. Ak na m dvads ia tnik ned a te, na Novy rok nas nema te. p. 71 New Year's Wish es Early in th e m ornin g on New Year's D ay, m en a nd youn g boys went from house to hou se, w ishin g lo ts of lu ck, p rosperity , a nd good h ealth to everyon e in the house . M ost of th eir w ishes foc u sed upon su ccessfu l fa rmin g a nd m a n age m e n t. I wish you in th is coming New Year, V in sujem vam V tento nas tavajuc i nov y rok , �SLOVAKIA that a side of your ove n may fall out , " that your wife may get pregna nt this year! Give us foo d and drink and stay well! 19 aby va m vypadol z pece bok, aby vam bola vasa gazdin a na te nto rok samod ruh a 1 Vypit', zajest' na m d ajte, a dob re sa tu m aj te 1 p . 78 2 l wish you plenty of hemp , bu shels of beets, a whole bin of blossoms, and a ba rnful of children' Vinsujem va m moc konopi, mecu repy , zacinok puckov, plevienec deti 1 p. 79 3 This l wish to all'' with vigo r and joy : to peasants, bags for their shoulders ; to shep herd s, porridge; to cows, good pasture; to pigs, lots of mast to make them fat. Vinsujem smele vse tk ym vese le : sedliakom vrece, pine na piece; pastiero m kase a kravam pase; svi niam zaludu, ze tu cne budu . p . 79 The Three Magi On the eve of Epiphany, children went from house to house, singing carols in which the Epiphany motifs were interspersed with such commonplace motifs as farming and the farmer's eve ryday activity. Lord, grant us a merry eve ning ," to the farmer, first of all! And then to th e farmwife, and then to all the se rvants! The Three M agi a rri ve from the East, wo rshippin g this fam il y. Do not worship this fa mil y but worship only the beloved Lo rd! " And you , bright star, go before us, Lord , Jesus C hri st, grant us a good ni ght! And you , Joseph , I say to you , do not leave the Virgin M ary 1 D on ' t you kn ow who is going to be bo rn ? The Virgin M ary is to bear a so n . There is a red rose on your table , �SLOVAKIA 20 let you r daught er marry a handsome man 1 There is a tu li p atop your table , yo ur son is ge ttin g read y to see his love. There is a handso me fe llow in this house , perhaps he ' d give us six kreu ze rs for a wrea th . God wi ll give him a lovely wife , whether it ' s Anna o r Susanna. The old man is not at home , he went out hunting . D aj nam Boh vecer diz vesely, najprv panu hospodarov i I A poto m aj tej hospod ince, po hospodin ce vseckej cel'adce 1 ldu tri a krali od vychod u , kl a naju sa tomut o rod u. Nekla naj te sa tom uto rod u , len sa kl a najte mil emu Bohu! A ty, j as na hviezd a, predchadzaj nas, pane J ezu Kri ste, dob ru noc nam d as 1 A ty , J ozefe, j a mlu vim tebe, neopust'aj pann y M a rie ! Nevid, co sa m a na sve t narod it'? M a panna Maria sy na porodit'. Na vaso m stole ce rve na ru za, daj vasej panenk e sva rn eho mu za 1 Na vaso m stole tulipan stoji, vas m lad enecek se k fraj erce strojL J est V tomto dome sva rn y ml adenec, azda nam on d a ses tak na veniec. D a jemu Panboh svarnu zenu , Annu alebo Zu za nu . Sta reho pana doma neni, isli oni po pol'uvanL pp. 79-80 Carnival Season Th e post-Chri stmas period does not present as m a n y cerem onies as th e C hri stmas season. The tim e of fasiangy (carni val season) was ch aracte rized b y a m asked procession which was to secure a good harvest. Th e carniv al processio n h ad mu sical accompaniment , u su all y a n accordi on . Most en gaged couples were also married during carnival season , sin ce there w as rela tively plenty of time for elaborate weddi n g celebration s, w hi ch las ted for several d ays. At the e nd of th e carnival seaso n , young m e n in ce re monial m asks we nt from ho u se to ho u se, collecting eggs, bacon , a nd m o ney. They �SLOVAKIA 21 would sing humorous songs, such as " Shrovetide, P entecost. . m which they would ask for a piece of bacon . From these donations they would arrange a feast for the youth of the entire village. The main course was bacon and eggs, while the money paid for the music . Shrovetide, P entecos t, and Easter pass by, 16 he who has no fur coat , feels cold . I have none, I have none, I ' m shakin g all over, give me some bacon " to fill my belly . H ere I got nothin g, over there something, maybe. They killed a m osqu ito , a nd got some bacon . There up the chimney," a tom cat sits on the bacon , go chase him away and cut me a piece; if you cut me too sm all a piece, you will cut your fin gers. Give to the teacher " a piece as big as a d oo r , to me , a piece as big as a goose. Fasangy, Turice, V el'ka noc byva, kto nem a kozucha, zima mu byva. Ja nemam, ja nem a m , !en sa tak tras im , daj te mi slaninky, nech sa popasim . Tuto mi nedali , tuto mi d aj u, K om a ra zabili , slaninku m aj u . A ta m hore na komin e, sedi kocur na sla nin e, h ybajte ho zohn at' a mne ku s odrezat', az mi mal y odrezete, svoje prsty poreze te. R echtorovi j ako dve re a mn e ku s - ako hus 1 pp . 82-83 Easter The spring custom s include taking out Morena (the goddess of dea th in the p agan Slavic traditio n) , ta king out the old m a n (dedko - possibly a m ale equivalent of Moren a), and welcoming in the n ew summe r . However , the sprin g ce remonial cycle is cente red prim a rily around Easter , the most important religious holiday of the season . Easte r customs still co nta in m a ny pre -Christia n ele m e nts, which have been prese rved up to the 20th century . For example, on Good Friday a t d awn, girls would chant incantations while ba thing, wishing for a hu sba nd (see " Pud- �22 SLOVAKIA dle, Puddle" in the preceding section). On Easter Monday, groups of ten to fifteen men and boys went from house to house, wishing the womenfolk a Happy Easter. It was a part of the tradition that they flogged women's legs with a birch switch and doused their heads with fresh water. This proced ure had a symbolic purifying function . If a young man was courting a particular young woman, he was expected to visit her house , thus showing his interest and affection. Then, the girl would reward her favorite suitor with the most lavishly decorated Easter egg. Besides the eggs, everybody would also receive drinks, food, sweets, and little boys would get money. Easter, Easter, will it come soon? which lad will pour water over me] Pour the water , pour the water, on my hair and head , but do spare my nice new skirt. Vel'ka noc , Vel'ka noc, kedyze uz bude? ktoryze ma suhaj oblievati prfde? Oblievaj, oblievaj, vlasy aj hlavicku , ale mi zasanuj tu novu suknicku. p . 93 Pentecost marked the beginning of the summer cycle. Many traditions were centered around the summer solstice and St. John's Eve CTune 24). On that day, love incantations were chanted and the future was foretold . Also, magic was practiced against witches whose power was believed very strong on that day. The later part of the summer season is poorer in folklore because of increased work in the fields . Harvest The autum cycle begins with the harvest season . During the harvest season, songs were sung in the fields, or on the way home after a day 's work. Thematically , they are associated with the work itself, love between two young people ("We Reaped Here") , or the feast following the work ("Master, Make Ready for a Feast "). Some of these songs are joking in tone . The songs sung around the harvest wreath reflect old Slovak customs . After the harvest, a procession of harvesters would walk from the fields to the house of the farmer who had hired them . Led by a young man who was carrying a colorful flag and a young woman wearing a wreath made of wild flowers , they would sing songs and some- �SLOVAKIA 23 times play music ("For Which Girl Shall We Weave a Wreath Today?"). In these songs, the peasants expressed their joy and happiness over a rich harvest. They also expressed their hope for the same bounty for the years to come. Harves t time offers a whole series of songs connected with this important agricultural season. They may refer to the work itself, or love between a young girl and a young man from the same village, or else the rest during the break or at the end of the day . W e reaped here , we reaped the re , in the valley, in th e valley, and the birdie, mottled birdie keeps singing, kee ps singin g. Kde sm e zali , tu sme fali , na doline , na doline , a ten vtacik, jarabacik pres pevuje , prespevuje. As the birdie , mottled birdie goes around th e tree , a rou nd the tree , so does m y d ea r, m y beloved go around me, around me . J ak ten vtacik, jarabacik okolo pna , okolo pna , tak moj mil y, najmilejsf okolo mna , okolo mn a. We reaped here , we reaped th ere, behind a path , behind a path , whoever will be our master, our clerk, our clerk? Kde sme zali , tu sme fali, za chonnfkom , za chonnfkom , ktoze bude nas fm panom , ura nnfkom , ura nnfkom ? p . 99 2 Master, make read y for a feas t, for a feast , we ' ve don e all the work for you . Master , prepa re the repast , th e repas t , a twelve- pound roas t. Add to it pints of wine , pints of wine, and a roasted capon. H otuj , pa ne , oldomas, oldomas , zrob ili sme , kd e co mas. H otuj , pa ne , veceru , vece ru, d vanas t' funtov pecenu . Este k tom u pint vfna, pint vfna, peceneho kapuna . p. 100 Around the h arvest wreath might be sung the foll owing song: 3 For which girl shall we weave a wreath today? For th e one chose n by the handsom es t young ma n . Wh o shall we let ca rry th e fl ag tod ay ? The one who hands hi s ri ght ha nd to her . T hat Ond1·is Slavik a nd Anna Bl ahej , �SLOVAKIA 24 they would make a nice couple would Lord grant it. Masters, our masters , open the gates, we bring you a gift - a nice pair of reapers. Harvesters back from the fields , cover the tables, the mapl e tables with linen tabl e-cloths. Ktorejze dnes, ktorej uvijeme veniec~ Tej, ktoru vyberie najkrajsi mladenec . Komuze dnes , komu dame niest' zastavu? Tomu , co jej poda svoju rucku pravu. Ten Ondris Slavike, ta Anna Blaheje, to by bou pekny par, keby im Panboh dau! Pani nasi, pani, otvarajte brany, nesieme vam darik, zencov pekny parik. Idu zenci z roli, prestierajte stoly, stoly javorove, obrusy kmentove. p. 100 CEREMONIAL FAMILY FOLKLORE Ceremonial family folklore focuses primarily on the most important events in an individual's life: birth, marriage and death . While only songs are discussed here (they are the most common form), the Slovak ceremonial family tradition is expressed in poems, proverbs, sayings, riddles, and short dramatic performances as well. Christening Songs In the distant past , the birth of a child was accompanied by rituals and many magic practices . Such practices, it was believed, would protect the mother and her child, and would also secure health and happiness for the child as he or she matured. These magic practices gradually developed into joyful, social celebrations to welcome the new member of the family . 10 Thematically, the christening songs are directly connected with the child's birth and prospects. They frequently mention the responsibilities and problems connected with his or her upbringing, and wish the child a happy life, prosperity, and even a good spouse. Some songs stress the importance attached to having male offspring: '' And if you my wife,/would have a boy ... " If the child is a girl, the song may wish her beauty, or possibly stress the importance of chastity or industrious- �25 SLOVAKIA ness: " Freedom and chastity prevail everywhere, / whichever girl has them , let her guard them .'' Other songs may express the abruptly felt loss of freedom experienced by the young parents , especially the new mother: '' ... m y freedom is crying in the cradle.'' M any songs are j okin g in tone and form the less serious part of the christening ceremony in Slovak villages . H ere, for example, the new parents tease each other a bout their responsibility for rocking the baby: '' Rock him , m y dear . .. I'm his mother.'' And here again, the m other m ockin gly compares her situation with that of the carefree life of unm arried m en and women: " I used to have a good time , ... m y maiden name/ is blotted out," or " As the maiden s d ance . . . while I , poor thing , / rock a baby ." Slovak christening songs usually have the following rhyme pattern : aa-bb-cc-dd. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. Man y songs use assonance and employ colloquial express10ns . J ano , J ano, mily Jano! Donesu ti chl apca rano. K ed donesu , budem mati , vychova ho moja mati. A ked puojdem dolinami , vychovam ho malina mi , a ked puojdem sfrym svetom vychovam ho bielym kvetom . J ohn, John dear J ohn" They will bring you a boy tomorrow. Wh en they bring him, I'll keep him ," my mother wi ll raise him . And when I go down the valleys, I will raise him on raspberri es, and when I go in the wide world , I will raise him on white flo wers. p. 143 2 If you , m y wife," would have a boy, I would hire a wet nurse , a chef, a cook, a caretaker , and a house keeper. K eby si ty, zena moja , chlapca mal a, drzau by ti dojku , kuchara , kucharku, i safa ra i safarku. p. 144 3 Freedom and chastity prevail everyw here," whichever girl has th em, let her guard them . I would have protected mine, but it is too late. my freedom is crying in th e cradle. Sloboda, poctivost', ta vsade panuj e, kt ore j u di evca ma, nech si ju va ruje. I ja bych si moju , uz je ponecase, uz moja slobod a V belcove m i place. p . 144 �26 SLOVAKIA 4 As the maidens dance," they whirl around in circles, while I, poor thing, rock a baby. J a k tie panny tancuju, do kola sa zvrcuju, a ja neboz ia tko kolfsem diet'at ko. Rock him, my d ea r husband , he is such a lovely boy. Rock him yourself, you are his mother . Kolfbaj ho moj mily, vsak je synak spanily. Kolfbaj si sama, vsak si mu ty mama. I would be a fool to rock him by myself, You surely are his father just as I 'm his mother. Bola by ja blazon kolfba ti sama, vsak si mu ty otec jako i ja mama . I used to have a good time when luck served me, sitting by the window, with a handsome young man . Byvalo mi, byvalo, ked' mi stestia sluzilo, sedajfcej v okne, s mladeneckom pekne. I used to sit with him , now I am married to him , m y maiden name was blotted out. Sedala som, sedala, u z sem ho i dostala, me panenske jmeno bolo vymazano. pp. 144-45 Wedding Songs Of the three areas of ceremonial family folklore discussed here, the wedding ceremony offers the greatest variety of folklore material. This is because in Slovakia the wedding ceremonies of most villages and towns contained traditions that were peculiar to that particular locale . There were often specific differences between the ceremonies of neighboring villages even within a relatively small geographic area. 16 The entire ritual consisted of three parts: the period before the wedding during which a wedding contract was m ade between the future inlaws; the wedding ceremo ny itself, and the feast after the young couple had retired. The wedding actually began when the wedding guests gathered and the bride and groom left for the ceremony in the church. The first five selections under the headin g "Wedding Songs" are examples of what the wedding party might sing along the way. After the ceremony the bride and groom as well as the guests would arrive at the bride groom's h ouse , where the festivities would take place . The feast was and still is the culmination of the whole wedding. The structure of the entire wedding ceremon y was originally quite �SLOVAKIA 27 rigid . There were dan ces, ceremonial speeches, dramatic speeches and acts, as well as songs. All proceeded according to a traditionally fixed pattern . 1 7 Today, the songs themselves are no longer a part of the ceremony, and while many of the other forms remain (such as dances and speeches) the rigid , traditional patterns are no longer followed . Thematically, the bride is the focus of the often-lyrical and teasing ceremonial songs. Her beauty , upbringing, future as a married woman, and her character are all described in these songs: "Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter''; ''Mother, mother, you may be proud . . . '' The most frequently mentioned virtues on the bride's part are modesty , diligence , obedience, and chastity. Some of the songs, especially those following the taking of the wreath and placing of the bonnet on the bride's head (when she symbolically becomes a woman), are permeated with laments: ''I lost my headdress . .. I like wearing it.'' Other songs picture the bride taking leave of her parents, relatives and friends: thanking her parents for her upbringing, expressing her sorrow about leaving them, and sometimes also expressing apprehension about her future with the bridgegroom' s family. Wedding songs and speeches employ rhymed verse, often of the following pattern : aa-bb-cc. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. As in christening songs, wedding songs also employ assonance. Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter , we will take her from you even if you hide her. Should you lock her behind four locks, we sure will get her with fin e words. Mamicka , mamicka, peknu dceru mate, m y vam ju vezmeme , co ju aj schovate . Co by ste ju zamkli aj styrma zamka mi , my ju dostaneme peknymi slova mi. p. 151 2 G et married , ge t ma rried , m y love, well will you learn what tyranny is. Get m arried , get m arri ed, my love , a birch switch awaits you behind th e door. V ydaj sa !en, vydaj , frajeruock a rn oj a, sak sa ve ru dozvies , aka je to zvola. V ydaj sa !en , vyd aj, fraj eruocka moj a, caka t'a za dve rmi ta b rezova hola. p. 151 �28 SLOVAKIA 3 I kept it a sec ret, a secret, but I won't anymore, mother, ge t the feath erbeds" read y, I ' m ge ttin g m ar ried. Thank you , mother , thank you, d ea r , for taking care of me wh ile I was a child . T aj ila som , taji la, uz tajit' nebudem , chystaj , m am ka, perin y, vydavat' sa budem . Dakujem va m , mamicka, dakujem va m sta ra, co ste vy mna chovali , kym so m bola mala . p . 152 4 M ot he r, mot her, you may be proud th at yo ur girl 's gettin g married still chaste. Chaste , she's getting ma rri ed to a you ng man , they both will be wearing a rosemary wreat h .'" Mamicka, mamicka , pekn a vasa chvala , ze sa vafa d ieuka poct iva vydava. Poctiva vyd ava, be ri e ju ml ade nec, budu mat' obidva z rozmarinu ve ni ec. p . 152 5 Whateve r yo u give me, oh, eternal Lord , just don ' t give me a n old hag with children . An old hag rumbl es like a ba rrel of bee r a nd a young girl ' s jumpy like a squirrel. I ' II give the old hag a fl a tca ke 10 to chew on, and th e yo ung gi rl a pair of boots to jump in . Co mi das, to das, pa ne boze vecny, !en ze mi nedavaj staru babu s det'mi. A ta stara dud le, ako z piva bocka a ta mlada skace a ko veve ru ocka. D am starej Osucha , aby ho fova la , ml ad ej na cizmicky, aby si skaka la. p. 152 On the way back from the church , the weddin g party sings songs like the following: 6 Now you a re ours, Ann ie, now you are ours, we a re tak in g you home from the wedd ing. They paid a lotll for your wedd ing, we have tied your hands with a stole . 1 ' Uz si ty, An icka, uz si teraz nasa, uz t'a my ved ieme domov ze sobasa . Od tvojho sobasa tvrdy toliar dali, uz sme tvoje rucky stolou poviazali. p . 153 �SLOVAKIA 29 7 Jaj , co si plakala, ked t'a sobasili? Var si si m ys lela l'ubit' sa s inymi ? A ja som sa bala tej tvojej materi, ked' ona ma jazyk zo samej oceli . Oh , why did you cry at your wedding? Maybe you thought of loving others? No, I was afraid of your moth er , becau se she has a tongue of steel. p. 154 During the wedding feast the bridgegroom and bride may sing to each other: 8 Bridegroom: Welcome, d ear little dove," half of my heart 1 I'm fl ying from bu sh to bush to see your cheeks. As soon as my heart spotted you, it looked back with joy , m y wish was fulfill ed. I want to ask you , Molly , are you willing to m a rry m e? will your fat her let you go? do you want to be my wife? Vitaj, mila holubicka, muojho srdca polovicka 1 Lietam od kricka do kricka, abych videl tvoje licka . J ak t'a moje srdce zrelo , od radosti zas pozrelo , podl'a vuoli sa mi stalo. Chcem sa, Marka, t'a p ytati, m as ty vuolu za mna iti , ci t'a otec chce pu stiti , ci chces mojou zenou byti? p. 161 Bride: You can't find fault with me, yo u can do as you please. Wh y should I spare myself, 34 when I like to see you. You can profit from m e Wh a t ca n I d o? I can tear old shirts to rags , throw wood into the stove, in the kitchen I have good luck, I can cook cabbage wit hout lard, and you wi ll li ck your fingers. l can make scrambled eggs , as my fat her knows . You , m y fat her , tell them what a special di sh it is 135 Nieto na mne ziadna chyba , mozes robit', co ti treba. Co by lutovala seba, ked' ja rada vidim teba . Zo mn a m ozes osoh vziati, co zo mn a moze vystati? Viem starie kosele driapat', dreva do peci nam eta t', aj v ku chyni sa mi stescf, mozem navar it' kapusty bez mas ti , oblfzes prsty. Viem spravit' praze ni cu z vaj ec. o com vie svadobny otec. T y pan svadobny otec povedz , aka je to obzvlastna vec 1 p. 161 The bonneting of the bride had its own special songs . 36 �SLOVAKIA 30 9 I lost m y headdress," m y green wreath, " the best m an" fo und it , a ha ndso me yo ung m an . H ey, bes t m an , best ma n , I beg of you , give me bac k that headb and , I like wearing it. If you like wearing that head ba nd so mu ch , surely you ' d ask the best man more ni cely . Stratila som partu, zeleny ve ni ec, nasiel mi ju dru zba, sva rny ml adenec. H ej , dru zba, hej, dru zba, pekn e t'a prosfm , d ajze mi tu partu , rad a ju nosfm 1 K eby si ty pa rtu rada nosila, ve ru by si druzbu krajsie prosila . p . 163 10 The bell s of r.upca' 0 have a ve ry ni ce rin g," 1 Annie , they ' ll kn ock off yo u r head ba nd . They will kn ock it off with nin e bells, so you won ' t go out with oth er yo un g men . So you won't go out , just love your husband , th e handso me J ohnn y, who is d evo ted to you . Tie lupcian ske zvo ny vel'mi pekne zvo ni a, u z tebe, Ani cka, tvoju pa rtu zro ma . Zronia ti ju , zronia deviatimi zvo ncf, abys nechodil a s cudzfmi mladencf. Abys nechodil a, mu za si l'ubila , Janfcka svarnyho, tebe oddan yho. p . 163 Wailing Over the Dead The practice of wailing over the dead form ed a n integral p a rt of the fun e ral ceremony , a nd according to the Muran Articles of the Protestant Church from 1585 , wailing had been widely practiced in Slovakia.42 The lam ents were performed by semi-professional wailers , usually by older women , who wailed a t the funeral for a fe e. Some times , the laments were perform ed by rela tives. The laments over the d ead were generally improvi sed on the spur of the moment , with the hired person attempting to express lyrically the dee p sorrow felt by the relatives and friends of the deceased. They also m e ntioned the good traits of the deceased, the progress of hi s or her illn ess (as in " Oh , My D ear Child "), and would dram atize the actual d emise of the deceased , portraying him as he took leave of hi s fa mily, relatives, and friends. The laments over the d ead are st ru ctured differentl y from other folklore genres . Since they h ad to be open for improvisa tions , they are �SLOVAKIA 31 free in form. They usuall y do not have regular stanzas or rhyme. Assonance predominates over rhym e and they are sung as melodic recitations. Laments can be characterized not only b y the lack of formal structure, but also by a certain degree of looseness and incoherency, possibly utilized to stress the depth of sorrow felt by the relatives and friends . This looseness is demonstra ted in the poem "George , George" in which the last two stanzas are only vaguely related to the theme of the first two stanzas. Oh , my dear child , beloved Angel," what shall I do without you , my dear souJ? My hea rt was bleeding while you were suffering, you looked at me, I couldn ' t help. Your fath er was walking stunned in the yard , walkin g aimlessly, not saying a word . You chattered to me your sweet words th e wh ole day, you dear innocent ch ild , a nd when you r father came home from th e fi elds, you smiled so that he would take you in his arms , and th ere was no end to your talking, and your father took d elight in you, hi s treasure. Ach, moj e drah uo diet'a, anjel premileny, cuo pocnem bez teba, moj a draha dusa, srdce mi zatislo, ked si sa trapilo, hl'adelo si na mna, nemohla som pomuoct'. Otec ti po dvore omrace ny chodiu , nikde miesta nemau, slov ka nepovedau. Stebotalo si mi slad uskymi recmi cely den, ty draha nevinnost ' premila , a ked otec z pol'a do domu sa vratiu, usmi evalo si sa, kym t'a k sebe nevzau, a n ebolo recom tvojim dlh o konec , a otec sa tesiu v tebe drahy poklad. p. 164 2 George, George, yo ur godfather ca me ," for yo u to plow hi s fi elds. You a re through with plowing since the Lord called you. Juro , Juro , km otor prise!, aby si mu orat' isol. A ty si uz dooral , ked' t'a panboh povolal. Ycs te rd ay you ate three sa usages," a nd a lot of bread. 46 Today you lie on th e bier, like a hog on a ca rt . Y ce ra si zjel tri jelita , aj chl eba z polk yky zita. Dnes uz lezis na marach ako bravec na karach. �32 SLOVAKIA M y dea r go lde n m oustache" would be fit fo r strin gs, my ve r y d ear ha ir , would be good fo r ropes. M oje m ile, zlate fuzy, boli ze by na mot u zy, moj e premile vlasy boli by na povrazy. Wh en he bega n to play hi s bagpipe: " tati -lat i, ta ti-l a ti ," he go t a farth ering" to bu y spices, he dropped it behind his shirt. K ed si pocal gajdovati : ta ti -lati , ta ti-l ati , ma! turak na koreni a, vsy pal ho do zahreni a. p . 165 NOTES ' Andrej M elichercfk , ed. , Slo vensky Folkl6r: Chrestomatia (Bra tislava: Slove nska Akademi a Vied, 1959) . ' J ozef r. . Holuby, Folklore studi es published ma inl y in Slovenske Pohl'ad y between 1883 a nd 1897; Jan Kolla r , N arodnie spievanky, I-II (Bra ti slava, 1953); Jii'i Polivka, Supis slo ven skych rozpravok I-V (Turciansky Svaty M artin , 1923 -1932). ' The fo lkloric ma teri al collected by Dobsinsky a nd oth ers is re ndered in th e dialec t o f the region fro m which it origina ted . The page reference to M elichercfk is give n in th e tex t a ft er th e Slovak ori ginal. ' " Puddle, Puddle ." In the Slova k, this love inca nta ti on has an irregul a r rhym e (aabbb-c-ddd-c-ee-fff- e-g-hh-g- iii -j- k-ll -m m) whi ch was sac rificed in th e tra nsla ti on fo r the sake of accuracy. • Although th e magical for mulae are pagan in origin , they contain refe rences to C hristi a nit y. ' Lit. · " H oly T rinity,/be a good helpe r to me/ to eve rythin g good,/ to the state of m a trimon y" (II. 26-29). 6 The colors refer to the body: red or pink cheeks were considered a sign of good health , a nd a white co m plex ion was much valued by both men and women, partl y as a sign of class di stin ction . O nly feuda l lords and wealth y merchants who di d not have to work in th e fi elds could afford to have white skin a ll year aro un d. " H oney " is a traditi onal refe rence to good te mper . 7 " I have brought you a piece of steel. . " With the exce ption of the wishes in the las t lin e, the Slova k poe m co nsis ts of rh ym in g co upl ets. All bu t 11 . 1 and 2 a re revised in order to con vey a prope r word order in English . Steel (iron) was co ns idered p ro tect ion aga ins t evil and fa iries in Europe (Maria Tymocz ko). ' H a ft is a ha nd le of a hoe, ax, scyt he, and oth er ag ricultu ral tools. H ere the number of hafts represen ts the far mer 's pros perity. 9 A typical orname n t a mong young marri ed village me n . Wh en give n by a you ng unm a r ried women, th e feather was co nside red a sign of affect ion. '° K re u ze r (o r kreutzer) was a small cop per coin in Aust ri a and Ge rmany, the 100th part of th e fl orin . It was so called because th e coin had th e fi gu re of a cross on it. A penny wou ld be probabl y the closest co n temporary eq ui valent to the kreuzer. " Wal nu ts and hazlenu ts were trad itionally eaten at C hristmas tim e after the ma in meal. �SLOVAKIA 33 " " I wi sh you in thi s/comin g New Yea r " : This is a very popular N ew Year 's wish . The unu su al wi sh , " that a side of your oven/ m ay fa ll out" (11 .3 -4) probably ha s the same conn otat ion as th e En gli sh '' break a leg!'' It also sugges ts a wi sh of prosperity to the farm er , i.e., th a t hi s oven m ay be fill ed to burstin g, or ove rh eated with con stant cooki ng a nd baking. " Fo rmall y, thi s poe m is arran ged in rh ymin g coupl ets but asson an ce plays a m o re impo rtant role . " This carol is loosely a rra nged in rh yming couplets. Again, the assonance a nd the rhym e take precedence ove r m eanin g, and thi s ex plains why such seemingly unrela ted them es as th e Three Kings, the Star of Bethlehem , J oseph and M a ry o n the one hand, and the rose, th e tulip on the ta ble, and the old man's huntin g expedition on th e other ha nd , fo und their place in thi s carol. The carol is a mi xture of religious and secular m otifs. " C hildren , dressed as the Three Magi, arrive a t a farmh ou se and sing. Yet they mu st no t sin g a bout the fa rm er ' s fa mil y, but the H oly Famil y of the Na tivity. 16 ' ' Sh rovetide, Pentecos t, and Easter ... '' This j okin g carnival song is ar ranged in rh ym in g coupl ets. 11 Fatback bacon (usual ly with no lean m eat) was a staple diet , often a snack, fo r village peo ple. It was ofte n eaten with baked potatoes a nd _onio ns, o r j ust plain bread . 18 Fa tback baco n u sed to be sm oked (cured ) in th e chimn ey. 19 The teac her , alo ng with the p riest a nd th e m ayo r , was amon g th e m ost prominent peo ple in th e vill age. 0 ' S loven sko: l', ud - II. cast', ed s. Boze na Filova et al. (B ra ti slava: O bzo r , 1975). " In the Slovak o ri ginal, thi s son g has a regula r rh yme pat tern: aa-b b-cc-dd . The first two lines ad d ress th e m a in speaker . " J oh n" is appa ren tl y a youn g fath er whose wife d ied in childbirth . T he fat her says that he will kee p his so n , but the boy ' s grandmoth er will have to bring him up . Them a ticall y, the so ng expresses conce rn fo r th e boy ' s upbringin g. In the seco nd stan za , the speake r ind icates that he m ay have to leave hi s nat ive vill age, probably in search of wo rk . T hi s was a co mm on prac ti ce among im poverished village rs. " Lit .: " I 'll have. " In 11. 3 an d 4 coll oqui al form s of the ve rb " to have " and the nou n " m other" have bee n used. The forms a re iden tical: mati , wh ich fac il itates th e rh ym e and keeps th e sam e num ber of syll a bles in each line. There a re eight sylla bles in each line, and th e standa rd m o nosy lla bic word m at' wo uld have redu ced th e syll a bles dow n to seven in 11 .3 a nd 4 . " The origin al son g uses assonance ra ther th an rh ym e. A fat her-to-be is th e speaker in this so ng . H alf-jokin g , he stresses the importance of a male offspring. H e p rom ises to pa m pe r hi s wife if she bears him a son . " The original so ng uses asson a nce . T he speaker , proba bly an un wed m o th er, po nders her fat e a nd talks a bout social conve nti on s. " W ith th e excepti o n of stanza 3, the so ng has a near regul a r rh ym e: aa-bb-cc-dd-e -fg- f-hh- ii -jj- kk. T he speaker in th is so.ig is the ba by 's moth er who regrets th e loss of her freedo m as a mother and/or a wife . It is not qu ite clear from the context wheth er she is m a rri ed o r no t. I n either case, it was not proper of her to joi n the ca refree d a nce of unm arri ed m en a nd wome n . �34 6 SLOVAKIA Slovensko: E,ud, p. 1057. " Melichercfk , p. 26 " A featherbed is a strong cloth con tainer thi ckly filled with goose feathers and down and used as a bed cover in lieu of blankets. Featherbeds were a part of the bride's dowry, which also included pillows, sheets, towels, cloths, etc . The dowry was collected throughout the years practically after the day the girl was born . Goose down and stripped feathers were collected ever y year from the fami ly's fl ock of geese and stashed in a special bag for each d aughter in the family. The wealthier the bride , the higher the pile of featherbeds and pillows atop her bed . " A rosemary wreath was a decoration used on such occasions as weddings and funerals . H ere it is a symbol of chastity. 0 ' A fl atcake (osuch ) is a simple, flat cake, usually round. It is baked from bread dough , which is sometimes mixed with a different type of fl our or else potatoes. " Lit .: "They paid a hard thaler for your wedding ," obviously meaning the dowry. Thaler (also taler) was a large silver coin u sed in various German states and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was worth 30 silver groschen, worth about 3s. sterling . The word "dollar" is derived from " th aler." " R efe rring to the priest's vestments durin g the wedding ce remony, the stole is a long, decorated strip of cloth worn like a scarf by officiating clergymen of various chu rches. 33 In the Slovak original, each line consists of eight syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aaaa-bbb-cccc. " The meaning is not quite clear here. It probably indicates the bride's submission to the groom . 35 In this poem, each line consists of eight syllables . The rh yme pattern is: aaaa-bb-ccbbb-dddd. 36 Bonneting of the bride is the culmination of the wedding ceremony. The bride becomes a married woman when her wreath is replaced by a bonnet. 31 Headband or headdress is a wreath decorated with colorful ribbons, worn by un married women and brides. Married women wore bonnets or scarves. 38 Each line in this song consists of eleven syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-cc. 39 It was customary that the best man led the bride to the wedding and took off her wreath or headband. H e led the bride down the aisle, whereas the bridesmaid led the bridegroom down the aisle. He was referred to as the " leading " best man and wore a sword to distinguish himself from other best men who wore sticks decorated with scarves . '° Cupca is a town in Central Slovakia, where many local customs and traditions have been preserved. 41 Each line in this song consists of twelve syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-c-d. " Melichercfk, p . 142. 43 This lame ntation has a sporadic rhyme pattern: a-b-c-d-ee-f-g-ee- h-i. The lines consist of 12 to 13 syllables. 44 The poem has the following rhym e pattern: aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff-gg-hh . The lines consist of seven to eight syllables. 45 Pork sausage in natural casing. It is made of rice or grits combined with ground meat , liver, blood and spices. The sausages were usu all y made in winter or early ' �SLOVAKIA 35 spring when the fatt ened pigs were slaughtered . " '' ... a lot of bread.'' This is a free translation due to the discrepancy in the printed word indicating the amount of rye from which the bread was made . The original version of this song, titled, " W a iling over a D ead Husband" (Sbomik slovenskych n arodnych piesnf, povestf, prfslovf, porekadiel, hadok, hier, obycajov a povier [A Collection of Slovak Folk Songs, Riddles, Games, Customs, and Superstitions], II , (Turciansky Sva ty Martin : Matica slovenska, 18741) spells the wordpolkyly, which would mean half a kilo. On the other hand , Melichercik's edition lists the word polkyky (fem. gen. sg. ), which was an old , popula r measure in Slovak villages . The word k yky is of Ukrainian ori gin (a Ukrainian word for a scarf worn by village women, "babushka" type). ·since scales were a luxury item in the past, the amount of rye from which a loaf of bread was m ade was m easured in the scarf. Pol means half, i.e., the bread was made from half the amount measured by the scarf. 47 The poem , somewhat joking in character, shows the improvising character of funeral recitations. The stanzas wander from one subject to another, touching some memories of the dead man that may o r may not be relevant for the occasion of the funeral, but they are important in the eyes of the wailer. " " Farthing" is a free translation, indicating that the coin was small. In the Slovak original , turak was a small coin , worth one and a half groschen . It was used in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This paper is based on a doctoral dissertation , " Slovak Folklore : An Anthology, " at the Un iversity of M assachuset ts in Amh erst , 1982. I th ank especially Professors Sarah N. Lawall a nd Zdenek Salzmann . Presented in part in P anel 128 , " Slovak Literature as a Mirror of the National Awakening ," at the AAASS co nvention in Philadelphia on 8 November 1980 , and in Panel 65 , "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asiloma r , California on 2 1 September 1981. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1982-83, Vol. 30 Description An account of the resource Vol. 30 (No. 55-56), 1982-83. 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 1982-83 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 12 SLOVAKIA Three Kinds of Slovak Folk Literature Eva Susan Kucekova The following categories of Slovak folklore represent some of its oldest forms. Lyrical genres, such as m agical formul ae or incantations , ceremonial calendar poetry , and ceremonial fa mily poetry, a re of ritual and ceremonial character. The sample selections introduced in this pa per were taken from a comprehensive modern collection of Slovak folkl ore entitled Slovensky folk16r: Chrestomatia, and edited b y the foremost authority on the subj ect, the late Andrej Melichercfk . 1 Melichercfk based hi s anthology on Pavo! Dobsinsky' s publications , as well a s on other collections of Slovak folklore, for example those edited by Jozef I:. . Holuby, Jan Kollar and Jirf Polfvka . 2 The folklori c material collected by Dobsinsky and others is rendered in the dialect of the region from which it originated. MAGICAL FORMULAE Magical fo rmulae a re incantations associated with ritu als. These non-narrative forms are very ancient and are closely related to ce rem onial calendar poetry. M agical formulae were u sually connec ted with special rites and performed on spec ific occasions and/or holidays . They were often perform ed by semiprofessional m en and women (" wi se m en " and " wise wom en ") who were well versed in m agic. There are two types of incantations: tho se which were supposed to bring a desired effect( " sympathethic magic" ), and those which were supposed to preve nt undes irable and ha rmful effects (" preve ntive magic" ). Incantations we re u sed to brin g a hu sba nd , m ake one fall in love, prevent and cure illness , increase the yield of the fi elds, and also bring illness or bad lu ck upon a n enem y . Some incan tations were chanted primarily by girls or young women. " Puddle, Puddle," " Will ow, Willow," and " And You , Elm ," are typical examples of love incantations. Once m arried , a bride would chant an incanta tion " I Sow the Seed " and wish for good lu ck and prosperity . SLOVAKIA 13 Magical formulae are rhythmical and based on syntactic parallelisms ; they rely extensively on various euphonic and semantic devices. Due to the fact that magical formulae are so closely associated with magic, their ritual form remains unchanged throughout the centuries . Magical incantations contain many pre-Christian elements, upon which a new layer of C hri st ian symbols has been added . Love Incantations This love incantation shows water as a powerful source of magic. T aken from fords at midnight , water was believed to attract lovers and help a girl get married . While bathing, girls chanted the following incantation: Puddle , puddle,' get me a husband! Above the bridge, below the bridge, let him go nowhere but to our house! Above th e footbrid ge, below th e footbr idge, don 't let him rest but in ou r house 1 I 'm not pouring away, I 'm pouring in: bachelors , wid owers, merchants, fiddlers, even those small boys I call after me, after my body , aft er my clothes , after my heels, a ft er this hou se of ours. Not by my power do I say this, but I say it by the divine power, from J es us Christ till m idn ight. And help me in this God th e Father, the Son , a nd the H oly Ghost!' H oly Trini ty , help me reach hap piness and get married. 1 Kaluza, kalu za, daj muza 1 Vyse mosta, ni ze mosta, aby nemal nikde miesta len u nas! Vyse lavky, ni ze lavky, aby nem al nikd e stavky len u nas 1 Neod lievam, ale prilievam: mladencov, vdovcov, kupcov , aj hudcov , aj tych malickych chlapcov za sebou volam, za mym telom , za m ymi satami, za mym i patami, za tym nasfm domom . J a to nehovorfm ze svej moc1, lez to hovorfm z bozskej m oci, od pana J ezisa Kri sta do pol noci. A k tomu mi dopomahaj Boh otec , Boh sy n , Boh du ch svaty! Svata troj ica , bud mi dobra pomocnica k vse tkemu dobremu, k stavu manzelskemu! p. 54 14 SLOVAKIA On the eve of St. George ' s Day (April 24) , young girls made wreaths from different kinds of flowers and boughs. Later, wreaths were tossed into the air. It was believed that the girl whose wreath was caught on a tree branch would get married within a year. To attract a beloved, girls would make wreaths from nine different boughs and chant the following incantation: 2 A ty vaz - ty ho vaz, a ty hrab - se m ho hrab , a ty kJen - se m ho zen , a ty svfb - se m ho sib, a ty sip - ty ho stfp , a ty tfn - sem ho hrn , a ty dub - ty ho l'ub , a ty bez - za nim bez, a ty lieska - za nim vri es kaj ! And you, elm - you bind him , and you, hornbeam - rake him here, and you , maple - drive him here, and you , red dogwood - whip him here, and you , wild rose - you prick him, and you , thorn bush - push him here , and you , oak - you love him , and you , lilac - run aft er him , a nd you , hazel, - yell aft er him p . 57 Bridal Incantation A woman married into her husband's family . As soon as the bride entered her husband's house after the wedding, she would scatter flaxs6ed, millet and poppy seed in the yard for good luck , while chanting the following: 2 I sow the seed , to succeed with all my breed ; I sow millet, for others to beg m y fav or; I sow poppy seed , for this to last foreve r. Sejem se m eno, ab y sa mi viedl o vsetko ple meno; sej em proso, aby sa mi vse tci prosili ; sej em m ak, aby bolo vzdycky tak . p . 61 Incantation by the Willow To make sure that they would grow beautiful long hair, young girls would comb their hair under a willow on Good Friday at dawn. While combing their hair, they wished for a good husband . Willow, willow , ge t m e a m an , red as a rose , white as a fl ower, a nd good as honey. ' Vfba, vfb a , d aj mi mu za, ce rve neho a ko ru za a bieleho a ko kve t, a dobreho ako med . p . 62 SLOVAKIA 15 CEREMONIAL CALENDAR POETRY Ceremonial calendar poetry celebrates different festivals of the year. The original calendar festivals coincided with the solstices and equinoxes. Calendar poetry contains many pre-Christian mythological elements which have been intertwined with and sometimes replaced by Christia n elements. In the calendar poetry of Slovakia a nd other Slavic countries which have been under Catholic influence, Christian features pred ominate. The traditions connected with calendar poetry are still being practi ced in some Slovak villages , particularly around holidays such as Christmas, New Year ' s and Easter. The classification of calendar poetry corresponds to the agricultural cycles, and all four seasons of the year are represented. In the poetry , three seasons are associated with the cultivation of the soil, while the last one is concerned with the harvest itself. The poetry is full of incantations and magical formulae meant to secure a good harvest and placate nature , which was often thought of as hostile. In the pre-Christian era the peasants turned for h elp to their gods and during Christian times to the numerous Christian saints. They would ask for good and prosperous years , abundant harvest, a nd good health and happy family life. Along with incantations and magical formulae, calendar poetry also contains chants , recitations , songs, riddles, and prognostications . In this poetry each season has its own characteristic customs . The winte r solstice cycle , beginning in November , is best represented. Its poetry is of a prophetic nature, and touche s on both family life and the prosperity of the homestead. The most important days of the season were the last 12 before Christmas since they represented the 12 months of the year; these days were used to judge what the weather would be like for the w hole next year. Children went caroling from hou se to house, a nd it was important that they b e healthy for if they were, they would bring good health to the fa rm ers ' fa milies as well . Moreover, the living room h a d to be cleaned a nd whitewashed in eve ry house to preve nt any kind of illn ess from ente rin g. Numerous C hri stmas customs were practiced o n C hristmas Eve . Basicall y , they were meant to express the farmer ' s thanksgiv in g for good crops in the preceding season, a nd to h elp assure a nd predict a good harvest in the forthcoming year. The latter kind were u su ally connected wit h magic . There we re rules of condu ct which were st ri ctl y followed 16 SLOVAKIA on Christmas Eve. For example, one could not light the house unless the Christmas Eve dinner - the biggest meal of the year - was already set on the table. The numerous courses of the meal had to follow acertain sequence . Christmas carolers were offered food and drink , and the boys were also given money. Many of the Christmas carols have a joking tone - besides bringing best wishes they expressly ask for a reward as in ''I Am a Very Small Boy,'' or ''I'm Just a Little Boy .' ' Sometimes they would ask expressly for money as in the carol "We Have Brought You Some News . '' New Year's wishes were also humorous in tone and expressed the good mood which prevailed in every household on that day . It was believed that if one felt happy on New Year's Day , he or she would be happy during the coming year. One song jokingly suggests that the farmer's stove burn out from too much cooking and baking: "I wish you in this/ coming New Year / that a side of your oven / may fall out." Carols for the eve of the Three Magi combine religious and secular motifs. Thus, in " Lord , Grant Us a Merry Evening," best wishes are expressed for everyone in the house, including the servants. Immediately after come Epiphany motifs, dealing with the birth of Christ and the arrival of the Three Kings. The Epiphany carol is concluded with a rather anticlimatic ending: the old man (probably the patriarch of the house) is not at home and has gone hunting. Very often , the boys were masked as the Three Kings, Joseph and Mary, and would perform a co medy based on the ancient legend . The Christmas ceremonial cycle ended with the Three Kings motif. Thematically, then , Slovak ceremonial calendar poetry focuses upon the four cycles of the year and the agricultural tradition con nected with them . It also contains the themes of love and fertility, and elements of ancestor worship, which are not treated here. From the formal point of view, calendar poetry is characte rized by symm etric bipartite verse and the frequent use of asso nance . Pre-Christmas Period The winter cycle of calendar poetry begins with St. Thomas's Day (December 21 ) , the shortest day of the year. Small boys walked around the village with a piece of steel, wishing farmers good lu ck in the next farming year : SLOVAKIA 17 I have b rought you a piece of steel' so th a t you would not fall out of bed. Have as m a n y calves on yo ur farm as there a re spoons on your shelf. Have as man y oxen in your stable as there are logs in your shed. Let your girls have as many suito rs as there are dishes on your rack. May yo ur lads own as many hafts' as there are hearths in you r house. May as man y youn g men wear feathers in their caps• as you have number of dau ght ers. Have as m a ny more ears of corn in you r backyard as there are pictures on your walls. I ask onl y as many kreuzers' 0 as there are mirrors here. I wish you a good morning 1 Doniesou som vam ocele, aby ste nevypadli z postele. Kol'ko mate za ramom lyz iciek, tol'ko mate vo dvore teliciek; kol'ko mate na sope kolov, tol'ko mate V mastali volov; kol'ko mate za ramom tanierov , tol'ko maju vase dievky frajero v ; kol'ko mate vo vasom dome ohnisk, tol'ko maju vas i parobci porisk ; kol'ko zije vasich deer, tol'ko maju mladenci pier ; kol'ko ma te na stene obrazov , tol'ko raz vo vasom humne kl asov; kol'ko mate tuna zrkadov, !en tol'ko mi dajte krajciarov. Dobro rano vinsujem 1 p. 70 Christmastime Many Christmas carols and son gs are connected with the Christm as season. Both children and ad ults went from house to hou se caroling M erry C hristmas. For their service they expected som e reward. Many of these carols are joking in character, as is evident from the following carols: 18 SLOVAKIA I a m a very sm all boy. M y fa th er has se nt me to you , to ge t so methin g from you , but m ake it qui ck, for m y stomach rumbl es. J a som chl apec ve l'mi m aly, mn a moj otec k vam poslali, zeby ste mi dafo dali , ale chytro , lebo m i uz v bru chu svitlo. p. 70 2 I ' m ju st a little boy. I'm askin g fo r my sm all bag : a pi ece of cake a nd piece o f pie. T omorrow , I ' ll b rin g yo u a bird . If th at see m s too little, I will brin g you so me pork ; and if tha t 's not enough , I 'll b ri ng yo u a cat's ta il. J a so m maly, nevelicky, pyta m se be do ka psicky: kus kola.ca, kus kabaca, d onesiem vam zajtra vtaca. Ak sa vam to ma.lo vid f, d onesiem vam porfov iny; ak je vam to ni e dost', d onesiem va m z m acky chvost. p . 71 3 W e have b rought you so me news, we have come to you r feas t . The Saviour desce nded from H eave n , and we ca me to be your gues ts. A jug of wine is on th e table , and we are under your farm yard window, but you don ' t offer us a n y win e, nor do you have an y brand y th a t we ca n trea t ourselves to, and sing you songs eve n ni ce r . W e don ' t want your past ry, we' ll crac k a few nu ts.'' H ey, we a re not little ki ds , wh o get j ust a kreu ze r apiece. If yo u don ' t give us twe n ty we wo n ' t co me on New Yea r's Day. D oni esli sm e vam novinu , prisli sm e k vam na hos tinu , Sos tupi l Spasti el' z vysosti . M y sm e prisli k va m za hos ti . Krcah s vfn om j e na stole, m y sme pod oblokom v dvore , a nam vina nedavate, palenky ti ez ni c nem a te, co b y sme sa castu va]i a vam krajsie zaspievali . O pekance va m nechcem e, oriesky si poklcieme. A my sme ni e chl a pci m ali, ze by Ste nam krajc iar d ali. Ak na m dvads ia tnik ned a te, na Novy rok nas nema te. p. 71 New Year's Wish es Early in th e m ornin g on New Year's D ay, m en a nd youn g boys went from house to hou se, w ishin g lo ts of lu ck, p rosperity , a nd good h ealth to everyon e in the house . M ost of th eir w ishes foc u sed upon su ccessfu l fa rmin g a nd m a n age m e n t. I wish you in th is coming New Year, V in sujem vam V tento nas tavajuc i nov y rok , SLOVAKIA that a side of your ove n may fall out , " that your wife may get pregna nt this year! Give us foo d and drink and stay well! 19 aby va m vypadol z pece bok, aby vam bola vasa gazdin a na te nto rok samod ruh a 1 Vypit', zajest' na m d ajte, a dob re sa tu m aj te 1 p . 78 2 l wish you plenty of hemp , bu shels of beets, a whole bin of blossoms, and a ba rnful of children' Vinsujem va m moc konopi, mecu repy , zacinok puckov, plevienec deti 1 p. 79 3 This l wish to all'' with vigo r and joy : to peasants, bags for their shoulders ; to shep herd s, porridge; to cows, good pasture; to pigs, lots of mast to make them fat. Vinsujem smele vse tk ym vese le : sedliakom vrece, pine na piece; pastiero m kase a kravam pase; svi niam zaludu, ze tu cne budu . p . 79 The Three Magi On the eve of Epiphany, children went from house to house, singing carols in which the Epiphany motifs were interspersed with such commonplace motifs as farming and the farmer's eve ryday activity. Lord, grant us a merry eve ning ," to the farmer, first of all! And then to th e farmwife, and then to all the se rvants! The Three M agi a rri ve from the East, wo rshippin g this fam il y. Do not worship this fa mil y but worship only the beloved Lo rd! " And you , bright star, go before us, Lord , Jesus C hri st, grant us a good ni ght! And you , Joseph , I say to you , do not leave the Virgin M ary 1 D on ' t you kn ow who is going to be bo rn ? The Virgin M ary is to bear a so n . There is a red rose on your table , SLOVAKIA 20 let you r daught er marry a handsome man 1 There is a tu li p atop your table , yo ur son is ge ttin g read y to see his love. There is a handso me fe llow in this house , perhaps he ' d give us six kreu ze rs for a wrea th . God wi ll give him a lovely wife , whether it ' s Anna o r Susanna. The old man is not at home , he went out hunting . D aj nam Boh vecer diz vesely, najprv panu hospodarov i I A poto m aj tej hospod ince, po hospodin ce vseckej cel'adce 1 ldu tri a krali od vychod u , kl a naju sa tomut o rod u. Nekla naj te sa tom uto rod u , len sa kl a najte mil emu Bohu! A ty, j as na hviezd a, predchadzaj nas, pane J ezu Kri ste, dob ru noc nam d as 1 A ty , J ozefe, j a mlu vim tebe, neopust'aj pann y M a rie ! Nevid, co sa m a na sve t narod it'? M a panna Maria sy na porodit'. Na vaso m stole ce rve na ru za, daj vasej panenk e sva rn eho mu za 1 Na vaso m stole tulipan stoji, vas m lad enecek se k fraj erce strojL J est V tomto dome sva rn y ml adenec, azda nam on d a ses tak na veniec. D a jemu Panboh svarnu zenu , Annu alebo Zu za nu . Sta reho pana doma neni, isli oni po pol'uvanL pp. 79-80 Carnival Season Th e post-Chri stmas period does not present as m a n y cerem onies as th e C hri stmas season. The tim e of fasiangy (carni val season) was ch aracte rized b y a m asked procession which was to secure a good harvest. Th e carniv al processio n h ad mu sical accompaniment , u su all y a n accordi on . Most en gaged couples were also married during carnival season , sin ce there w as rela tively plenty of time for elaborate weddi n g celebration s, w hi ch las ted for several d ays. At the e nd of th e carnival seaso n , young m e n in ce re monial m asks we nt from ho u se to ho u se, collecting eggs, bacon , a nd m o ney. They SLOVAKIA 21 would sing humorous songs, such as " Shrovetide, P entecost. . m which they would ask for a piece of bacon . From these donations they would arrange a feast for the youth of the entire village. The main course was bacon and eggs, while the money paid for the music . Shrovetide, P entecos t, and Easter pass by, 16 he who has no fur coat , feels cold . I have none, I have none, I ' m shakin g all over, give me some bacon " to fill my belly . H ere I got nothin g, over there something, maybe. They killed a m osqu ito , a nd got some bacon . There up the chimney," a tom cat sits on the bacon , go chase him away and cut me a piece; if you cut me too sm all a piece, you will cut your fin gers. Give to the teacher " a piece as big as a d oo r , to me , a piece as big as a goose. Fasangy, Turice, V el'ka noc byva, kto nem a kozucha, zima mu byva. Ja nemam, ja nem a m , !en sa tak tras im , daj te mi slaninky, nech sa popasim . Tuto mi nedali , tuto mi d aj u, K om a ra zabili , slaninku m aj u . A ta m hore na komin e, sedi kocur na sla nin e, h ybajte ho zohn at' a mne ku s odrezat', az mi mal y odrezete, svoje prsty poreze te. R echtorovi j ako dve re a mn e ku s - ako hus 1 pp . 82-83 Easter The spring custom s include taking out Morena (the goddess of dea th in the p agan Slavic traditio n) , ta king out the old m a n (dedko - possibly a m ale equivalent of Moren a), and welcoming in the n ew summe r . However , the sprin g ce remonial cycle is cente red prim a rily around Easter , the most important religious holiday of the season . Easte r customs still co nta in m a ny pre -Christia n ele m e nts, which have been prese rved up to the 20th century . For example, on Good Friday a t d awn, girls would chant incantations while ba thing, wishing for a hu sba nd (see " Pud- 22 SLOVAKIA dle, Puddle" in the preceding section). On Easter Monday, groups of ten to fifteen men and boys went from house to house, wishing the womenfolk a Happy Easter. It was a part of the tradition that they flogged women's legs with a birch switch and doused their heads with fresh water. This proced ure had a symbolic purifying function . If a young man was courting a particular young woman, he was expected to visit her house , thus showing his interest and affection. Then, the girl would reward her favorite suitor with the most lavishly decorated Easter egg. Besides the eggs, everybody would also receive drinks, food, sweets, and little boys would get money. Easter, Easter, will it come soon? which lad will pour water over me] Pour the water , pour the water, on my hair and head , but do spare my nice new skirt. Vel'ka noc , Vel'ka noc, kedyze uz bude? ktoryze ma suhaj oblievati prfde? Oblievaj, oblievaj, vlasy aj hlavicku , ale mi zasanuj tu novu suknicku. p . 93 Pentecost marked the beginning of the summer cycle. Many traditions were centered around the summer solstice and St. John's Eve CTune 24). On that day, love incantations were chanted and the future was foretold . Also, magic was practiced against witches whose power was believed very strong on that day. The later part of the summer season is poorer in folklore because of increased work in the fields . Harvest The autum cycle begins with the harvest season . During the harvest season, songs were sung in the fields, or on the way home after a day 's work. Thematically , they are associated with the work itself, love between two young people ("We Reaped Here") , or the feast following the work ("Master, Make Ready for a Feast "). Some of these songs are joking in tone . The songs sung around the harvest wreath reflect old Slovak customs . After the harvest, a procession of harvesters would walk from the fields to the house of the farmer who had hired them . Led by a young man who was carrying a colorful flag and a young woman wearing a wreath made of wild flowers , they would sing songs and some- SLOVAKIA 23 times play music ("For Which Girl Shall We Weave a Wreath Today?"). In these songs, the peasants expressed their joy and happiness over a rich harvest. They also expressed their hope for the same bounty for the years to come. Harves t time offers a whole series of songs connected with this important agricultural season. They may refer to the work itself, or love between a young girl and a young man from the same village, or else the rest during the break or at the end of the day . W e reaped here , we reaped the re , in the valley, in th e valley, and the birdie, mottled birdie keeps singing, kee ps singin g. Kde sm e zali , tu sme fali , na doline , na doline , a ten vtacik, jarabacik pres pevuje , prespevuje. As the birdie , mottled birdie goes around th e tree , a rou nd the tree , so does m y d ea r, m y beloved go around me, around me . J ak ten vtacik, jarabacik okolo pna , okolo pna , tak moj mil y, najmilejsf okolo mna , okolo mn a. We reaped here , we reaped th ere, behind a path , behind a path , whoever will be our master, our clerk, our clerk? Kde sme zali , tu sme fali, za chonnfkom , za chonnfkom , ktoze bude nas fm panom , ura nnfkom , ura nnfkom ? p . 99 2 Master, make read y for a feas t, for a feast , we ' ve don e all the work for you . Master , prepa re the repast , th e repas t , a twelve- pound roas t. Add to it pints of wine , pints of wine, and a roasted capon. H otuj , pa ne , oldomas, oldomas , zrob ili sme , kd e co mas. H otuj , pa ne , veceru , vece ru, d vanas t' funtov pecenu . Este k tom u pint vfna, pint vfna, peceneho kapuna . p. 100 Around the h arvest wreath might be sung the foll owing song: 3 For which girl shall we weave a wreath today? For th e one chose n by the handsom es t young ma n . Wh o shall we let ca rry th e fl ag tod ay ? The one who hands hi s ri ght ha nd to her . T hat Ond1·is Slavik a nd Anna Bl ahej , SLOVAKIA 24 they would make a nice couple would Lord grant it. Masters, our masters , open the gates, we bring you a gift - a nice pair of reapers. Harvesters back from the fields , cover the tables, the mapl e tables with linen tabl e-cloths. Ktorejze dnes, ktorej uvijeme veniec~ Tej, ktoru vyberie najkrajsi mladenec . Komuze dnes , komu dame niest' zastavu? Tomu , co jej poda svoju rucku pravu. Ten Ondris Slavike, ta Anna Blaheje, to by bou pekny par, keby im Panboh dau! Pani nasi, pani, otvarajte brany, nesieme vam darik, zencov pekny parik. Idu zenci z roli, prestierajte stoly, stoly javorove, obrusy kmentove. p. 100 CEREMONIAL FAMILY FOLKLORE Ceremonial family folklore focuses primarily on the most important events in an individual's life: birth, marriage and death . While only songs are discussed here (they are the most common form), the Slovak ceremonial family tradition is expressed in poems, proverbs, sayings, riddles, and short dramatic performances as well. Christening Songs In the distant past , the birth of a child was accompanied by rituals and many magic practices . Such practices, it was believed, would protect the mother and her child, and would also secure health and happiness for the child as he or she matured. These magic practices gradually developed into joyful, social celebrations to welcome the new member of the family . 10 Thematically, the christening songs are directly connected with the child's birth and prospects. They frequently mention the responsibilities and problems connected with his or her upbringing, and wish the child a happy life, prosperity, and even a good spouse. Some songs stress the importance attached to having male offspring: '' And if you my wife,/would have a boy ... " If the child is a girl, the song may wish her beauty, or possibly stress the importance of chastity or industrious- 25 SLOVAKIA ness: " Freedom and chastity prevail everywhere, / whichever girl has them , let her guard them .'' Other songs may express the abruptly felt loss of freedom experienced by the young parents , especially the new mother: '' ... m y freedom is crying in the cradle.'' M any songs are j okin g in tone and form the less serious part of the christening ceremony in Slovak villages . H ere, for example, the new parents tease each other a bout their responsibility for rocking the baby: '' Rock him , m y dear . .. I'm his mother.'' And here again, the m other m ockin gly compares her situation with that of the carefree life of unm arried m en and women: " I used to have a good time , ... m y maiden name/ is blotted out," or " As the maiden s d ance . . . while I , poor thing , / rock a baby ." Slovak christening songs usually have the following rhyme pattern : aa-bb-cc-dd. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. Man y songs use assonance and employ colloquial express10ns . J ano , J ano, mily Jano! Donesu ti chl apca rano. K ed donesu , budem mati , vychova ho moja mati. A ked puojdem dolinami , vychovam ho malina mi , a ked puojdem sfrym svetom vychovam ho bielym kvetom . J ohn, John dear J ohn" They will bring you a boy tomorrow. Wh en they bring him, I'll keep him ," my mother wi ll raise him . And when I go down the valleys, I will raise him on raspberri es, and when I go in the wide world , I will raise him on white flo wers. p. 143 2 If you , m y wife," would have a boy, I would hire a wet nurse , a chef, a cook, a caretaker , and a house keeper. K eby si ty, zena moja , chlapca mal a, drzau by ti dojku , kuchara , kucharku, i safa ra i safarku. p. 144 3 Freedom and chastity prevail everyw here," whichever girl has th em, let her guard them . I would have protected mine, but it is too late. my freedom is crying in th e cradle. Sloboda, poctivost', ta vsade panuj e, kt ore j u di evca ma, nech si ju va ruje. I ja bych si moju , uz je ponecase, uz moja slobod a V belcove m i place. p . 144 26 SLOVAKIA 4 As the maidens dance," they whirl around in circles, while I, poor thing, rock a baby. J a k tie panny tancuju, do kola sa zvrcuju, a ja neboz ia tko kolfsem diet'at ko. Rock him, my d ea r husband , he is such a lovely boy. Rock him yourself, you are his mother . Kolfbaj ho moj mily, vsak je synak spanily. Kolfbaj si sama, vsak si mu ty mama. I would be a fool to rock him by myself, You surely are his father just as I 'm his mother. Bola by ja blazon kolfba ti sama, vsak si mu ty otec jako i ja mama . I used to have a good time when luck served me, sitting by the window, with a handsome young man . Byvalo mi, byvalo, ked' mi stestia sluzilo, sedajfcej v okne, s mladeneckom pekne. I used to sit with him , now I am married to him , m y maiden name was blotted out. Sedala som, sedala, u z sem ho i dostala, me panenske jmeno bolo vymazano. pp. 144-45 Wedding Songs Of the three areas of ceremonial family folklore discussed here, the wedding ceremony offers the greatest variety of folklore material. This is because in Slovakia the wedding ceremonies of most villages and towns contained traditions that were peculiar to that particular locale . There were often specific differences between the ceremonies of neighboring villages even within a relatively small geographic area. 16 The entire ritual consisted of three parts: the period before the wedding during which a wedding contract was m ade between the future inlaws; the wedding ceremo ny itself, and the feast after the young couple had retired. The wedding actually began when the wedding guests gathered and the bride and groom left for the ceremony in the church. The first five selections under the headin g "Wedding Songs" are examples of what the wedding party might sing along the way. After the ceremony the bride and groom as well as the guests would arrive at the bride groom's h ouse , where the festivities would take place . The feast was and still is the culmination of the whole wedding. The structure of the entire wedding ceremon y was originally quite SLOVAKIA 27 rigid . There were dan ces, ceremonial speeches, dramatic speeches and acts, as well as songs. All proceeded according to a traditionally fixed pattern . 1 7 Today, the songs themselves are no longer a part of the ceremony, and while many of the other forms remain (such as dances and speeches) the rigid , traditional patterns are no longer followed . Thematically, the bride is the focus of the often-lyrical and teasing ceremonial songs. Her beauty , upbringing, future as a married woman, and her character are all described in these songs: "Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter''; ''Mother, mother, you may be proud . . . '' The most frequently mentioned virtues on the bride's part are modesty , diligence , obedience, and chastity. Some of the songs, especially those following the taking of the wreath and placing of the bonnet on the bride's head (when she symbolically becomes a woman), are permeated with laments: ''I lost my headdress . .. I like wearing it.'' Other songs picture the bride taking leave of her parents, relatives and friends: thanking her parents for her upbringing, expressing her sorrow about leaving them, and sometimes also expressing apprehension about her future with the bridgegroom' s family. Wedding songs and speeches employ rhymed verse, often of the following pattern : aa-bb-cc. The number of syllables is usually the same in each line. As in christening songs, wedding songs also employ assonance. Mother, mother, you have a lovely daughter , we will take her from you even if you hide her. Should you lock her behind four locks, we sure will get her with fin e words. Mamicka , mamicka, peknu dceru mate, m y vam ju vezmeme , co ju aj schovate . Co by ste ju zamkli aj styrma zamka mi , my ju dostaneme peknymi slova mi. p. 151 2 G et married , ge t ma rried , m y love, well will you learn what tyranny is. Get m arried , get m arri ed, my love , a birch switch awaits you behind th e door. V ydaj sa !en, vydaj , frajeruock a rn oj a, sak sa ve ru dozvies , aka je to zvola. V ydaj sa !en , vyd aj, fraj eruocka moj a, caka t'a za dve rmi ta b rezova hola. p. 151 28 SLOVAKIA 3 I kept it a sec ret, a secret, but I won't anymore, mother, ge t the feath erbeds" read y, I ' m ge ttin g m ar ried. Thank you , mother , thank you, d ea r , for taking care of me wh ile I was a child . T aj ila som , taji la, uz tajit' nebudem , chystaj , m am ka, perin y, vydavat' sa budem . Dakujem va m , mamicka, dakujem va m sta ra, co ste vy mna chovali , kym so m bola mala . p . 152 4 M ot he r, mot her, you may be proud th at yo ur girl 's gettin g married still chaste. Chaste , she's getting ma rri ed to a you ng man , they both will be wearing a rosemary wreat h .'" Mamicka, mamicka , pekn a vasa chvala , ze sa vafa d ieuka poct iva vydava. Poctiva vyd ava, be ri e ju ml ade nec, budu mat' obidva z rozmarinu ve ni ec. p . 152 5 Whateve r yo u give me, oh, eternal Lord , just don ' t give me a n old hag with children . An old hag rumbl es like a ba rrel of bee r a nd a young girl ' s jumpy like a squirrel. I ' II give the old hag a fl a tca ke 10 to chew on, and th e yo ung gi rl a pair of boots to jump in . Co mi das, to das, pa ne boze vecny, !en ze mi nedavaj staru babu s det'mi. A ta stara dud le, ako z piva bocka a ta mlada skace a ko veve ru ocka. D am starej Osucha , aby ho fova la , ml ad ej na cizmicky, aby si skaka la. p. 152 On the way back from the church , the weddin g party sings songs like the following: 6 Now you a re ours, Ann ie, now you are ours, we a re tak in g you home from the wedd ing. They paid a lotll for your wedd ing, we have tied your hands with a stole . 1 ' Uz si ty, An icka, uz si teraz nasa, uz t'a my ved ieme domov ze sobasa . Od tvojho sobasa tvrdy toliar dali, uz sme tvoje rucky stolou poviazali. p . 153 SLOVAKIA 29 7 Jaj , co si plakala, ked t'a sobasili? Var si si m ys lela l'ubit' sa s inymi ? A ja som sa bala tej tvojej materi, ked' ona ma jazyk zo samej oceli . Oh , why did you cry at your wedding? Maybe you thought of loving others? No, I was afraid of your moth er , becau se she has a tongue of steel. p. 154 During the wedding feast the bridgegroom and bride may sing to each other: 8 Bridegroom: Welcome, d ear little dove," half of my heart 1 I'm fl ying from bu sh to bush to see your cheeks. As soon as my heart spotted you, it looked back with joy , m y wish was fulfill ed. I want to ask you , Molly , are you willing to m a rry m e? will your fat her let you go? do you want to be my wife? Vitaj, mila holubicka, muojho srdca polovicka 1 Lietam od kricka do kricka, abych videl tvoje licka . J ak t'a moje srdce zrelo , od radosti zas pozrelo , podl'a vuoli sa mi stalo. Chcem sa, Marka, t'a p ytati, m as ty vuolu za mna iti , ci t'a otec chce pu stiti , ci chces mojou zenou byti? p. 161 Bride: You can't find fault with me, yo u can do as you please. Wh y should I spare myself, 34 when I like to see you. You can profit from m e Wh a t ca n I d o? I can tear old shirts to rags , throw wood into the stove, in the kitchen I have good luck, I can cook cabbage wit hout lard, and you wi ll li ck your fingers. l can make scrambled eggs , as my fat her knows . You , m y fat her , tell them what a special di sh it is 135 Nieto na mne ziadna chyba , mozes robit', co ti treba. Co by lutovala seba, ked' ja rada vidim teba . Zo mn a m ozes osoh vziati, co zo mn a moze vystati? Viem starie kosele driapat', dreva do peci nam eta t', aj v ku chyni sa mi stescf, mozem navar it' kapusty bez mas ti , oblfzes prsty. Viem spravit' praze ni cu z vaj ec. o com vie svadobny otec. T y pan svadobny otec povedz , aka je to obzvlastna vec 1 p. 161 The bonneting of the bride had its own special songs . 36 SLOVAKIA 30 9 I lost m y headdress," m y green wreath, " the best m an" fo und it , a ha ndso me yo ung m an . H ey, bes t m an , best ma n , I beg of you , give me bac k that headb and , I like wearing it. If you like wearing that head ba nd so mu ch , surely you ' d ask the best man more ni cely . Stratila som partu, zeleny ve ni ec, nasiel mi ju dru zba, sva rny ml adenec. H ej , dru zba, hej, dru zba, pekn e t'a prosfm , d ajze mi tu partu , rad a ju nosfm 1 K eby si ty pa rtu rada nosila, ve ru by si druzbu krajsie prosila . p . 163 10 The bell s of r.upca' 0 have a ve ry ni ce rin g," 1 Annie , they ' ll kn ock off yo u r head ba nd . They will kn ock it off with nin e bells, so you won ' t go out with oth er yo un g men . So you won't go out , just love your husband , th e handso me J ohnn y, who is d evo ted to you . Tie lupcian ske zvo ny vel'mi pekne zvo ni a, u z tebe, Ani cka, tvoju pa rtu zro ma . Zronia ti ju , zronia deviatimi zvo ncf, abys nechodil a s cudzfmi mladencf. Abys nechodil a, mu za si l'ubila , Janfcka svarnyho, tebe oddan yho. p . 163 Wailing Over the Dead The practice of wailing over the dead form ed a n integral p a rt of the fun e ral ceremony , a nd according to the Muran Articles of the Protestant Church from 1585 , wailing had been widely practiced in Slovakia.42 The lam ents were performed by semi-professional wailers , usually by older women , who wailed a t the funeral for a fe e. Some times , the laments were perform ed by rela tives. The laments over the d ead were generally improvi sed on the spur of the moment , with the hired person attempting to express lyrically the dee p sorrow felt by the relatives and friends of the deceased. They also m e ntioned the good traits of the deceased, the progress of hi s or her illn ess (as in " Oh , My D ear Child "), and would dram atize the actual d emise of the deceased , portraying him as he took leave of hi s fa mily, relatives, and friends. The laments over the d ead are st ru ctured differentl y from other folklore genres . Since they h ad to be open for improvisa tions , they are SLOVAKIA 31 free in form. They usuall y do not have regular stanzas or rhyme. Assonance predominates over rhym e and they are sung as melodic recitations. Laments can be characterized not only b y the lack of formal structure, but also by a certain degree of looseness and incoherency, possibly utilized to stress the depth of sorrow felt by the relatives and friends . This looseness is demonstra ted in the poem "George , George" in which the last two stanzas are only vaguely related to the theme of the first two stanzas. Oh , my dear child , beloved Angel," what shall I do without you , my dear souJ? My hea rt was bleeding while you were suffering, you looked at me, I couldn ' t help. Your fath er was walking stunned in the yard , walkin g aimlessly, not saying a word . You chattered to me your sweet words th e wh ole day, you dear innocent ch ild , a nd when you r father came home from th e fi elds, you smiled so that he would take you in his arms , and th ere was no end to your talking, and your father took d elight in you, hi s treasure. Ach, moj e drah uo diet'a, anjel premileny, cuo pocnem bez teba, moj a draha dusa, srdce mi zatislo, ked si sa trapilo, hl'adelo si na mna, nemohla som pomuoct'. Otec ti po dvore omrace ny chodiu , nikde miesta nemau, slov ka nepovedau. Stebotalo si mi slad uskymi recmi cely den, ty draha nevinnost ' premila , a ked otec z pol'a do domu sa vratiu, usmi evalo si sa, kym t'a k sebe nevzau, a n ebolo recom tvojim dlh o konec , a otec sa tesiu v tebe drahy poklad. p. 164 2 George, George, yo ur godfather ca me ," for yo u to plow hi s fi elds. You a re through with plowing since the Lord called you. Juro , Juro , km otor prise!, aby si mu orat' isol. A ty si uz dooral , ked' t'a panboh povolal. Ycs te rd ay you ate three sa usages," a nd a lot of bread. 46 Today you lie on th e bier, like a hog on a ca rt . Y ce ra si zjel tri jelita , aj chl eba z polk yky zita. Dnes uz lezis na marach ako bravec na karach. 32 SLOVAKIA M y dea r go lde n m oustache" would be fit fo r strin gs, my ve r y d ear ha ir , would be good fo r ropes. M oje m ile, zlate fuzy, boli ze by na mot u zy, moj e premile vlasy boli by na povrazy. Wh en he bega n to play hi s bagpipe: " tati -lat i, ta ti-l a ti ," he go t a farth ering" to bu y spices, he dropped it behind his shirt. K ed si pocal gajdovati : ta ti -lati , ta ti-l ati , ma! turak na koreni a, vsy pal ho do zahreni a. p . 165 NOTES ' Andrej M elichercfk , ed. , Slo vensky Folkl6r: Chrestomatia (Bra tislava: Slove nska Akademi a Vied, 1959) . ' J ozef r. . Holuby, Folklore studi es published ma inl y in Slovenske Pohl'ad y between 1883 a nd 1897; Jan Kolla r , N arodnie spievanky, I-II (Bra ti slava, 1953); Jii'i Polivka, Supis slo ven skych rozpravok I-V (Turciansky Svaty M artin , 1923 -1932). ' The fo lkloric ma teri al collected by Dobsinsky a nd oth ers is re ndered in th e dialec t o f the region fro m which it origina ted . The page reference to M elichercfk is give n in th e tex t a ft er th e Slovak ori ginal. ' " Puddle, Puddle ." In the Slova k, this love inca nta ti on has an irregul a r rhym e (aabbb-c-ddd-c-ee-fff- e-g-hh-g- iii -j- k-ll -m m) whi ch was sac rificed in th e tra nsla ti on fo r the sake of accuracy. • Although th e magical for mulae are pagan in origin , they contain refe rences to C hristi a nit y. ' Lit. · " H oly T rinity,/be a good helpe r to me/ to eve rythin g good,/ to the state of m a trimon y" (II. 26-29). 6 The colors refer to the body: red or pink cheeks were considered a sign of good health , a nd a white co m plex ion was much valued by both men and women, partl y as a sign of class di stin ction . O nly feuda l lords and wealth y merchants who di d not have to work in th e fi elds could afford to have white skin a ll year aro un d. " H oney " is a traditi onal refe rence to good te mper . 7 " I have brought you a piece of steel. . " With the exce ption of the wishes in the las t lin e, the Slova k poe m co nsis ts of rh ym in g co upl ets. All bu t 11 . 1 and 2 a re revised in order to con vey a prope r word order in English . Steel (iron) was co ns idered p ro tect ion aga ins t evil and fa iries in Europe (Maria Tymocz ko). ' H a ft is a ha nd le of a hoe, ax, scyt he, and oth er ag ricultu ral tools. H ere the number of hafts represen ts the far mer 's pros perity. 9 A typical orname n t a mong young marri ed village me n . Wh en give n by a you ng unm a r ried women, th e feather was co nside red a sign of affect ion. '° K re u ze r (o r kreutzer) was a small cop per coin in Aust ri a and Ge rmany, the 100th part of th e fl orin . It was so called because th e coin had th e fi gu re of a cross on it. A penny wou ld be probabl y the closest co n temporary eq ui valent to the kreuzer. " Wal nu ts and hazlenu ts were trad itionally eaten at C hristmas tim e after the ma in meal. SLOVAKIA 33 " " I wi sh you in thi s/comin g New Yea r " : This is a very popular N ew Year 's wish . The unu su al wi sh , " that a side of your oven/ m ay fa ll out" (11 .3 -4) probably ha s the same conn otat ion as th e En gli sh '' break a leg!'' It also sugges ts a wi sh of prosperity to the farm er , i.e., th a t hi s oven m ay be fill ed to burstin g, or ove rh eated with con stant cooki ng a nd baking. " Fo rmall y, thi s poe m is arran ged in rh ymin g coupl ets but asson an ce plays a m o re impo rtant role . " This carol is loosely a rra nged in rh yming couplets. Again, the assonance a nd the rhym e take precedence ove r m eanin g, and thi s ex plains why such seemingly unrela ted them es as th e Three Kings, the Star of Bethlehem , J oseph and M a ry o n the one hand, and the rose, th e tulip on the ta ble, and the old man's huntin g expedition on th e other ha nd , fo und their place in thi s carol. The carol is a mi xture of religious and secular m otifs. " C hildren , dressed as the Three Magi, arrive a t a farmh ou se and sing. Yet they mu st no t sin g a bout the fa rm er ' s fa mil y, but the H oly Famil y of the Na tivity. 16 ' ' Sh rovetide, Pentecos t, and Easter ... '' This j okin g carnival song is ar ranged in rh ym in g coupl ets. 11 Fatback bacon (usual ly with no lean m eat) was a staple diet , often a snack, fo r village peo ple. It was ofte n eaten with baked potatoes a nd _onio ns, o r j ust plain bread . 18 Fa tback baco n u sed to be sm oked (cured ) in th e chimn ey. 19 The teac her , alo ng with the p riest a nd th e m ayo r , was amon g th e m ost prominent peo ple in th e vill age. 0 ' S loven sko: l', ud - II. cast', ed s. Boze na Filova et al. (B ra ti slava: O bzo r , 1975). " In the Slovak o ri ginal, thi s son g has a regula r rh yme pat tern: aa-b b-cc-dd . The first two lines ad d ress th e m a in speaker . " J oh n" is appa ren tl y a youn g fath er whose wife d ied in childbirth . T he fat her says that he will kee p his so n , but the boy ' s grandmoth er will have to bring him up . Them a ticall y, the so ng expresses conce rn fo r th e boy ' s upbringin g. In the seco nd stan za , the speake r ind icates that he m ay have to leave hi s nat ive vill age, probably in search of wo rk . T hi s was a co mm on prac ti ce among im poverished village rs. " Lit .: " I 'll have. " In 11. 3 an d 4 coll oqui al form s of the ve rb " to have " and the nou n " m other" have bee n used. The forms a re iden tical: mati , wh ich fac il itates th e rh ym e and keeps th e sam e num ber of syll a bles in each line. There a re eight sylla bles in each line, and th e standa rd m o nosy lla bic word m at' wo uld have redu ced th e syll a bles dow n to seven in 11 .3 a nd 4 . " The origin al son g uses assonance ra ther th an rh ym e. A fat her-to-be is th e speaker in this so ng . H alf-jokin g , he stresses the importance of a male offspring. H e p rom ises to pa m pe r hi s wife if she bears him a son . " The original so ng uses asson a nce . T he speaker , proba bly an un wed m o th er, po nders her fat e a nd talks a bout social conve nti on s. " W ith th e excepti o n of stanza 3, the so ng has a near regul a r rh ym e: aa-bb-cc-dd-e -fg- f-hh- ii -jj- kk. T he speaker in th is so.ig is the ba by 's moth er who regrets th e loss of her freedo m as a mother and/or a wife . It is not qu ite clear from the context wheth er she is m a rri ed o r no t. I n either case, it was not proper of her to joi n the ca refree d a nce of unm arri ed m en a nd wome n . 34 6 SLOVAKIA Slovensko: E,ud, p. 1057. " Melichercfk , p. 26 " A featherbed is a strong cloth con tainer thi ckly filled with goose feathers and down and used as a bed cover in lieu of blankets. Featherbeds were a part of the bride's dowry, which also included pillows, sheets, towels, cloths, etc . The dowry was collected throughout the years practically after the day the girl was born . Goose down and stripped feathers were collected ever y year from the fami ly's fl ock of geese and stashed in a special bag for each d aughter in the family. The wealthier the bride , the higher the pile of featherbeds and pillows atop her bed . " A rosemary wreath was a decoration used on such occasions as weddings and funerals . H ere it is a symbol of chastity. 0 ' A fl atcake (osuch ) is a simple, flat cake, usually round. It is baked from bread dough , which is sometimes mixed with a different type of fl our or else potatoes. " Lit .: "They paid a hard thaler for your wedding ," obviously meaning the dowry. Thaler (also taler) was a large silver coin u sed in various German states and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was worth 30 silver groschen, worth about 3s. sterling . The word "dollar" is derived from " th aler." " R efe rring to the priest's vestments durin g the wedding ce remony, the stole is a long, decorated strip of cloth worn like a scarf by officiating clergymen of various chu rches. 33 In the Slovak original, each line consists of eight syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aaaa-bbb-cccc. " The meaning is not quite clear here. It probably indicates the bride's submission to the groom . 35 In this poem, each line consists of eight syllables . The rh yme pattern is: aaaa-bb-ccbbb-dddd. 36 Bonneting of the bride is the culmination of the wedding ceremony. The bride becomes a married woman when her wreath is replaced by a bonnet. 31 Headband or headdress is a wreath decorated with colorful ribbons, worn by un married women and brides. Married women wore bonnets or scarves. 38 Each line in this song consists of eleven syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-cc. 39 It was customary that the best man led the bride to the wedding and took off her wreath or headband. H e led the bride down the aisle, whereas the bridesmaid led the bridegroom down the aisle. He was referred to as the " leading " best man and wore a sword to distinguish himself from other best men who wore sticks decorated with scarves . '° Cupca is a town in Central Slovakia, where many local customs and traditions have been preserved. 41 Each line in this song consists of twelve syllables. The rhyme pattern is: aa-bb-c-d. " Melichercfk, p . 142. 43 This lame ntation has a sporadic rhyme pattern: a-b-c-d-ee-f-g-ee- h-i. The lines consist of 12 to 13 syllables. 44 The poem has the following rhym e pattern: aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff-gg-hh . The lines consist of seven to eight syllables. 45 Pork sausage in natural casing. It is made of rice or grits combined with ground meat , liver, blood and spices. The sausages were usu all y made in winter or early ' SLOVAKIA 35 spring when the fatt ened pigs were slaughtered . " '' ... a lot of bread.'' This is a free translation due to the discrepancy in the printed word indicating the amount of rye from which the bread was made . The original version of this song, titled, " W a iling over a D ead Husband" (Sbomik slovenskych n arodnych piesnf, povestf, prfslovf, porekadiel, hadok, hier, obycajov a povier [A Collection of Slovak Folk Songs, Riddles, Games, Customs, and Superstitions], II , (Turciansky Sva ty Martin : Matica slovenska, 18741) spells the wordpolkyly, which would mean half a kilo. On the other hand , Melichercik's edition lists the word polkyky (fem. gen. sg. ), which was an old , popula r measure in Slovak villages . The word k yky is of Ukrainian ori gin (a Ukrainian word for a scarf worn by village women, "babushka" type). ·since scales were a luxury item in the past, the amount of rye from which a loaf of bread was m ade was m easured in the scarf. Pol means half, i.e., the bread was made from half the amount measured by the scarf. 47 The poem , somewhat joking in character, shows the improvising character of funeral recitations. The stanzas wander from one subject to another, touching some memories of the dead man that may o r may not be relevant for the occasion of the funeral, but they are important in the eyes of the wailer. " " Farthing" is a free translation, indicating that the coin was small. In the Slovak original , turak was a small coin , worth one and a half groschen . It was used in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This paper is based on a doctoral dissertation , " Slovak Folklore : An Anthology, " at the Un iversity of M assachuset ts in Amh erst , 1982. I th ank especially Professors Sarah N. Lawall a nd Zdenek Salzmann . Presented in part in P anel 128 , " Slovak Literature as a Mirror of the National Awakening ," at the AAASS co nvention in Philadelphia on 8 November 1980 , and in Panel 65 , "The Village in Slovak Literature ," at the AAASS convention in Asiloma r , California on 2 1 September 1981.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Three Kinds of Slovak Folk Literature Description An account of the resource Eva Susan Kucekova Slovakia, Vol. 30 (No. 55-56), 1982-83 pp. 12-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kucekova, Eva Susan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-83 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/c82024079e9200a0c0b1bb4ef5bacd72.pdf b18c0b2cecdd2bf798957cdab955d55d PDF Text Text 42 SLOVAKIA This Is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk'J}, Ph.D. SEPARATIO N FROM HUNGARY The Austro-Hung arian Monarchy was built on a shaky foundation. It may have survived in a less extended territory, had it grasped in time its historical mission in this ethnically disunited region of Central Europe. Hungary could have weathered the approaching historical holocaust if it had put into practice the spirit of justice and equality. But neither the Austrian Emperor nor the Hungarian King, neither the Government of Vienna nor of Budapest, reckoned with the given realities: they did not know how to rightly evaluate the strength of the new historical trends, nor did they forsee the direction of future developments . Hence they permitted themselves to be led by policies which could only lead to the disintegration of the entire Monarchy and to the fall of Hungary. Because of the national policy of Hungary, which curtailed the growth of Slovak national life in all of its phases. the Slovaks were not sufficiently prepared for the role which awaited them. When the World War broke out in 1914, under the emergency provisions of the Government any kind of Slovak political movement was unthinkable. The fate of countries and of nations is not always determined by their strength, but as much by circumstances which arise without their doing. This proved to be true not only of Austra-Hunga ry, which was shaken to its foundations by World War I, but also of the various nations which had gradually become aware that the time had come to take an account of the past and be concerned only about their own future fate, regardless of the interests of the Monarchy. At the beginning of the war, the Slovaks had no thought of separating from Hungary, much less could they have expressed such a thought aloud. But when the War was nearing its end and it was more and more evident that Austria-Hung ary could not escape defeat, the leaders of �SLOVAKIA 43 the Slovaks saw that the military defeat of the Hapsburg Monarchy would furnish them the opportunity for attaining the goals they were not able to achieve in Hungary. Slovak patriots met for a secret conference in Turciansky Sv. Martin on May 24, 1918, where Andrej Hlinka plainly stated: "The thousand-year marriage with the Magyars has not panned out. We must be divorced." 1 The Slovaks took a stand for the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation and decided that at an opportune time they would sever all ties between Slovakia and Hungary and enter a new State composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Russia. The Czecho-Slovak National Council (Ceskoslovenska narodna rada ), founded in Paris in 1916, worked abroad for the disolution of Austria-Aungary and the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak State. At the head of the CzechoSlovak National Council was professor Thomas G. Masaryk, and its outstanding member was the distinguished Slovak scholar, Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who possessed unusual diplomatic talents and attained the rank of General in the French Army. Slovaks living abroad morally and materially supported the activity of the Czecho-Slovak National Council and in large numbers joined the CzechoSlovak Legion which fought on the side of the Allies against Austria-Hungary The Slovaks were convinced that if Slovakia would tear away from Hungary, it would enjoy all the conditions of a free national existence in a joint Czecho-Slovak State. The Czecho-Slovak National Council was most effectively supported by the Slovaks who were living in America and who always lllad a lively interest in the destiny of the Slovak nation in the Old World. Under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, which was organized already in 1907, they frequently raised their voice in defense of the Slovak nation in Hungary, and as free citizens of a democratic country they protested against the injustices which their native brothers in Slovakia had to suffer. Later, in the years of World War I , they stood in the first ranks of the battle for the liberation of Slovakia. It is to their credit not only that they made large financial sacrifices for the cause of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, but also that they insisted on having beforehand �44 SLOVAKIA a clear presentation and firm guaranties as to the relationship between the Slovak and Czech nations in the proposed joint State. Representatives of the Slovak League in America discussed this serious question with delegates of the Czech National Federation in Cleveland as early as 1915, and came to the conclusion that the future Czecho-Slovakia would be a federal union of states with complete autonomy for Slovakia. Subsequently, on May 30, 1918, representatives of the Slovak League met with representatives of Czech organizations and with the President of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, T. G. Masaryk, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and drew up an agreement which guaranteed political and cultural autonomy to Slovakia in the new State. This agreement was designed by T . G. Masaryk and later signed by him as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2 Only vague reports of this foreign action penetrated Slovakia, and the agreements which testify to the wise foresight of the American Slovaks were not even known there. Nevertheless, everything that could be undertaken in Slovakia during the War for the benefit of Slovakia's future was basically in harmony with what was being done independently overseas. In the meantime, events at the front indicated that the defeat of Austria-Hungary was inescapable. Emperor Charles published a manifesto on October 16, 1918, in which he promised a reconstruction of the Monarchy on a new basis, but it was already too late. The President of the Hungarian Government, Count Stephen Tisza, on the 17th of October, attempted to justify the Budapest policy of Magyarization, reluctant to see that it was just this policy that brought Hungary to inevitable disintegration and certain collapse. In the Hungarian Parliament, on October 19, the Slovak delegate, Dr. Ferdis Juriga, announced in the face of a stormy protest of Magyar members that neither the Hungarian Parliament nor the Hungarian Government had the right any longer to decide the future destiny of the Slovak nation, because the Slovaks would decide their own future on the basis of their right of self-determination. The Slovaks, unaware of what had happened in Prague on October 28, met on October 30, 1918, in Turciansky Sv. �SLOVAKIA 45 Martin, where, chiefly under the influence of Andrej Hlinka, they organized a Slovak National Council and in a separate declaration proclaimed that the Slovaks once and for all Hrere separating themselves from Hungary and were of their own accord joining the Czecho-Slovak State.3 The new Czecho-Slovak State was born on the ruins of the Hapsburg Monarchy, which, having lost the war, was not able to defend its own existence and escape catastrophe. There was nothing left to do but define the boundaries of the new State (especially the Slovak-Hungarian border ), establish its international position, and construct its internal administration on a basis that would insure its ability to live. The most important condition for the healthy internal development of the Czecho-Slovak State was deciding the position Slovakia would occupy in the new State. The separation of the Slovaks from the Magyars and from Hungary was for the Slovak& not only painless, but joyful, as was the separation of the thirteen American colonies from England. " SLAVES UNTIL NOW - NEVER AGAIN!" Martin Razus (1888-1937)-a leading Slovak poet whose writings gave voice to the pains, longings, and hopes of his people, and whom the Slovaks called the "conscience of the Slovak nation"-welcomed the dawn of the new Slovak day with a poem, the refrain of which reads: "Slaves we have been till now, slaves we shall be no longer!" These words, mirrored the sentiment that prevailed throughout Slovakia in the first years of its new status. The Slovaks had reasons enough, at the end of the bloody war, to welcome the Czecho-Slovak Republic with open joy and sincere hopes. They had fought on all fronts, and had used every means, to bring about the formation of this new State. They had a right therefore to see in the Czecho-Slovak Republic a state they could consider their own. Slovakia experienced a period of genuine joy mostly because it had extricated itself from the union with old Hungary where it had striven in vain for equal rights. The Magyar language was removed from offices, schools, and all public life, and with its disappearance went all traces of Magyar domination. Slavonic traditions, which �46 SLOVAKIA had remained alive in Slovakia, prevented the Slovaks from being disappointed in their Slavonic brotherhood, a subject frequently discussed at the inception of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak people entered their new existence as a nation composed of large groups of Slovaks who had never estranged themselves from their origin nor allowed themselves to be misled by foreign ideologies, had preserved their language, their national traditions and all the marks of their national character. The democratic spirit which promted the laws of the new State gave assurance that the Slovak people would no longer serve foreign masters, but would concentrate on the development of their own life in order to regain as quickly as possible what they had lost in the past through no fault of their own. Aristocratic titles, together with their corresponding historical privileges, wer e abolished. A federal Land Commission was set up to expropriate for a fair price land held by big non-Slovak landowners and distribute it to the small Slovak farmers , who had always been the strong core of the Slovak nation. It was anticipated, with good reason, that the industry, that would develop in the western part of the new State would be supplemented by the farm and forest economy of Slovakia, a balance that could be achieved only by means of such a union with the Czech lands. It was also to be expected that under the influence of new social laws the living standard of the working people would be raised. The Constitution, approved on February 29, 1920, guaranteed civil equality and political rights to all citizens, thus giving the Slovaks the privilege of influencing the affairs of government. A great deal of pain was caused in Slovak life by the schools which had been used as an instrument of denationalization. This injustice was corrected by the retention of Magyar schools only in those parts of Slovakia where was a Magyar population. New high schools and technical schools were established where there had been none before. In Bratislava, which had become the capital of Slovakia, a new university was founded in 1919 with three faculties. Besides other cultural organizations, the National Slovak Theatre came into being. In every city and village of Slovakia, public libraries were established and plays �SLOVAKIA 47 were presented, with the result that vigorous cultural activity spread throughout the country. In Turciansky Sv. Martin, the Matica Slovenska was reopened, to provide Slovakia with the new products of Slovak literature. In Slovakia there was a revival of old Slovak political parties whose activity was restricted under the Hungarian regime and completely stopped during the war. In addition, new political parties were organized, so that Slovaks could participate in politics according to their convictions. The desire for a new, free, and full national life was discernible everywhere, and the program for providing this kind of life from day to day. The relationship between the Slovak and Czech people, however, was dimmed from the very beginning of their union, and as it continued it became streadily worse. The Czechs and the Slovaks, throughout their long history, had never lived together in a joint state. Each went their own way and developed under a different set of conditions. When these two Slavic nations now got together under the roof of a common state and began to knew each other better, it appeared that for all their lingual similarity there was a great difference between them. Slovakia is a country Christian from its foundations, 80 % Catholic, its deep, living religious traditions permeating the nature of the Slovak and his entire life. 4 The Czechs, as the result of a different historical development, had a different attitude toward religious questions, and when, after the beginning of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, they came to Slovakia, they approached the religious convictions of the Slovaks tactlessly, thereby creating antagonism in Slovakia. Between the Slovak and Czech nations a crevice of distrust began to form . This fissure deepened when the Czechs in Slovakia acted as though they were in a backward country. Many of them had the idea--even when there was no basis for it:r--that their role was to bring culture and progress to Slovakia. This condescending attitude offended the Slovaks, who in turn began to ridicule Czech "progressiveness." Under the pretext that the Slovaks did not have sufficient trained personnel to occupy various official posi- �48 SLOVAKIA tions, multitudes of Czechs who had previously lived in various parts of Austria and for whom there was no room in Bohemia, moved into Slovakia. The Slovaks were grateful to the Czechs for the assistance Slovakia certainly needed in the first years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. But the thousands upon thousands of Czechs who came into Slovakia were completely superfluous. The Slovaks began to look upon them as intruders who were taking away their jobs and bread. While the flood of Czechs was pouring into Slovakia, Slovaks left their homeland in great numbers and moved to all parts of the world. But the most important reason why the early enthusiasms of the Slovaks ended in rapid and complete disillusionment was that the Czechs were trying to build the Czecho-Slovak Republic on the same kind of foundation the Magyars had laid for the creation of a united great Hungary. The very opening words of the Czecho-Slovak Constitution speak of the "Czechoslovak nation"-which in fact never existed. The Czechs ever more openly proclaimed the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness. Since they themselves had no intention of giving up their Czech nationality; desiring to remain a Czech nation also in the future, this alleged Czechoslovak national oneness was simply a way of leading tha Slovaks into a national unity with the Czechs. Even though admitting its euphony, they spoke of the Slovak language as a dialect of the Czech tongue, a vestige that would gradually disappear from literature. Because there was indeed no Czechoslovak language, references were made to the temporary bilinguism of the Czechoslovak nation, or of two aspects of one language. The Slovaks, who had waged such a long, costly, and exhausting struggle in Hungary "for our Slovak language" and considered their language as one expression of their national individuality, were disturbed by such a development because they saw in it the design of Czechization. Slovak literature, from the Czech point of view, was merely an echo of Czech literature, and all Slovak culture just a part of Czech cultural life. They predicted that the Slovaks would gradually �SLOVAKIA 49 merge with the Czechs in the unified State, that they themselves recognized the advantage of such a development, and that this unity would be the most secure foundation for the Czecho-Slovak Republic which would then stand as a strong bulwark against the pressure of their German neighbor. Czech policy, based on such assumptions, led to complete centralization which ignored the interests of Slovakia. This Czech policy aroused vigorous opposition in Slovakia. If the words of the poet Martin Razus meant that the Slovaks had been slaves in Hungary and that this slavery had ended once and for all, they soon took on the new meaning that the Slovaks did not care to be--nor would they be--slaves in the Czecho-Slovak Republic either. The Magyars had used a political ideology to justify their dealings with the Slovaks, though actually they were concerned only for their own safety. The lifeless fiction of Czechoslovak national oneness had a similar meaning. The Czechs are surrounded on three sides by the Germans, and they are exposed to the influence of this great neighbor. When the Czecho-Slovak Republic came into being, they thought Slovakia would become not only their colony but also a country which when gradually assimilated would strengthen their position over against the Germans. But the Slovaks, who had not been willing to perish in Hungary, were unwilling to sacrifice their national individuality even for the protection of the Czechs. Suicide can be committed only by a nation uninformed, cudutrally undeveloped, and unconcerned about its future, a nation which does not understand why it should care about its honor or its right to exist. Because it had endured so many historical trials, had lost so much of its own blood, and was unable to develop its national life under the trying conditions of its past, the Slovak nation grew weary of having its energies continually drained and finally longed to be a nation really free. For this very reason it recognized the danger it faced in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and with all the determination of a self-conscious nation took a stand for the defense of its honor and its right to the kind of life every nation deserves. �50 SLOVAKIA UNDER THE LEADERS HIP OF ANDREJ HLINKA In the first years of the Czecho-Slo vak Republic Slovakia had a sort of governmen t, headed by a special minister with full authority for the administra tion of Slovakia as a member of the Prague Governmen t. This administra tion had its headquarte rs in Bratislava, consisted of several cabinet members, and exercised powers of jurisdictio n for a brief period. But in the end it was subject to the Central Governme nt in Prague which handled the admi.Ristra tion of the new State as part of a pattern of complete centralizat ion. Czech policy with all its attempts at centralizat ion was challenged by Andrej Hlinka, who had revived the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska :r.udova Strana) and had evoked a strong opposition movement in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka saw the danger threatening Slovakia, and therefore tried to get the Paris Peace Conference to define the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slo vak Republic. For this he was imprisoned in the year 1919. Only upon his election to the Prague Parliamen t on April 18, 1920 was he released.5 The Slovak People's Party gained twelve seats in the election and, under the leadership of its chairman, Andrej Hlinka, began a relentless struggle for the rights of the Slovak nation in accordance with the Pittsburgh Agreement which had become the pattern of Slovak policy. This campaign had to be directed not only against the Prague Governme nt, but also against all the Czech political parties which, as servants of Prague centralism , had spread their nets also in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka organized his party, set up its press, traveled throughou t Slovakia, and speaking at mass meetings, awakened in the Slovak people a strong national consciousn ess, an interest in political life, and courage to defend all their rights. These gatherings were often very stormy; neverthele ss the Slovak people followed Andrej Hlinka and saw in him their political leader. The inconsider ate actions of Czechs in Slovakia continued and strengthen ed the spirit of opposition in large groups of Slovak people against everything that came from Bohemia. In the years 1922-1926, when the Prague Governme nt was sending multitudes of Czechs into Slovakia to break Slovak �SLOVAKIA 51 resistance to its policy of centralization, 250,000 Slovaks emigrated from Slovakia, forced to look for work in foreign lands. The Prague Government resorted to every means in order to discredit Andrej Hlinka and to frustrate the activity of the Slovak People's Party, but its attempts merely served to widen the breach between the Slovaks and the Czechs. The Slovak People's Party, in its campaign for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy, desired the fulfilment of what Slovakia had been guaranteed in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic T . G. Masaryk, who had designed and signed that Agreement himself, brushed aside the petitions of the Slovak People's Party with the excuse that the Pittsburgh Agreement is just an interesting document from the period of rebellion against Austria-Hungary, having no binding value . He claimed that the Slovak gained more in the Czecho-Slovak Republic than they were promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Slovaks would not recognize this devaluation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, and the American Slovaks, who were following carefully the progress of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak State, in their Message of the American Slovaks to the Old World encouraged their native brothers to pursue relentlessly the struggle for Slovak autonomy. Andrej Hlinka stood staunchly behind the autonomy platform of the Slovak People's Party, and that was the reason why it grew in numbers and in strength. In the elections of 1925 it won twenty-three seats in the Prague Parliament and became the largest political party in Slovakia, with the right to speak as the only authorized representative of the political will of the Slovak nation. When not even the Czechs could continue to close their eyes to the numerical strength and steadily increasing importance to the Slovak People's Party any longer, they tried to win it to the side of the Government. After lengthy deliberations, the Slovak People's Party sent its representatives to the Prague Government to see if they might achieve autonomy by this method. According to this policy, it sought changes in the affairs of the Government that would assure Slovakia a standing as a separate administration unit. In 1927 the Prague Parliament passed �52 SLOVAKIA a law dividing the territory of Czecho-Slovakia into four administrative regions. Beginning January 1, 1928, Slovakia was to become one of these units. Slovakia was empowered to elect its own provincial representatives, forming a provincial assembly for the management of the economic, transportation, social, health and cultural needs of Slovakia. The Czechs felt that by this concession they were satisfying all the demands of Slovakia. However, the Slovaks saw in this reform only "the first ray of Slovak autonomy." The provincial assembly had no legislative powers, one-third of its members were named by the Prague Government, and its jurisdiction was limited. Still, it was a step forward, and it bolstered the hope in Slovakia that gradually the entire autonomistic program set forth in the Pittsburgh Agreement would be realized. The Slovaks were not oposed to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, of which they wanted their own State to be a member. In fact, they believed that, despite all the hardships which hampered the realization of their political program, they would eventually reach their goal. Nor were they against the Czech nation as such; but they resolutely rejected the myth of Czechoslovak national oneness and ever more boldly resisted the Czech imperialism which persisted even after the reorganization of the Government. Relations between the Slovaks and Czechs did not improve ; rather, the centralism of Prague became pronounced that the conditions for harmonious cohabitation between these two nations grew steadily worse. The elections of 1929 again proved the firm position of the Slovak People's Party and its abiding determination to defend the rights of the Slovak nation. It withdrew from the Government and, as on opposition Party, submitted to the Prague Parliament several proposals for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy. The Prague Parliament rejected all these motions. It was evident that the fight would have to go to the finish. The first requirement for the attainment of Slovak autonomy was unity of all Slovaks. The Czechs had always been able to find means to thwart the unification of the Slovaks. Now the Slovaks had to discover something that would unite them and lead them toward a common goal. The Slovak People's Party, led by Andrej Hlinka, was �SLOVAKIA 53 predominantly Catholic. The Slovak National Party (Slovenska Narodna Strana), headed by Martin Razus, had a majority of Lutheran members.6 These two political parties, fighting for the autonomy of Slovakia, came to an agreement on a united precedure in 1932, and in a joint resolution expressed their mutual determination not to surrender Slovak rights even thought it might cost the disintegration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. This resolve of the Slovak nation was further stiffened and given a mighty manifestation when, from August 13-15, 1933, the Slovaks gathered in Nitra, the ancient headquars of the Slovak princes, to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of the dedication of the first Christian church in Slovakia. At this occasion the Slovak people not only reminded themselves of their antiquity and the rich traditions of their Christian culture, but at the same time emphasized their right to a free national existence in a great demonstration. More than 100,000 Slovaks assembled at the historic site of glorious Slovak antiquity to express their unquenchable longing for a free Slovak future. As the Prague Government did not understand Slovakia, so did not comprehend what took place in Nitra. It saw in the events in Nitra simply a demonstration against the Government. This prompted the seizure of the Slovak People's Party's press, the trial of its editor-in-chief Karol Sidor, an investigation of Slovak students and other steps which evoked a new storm of apposition in Slovakia. The premier of the Prague Government, Jan Malypetr, himself issued a separate manifesto in which he stressed that the Czechs contributed to the support of Slovakia and that Slovakia was ungrateful for this magnanimity. To give this speech as much publicity as possible in Slovakia, he had it printed on large placards and posted in all Slovak cities and villages. This tactless and-for a premier of a government-undignified act deeply offended every Slovak, because no one in Slovakia believed that Slovakia was dependent on the Czechs for a subsidy. Equally as politically indescreet and mistaken in statesmanship was the procedure of Dr. Eduard Benes who, as foreign minister of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in December of 1933 spoke in several Slovak cities on the �54 SLOVAKIA "Idea of Czechoslovak National Unity from the Viewpoint of International Policy." The Slovaks were to keep silent about their grievances and their rights because Prague supported Slovakia. They were to disavow their national independence without a struggle and betray themselves in order to strengthen the international position of the State in which they were not able to arouse justice and reform. Instead of being misled and bowing to the Prague Government at this suggestion, the Slovaks advanced tow~rd their goal. They were unwilling to surrender their rights even for the survival of the Czecho-Slovak Republic which at this very hour had got itself into a really dangerous situation. Adolf Hitler and his National-Socialist Party had come to power in neighboring Germany. The Slovaks were correct in assuming that this tense international situation would force the Czechs to fulfill the Slovak demands in order to strengthen the Czecho-Slovak Republic for the possible outbreak of new dangers. The Slovaks did not wish to cause internal difficulties in the CzechoSlovak Republic and, even at this time, they had the good will to come to an agreement with the Czechs and to defend their joint State with their united strength. When T . G. Masaryk resigned from the office of President on December 14, 1935, representatives of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, at the election of the new president on December 18, voted for Dr. Eduard Benes who prior to the election had promised to see that the Slovak demands would be fulfilled. Dr. Benes made the promise, but it turned out that there was no one to fulfill it. For the first time in the history of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, a Slovak, Dr. Milan Hodza, became premier of the Government and also Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was a politician of rich experience and wide vision but involved in his own political conceptions and indecisive especially concerning the Slovak question. At the time, even had he wanted to settle the standing of Slovakia, he could not devote himself to the question because he was obliged to center all his attention on the demands of the Sudeten Germans. The integrity and existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was seriously threatened and the position of �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia was left unsolved after twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak State. In 1938 the situation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic became even worse. On March 12 Hitler occupied and linked Austria to Germany. The Sudeten Germans presented their demands again, but the Prague Government had no answer to give that would satisfy both the Germans and the interests of the Czecho-Slovak State. The international situation grew more and more acute, and the Czecho-Slovak Republic, preparing to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, was experiencing moments of deep unrest and worrisome uncertainty. Even under these circumstances the Slovaks, who for twenty years had striven for autonomy and for twenty years had not been able to achieve their goal, were peacefully preparing to commemorate in a grand way the twentieth anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. On Pentecost Sunday, the 5th of June, 120,000 Slovaks gathered in Bratislava to declare most emphatically that they would never give up their rights. At this occasian a delegation of the Slovak League of America was present together with its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, who brought along the original of the Pittsburgh Pact. The American Slovaks represented by the Slovak League wished to certify by their presence at this commemoration that they stood on the same platform they had accepted twenty years earlier. The throngs of Slovaks who welcomed the delegation of the Slovak League of America in the capital of Slovakia were not fanatic masses, but the self-conscious Slovak nation, politically trained and exemplarily led by Andrej Hlinka, giving notice for the last time and in a very resolute-yet in every respect honorable-manner, that it would under no pressure give up the struggle for its rights to a free life. In Bratislava, for the last time, Andrej Hlinka himself appeared before the crowd of faithful fellow fighters to receive the homage of his people before his death. The Prague Government, even with the Slovak Dr. Milan Hodza at its helm, failed to understand the true meaning of this historical event and the very next day arranged a demonstration in Bratislava advocating the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness in opposition to �56 SLOVA KIA Slovak autono my. This blund ering step was the climax of all the mistak es made by the Pragu e Gover nment in its absur d policy conce rning Slovak ia. Andre j Hlink a died Augus t 16, 1938. The Slovak nation stood at his grave resolu tely determ ined to finish its great strugg le witho ut regard for the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic. The mome nt had come when the Slovak nation had to be conce rned only aboutl its own destin y. VIA AUTO NOMY TO THE SLOV AK STATE The positi on of the Slovak s in the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic preven ted them from determ ining even their own destin y. Much less were they able to steer the course of intern al affairs in this State. Least of all were they able to influe nce the foreig n policy direct ed by Dr. Eduar d Benes . Hence the Slovak s bore no respon sibilit y either for the develo pment of the intern al life or the intern ationa l standi ng of the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic and could not be blame d for the situati on into which the State got itself. Small nation s are not creato rs of intern ationa l situations. Often they are merely helple ss figurin es on the great chessb oard of intern ationa l politic s, which is the game of large nation s. Furthe rmore , the small nation witho ut to a gover nment of its own it not given an oppor tunity l ationa active ly interv ene in the appea semen t of an intern 1918 situati on. The Slovak s were in sucl\ a positi on from to 1938. If great nation s assum e the right to create intern ationa l situat ions in which they utilize small nation s for the realiza tion of their power plans, a small and enslav ed nation canno t be blame d if for its own protec tion it utilize s an oppor tunity offere d by the wave of histor ical events . It is eviden ce of the Slovak nation 's politic al matur ity that it knew how to grasp such an histor ical oppor tunity , not neglec ting to use it for the attain ment of a goal it coul not achiev e by its own power . The Slovak s grew tired of vainly repeat ing their justifi ed deman ds when there was no one to fulfill them. They were theref ore determ ined and prepa red to take what was rightfu lly theirs. Imme diatel y after the Bratis lava manif estatio n the Slovak People 's Party presen ted to the Pragu e Parlia ment �SLOVA KIA 57 a new nation for a law provid ing Slovak ia with autono my. At the time, Czech o-Slov akia found itself in the midst of a seriou s intern al crisis and was shake n to the found ations by strong outwa rd pressu re. With the threat of war hangin g in the air, the Pragu e Gover nment , heade d since Septem ber 23, 1938 by Gener al Syrovy , procla imed total mobili zation , a necess ity hasten ed still more by the intern al chaos in the Czech o-Slov ak Repub lic. The issue did not lead to war, howev er, becau se the Czech o-Slov ak Gover nment, on the advice of the Allies, acctep ted the condit ions dictate d by Germa ny accord ing to which the Germa n Army was to occup y the territo ries of Czech o-Slov akia that were popul ated by Germa ns. Nor was the Pragu e Gover nment able to reject the ultima tum of Poland deman ding that the Polish -occup ied territo ry of Silesia be joined to Poland . These circum stance s left the Slovak s no choice but to look out for thems elves. After length y and fruitle ss concultati ons with repres entativ es of the Pragu e regime , the Slovak People 's Party, led by Dr. Jozef Tiso after the death of Andre j Hlink a, had to take the fate of Slovak ia into its own hands . On Octob er 5th Dr. Eduar d Benes resign ed as Presid ent of the Repub lic, and on the 6th of Octob er the Execu tive Comm ittee of the Slovak People 's Party met in Zilina and sugge sted that all power in Slovak ia be taken over by the Slovak s by right of self-de termin ation. This resolu tion of the Slovak People 's Party was acctep ted and approv ed in all its parts also by delega tes of all the remain ing non-le ftist Slovak partie s. In the rapid succes sion of storm y events , the Slovak nation had to stakei out its future alone in order to preven t others from makin g the decisi ons contra ry to its intere sts. All these politic al partie s agreed also to join with the Slovak People 's Party to form a single party: The Slovak Nation al Unity Party (Stran a sloven skej narod nej jednot y). The Pragu e Gover nment, alway s deaf to Slovak previous deman ds, recogn ized this unanim ous decisi on of the Slovak politic al partie s. Slovak ia obtain ed its autono mous govern ment with Dr. Jozef Tiso at its head as prime minist er. Later, on Novem ber 19, 1938, the Pragu e Parliament passed a consti tution al law for the govern ment of autono mous Slovak ia. In order that Slovak ia might be �58 SLOVAKIA properly represented also in the Central Government in Prague, Karol Sidor was made the vice-presiden t of that body. In addition, Slovakia had its own delegates in the ministries of foreign affairs, national defense and finance . The Slovak nation had just attained this goal when confronted by a catastrophe similar to that which was it the Bohemian lands. The southern section of visited had by Magyars, was claimed by the Magyars, inhabited Slovakia have liked to occupy all of Slovakia. fact in would who had to work out a new boundary government The Slovak 7 Discussions were based on government. Magyar with the of the population. The nationality the of the statistics 1930 census, whereas the of statistics the Magyars rejected taken during the statistics, 1910 the the Slovaks regarded setting of the The unjust. as period of Magyarizatio n, court impartial an to left new boundary was therefore Germany and Italy of of arbitration. The foreign ministers rendered a decision on November 2, 1938, which the Slovaks considered to be unfair. By it Hungary received and occupied cities and areas in southern Slovakia that were entirely or predominantl y Slovak. This decision resulted in many economic and commercial hardships for Slovakia because the new boundary severed railroads and roads, and a number of Slovak valleys, open toward the south, lost their connection with the territory of Slovakia. Even these injustices and hardships failed to shatter the spirit of the Slovak nation. The Slovak Government, by exerting all its energy endeavored to organize the administratio n of Slovakia in a way that would prove its ability to exist as an entity. It was anxious above all to see all Slovaks lay a strong foundation for the future of Slovakia by means of firm national unity and faithful cooperation. According to the declaration of Slovak autonomy, elections for seats in Parliament were held as early as December 18, 1938. Members of the Slovak Parliament became the representativ es not only of the Slovak People's Party, but also of the remaining political parties which now formed the Slovak National Unity Party as the result of the zilina agreement. In the Slovak Parliament national minorities also had their representativ es. A month later, January 18, 1939, the legislative assembly of autonomous �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovakia was opened in a festive manner and began its activity. It soon appeared that the form and amount of selfgovernmen t which Slovakia possessed could not supply all the needs of Slovak national life. In its twenty-yea r struggle for its rights, the Slovak nation had reached a level of maturity, and had set its heart on a measure of freedom, for which autonomy was too small a frame. Not even the Czechs were satisfied with the autonomou s status of Slovakia. They found it hard to give up the rule of Slovakia even though responsibl e persons in the Prague Governme nt repeatedly complaine d that the Czechs were obliged to subsidize Slovakia. The Slovak nation felt that it was capable of taking over the administra tion of its country entirely, while the central departmen ts in Prague often proceeded as though there were no declaration of Slovak autonomy in existence. Fresh disagreeme nts and dissension s arose between the Slovaks and Czechs, and the situation in autonomou s Slovakia continued to be vague and confused. The situation was made worse by the intrusion of outside influences. This confusion, aggravated by the rapacity of its neighbors, could have had catastrophic consequen ces for the fate of Slovakia. The Slovaks longed for the peaceful growth of their own life, and the orn: condition necessary for such a life was the national independen ce of Slovakia. The Slovak nation, having come so far along the road of its historical evolution, was prepared and determined to take this step also, because it was convinced that it had a right not only to autonomy, but also to its own independen t state. And this step was the only refuge for Slovakia against the storm threatening it in the tense internation al situation. " FAITHFUL TO OURSELV ES FORWARD IN HARMONY ! " As a result of the constantly increasing demands of Germany, the situatjon which developed in Central Europe was very confused and perturbed at the beginning of March, 1939. It was clear, however, that the Czecho-Slo vak Republic had arrived at the edge of an abyss. The Slovaks did not feel duty-bound to hurl themselves into that gorge. �60 SLOVAKIA Rather, the Slovaks looked for an escape that would lead them to safety. In Bratislava representatives of Germany sought out Karol Sidor, whom they considered the most popular political leader in Slovakia, and urged him to declare the independent State of Slovakia over the radio. Dr. Jozef Tiso was invited to Berlin for a discussion with Adolf Hitler and his minister of foreign affairs, von Ribbentrop. They both informed the president of the Slovak government of the danger confronting Slovakia and demanded his decision at once. Neither Karol Sidor nor Dr. Jozef Tiso complied with this urgent demand because they considered any decisions regarding the future legal status of Slovakia to be the right and duty of the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava. The Slovak Parliament, elected according to the decree of Slovak autonomy, was called into session by the president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Dr. Emil Ha.cha, and on March 14, 1939, it declared Slovakia an independent and self-governing state by unanimous resolution. The presidium of the Parliament appointed the administration of independent Slovakia, with Dr. Jozef Tiso at his head, and the Slovak Government then took over all power in Slovakia into its own hands. Even though the international situation, during which Slovakia's declaration of independence was made, influenced the rapid succession of events in Slovakia, the Slovak Parliament-as the legal and authorized interpreter of the Slovak nation's will-did only what the Slovak nation had a right to do. Conscious of this right, the Slovak nation accepted the decision of the Slovak Parliament as the natural result of historical development not only with enthusiastic agreement and sincere joy, but also with a determination to bear the entire burden of responsibility for its own destiny and to prove that it was mature and ready for national independence. The proclamation of autonomous Slovakia as an independent state marked the end of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Even so, the Czecho-Slovak Republic would not have been able to survive the hurricane of events. Its fall would have been Slovakia's downfall also, and the Slovak nation would have been left to the mercy of its neighbors. The decisive action of the Slovak Parliament placed before �SLOVAKIA 61 Slovakia's neighbors a ready reality, and the government of the neighboring states took this reality into consideration and respected it. The independent State of Slovakia was recognized either de iure or de facto by the following states: Belgium, ( de facto ), Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Equador, Estonia, Finland, France ( de facto ), Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Latvia, Manchuria, Poland, Siam, Soviet Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Vatican State and Yugoslavia, 27 nations in all. These states included great powers and small countries, neutrals as well as belligerents in the Second World War. Not even the allies of the former Czecho-Slovak Republic hesitated to recognize the national independence of Slovakia. Some of these nations established and maintained diplomatic and commercial relations with Slovakia, whereas others were not able to do so because they were obstructed by the War. The Slovak State did not solicit the protection of its German neighbor, but when the German Government itself came with the proposal of a defense pact, the Slovak Government, for various reasons, could not reject such an offer. True, this treaty restricted the sovereignty of the Slovak State to a certain extent, but on the other hand it assured the safety of Slovakia not only against the nation which frequently advanced its historical claims to Slovak lands, but also against Germany itself. Although the Slovaks had in the past claimed the right to a free life, the nations who were deciding the fate of Slovakia rejected these petitions, and, despite other proofs, kept insisting that Slovakia because of its small size could not maintain itself as a separate and independent political unit since it was not supposed to be economically selfsustaining. Therefore, they concluded, it would be to the advantage of Slovakia to be in a union with another state, and it was intimated that the Slovaks should be thankful if someone would be willing magnanimously to support them. From the very beginning of its life as an independent state, Slovakia strove to disprove this false legend of economic dependence. And it controverted it in such a way at every step that these arguments against Slovak independ- �62 SLOVAKIA ence completely disappeared. As soon as its autonomy was proclaimed, the Slovak Government floated a loan for the economic revival of Slovakia, and the Slovak people themselves in a short time subscribed an amount necessary to cover this need. In a similar manner a gold standard was created for the Slovak Republic, to which the Slovaks sacrificed their valuables. The mint at Kremnica which had coined Hungarian currency for 600 years, for the first time in its history began to mint money with the seal of the Slovak State. It was discovered that Slovakia had enough varied raw materials which it could work, and that Slovak industry could increase its production to the point where it could export its products. Slovakia concluded trade agreements with many European countries, and the foreign trade of the Slovak Republic was highly active. The Slovak "koruna" (crown) won a reputation as the "Tatra Dollar," and its steady value was the best proof of the settled economy of the Slovak State. The Slovak Parliament, as early as July 21, 1939. approved the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, thereby establishing a strong foundation of legal procedure and the future development of Slovak national life. 8 On October 26, 1939, Dr. Jozef Tiso was unanimously elected the first president of the Slovak Republic and was recognized by the Slovak nation as the successor of the 9th-century Slovak princes. His motto: "Faithful to Ourselves-Forward in Harmony!" succinctly expressed not only the principles he practiced in his own high office, but also the program of Slovak statehood. The Slovak nation, particularly during those tempestuous days, took careful note of all the advantages and disadvantages obtaining from its position at the historical crossroads of Central Europe. The generation: which lived to see liberty on the soil of the ancient Slovak fatherland wanted to forget the injustices of the past and sincerely to establish friendly relation with all the nations with which it would come into contact. It wished to stand not only on the free land of its ancestors, but also on the spiritual foundation of its own life, to retrieve in unity with all Slovaks what the Slovak nation had lost through no fault of its own, and to prepare a peaceful and prosperous future for generations to come. �SLOVAKIA 63 It was along this road that Dr. Jozef Tiso led the Slovak nation as president of the Slovak Republic. As the Slovak nation was laying the foundations of its State and was taking its first steps on the road of a free life, the storm of war began to spread over Central Europe. Its flames grew and engulfed more and more countries. But the hurricane of war, moving from the west to the east, passed over Slovakia without damage. During the first years of the War, when the German armies penetrated through Poland and were headed for Moscow, reaching the Volga River and the foothills of the Caucasus, Slovakia remained in a sort of vacuum, free to develop in every respect without interference. Especially the cultural life of Slovakia blossomed at this time. In the Slovak University, the Technical Institute, the School of Commerce and Business, the Slovak National Library, the Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in its other older and newer cultural institutions the Slovak nation discovered media of growth such as it had never known in the past. The number of books increased daily, new radio stations were built, and the production of cultural and documentary films was initiated. Unusual cultural activity flourished throughout Slovakia with many Slovak villages erecting cultural buildings as agencies for their own progress. Slovakia grew because the creative abilities of the Slovak nation were not being exhausted in the defense of natural rights, now guaranteed by political independence and its own national administration. The Slovak Republic, emerging during the twilight of the great War, was beclouded by a crucial question: How would the War end, and what kind of fate awaited this small yet so promisingly developing State? The Slovak nation was determined to defend its national independence as the only real basis for its national liberty, and so it exerted itself to have the Slovak Republic remain on the map of postwar Europe. It had a right to believe that it could preserve its liberty and national independence, but it knew from its own experience the bitter truth that if the others decided the fate of a nation, the rights of a nation are seldom considered. The only desire of the Slovak nation at this time was the Slovak Republic be rid of the outward pressure which limited its sovereignty �64 SLOVAKIA and influenced its decisions. When a turn of events came in the War, and military danger began to approach from the East, the Slovak nation began to fear for its future . These fears grew as the Slovak nation realized that it did not have the strength to repel this threatening calamity. Besides this, it was aware of designs being made against the Slovak Republic in foreign countries.9 It was reasonable to presume that, because of the Soviet army's superior force, the hard-pressed German army would not retreat through the mountainous territory of Slovakia. In the north, the Soviet army advanced from the Carpathians through Poland, and in the south, through Hungary; and it could be sudmised that Slovakia would not become a battleground. It could expect to be spared at least the destruction of war. These suppositions, however, were not fulfilled, because the agents of Moscowwi th the help of Communist partisans, landed in the Slovak mountains by Soviet aircraft, organized an uprising in Slovakia in August, 1944, and produced a chaos which confused a portion of the native population. 10 This entire action had no political significance because it had no influence on the fate of Slovakia. From a military viewpoint the uprising was foolish, and it collapsed in a shameful manner. But from an economic point of view, the uprising caused greater damage than had been suffered by the country for centuries. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives for no reason, railroads, tunnels and bridges were arbitrarily destroyed, and many villages were reduced to ashes. With the blood that was needlessly spilled and the smoke which hung over the ruins perished not only the national independence of Slovakia, but also the liberty of the "liberated" Slovak nation. On the heels of the Soviet army's divisions and their unspeakable atrocities, from Moscow to desolated Slovakia came Dr. Eduard Benes with the government of a resurrected Czecho-Slovak Republic. After five years of existence in its own state the Slovak nation arrived, against its own will and contrary to all the principles of natural and self-determining rights, at a position in which it did not care to live at any price, with nothing but slavery staring it in the facp �SLOVAKIA 65 BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN The Slovak Republic was a small state. It emerged in unusually restless times and grew under very complicated conditions. In view of these circumstances, it could not become an ideal or complete state. Large, ancient, and mighty nations have their faults and weaknesses, too . The Slovak Republic cannot be condemned for the imperfection connected with its infancy nor for the errors it made, which in more than one case were simply the result of outside influences. It is an incontrovertible historical fact that the Slovak nation, in all of i~ more than one-thousand year history, never had such liberty, such rights, so much employment, such a measure of material welfare, such conditions for spiritual growth and cultural progress, or so much joy in living, as it had in the years of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation was contented with its State, despite its deficiencies, and it did not long for any other kind of state, including the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak Republic conclusively refuted all the arguments against Slovak national independenqe. Every Slovak could see for himself that Slovakia, utilizing the industriousness of its people, is large enough and wealthy enough to provide all the economic conditions needed for indep8ndent national life . . The Slovak nation, during its five-year history of political independence, passed with remarkable success its test in the art of creating a government, and it deserved to be recognized as an independent and equal member in the family of free nations. By its experience as a Slovak republic, it is qualified to decide all questions pertaining to its own life, and is prepared to use its strength for the common welfare of the nations of Central Europe. One Slovak generation tasted the sweet fruit of liberty for which so many generations of the Slovak nation had fervently yearned, and therefore Slovaks will never again be satisfied with the bitter bread of slave labor. All this the Slovak nation learned in its own state. But all this was noted also by Dr. Eruard Benes, who observed the development of Slovak life abroad during �66 SLOVAKIA the war and in the spring of 1945, accompanied by Soviet bayonets, set foot on the blood-stained soil of Slovakia. The restoration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was one of the g1·eat inter-national mistakes. The revival of this State not only could not draw the Slovaks and Czechs closer to each other, but, on the contrary, relations between the Slovaks and Czechs became extremely cold as a direct result of this forced cohabitation in a joint state. The so-called Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, which recognized in the Slovaks the distinctive marks of a nation and promised. them complete equality with the Czechs, was not a cure for the wound which Slovakia suffered by the loss of its national independence, nor could it serve as a basis for a satisfying cohabitation of these two nations within one state. This sort of solution of Slovak-Czech relations would have had a meaning when the Slovaks were seeking autonomy in the spirit of the Pittsburgh Pact. The declaration at Kosice and the promises of Klement Gottwald had no power of attraction after the violent destruction of the Slovak Republic. The national independence of Slovakia was trampled by the Soviet army, which was followed by the Government and President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The restored Czecho-Slovak Republic was alien to the Slovaks not only because it could in no way replace the Slovak State, but also because it brought Slovakia under the control of Moscow through the administration at Prague. Slovakia, even while silenced by the presence of the Soviet army, in no way concealed either its irreconcilable opposition to the situation in which it found itself or its desire for its own national independence. Dr. Eduard Benes, as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, was determined to crack this opposition of Slovakia at any cost and by any means, and to strangle in the Slovak nation every longing for independence. If Dr. Eduard Benes, by his personal propaganda, enjoyed the reputation abroad of a great democrat and farsighted statesman, he now himself tore off this mask and showed himself to be a ruthless tyrant far removed from democracy and wise foresight. He saw in the Communist people's democracy a new, higher and more advanced form of democracy, and �SLOVAKIA 67 as president of the restored Czecho-Slovak Republic he approved and confirmed all the violence committed by the Prague Government and its Bratislava agencies in the. name of the people's democracy. The Slovak nation now became a victim of revenge because it had its own state during the War. Criminal status was given not only to those who served in the Slovak Republic and had not redeemed their "crime" by the sin of treason, but also to those who disagreed with the new order. The executor of this people's democratic justice was the so-called "National Court" in Bratislava and the chain so-called "People's Courts" all over Slovakia . Since it was impossible to bring before the Court the entire "liberated" nation to condemn it , it was necessary to condemn hundreds and thousands of decent Slovaks in order that all Slovakia might be terrified silenced and coerced into slavish obedience. The " National Court" of Bratislava also condemned to death the president of the Slovak Republic Dr. Jozef Tiso, and the Czecho-Slovak Government together with its president saw to it that this judgment was carried out on April 18 , 1947. The execution of the President of the Slovak Republic evoked deep horror throughout Slovakia and at the same time extinguished the last spark of hope that Slovak~ and Czechs could live together in a common state. The gallows on which Dr. Jozef Tiso died a martyr's death stands above the chasm which once and for all obliterated any form of Czecho-Slovak state.11 Slovakia did not permit itself to be broken in its opposition to the Czecho-Slovak Republic nor to the Communistic people's democracy either by the murder of Dr. Jozef Tiso or by subsequent forcible measures. The Slovak nation is enduring the same wrongs, injustices and pains that are being suffered by all the other nations behind the Iron Curtain. The spirit and form of the Communist people's democracy are foreign, repulsive and unacceptable to the Slovak nation. With persistent and remarkable consistency, the Slovaks are rejecting everything that the Government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic as a servant of Moscow is �68 SLOVAKIA forcing upon them. And they are defending with heroic courage everything that feeds and strengthens their own life. 12 From the very dawn of its history, Slovakia has belonged to Western Europe, and for twelve centuries of its past it has lived in unity with the Christian civilization of the Western world. During this long historical evolution the Slovak nation has achieved a stature, spiritual character and moral tradition that cannot be reconciled with the godless materialism of Communist doctrine or with the un-Christian methods of the people's democracy. Even though its beautiful land serves as a huge prison behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak nation has not lost, but continues to confess fearlessly, its faith in God as the source of its strength and hope. Deprived as it is of everything, it still does not surrender its claim to a free life in its own state, but insists on an independent position in the great family of equal nations in Europe. Could youf as a free citizen of a democratic country, say that the Slovak nation does not deserve freedom? Or that it want more than it has a right to expect? FOOTNOTES 1) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p . 308. 2) In addition to many articles, Konstantin culen has written a separate two-volume study on American Slovaks: Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1942. The cultural life of American Slovaks is described in his book Slovaci v Amerike (Slovaks in America), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1938. Several articles are devoted to the intervention of the Slovak League in America in the political conditions of Slovakia in the book Slovensk<i Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocnri (Fortieth Anniversary of the Slovak League in America), Scranton, Pa., 1947. These questions are dealt in detail also by Karol Sidor in the book Slovrici v zahranicnom odboji ( Slovaks in the Resistance Movement Abroad), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1928. A separate book on the Pittsburgh Agreement was written by Konstantin culen, Pittsburghskd dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1937. 3 ) Martin Greco, Martinsk<i deklar<icia (The St. Martin Declaration) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. �SLOVAKIA 69 4) According to the 1930 census there were 3,329,793 inhabitants in 5) 6) 7) 8) Slovakia. Of this number, 2,284,355 were Roman Catholics, 213,725 Greek Catholics, 555,900 Protestants, 9,079 of the Orthodox faith . Only 16,890 were counted as not adhering to any religion: they were Czechs. The activity of Andrej Hlinka and the role of the Slovak People's Party are told in detail by Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934. The Slovak National Party was numerically small, gaining only one delegate in the election, but it numbered among its members many of the Lutheran intelligentsia. The cession of Slovakia southern lands to Hungary was decided already between the Prague Government and the administration of Hungary. The government of autonomous Slovakia was confronted by this prepared situation, and Dr. Jozef Tiso, who had led these conferences, was actually a delegate of the Central Government of Prague. The Constitution of the Slovak Republic was prepared by the vicepresident of Parliament and the chairman of the constitutional committee, Dr. Karol Mederly, who published it in an a separate brochure with a comprehensive introduction, Ostava Slovenslcej republilcy a jej zakladne smernice (The Constitution of the Slovak Republic and Its Basic Principles), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. 9) Plots against the independent statehood of Slovakia were led abroad by Dr. Eduard Benes who had resigned from the office of president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, had recognized Dr. Emil Hacha as his successor and then once again claimed the office of president. His faithful co-worker was the Slovak Communist, Dr. Vladimir Clementis. 10) The Soviet aircraft landed in Slovakia Slovak soldiers who had been captured by the Soviets and were obHged to join the so-called Czechoslovak Brigade in Russia. This entire brigade dispersed because the Slovak troops who had seen conditions in Soviet Russia with their own eyes did not wish to fight against the Slovak Republic, but fled to their homes at the first opportunity. 11) The entire address spoken by Dr. Jozef Tiso in Bratislava before his sentence has been published by the Slovak Catholic Sokol in a book entitled Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe (Dr. Jozef Tiso, in His own Words), Slovak Catholic Sokol, Passaic, N. J., 1952, edited by Dr. Jozef Pauco. 12) Much valuable information regarding the resistance of the Slovaks against Communism may be found in the booklet by Dr. Jozef :Mikus, The Thee Slovak Bishops, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Passaic, N. J. 1953. � 42 SLOVAKIA This Is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk'J}, Ph.D. SEPARATIO N FROM HUNGARY The Austro-Hung arian Monarchy was built on a shaky foundation. It may have survived in a less extended territory, had it grasped in time its historical mission in this ethnically disunited region of Central Europe. Hungary could have weathered the approaching historical holocaust if it had put into practice the spirit of justice and equality. But neither the Austrian Emperor nor the Hungarian King, neither the Government of Vienna nor of Budapest, reckoned with the given realities: they did not know how to rightly evaluate the strength of the new historical trends, nor did they forsee the direction of future developments . Hence they permitted themselves to be led by policies which could only lead to the disintegration of the entire Monarchy and to the fall of Hungary. Because of the national policy of Hungary, which curtailed the growth of Slovak national life in all of its phases. the Slovaks were not sufficiently prepared for the role which awaited them. When the World War broke out in 1914, under the emergency provisions of the Government any kind of Slovak political movement was unthinkable. The fate of countries and of nations is not always determined by their strength, but as much by circumstances which arise without their doing. This proved to be true not only of Austra-Hunga ry, which was shaken to its foundations by World War I, but also of the various nations which had gradually become aware that the time had come to take an account of the past and be concerned only about their own future fate, regardless of the interests of the Monarchy. At the beginning of the war, the Slovaks had no thought of separating from Hungary, much less could they have expressed such a thought aloud. But when the War was nearing its end and it was more and more evident that Austria-Hung ary could not escape defeat, the leaders of �SLOVAKIA 43 the Slovaks saw that the military defeat of the Hapsburg Monarchy would furnish them the opportunity for attaining the goals they were not able to achieve in Hungary. Slovak patriots met for a secret conference in Turciansky Sv. Martin on May 24, 1918, where Andrej Hlinka plainly stated: "The thousand-year marriage with the Magyars has not panned out. We must be divorced." 1 The Slovaks took a stand for the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation and decided that at an opportune time they would sever all ties between Slovakia and Hungary and enter a new State composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Russia. The Czecho-Slovak National Council (Ceskoslovenska narodna rada ), founded in Paris in 1916, worked abroad for the disolution of Austria-Aungary and the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak State. At the head of the CzechoSlovak National Council was professor Thomas G. Masaryk, and its outstanding member was the distinguished Slovak scholar, Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who possessed unusual diplomatic talents and attained the rank of General in the French Army. Slovaks living abroad morally and materially supported the activity of the Czecho-Slovak National Council and in large numbers joined the CzechoSlovak Legion which fought on the side of the Allies against Austria-Hungary The Slovaks were convinced that if Slovakia would tear away from Hungary, it would enjoy all the conditions of a free national existence in a joint Czecho-Slovak State. The Czecho-Slovak National Council was most effectively supported by the Slovaks who were living in America and who always lllad a lively interest in the destiny of the Slovak nation in the Old World. Under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, which was organized already in 1907, they frequently raised their voice in defense of the Slovak nation in Hungary, and as free citizens of a democratic country they protested against the injustices which their native brothers in Slovakia had to suffer. Later, in the years of World War I , they stood in the first ranks of the battle for the liberation of Slovakia. It is to their credit not only that they made large financial sacrifices for the cause of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, but also that they insisted on having beforehand �44 SLOVAKIA a clear presentation and firm guaranties as to the relationship between the Slovak and Czech nations in the proposed joint State. Representatives of the Slovak League in America discussed this serious question with delegates of the Czech National Federation in Cleveland as early as 1915, and came to the conclusion that the future Czecho-Slovakia would be a federal union of states with complete autonomy for Slovakia. Subsequently, on May 30, 1918, representatives of the Slovak League met with representatives of Czech organizations and with the President of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, T. G. Masaryk, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and drew up an agreement which guaranteed political and cultural autonomy to Slovakia in the new State. This agreement was designed by T . G. Masaryk and later signed by him as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2 Only vague reports of this foreign action penetrated Slovakia, and the agreements which testify to the wise foresight of the American Slovaks were not even known there. Nevertheless, everything that could be undertaken in Slovakia during the War for the benefit of Slovakia's future was basically in harmony with what was being done independently overseas. In the meantime, events at the front indicated that the defeat of Austria-Hungary was inescapable. Emperor Charles published a manifesto on October 16, 1918, in which he promised a reconstruction of the Monarchy on a new basis, but it was already too late. The President of the Hungarian Government, Count Stephen Tisza, on the 17th of October, attempted to justify the Budapest policy of Magyarization, reluctant to see that it was just this policy that brought Hungary to inevitable disintegration and certain collapse. In the Hungarian Parliament, on October 19, the Slovak delegate, Dr. Ferdis Juriga, announced in the face of a stormy protest of Magyar members that neither the Hungarian Parliament nor the Hungarian Government had the right any longer to decide the future destiny of the Slovak nation, because the Slovaks would decide their own future on the basis of their right of self-determination. The Slovaks, unaware of what had happened in Prague on October 28, met on October 30, 1918, in Turciansky Sv. �SLOVAKIA 45 Martin, where, chiefly under the influence of Andrej Hlinka, they organized a Slovak National Council and in a separate declaration proclaimed that the Slovaks once and for all Hrere separating themselves from Hungary and were of their own accord joining the Czecho-Slovak State.3 The new Czecho-Slovak State was born on the ruins of the Hapsburg Monarchy, which, having lost the war, was not able to defend its own existence and escape catastrophe. There was nothing left to do but define the boundaries of the new State (especially the Slovak-Hungarian border ), establish its international position, and construct its internal administration on a basis that would insure its ability to live. The most important condition for the healthy internal development of the Czecho-Slovak State was deciding the position Slovakia would occupy in the new State. The separation of the Slovaks from the Magyars and from Hungary was for the Slovak& not only painless, but joyful, as was the separation of the thirteen American colonies from England. " SLAVES UNTIL NOW - NEVER AGAIN!" Martin Razus (1888-1937)-a leading Slovak poet whose writings gave voice to the pains, longings, and hopes of his people, and whom the Slovaks called the "conscience of the Slovak nation"-welcomed the dawn of the new Slovak day with a poem, the refrain of which reads: "Slaves we have been till now, slaves we shall be no longer!" These words, mirrored the sentiment that prevailed throughout Slovakia in the first years of its new status. The Slovaks had reasons enough, at the end of the bloody war, to welcome the Czecho-Slovak Republic with open joy and sincere hopes. They had fought on all fronts, and had used every means, to bring about the formation of this new State. They had a right therefore to see in the Czecho-Slovak Republic a state they could consider their own. Slovakia experienced a period of genuine joy mostly because it had extricated itself from the union with old Hungary where it had striven in vain for equal rights. The Magyar language was removed from offices, schools, and all public life, and with its disappearance went all traces of Magyar domination. Slavonic traditions, which �46 SLOVAKIA had remained alive in Slovakia, prevented the Slovaks from being disappointed in their Slavonic brotherhood, a subject frequently discussed at the inception of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak people entered their new existence as a nation composed of large groups of Slovaks who had never estranged themselves from their origin nor allowed themselves to be misled by foreign ideologies, had preserved their language, their national traditions and all the marks of their national character. The democratic spirit which promted the laws of the new State gave assurance that the Slovak people would no longer serve foreign masters, but would concentrate on the development of their own life in order to regain as quickly as possible what they had lost in the past through no fault of their own. Aristocratic titles, together with their corresponding historical privileges, wer e abolished. A federal Land Commission was set up to expropriate for a fair price land held by big non-Slovak landowners and distribute it to the small Slovak farmers , who had always been the strong core of the Slovak nation. It was anticipated, with good reason, that the industry, that would develop in the western part of the new State would be supplemented by the farm and forest economy of Slovakia, a balance that could be achieved only by means of such a union with the Czech lands. It was also to be expected that under the influence of new social laws the living standard of the working people would be raised. The Constitution, approved on February 29, 1920, guaranteed civil equality and political rights to all citizens, thus giving the Slovaks the privilege of influencing the affairs of government. A great deal of pain was caused in Slovak life by the schools which had been used as an instrument of denationalization. This injustice was corrected by the retention of Magyar schools only in those parts of Slovakia where was a Magyar population. New high schools and technical schools were established where there had been none before. In Bratislava, which had become the capital of Slovakia, a new university was founded in 1919 with three faculties. Besides other cultural organizations, the National Slovak Theatre came into being. In every city and village of Slovakia, public libraries were established and plays �SLOVAKIA 47 were presented, with the result that vigorous cultural activity spread throughout the country. In Turciansky Sv. Martin, the Matica Slovenska was reopened, to provide Slovakia with the new products of Slovak literature. In Slovakia there was a revival of old Slovak political parties whose activity was restricted under the Hungarian regime and completely stopped during the war. In addition, new political parties were organized, so that Slovaks could participate in politics according to their convictions. The desire for a new, free, and full national life was discernible everywhere, and the program for providing this kind of life from day to day. The relationship between the Slovak and Czech people, however, was dimmed from the very beginning of their union, and as it continued it became streadily worse. The Czechs and the Slovaks, throughout their long history, had never lived together in a joint state. Each went their own way and developed under a different set of conditions. When these two Slavic nations now got together under the roof of a common state and began to knew each other better, it appeared that for all their lingual similarity there was a great difference between them. Slovakia is a country Christian from its foundations, 80 % Catholic, its deep, living religious traditions permeating the nature of the Slovak and his entire life. 4 The Czechs, as the result of a different historical development, had a different attitude toward religious questions, and when, after the beginning of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, they came to Slovakia, they approached the religious convictions of the Slovaks tactlessly, thereby creating antagonism in Slovakia. Between the Slovak and Czech nations a crevice of distrust began to form . This fissure deepened when the Czechs in Slovakia acted as though they were in a backward country. Many of them had the idea--even when there was no basis for it:r--that their role was to bring culture and progress to Slovakia. This condescending attitude offended the Slovaks, who in turn began to ridicule Czech "progressiveness." Under the pretext that the Slovaks did not have sufficient trained personnel to occupy various official posi- �48 SLOVAKIA tions, multitudes of Czechs who had previously lived in various parts of Austria and for whom there was no room in Bohemia, moved into Slovakia. The Slovaks were grateful to the Czechs for the assistance Slovakia certainly needed in the first years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. But the thousands upon thousands of Czechs who came into Slovakia were completely superfluous. The Slovaks began to look upon them as intruders who were taking away their jobs and bread. While the flood of Czechs was pouring into Slovakia, Slovaks left their homeland in great numbers and moved to all parts of the world. But the most important reason why the early enthusiasms of the Slovaks ended in rapid and complete disillusionment was that the Czechs were trying to build the Czecho-Slovak Republic on the same kind of foundation the Magyars had laid for the creation of a united great Hungary. The very opening words of the Czecho-Slovak Constitution speak of the "Czechoslovak nation"-which in fact never existed. The Czechs ever more openly proclaimed the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness. Since they themselves had no intention of giving up their Czech nationality; desiring to remain a Czech nation also in the future, this alleged Czechoslovak national oneness was simply a way of leading tha Slovaks into a national unity with the Czechs. Even though admitting its euphony, they spoke of the Slovak language as a dialect of the Czech tongue, a vestige that would gradually disappear from literature. Because there was indeed no Czechoslovak language, references were made to the temporary bilinguism of the Czechoslovak nation, or of two aspects of one language. The Slovaks, who had waged such a long, costly, and exhausting struggle in Hungary "for our Slovak language" and considered their language as one expression of their national individuality, were disturbed by such a development because they saw in it the design of Czechization. Slovak literature, from the Czech point of view, was merely an echo of Czech literature, and all Slovak culture just a part of Czech cultural life. They predicted that the Slovaks would gradually �SLOVAKIA 49 merge with the Czechs in the unified State, that they themselves recognized the advantage of such a development, and that this unity would be the most secure foundation for the Czecho-Slovak Republic which would then stand as a strong bulwark against the pressure of their German neighbor. Czech policy, based on such assumptions, led to complete centralization which ignored the interests of Slovakia. This Czech policy aroused vigorous opposition in Slovakia. If the words of the poet Martin Razus meant that the Slovaks had been slaves in Hungary and that this slavery had ended once and for all, they soon took on the new meaning that the Slovaks did not care to be--nor would they be--slaves in the Czecho-Slovak Republic either. The Magyars had used a political ideology to justify their dealings with the Slovaks, though actually they were concerned only for their own safety. The lifeless fiction of Czechoslovak national oneness had a similar meaning. The Czechs are surrounded on three sides by the Germans, and they are exposed to the influence of this great neighbor. When the Czecho-Slovak Republic came into being, they thought Slovakia would become not only their colony but also a country which when gradually assimilated would strengthen their position over against the Germans. But the Slovaks, who had not been willing to perish in Hungary, were unwilling to sacrifice their national individuality even for the protection of the Czechs. Suicide can be committed only by a nation uninformed, cudutrally undeveloped, and unconcerned about its future, a nation which does not understand why it should care about its honor or its right to exist. Because it had endured so many historical trials, had lost so much of its own blood, and was unable to develop its national life under the trying conditions of its past, the Slovak nation grew weary of having its energies continually drained and finally longed to be a nation really free. For this very reason it recognized the danger it faced in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and with all the determination of a self-conscious nation took a stand for the defense of its honor and its right to the kind of life every nation deserves. �50 SLOVAKIA UNDER THE LEADERS HIP OF ANDREJ HLINKA In the first years of the Czecho-Slo vak Republic Slovakia had a sort of governmen t, headed by a special minister with full authority for the administra tion of Slovakia as a member of the Prague Governmen t. This administra tion had its headquarte rs in Bratislava, consisted of several cabinet members, and exercised powers of jurisdictio n for a brief period. But in the end it was subject to the Central Governme nt in Prague which handled the admi.Ristra tion of the new State as part of a pattern of complete centralizat ion. Czech policy with all its attempts at centralizat ion was challenged by Andrej Hlinka, who had revived the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska :r.udova Strana) and had evoked a strong opposition movement in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka saw the danger threatening Slovakia, and therefore tried to get the Paris Peace Conference to define the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slo vak Republic. For this he was imprisoned in the year 1919. Only upon his election to the Prague Parliamen t on April 18, 1920 was he released.5 The Slovak People's Party gained twelve seats in the election and, under the leadership of its chairman, Andrej Hlinka, began a relentless struggle for the rights of the Slovak nation in accordance with the Pittsburgh Agreement which had become the pattern of Slovak policy. This campaign had to be directed not only against the Prague Governme nt, but also against all the Czech political parties which, as servants of Prague centralism , had spread their nets also in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka organized his party, set up its press, traveled throughou t Slovakia, and speaking at mass meetings, awakened in the Slovak people a strong national consciousn ess, an interest in political life, and courage to defend all their rights. These gatherings were often very stormy; neverthele ss the Slovak people followed Andrej Hlinka and saw in him their political leader. The inconsider ate actions of Czechs in Slovakia continued and strengthen ed the spirit of opposition in large groups of Slovak people against everything that came from Bohemia. In the years 1922-1926, when the Prague Governme nt was sending multitudes of Czechs into Slovakia to break Slovak �SLOVAKIA 51 resistance to its policy of centralization, 250,000 Slovaks emigrated from Slovakia, forced to look for work in foreign lands. The Prague Government resorted to every means in order to discredit Andrej Hlinka and to frustrate the activity of the Slovak People's Party, but its attempts merely served to widen the breach between the Slovaks and the Czechs. The Slovak People's Party, in its campaign for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy, desired the fulfilment of what Slovakia had been guaranteed in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic T . G. Masaryk, who had designed and signed that Agreement himself, brushed aside the petitions of the Slovak People's Party with the excuse that the Pittsburgh Agreement is just an interesting document from the period of rebellion against Austria-Hungary, having no binding value . He claimed that the Slovak gained more in the Czecho-Slovak Republic than they were promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Slovaks would not recognize this devaluation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, and the American Slovaks, who were following carefully the progress of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak State, in their Message of the American Slovaks to the Old World encouraged their native brothers to pursue relentlessly the struggle for Slovak autonomy. Andrej Hlinka stood staunchly behind the autonomy platform of the Slovak People's Party, and that was the reason why it grew in numbers and in strength. In the elections of 1925 it won twenty-three seats in the Prague Parliament and became the largest political party in Slovakia, with the right to speak as the only authorized representative of the political will of the Slovak nation. When not even the Czechs could continue to close their eyes to the numerical strength and steadily increasing importance to the Slovak People's Party any longer, they tried to win it to the side of the Government. After lengthy deliberations, the Slovak People's Party sent its representatives to the Prague Government to see if they might achieve autonomy by this method. According to this policy, it sought changes in the affairs of the Government that would assure Slovakia a standing as a separate administration unit. In 1927 the Prague Parliament passed �52 SLOVAKIA a law dividing the territory of Czecho-Slovakia into four administrative regions. Beginning January 1, 1928, Slovakia was to become one of these units. Slovakia was empowered to elect its own provincial representatives, forming a provincial assembly for the management of the economic, transportation, social, health and cultural needs of Slovakia. The Czechs felt that by this concession they were satisfying all the demands of Slovakia. However, the Slovaks saw in this reform only "the first ray of Slovak autonomy." The provincial assembly had no legislative powers, one-third of its members were named by the Prague Government, and its jurisdiction was limited. Still, it was a step forward, and it bolstered the hope in Slovakia that gradually the entire autonomistic program set forth in the Pittsburgh Agreement would be realized. The Slovaks were not oposed to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, of which they wanted their own State to be a member. In fact, they believed that, despite all the hardships which hampered the realization of their political program, they would eventually reach their goal. Nor were they against the Czech nation as such; but they resolutely rejected the myth of Czechoslovak national oneness and ever more boldly resisted the Czech imperialism which persisted even after the reorganization of the Government. Relations between the Slovaks and Czechs did not improve ; rather, the centralism of Prague became pronounced that the conditions for harmonious cohabitation between these two nations grew steadily worse. The elections of 1929 again proved the firm position of the Slovak People's Party and its abiding determination to defend the rights of the Slovak nation. It withdrew from the Government and, as on opposition Party, submitted to the Prague Parliament several proposals for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy. The Prague Parliament rejected all these motions. It was evident that the fight would have to go to the finish. The first requirement for the attainment of Slovak autonomy was unity of all Slovaks. The Czechs had always been able to find means to thwart the unification of the Slovaks. Now the Slovaks had to discover something that would unite them and lead them toward a common goal. The Slovak People's Party, led by Andrej Hlinka, was �SLOVAKIA 53 predominantly Catholic. The Slovak National Party (Slovenska Narodna Strana), headed by Martin Razus, had a majority of Lutheran members.6 These two political parties, fighting for the autonomy of Slovakia, came to an agreement on a united precedure in 1932, and in a joint resolution expressed their mutual determination not to surrender Slovak rights even thought it might cost the disintegration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. This resolve of the Slovak nation was further stiffened and given a mighty manifestation when, from August 13-15, 1933, the Slovaks gathered in Nitra, the ancient headquars of the Slovak princes, to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of the dedication of the first Christian church in Slovakia. At this occasion the Slovak people not only reminded themselves of their antiquity and the rich traditions of their Christian culture, but at the same time emphasized their right to a free national existence in a great demonstration. More than 100,000 Slovaks assembled at the historic site of glorious Slovak antiquity to express their unquenchable longing for a free Slovak future. As the Prague Government did not understand Slovakia, so did not comprehend what took place in Nitra. It saw in the events in Nitra simply a demonstration against the Government. This prompted the seizure of the Slovak People's Party's press, the trial of its editor-in-chief Karol Sidor, an investigation of Slovak students and other steps which evoked a new storm of apposition in Slovakia. The premier of the Prague Government, Jan Malypetr, himself issued a separate manifesto in which he stressed that the Czechs contributed to the support of Slovakia and that Slovakia was ungrateful for this magnanimity. To give this speech as much publicity as possible in Slovakia, he had it printed on large placards and posted in all Slovak cities and villages. This tactless and-for a premier of a government-undignified act deeply offended every Slovak, because no one in Slovakia believed that Slovakia was dependent on the Czechs for a subsidy. Equally as politically indescreet and mistaken in statesmanship was the procedure of Dr. Eduard Benes who, as foreign minister of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in December of 1933 spoke in several Slovak cities on the �54 SLOVAKIA "Idea of Czechoslovak National Unity from the Viewpoint of International Policy." The Slovaks were to keep silent about their grievances and their rights because Prague supported Slovakia. They were to disavow their national independence without a struggle and betray themselves in order to strengthen the international position of the State in which they were not able to arouse justice and reform. Instead of being misled and bowing to the Prague Government at this suggestion, the Slovaks advanced tow~rd their goal. They were unwilling to surrender their rights even for the survival of the Czecho-Slovak Republic which at this very hour had got itself into a really dangerous situation. Adolf Hitler and his National-Socialist Party had come to power in neighboring Germany. The Slovaks were correct in assuming that this tense international situation would force the Czechs to fulfill the Slovak demands in order to strengthen the Czecho-Slovak Republic for the possible outbreak of new dangers. The Slovaks did not wish to cause internal difficulties in the CzechoSlovak Republic and, even at this time, they had the good will to come to an agreement with the Czechs and to defend their joint State with their united strength. When T . G. Masaryk resigned from the office of President on December 14, 1935, representatives of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, at the election of the new president on December 18, voted for Dr. Eduard Benes who prior to the election had promised to see that the Slovak demands would be fulfilled. Dr. Benes made the promise, but it turned out that there was no one to fulfill it. For the first time in the history of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, a Slovak, Dr. Milan Hodza, became premier of the Government and also Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was a politician of rich experience and wide vision but involved in his own political conceptions and indecisive especially concerning the Slovak question. At the time, even had he wanted to settle the standing of Slovakia, he could not devote himself to the question because he was obliged to center all his attention on the demands of the Sudeten Germans. The integrity and existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was seriously threatened and the position of �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia was left unsolved after twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak State. In 1938 the situation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic became even worse. On March 12 Hitler occupied and linked Austria to Germany. The Sudeten Germans presented their demands again, but the Prague Government had no answer to give that would satisfy both the Germans and the interests of the Czecho-Slovak State. The international situation grew more and more acute, and the Czecho-Slovak Republic, preparing to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, was experiencing moments of deep unrest and worrisome uncertainty. Even under these circumstances the Slovaks, who for twenty years had striven for autonomy and for twenty years had not been able to achieve their goal, were peacefully preparing to commemorate in a grand way the twentieth anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. On Pentecost Sunday, the 5th of June, 120,000 Slovaks gathered in Bratislava to declare most emphatically that they would never give up their rights. At this occasian a delegation of the Slovak League of America was present together with its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, who brought along the original of the Pittsburgh Pact. The American Slovaks represented by the Slovak League wished to certify by their presence at this commemoration that they stood on the same platform they had accepted twenty years earlier. The throngs of Slovaks who welcomed the delegation of the Slovak League of America in the capital of Slovakia were not fanatic masses, but the self-conscious Slovak nation, politically trained and exemplarily led by Andrej Hlinka, giving notice for the last time and in a very resolute-yet in every respect honorable-manner, that it would under no pressure give up the struggle for its rights to a free life. In Bratislava, for the last time, Andrej Hlinka himself appeared before the crowd of faithful fellow fighters to receive the homage of his people before his death. The Prague Government, even with the Slovak Dr. Milan Hodza at its helm, failed to understand the true meaning of this historical event and the very next day arranged a demonstration in Bratislava advocating the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness in opposition to �56 SLOVA KIA Slovak autono my. This blund ering step was the climax of all the mistak es made by the Pragu e Gover nment in its absur d policy conce rning Slovak ia. Andre j Hlink a died Augus t 16, 1938. The Slovak nation stood at his grave resolu tely determ ined to finish its great strugg le witho ut regard for the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic. The mome nt had come when the Slovak nation had to be conce rned only aboutl its own destin y. VIA AUTO NOMY TO THE SLOV AK STATE The positi on of the Slovak s in the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic preven ted them from determ ining even their own destin y. Much less were they able to steer the course of intern al affairs in this State. Least of all were they able to influe nce the foreig n policy direct ed by Dr. Eduar d Benes . Hence the Slovak s bore no respon sibilit y either for the develo pment of the intern al life or the intern ationa l standi ng of the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic and could not be blame d for the situati on into which the State got itself. Small nation s are not creato rs of intern ationa l situations. Often they are merely helple ss figurin es on the great chessb oard of intern ationa l politic s, which is the game of large nation s. Furthe rmore , the small nation witho ut to a gover nment of its own it not given an oppor tunity l ationa active ly interv ene in the appea semen t of an intern 1918 situati on. The Slovak s were in sucl\ a positi on from to 1938. If great nation s assum e the right to create intern ationa l situat ions in which they utilize small nation s for the realiza tion of their power plans, a small and enslav ed nation canno t be blame d if for its own protec tion it utilize s an oppor tunity offere d by the wave of histor ical events . It is eviden ce of the Slovak nation 's politic al matur ity that it knew how to grasp such an histor ical oppor tunity , not neglec ting to use it for the attain ment of a goal it coul not achiev e by its own power . The Slovak s grew tired of vainly repeat ing their justifi ed deman ds when there was no one to fulfill them. They were theref ore determ ined and prepa red to take what was rightfu lly theirs. Imme diatel y after the Bratis lava manif estatio n the Slovak People 's Party presen ted to the Pragu e Parlia ment �SLOVA KIA 57 a new nation for a law provid ing Slovak ia with autono my. At the time, Czech o-Slov akia found itself in the midst of a seriou s intern al crisis and was shake n to the found ations by strong outwa rd pressu re. With the threat of war hangin g in the air, the Pragu e Gover nment , heade d since Septem ber 23, 1938 by Gener al Syrovy , procla imed total mobili zation , a necess ity hasten ed still more by the intern al chaos in the Czech o-Slov ak Repub lic. The issue did not lead to war, howev er, becau se the Czech o-Slov ak Gover nment, on the advice of the Allies, acctep ted the condit ions dictate d by Germa ny accord ing to which the Germa n Army was to occup y the territo ries of Czech o-Slov akia that were popul ated by Germa ns. Nor was the Pragu e Gover nment able to reject the ultima tum of Poland deman ding that the Polish -occup ied territo ry of Silesia be joined to Poland . These circum stance s left the Slovak s no choice but to look out for thems elves. After length y and fruitle ss concultati ons with repres entativ es of the Pragu e regime , the Slovak People 's Party, led by Dr. Jozef Tiso after the death of Andre j Hlink a, had to take the fate of Slovak ia into its own hands . On Octob er 5th Dr. Eduar d Benes resign ed as Presid ent of the Repub lic, and on the 6th of Octob er the Execu tive Comm ittee of the Slovak People 's Party met in Zilina and sugge sted that all power in Slovak ia be taken over by the Slovak s by right of self-de termin ation. This resolu tion of the Slovak People 's Party was acctep ted and approv ed in all its parts also by delega tes of all the remain ing non-le ftist Slovak partie s. In the rapid succes sion of storm y events , the Slovak nation had to stakei out its future alone in order to preven t others from makin g the decisi ons contra ry to its intere sts. All these politic al partie s agreed also to join with the Slovak People 's Party to form a single party: The Slovak Nation al Unity Party (Stran a sloven skej narod nej jednot y). The Pragu e Gover nment, alway s deaf to Slovak previous deman ds, recogn ized this unanim ous decisi on of the Slovak politic al partie s. Slovak ia obtain ed its autono mous govern ment with Dr. Jozef Tiso at its head as prime minist er. Later, on Novem ber 19, 1938, the Pragu e Parliament passed a consti tution al law for the govern ment of autono mous Slovak ia. In order that Slovak ia might be �58 SLOVAKIA properly represented also in the Central Government in Prague, Karol Sidor was made the vice-presiden t of that body. In addition, Slovakia had its own delegates in the ministries of foreign affairs, national defense and finance . The Slovak nation had just attained this goal when confronted by a catastrophe similar to that which was it the Bohemian lands. The southern section of visited had by Magyars, was claimed by the Magyars, inhabited Slovakia have liked to occupy all of Slovakia. fact in would who had to work out a new boundary government The Slovak 7 Discussions were based on government. Magyar with the of the population. The nationality the of the statistics 1930 census, whereas the of statistics the Magyars rejected taken during the statistics, 1910 the the Slovaks regarded setting of the The unjust. as period of Magyarizatio n, court impartial an to left new boundary was therefore Germany and Italy of of arbitration. The foreign ministers rendered a decision on November 2, 1938, which the Slovaks considered to be unfair. By it Hungary received and occupied cities and areas in southern Slovakia that were entirely or predominantl y Slovak. This decision resulted in many economic and commercial hardships for Slovakia because the new boundary severed railroads and roads, and a number of Slovak valleys, open toward the south, lost their connection with the territory of Slovakia. Even these injustices and hardships failed to shatter the spirit of the Slovak nation. The Slovak Government, by exerting all its energy endeavored to organize the administratio n of Slovakia in a way that would prove its ability to exist as an entity. It was anxious above all to see all Slovaks lay a strong foundation for the future of Slovakia by means of firm national unity and faithful cooperation. According to the declaration of Slovak autonomy, elections for seats in Parliament were held as early as December 18, 1938. Members of the Slovak Parliament became the representativ es not only of the Slovak People's Party, but also of the remaining political parties which now formed the Slovak National Unity Party as the result of the zilina agreement. In the Slovak Parliament national minorities also had their representativ es. A month later, January 18, 1939, the legislative assembly of autonomous �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovakia was opened in a festive manner and began its activity. It soon appeared that the form and amount of selfgovernmen t which Slovakia possessed could not supply all the needs of Slovak national life. In its twenty-yea r struggle for its rights, the Slovak nation had reached a level of maturity, and had set its heart on a measure of freedom, for which autonomy was too small a frame. Not even the Czechs were satisfied with the autonomou s status of Slovakia. They found it hard to give up the rule of Slovakia even though responsibl e persons in the Prague Governme nt repeatedly complaine d that the Czechs were obliged to subsidize Slovakia. The Slovak nation felt that it was capable of taking over the administra tion of its country entirely, while the central departmen ts in Prague often proceeded as though there were no declaration of Slovak autonomy in existence. Fresh disagreeme nts and dissension s arose between the Slovaks and Czechs, and the situation in autonomou s Slovakia continued to be vague and confused. The situation was made worse by the intrusion of outside influences. This confusion, aggravated by the rapacity of its neighbors, could have had catastrophic consequen ces for the fate of Slovakia. The Slovaks longed for the peaceful growth of their own life, and the orn: condition necessary for such a life was the national independen ce of Slovakia. The Slovak nation, having come so far along the road of its historical evolution, was prepared and determined to take this step also, because it was convinced that it had a right not only to autonomy, but also to its own independen t state. And this step was the only refuge for Slovakia against the storm threatening it in the tense internation al situation. " FAITHFUL TO OURSELV ES FORWARD IN HARMONY ! " As a result of the constantly increasing demands of Germany, the situatjon which developed in Central Europe was very confused and perturbed at the beginning of March, 1939. It was clear, however, that the Czecho-Slo vak Republic had arrived at the edge of an abyss. The Slovaks did not feel duty-bound to hurl themselves into that gorge. �60 SLOVAKIA Rather, the Slovaks looked for an escape that would lead them to safety. In Bratislava representatives of Germany sought out Karol Sidor, whom they considered the most popular political leader in Slovakia, and urged him to declare the independent State of Slovakia over the radio. Dr. Jozef Tiso was invited to Berlin for a discussion with Adolf Hitler and his minister of foreign affairs, von Ribbentrop. They both informed the president of the Slovak government of the danger confronting Slovakia and demanded his decision at once. Neither Karol Sidor nor Dr. Jozef Tiso complied with this urgent demand because they considered any decisions regarding the future legal status of Slovakia to be the right and duty of the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava. The Slovak Parliament, elected according to the decree of Slovak autonomy, was called into session by the president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Dr. Emil Ha.cha, and on March 14, 1939, it declared Slovakia an independent and self-governing state by unanimous resolution. The presidium of the Parliament appointed the administration of independent Slovakia, with Dr. Jozef Tiso at his head, and the Slovak Government then took over all power in Slovakia into its own hands. Even though the international situation, during which Slovakia's declaration of independence was made, influenced the rapid succession of events in Slovakia, the Slovak Parliament-as the legal and authorized interpreter of the Slovak nation's will-did only what the Slovak nation had a right to do. Conscious of this right, the Slovak nation accepted the decision of the Slovak Parliament as the natural result of historical development not only with enthusiastic agreement and sincere joy, but also with a determination to bear the entire burden of responsibility for its own destiny and to prove that it was mature and ready for national independence. The proclamation of autonomous Slovakia as an independent state marked the end of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Even so, the Czecho-Slovak Republic would not have been able to survive the hurricane of events. Its fall would have been Slovakia's downfall also, and the Slovak nation would have been left to the mercy of its neighbors. The decisive action of the Slovak Parliament placed before �SLOVAKIA 61 Slovakia's neighbors a ready reality, and the government of the neighboring states took this reality into consideration and respected it. The independent State of Slovakia was recognized either de iure or de facto by the following states: Belgium, ( de facto ), Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Equador, Estonia, Finland, France ( de facto ), Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Latvia, Manchuria, Poland, Siam, Soviet Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Vatican State and Yugoslavia, 27 nations in all. These states included great powers and small countries, neutrals as well as belligerents in the Second World War. Not even the allies of the former Czecho-Slovak Republic hesitated to recognize the national independence of Slovakia. Some of these nations established and maintained diplomatic and commercial relations with Slovakia, whereas others were not able to do so because they were obstructed by the War. The Slovak State did not solicit the protection of its German neighbor, but when the German Government itself came with the proposal of a defense pact, the Slovak Government, for various reasons, could not reject such an offer. True, this treaty restricted the sovereignty of the Slovak State to a certain extent, but on the other hand it assured the safety of Slovakia not only against the nation which frequently advanced its historical claims to Slovak lands, but also against Germany itself. Although the Slovaks had in the past claimed the right to a free life, the nations who were deciding the fate of Slovakia rejected these petitions, and, despite other proofs, kept insisting that Slovakia because of its small size could not maintain itself as a separate and independent political unit since it was not supposed to be economically selfsustaining. Therefore, they concluded, it would be to the advantage of Slovakia to be in a union with another state, and it was intimated that the Slovaks should be thankful if someone would be willing magnanimously to support them. From the very beginning of its life as an independent state, Slovakia strove to disprove this false legend of economic dependence. And it controverted it in such a way at every step that these arguments against Slovak independ- �62 SLOVAKIA ence completely disappeared. As soon as its autonomy was proclaimed, the Slovak Government floated a loan for the economic revival of Slovakia, and the Slovak people themselves in a short time subscribed an amount necessary to cover this need. In a similar manner a gold standard was created for the Slovak Republic, to which the Slovaks sacrificed their valuables. The mint at Kremnica which had coined Hungarian currency for 600 years, for the first time in its history began to mint money with the seal of the Slovak State. It was discovered that Slovakia had enough varied raw materials which it could work, and that Slovak industry could increase its production to the point where it could export its products. Slovakia concluded trade agreements with many European countries, and the foreign trade of the Slovak Republic was highly active. The Slovak "koruna" (crown) won a reputation as the "Tatra Dollar," and its steady value was the best proof of the settled economy of the Slovak State. The Slovak Parliament, as early as July 21, 1939. approved the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, thereby establishing a strong foundation of legal procedure and the future development of Slovak national life. 8 On October 26, 1939, Dr. Jozef Tiso was unanimously elected the first president of the Slovak Republic and was recognized by the Slovak nation as the successor of the 9th-century Slovak princes. His motto: "Faithful to Ourselves-Forward in Harmony!" succinctly expressed not only the principles he practiced in his own high office, but also the program of Slovak statehood. The Slovak nation, particularly during those tempestuous days, took careful note of all the advantages and disadvantages obtaining from its position at the historical crossroads of Central Europe. The generation: which lived to see liberty on the soil of the ancient Slovak fatherland wanted to forget the injustices of the past and sincerely to establish friendly relation with all the nations with which it would come into contact. It wished to stand not only on the free land of its ancestors, but also on the spiritual foundation of its own life, to retrieve in unity with all Slovaks what the Slovak nation had lost through no fault of its own, and to prepare a peaceful and prosperous future for generations to come. �SLOVAKIA 63 It was along this road that Dr. Jozef Tiso led the Slovak nation as president of the Slovak Republic. As the Slovak nation was laying the foundations of its State and was taking its first steps on the road of a free life, the storm of war began to spread over Central Europe. Its flames grew and engulfed more and more countries. But the hurricane of war, moving from the west to the east, passed over Slovakia without damage. During the first years of the War, when the German armies penetrated through Poland and were headed for Moscow, reaching the Volga River and the foothills of the Caucasus, Slovakia remained in a sort of vacuum, free to develop in every respect without interference. Especially the cultural life of Slovakia blossomed at this time. In the Slovak University, the Technical Institute, the School of Commerce and Business, the Slovak National Library, the Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in its other older and newer cultural institutions the Slovak nation discovered media of growth such as it had never known in the past. The number of books increased daily, new radio stations were built, and the production of cultural and documentary films was initiated. Unusual cultural activity flourished throughout Slovakia with many Slovak villages erecting cultural buildings as agencies for their own progress. Slovakia grew because the creative abilities of the Slovak nation were not being exhausted in the defense of natural rights, now guaranteed by political independence and its own national administration. The Slovak Republic, emerging during the twilight of the great War, was beclouded by a crucial question: How would the War end, and what kind of fate awaited this small yet so promisingly developing State? The Slovak nation was determined to defend its national independence as the only real basis for its national liberty, and so it exerted itself to have the Slovak Republic remain on the map of postwar Europe. It had a right to believe that it could preserve its liberty and national independence, but it knew from its own experience the bitter truth that if the others decided the fate of a nation, the rights of a nation are seldom considered. The only desire of the Slovak nation at this time was the Slovak Republic be rid of the outward pressure which limited its sovereignty �64 SLOVAKIA and influenced its decisions. When a turn of events came in the War, and military danger began to approach from the East, the Slovak nation began to fear for its future . These fears grew as the Slovak nation realized that it did not have the strength to repel this threatening calamity. Besides this, it was aware of designs being made against the Slovak Republic in foreign countries.9 It was reasonable to presume that, because of the Soviet army's superior force, the hard-pressed German army would not retreat through the mountainous territory of Slovakia. In the north, the Soviet army advanced from the Carpathians through Poland, and in the south, through Hungary; and it could be sudmised that Slovakia would not become a battleground. It could expect to be spared at least the destruction of war. These suppositions, however, were not fulfilled, because the agents of Moscowwi th the help of Communist partisans, landed in the Slovak mountains by Soviet aircraft, organized an uprising in Slovakia in August, 1944, and produced a chaos which confused a portion of the native population. 10 This entire action had no political significance because it had no influence on the fate of Slovakia. From a military viewpoint the uprising was foolish, and it collapsed in a shameful manner. But from an economic point of view, the uprising caused greater damage than had been suffered by the country for centuries. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives for no reason, railroads, tunnels and bridges were arbitrarily destroyed, and many villages were reduced to ashes. With the blood that was needlessly spilled and the smoke which hung over the ruins perished not only the national independence of Slovakia, but also the liberty of the "liberated" Slovak nation. On the heels of the Soviet army's divisions and their unspeakable atrocities, from Moscow to desolated Slovakia came Dr. Eduard Benes with the government of a resurrected Czecho-Slovak Republic. After five years of existence in its own state the Slovak nation arrived, against its own will and contrary to all the principles of natural and self-determining rights, at a position in which it did not care to live at any price, with nothing but slavery staring it in the facp �SLOVAKIA 65 BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN The Slovak Republic was a small state. It emerged in unusually restless times and grew under very complicated conditions. In view of these circumstances, it could not become an ideal or complete state. Large, ancient, and mighty nations have their faults and weaknesses, too . The Slovak Republic cannot be condemned for the imperfection connected with its infancy nor for the errors it made, which in more than one case were simply the result of outside influences. It is an incontrovertible historical fact that the Slovak nation, in all of i~ more than one-thousand year history, never had such liberty, such rights, so much employment, such a measure of material welfare, such conditions for spiritual growth and cultural progress, or so much joy in living, as it had in the years of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation was contented with its State, despite its deficiencies, and it did not long for any other kind of state, including the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak Republic conclusively refuted all the arguments against Slovak national independenqe. Every Slovak could see for himself that Slovakia, utilizing the industriousness of its people, is large enough and wealthy enough to provide all the economic conditions needed for indep8ndent national life . . The Slovak nation, during its five-year history of political independence, passed with remarkable success its test in the art of creating a government, and it deserved to be recognized as an independent and equal member in the family of free nations. By its experience as a Slovak republic, it is qualified to decide all questions pertaining to its own life, and is prepared to use its strength for the common welfare of the nations of Central Europe. One Slovak generation tasted the sweet fruit of liberty for which so many generations of the Slovak nation had fervently yearned, and therefore Slovaks will never again be satisfied with the bitter bread of slave labor. All this the Slovak nation learned in its own state. But all this was noted also by Dr. Eruard Benes, who observed the development of Slovak life abroad during �66 SLOVAKIA the war and in the spring of 1945, accompanied by Soviet bayonets, set foot on the blood-stained soil of Slovakia. The restoration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was one of the g1·eat inter-national mistakes. The revival of this State not only could not draw the Slovaks and Czechs closer to each other, but, on the contrary, relations between the Slovaks and Czechs became extremely cold as a direct result of this forced cohabitation in a joint state. The so-called Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, which recognized in the Slovaks the distinctive marks of a nation and promised. them complete equality with the Czechs, was not a cure for the wound which Slovakia suffered by the loss of its national independence, nor could it serve as a basis for a satisfying cohabitation of these two nations within one state. This sort of solution of Slovak-Czech relations would have had a meaning when the Slovaks were seeking autonomy in the spirit of the Pittsburgh Pact. The declaration at Kosice and the promises of Klement Gottwald had no power of attraction after the violent destruction of the Slovak Republic. The national independence of Slovakia was trampled by the Soviet army, which was followed by the Government and President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The restored Czecho-Slovak Republic was alien to the Slovaks not only because it could in no way replace the Slovak State, but also because it brought Slovakia under the control of Moscow through the administration at Prague. Slovakia, even while silenced by the presence of the Soviet army, in no way concealed either its irreconcilable opposition to the situation in which it found itself or its desire for its own national independence. Dr. Eduard Benes, as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, was determined to crack this opposition of Slovakia at any cost and by any means, and to strangle in the Slovak nation every longing for independence. If Dr. Eduard Benes, by his personal propaganda, enjoyed the reputation abroad of a great democrat and farsighted statesman, he now himself tore off this mask and showed himself to be a ruthless tyrant far removed from democracy and wise foresight. He saw in the Communist people's democracy a new, higher and more advanced form of democracy, and �SLOVAKIA 67 as president of the restored Czecho-Slovak Republic he approved and confirmed all the violence committed by the Prague Government and its Bratislava agencies in the. name of the people's democracy. The Slovak nation now became a victim of revenge because it had its own state during the War. Criminal status was given not only to those who served in the Slovak Republic and had not redeemed their "crime" by the sin of treason, but also to those who disagreed with the new order. The executor of this people's democratic justice was the so-called "National Court" in Bratislava and the chain so-called "People's Courts" all over Slovakia . Since it was impossible to bring before the Court the entire "liberated" nation to condemn it , it was necessary to condemn hundreds and thousands of decent Slovaks in order that all Slovakia might be terrified silenced and coerced into slavish obedience. The " National Court" of Bratislava also condemned to death the president of the Slovak Republic Dr. Jozef Tiso, and the Czecho-Slovak Government together with its president saw to it that this judgment was carried out on April 18 , 1947. The execution of the President of the Slovak Republic evoked deep horror throughout Slovakia and at the same time extinguished the last spark of hope that Slovak~ and Czechs could live together in a common state. The gallows on which Dr. Jozef Tiso died a martyr's death stands above the chasm which once and for all obliterated any form of Czecho-Slovak state.11 Slovakia did not permit itself to be broken in its opposition to the Czecho-Slovak Republic nor to the Communistic people's democracy either by the murder of Dr. Jozef Tiso or by subsequent forcible measures. The Slovak nation is enduring the same wrongs, injustices and pains that are being suffered by all the other nations behind the Iron Curtain. The spirit and form of the Communist people's democracy are foreign, repulsive and unacceptable to the Slovak nation. With persistent and remarkable consistency, the Slovaks are rejecting everything that the Government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic as a servant of Moscow is �68 SLOVAKIA forcing upon them. And they are defending with heroic courage everything that feeds and strengthens their own life. 12 From the very dawn of its history, Slovakia has belonged to Western Europe, and for twelve centuries of its past it has lived in unity with the Christian civilization of the Western world. During this long historical evolution the Slovak nation has achieved a stature, spiritual character and moral tradition that cannot be reconciled with the godless materialism of Communist doctrine or with the un-Christian methods of the people's democracy. Even though its beautiful land serves as a huge prison behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak nation has not lost, but continues to confess fearlessly, its faith in God as the source of its strength and hope. Deprived as it is of everything, it still does not surrender its claim to a free life in its own state, but insists on an independent position in the great family of equal nations in Europe. Could youf as a free citizen of a democratic country, say that the Slovak nation does not deserve freedom? Or that it want more than it has a right to expect? FOOTNOTES 1) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p . 308. 2) In addition to many articles, Konstantin culen has written a separate two-volume study on American Slovaks: Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1942. The cultural life of American Slovaks is described in his book Slovaci v Amerike (Slovaks in America), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1938. Several articles are devoted to the intervention of the Slovak League in America in the political conditions of Slovakia in the book Slovensk<i Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocnri (Fortieth Anniversary of the Slovak League in America), Scranton, Pa., 1947. These questions are dealt in detail also by Karol Sidor in the book Slovrici v zahranicnom odboji ( Slovaks in the Resistance Movement Abroad), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1928. A separate book on the Pittsburgh Agreement was written by Konstantin culen, Pittsburghskd dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1937. 3 ) Martin Greco, Martinsk<i deklar<icia (The St. Martin Declaration) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. �SLOVAKIA 69 4) According to the 1930 census there were 3,329,793 inhabitants in 5) 6) 7) 8) Slovakia. Of this number, 2,284,355 were Roman Catholics, 213,725 Greek Catholics, 555,900 Protestants, 9,079 of the Orthodox faith . Only 16,890 were counted as not adhering to any religion: they were Czechs. The activity of Andrej Hlinka and the role of the Slovak People's Party are told in detail by Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934. The Slovak National Party was numerically small, gaining only one delegate in the election, but it numbered among its members many of the Lutheran intelligentsia. The cession of Slovakia southern lands to Hungary was decided already between the Prague Government and the administration of Hungary. The government of autonomous Slovakia was confronted by this prepared situation, and Dr. Jozef Tiso, who had led these conferences, was actually a delegate of the Central Government of Prague. The Constitution of the Slovak Republic was prepared by the vicepresident of Parliament and the chairman of the constitutional committee, Dr. Karol Mederly, who published it in an a separate brochure with a comprehensive introduction, Ostava Slovenslcej republilcy a jej zakladne smernice (The Constitution of the Slovak Republic and Its Basic Principles), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. 9) Plots against the independent statehood of Slovakia were led abroad by Dr. Eduard Benes who had resigned from the office of president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, had recognized Dr. Emil Hacha as his successor and then once again claimed the office of president. His faithful co-worker was the Slovak Communist, Dr. Vladimir Clementis. 10) The Soviet aircraft landed in Slovakia Slovak soldiers who had been captured by the Soviets and were obHged to join the so-called Czechoslovak Brigade in Russia. This entire brigade dispersed because the Slovak troops who had seen conditions in Soviet Russia with their own eyes did not wish to fight against the Slovak Republic, but fled to their homes at the first opportunity. 11) The entire address spoken by Dr. Jozef Tiso in Bratislava before his sentence has been published by the Slovak Catholic Sokol in a book entitled Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe (Dr. Jozef Tiso, in His own Words), Slovak Catholic Sokol, Passaic, N. J., 1952, edited by Dr. Jozef Pauco. 12) Much valuable information regarding the resistance of the Slovaks against Communism may be found in the booklet by Dr. Jozef :Mikus, The Thee Slovak Bishops, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Passaic, N. J. 1953. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 42 SLOVAKIA This Is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk'J}, Ph.D. SEPARATIO N FROM HUNGARY The Austro-Hung arian Monarchy was built on a shaky foundation. It may have survived in a less extended territory, had it grasped in time its historical mission in this ethnically disunited region of Central Europe. Hungary could have weathered the approaching historical holocaust if it had put into practice the spirit of justice and equality. But neither the Austrian Emperor nor the Hungarian King, neither the Government of Vienna nor of Budapest, reckoned with the given realities: they did not know how to rightly evaluate the strength of the new historical trends, nor did they forsee the direction of future developments . Hence they permitted themselves to be led by policies which could only lead to the disintegration of the entire Monarchy and to the fall of Hungary. Because of the national policy of Hungary, which curtailed the growth of Slovak national life in all of its phases. the Slovaks were not sufficiently prepared for the role which awaited them. When the World War broke out in 1914, under the emergency provisions of the Government any kind of Slovak political movement was unthinkable. The fate of countries and of nations is not always determined by their strength, but as much by circumstances which arise without their doing. This proved to be true not only of Austra-Hunga ry, which was shaken to its foundations by World War I, but also of the various nations which had gradually become aware that the time had come to take an account of the past and be concerned only about their own future fate, regardless of the interests of the Monarchy. At the beginning of the war, the Slovaks had no thought of separating from Hungary, much less could they have expressed such a thought aloud. But when the War was nearing its end and it was more and more evident that Austria-Hung ary could not escape defeat, the leaders of SLOVAKIA 43 the Slovaks saw that the military defeat of the Hapsburg Monarchy would furnish them the opportunity for attaining the goals they were not able to achieve in Hungary. Slovak patriots met for a secret conference in Turciansky Sv. Martin on May 24, 1918, where Andrej Hlinka plainly stated: "The thousand-year marriage with the Magyars has not panned out. We must be divorced." 1 The Slovaks took a stand for the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation and decided that at an opportune time they would sever all ties between Slovakia and Hungary and enter a new State composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Russia. The Czecho-Slovak National Council (Ceskoslovenska narodna rada ), founded in Paris in 1916, worked abroad for the disolution of Austria-Aungary and the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak State. At the head of the CzechoSlovak National Council was professor Thomas G. Masaryk, and its outstanding member was the distinguished Slovak scholar, Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who possessed unusual diplomatic talents and attained the rank of General in the French Army. Slovaks living abroad morally and materially supported the activity of the Czecho-Slovak National Council and in large numbers joined the CzechoSlovak Legion which fought on the side of the Allies against Austria-Hungary The Slovaks were convinced that if Slovakia would tear away from Hungary, it would enjoy all the conditions of a free national existence in a joint Czecho-Slovak State. The Czecho-Slovak National Council was most effectively supported by the Slovaks who were living in America and who always lllad a lively interest in the destiny of the Slovak nation in the Old World. Under the leadership of the Slovak League of America, which was organized already in 1907, they frequently raised their voice in defense of the Slovak nation in Hungary, and as free citizens of a democratic country they protested against the injustices which their native brothers in Slovakia had to suffer. Later, in the years of World War I , they stood in the first ranks of the battle for the liberation of Slovakia. It is to their credit not only that they made large financial sacrifices for the cause of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, but also that they insisted on having beforehand 44 SLOVAKIA a clear presentation and firm guaranties as to the relationship between the Slovak and Czech nations in the proposed joint State. Representatives of the Slovak League in America discussed this serious question with delegates of the Czech National Federation in Cleveland as early as 1915, and came to the conclusion that the future Czecho-Slovakia would be a federal union of states with complete autonomy for Slovakia. Subsequently, on May 30, 1918, representatives of the Slovak League met with representatives of Czech organizations and with the President of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, T. G. Masaryk, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and drew up an agreement which guaranteed political and cultural autonomy to Slovakia in the new State. This agreement was designed by T . G. Masaryk and later signed by him as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. 2 Only vague reports of this foreign action penetrated Slovakia, and the agreements which testify to the wise foresight of the American Slovaks were not even known there. Nevertheless, everything that could be undertaken in Slovakia during the War for the benefit of Slovakia's future was basically in harmony with what was being done independently overseas. In the meantime, events at the front indicated that the defeat of Austria-Hungary was inescapable. Emperor Charles published a manifesto on October 16, 1918, in which he promised a reconstruction of the Monarchy on a new basis, but it was already too late. The President of the Hungarian Government, Count Stephen Tisza, on the 17th of October, attempted to justify the Budapest policy of Magyarization, reluctant to see that it was just this policy that brought Hungary to inevitable disintegration and certain collapse. In the Hungarian Parliament, on October 19, the Slovak delegate, Dr. Ferdis Juriga, announced in the face of a stormy protest of Magyar members that neither the Hungarian Parliament nor the Hungarian Government had the right any longer to decide the future destiny of the Slovak nation, because the Slovaks would decide their own future on the basis of their right of self-determination. The Slovaks, unaware of what had happened in Prague on October 28, met on October 30, 1918, in Turciansky Sv. SLOVAKIA 45 Martin, where, chiefly under the influence of Andrej Hlinka, they organized a Slovak National Council and in a separate declaration proclaimed that the Slovaks once and for all Hrere separating themselves from Hungary and were of their own accord joining the Czecho-Slovak State.3 The new Czecho-Slovak State was born on the ruins of the Hapsburg Monarchy, which, having lost the war, was not able to defend its own existence and escape catastrophe. There was nothing left to do but define the boundaries of the new State (especially the Slovak-Hungarian border ), establish its international position, and construct its internal administration on a basis that would insure its ability to live. The most important condition for the healthy internal development of the Czecho-Slovak State was deciding the position Slovakia would occupy in the new State. The separation of the Slovaks from the Magyars and from Hungary was for the Slovak& not only painless, but joyful, as was the separation of the thirteen American colonies from England. " SLAVES UNTIL NOW - NEVER AGAIN!" Martin Razus (1888-1937)-a leading Slovak poet whose writings gave voice to the pains, longings, and hopes of his people, and whom the Slovaks called the "conscience of the Slovak nation"-welcomed the dawn of the new Slovak day with a poem, the refrain of which reads: "Slaves we have been till now, slaves we shall be no longer!" These words, mirrored the sentiment that prevailed throughout Slovakia in the first years of its new status. The Slovaks had reasons enough, at the end of the bloody war, to welcome the Czecho-Slovak Republic with open joy and sincere hopes. They had fought on all fronts, and had used every means, to bring about the formation of this new State. They had a right therefore to see in the Czecho-Slovak Republic a state they could consider their own. Slovakia experienced a period of genuine joy mostly because it had extricated itself from the union with old Hungary where it had striven in vain for equal rights. The Magyar language was removed from offices, schools, and all public life, and with its disappearance went all traces of Magyar domination. Slavonic traditions, which 46 SLOVAKIA had remained alive in Slovakia, prevented the Slovaks from being disappointed in their Slavonic brotherhood, a subject frequently discussed at the inception of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak people entered their new existence as a nation composed of large groups of Slovaks who had never estranged themselves from their origin nor allowed themselves to be misled by foreign ideologies, had preserved their language, their national traditions and all the marks of their national character. The democratic spirit which promted the laws of the new State gave assurance that the Slovak people would no longer serve foreign masters, but would concentrate on the development of their own life in order to regain as quickly as possible what they had lost in the past through no fault of their own. Aristocratic titles, together with their corresponding historical privileges, wer e abolished. A federal Land Commission was set up to expropriate for a fair price land held by big non-Slovak landowners and distribute it to the small Slovak farmers , who had always been the strong core of the Slovak nation. It was anticipated, with good reason, that the industry, that would develop in the western part of the new State would be supplemented by the farm and forest economy of Slovakia, a balance that could be achieved only by means of such a union with the Czech lands. It was also to be expected that under the influence of new social laws the living standard of the working people would be raised. The Constitution, approved on February 29, 1920, guaranteed civil equality and political rights to all citizens, thus giving the Slovaks the privilege of influencing the affairs of government. A great deal of pain was caused in Slovak life by the schools which had been used as an instrument of denationalization. This injustice was corrected by the retention of Magyar schools only in those parts of Slovakia where was a Magyar population. New high schools and technical schools were established where there had been none before. In Bratislava, which had become the capital of Slovakia, a new university was founded in 1919 with three faculties. Besides other cultural organizations, the National Slovak Theatre came into being. In every city and village of Slovakia, public libraries were established and plays SLOVAKIA 47 were presented, with the result that vigorous cultural activity spread throughout the country. In Turciansky Sv. Martin, the Matica Slovenska was reopened, to provide Slovakia with the new products of Slovak literature. In Slovakia there was a revival of old Slovak political parties whose activity was restricted under the Hungarian regime and completely stopped during the war. In addition, new political parties were organized, so that Slovaks could participate in politics according to their convictions. The desire for a new, free, and full national life was discernible everywhere, and the program for providing this kind of life from day to day. The relationship between the Slovak and Czech people, however, was dimmed from the very beginning of their union, and as it continued it became streadily worse. The Czechs and the Slovaks, throughout their long history, had never lived together in a joint state. Each went their own way and developed under a different set of conditions. When these two Slavic nations now got together under the roof of a common state and began to knew each other better, it appeared that for all their lingual similarity there was a great difference between them. Slovakia is a country Christian from its foundations, 80 % Catholic, its deep, living religious traditions permeating the nature of the Slovak and his entire life. 4 The Czechs, as the result of a different historical development, had a different attitude toward religious questions, and when, after the beginning of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, they came to Slovakia, they approached the religious convictions of the Slovaks tactlessly, thereby creating antagonism in Slovakia. Between the Slovak and Czech nations a crevice of distrust began to form . This fissure deepened when the Czechs in Slovakia acted as though they were in a backward country. Many of them had the idea--even when there was no basis for it:r--that their role was to bring culture and progress to Slovakia. This condescending attitude offended the Slovaks, who in turn began to ridicule Czech "progressiveness." Under the pretext that the Slovaks did not have sufficient trained personnel to occupy various official posi- 48 SLOVAKIA tions, multitudes of Czechs who had previously lived in various parts of Austria and for whom there was no room in Bohemia, moved into Slovakia. The Slovaks were grateful to the Czechs for the assistance Slovakia certainly needed in the first years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. But the thousands upon thousands of Czechs who came into Slovakia were completely superfluous. The Slovaks began to look upon them as intruders who were taking away their jobs and bread. While the flood of Czechs was pouring into Slovakia, Slovaks left their homeland in great numbers and moved to all parts of the world. But the most important reason why the early enthusiasms of the Slovaks ended in rapid and complete disillusionment was that the Czechs were trying to build the Czecho-Slovak Republic on the same kind of foundation the Magyars had laid for the creation of a united great Hungary. The very opening words of the Czecho-Slovak Constitution speak of the "Czechoslovak nation"-which in fact never existed. The Czechs ever more openly proclaimed the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness. Since they themselves had no intention of giving up their Czech nationality; desiring to remain a Czech nation also in the future, this alleged Czechoslovak national oneness was simply a way of leading tha Slovaks into a national unity with the Czechs. Even though admitting its euphony, they spoke of the Slovak language as a dialect of the Czech tongue, a vestige that would gradually disappear from literature. Because there was indeed no Czechoslovak language, references were made to the temporary bilinguism of the Czechoslovak nation, or of two aspects of one language. The Slovaks, who had waged such a long, costly, and exhausting struggle in Hungary "for our Slovak language" and considered their language as one expression of their national individuality, were disturbed by such a development because they saw in it the design of Czechization. Slovak literature, from the Czech point of view, was merely an echo of Czech literature, and all Slovak culture just a part of Czech cultural life. They predicted that the Slovaks would gradually SLOVAKIA 49 merge with the Czechs in the unified State, that they themselves recognized the advantage of such a development, and that this unity would be the most secure foundation for the Czecho-Slovak Republic which would then stand as a strong bulwark against the pressure of their German neighbor. Czech policy, based on such assumptions, led to complete centralization which ignored the interests of Slovakia. This Czech policy aroused vigorous opposition in Slovakia. If the words of the poet Martin Razus meant that the Slovaks had been slaves in Hungary and that this slavery had ended once and for all, they soon took on the new meaning that the Slovaks did not care to be--nor would they be--slaves in the Czecho-Slovak Republic either. The Magyars had used a political ideology to justify their dealings with the Slovaks, though actually they were concerned only for their own safety. The lifeless fiction of Czechoslovak national oneness had a similar meaning. The Czechs are surrounded on three sides by the Germans, and they are exposed to the influence of this great neighbor. When the Czecho-Slovak Republic came into being, they thought Slovakia would become not only their colony but also a country which when gradually assimilated would strengthen their position over against the Germans. But the Slovaks, who had not been willing to perish in Hungary, were unwilling to sacrifice their national individuality even for the protection of the Czechs. Suicide can be committed only by a nation uninformed, cudutrally undeveloped, and unconcerned about its future, a nation which does not understand why it should care about its honor or its right to exist. Because it had endured so many historical trials, had lost so much of its own blood, and was unable to develop its national life under the trying conditions of its past, the Slovak nation grew weary of having its energies continually drained and finally longed to be a nation really free. For this very reason it recognized the danger it faced in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and with all the determination of a self-conscious nation took a stand for the defense of its honor and its right to the kind of life every nation deserves. 50 SLOVAKIA UNDER THE LEADERS HIP OF ANDREJ HLINKA In the first years of the Czecho-Slo vak Republic Slovakia had a sort of governmen t, headed by a special minister with full authority for the administra tion of Slovakia as a member of the Prague Governmen t. This administra tion had its headquarte rs in Bratislava, consisted of several cabinet members, and exercised powers of jurisdictio n for a brief period. But in the end it was subject to the Central Governme nt in Prague which handled the admi.Ristra tion of the new State as part of a pattern of complete centralizat ion. Czech policy with all its attempts at centralizat ion was challenged by Andrej Hlinka, who had revived the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska :r.udova Strana) and had evoked a strong opposition movement in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka saw the danger threatening Slovakia, and therefore tried to get the Paris Peace Conference to define the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slo vak Republic. For this he was imprisoned in the year 1919. Only upon his election to the Prague Parliamen t on April 18, 1920 was he released.5 The Slovak People's Party gained twelve seats in the election and, under the leadership of its chairman, Andrej Hlinka, began a relentless struggle for the rights of the Slovak nation in accordance with the Pittsburgh Agreement which had become the pattern of Slovak policy. This campaign had to be directed not only against the Prague Governme nt, but also against all the Czech political parties which, as servants of Prague centralism , had spread their nets also in Slovakia. Andrej Hlinka organized his party, set up its press, traveled throughou t Slovakia, and speaking at mass meetings, awakened in the Slovak people a strong national consciousn ess, an interest in political life, and courage to defend all their rights. These gatherings were often very stormy; neverthele ss the Slovak people followed Andrej Hlinka and saw in him their political leader. The inconsider ate actions of Czechs in Slovakia continued and strengthen ed the spirit of opposition in large groups of Slovak people against everything that came from Bohemia. In the years 1922-1926, when the Prague Governme nt was sending multitudes of Czechs into Slovakia to break Slovak SLOVAKIA 51 resistance to its policy of centralization, 250,000 Slovaks emigrated from Slovakia, forced to look for work in foreign lands. The Prague Government resorted to every means in order to discredit Andrej Hlinka and to frustrate the activity of the Slovak People's Party, but its attempts merely served to widen the breach between the Slovaks and the Czechs. The Slovak People's Party, in its campaign for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy, desired the fulfilment of what Slovakia had been guaranteed in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic T . G. Masaryk, who had designed and signed that Agreement himself, brushed aside the petitions of the Slovak People's Party with the excuse that the Pittsburgh Agreement is just an interesting document from the period of rebellion against Austria-Hungary, having no binding value . He claimed that the Slovak gained more in the Czecho-Slovak Republic than they were promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Slovaks would not recognize this devaluation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, and the American Slovaks, who were following carefully the progress of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak State, in their Message of the American Slovaks to the Old World encouraged their native brothers to pursue relentlessly the struggle for Slovak autonomy. Andrej Hlinka stood staunchly behind the autonomy platform of the Slovak People's Party, and that was the reason why it grew in numbers and in strength. In the elections of 1925 it won twenty-three seats in the Prague Parliament and became the largest political party in Slovakia, with the right to speak as the only authorized representative of the political will of the Slovak nation. When not even the Czechs could continue to close their eyes to the numerical strength and steadily increasing importance to the Slovak People's Party any longer, they tried to win it to the side of the Government. After lengthy deliberations, the Slovak People's Party sent its representatives to the Prague Government to see if they might achieve autonomy by this method. According to this policy, it sought changes in the affairs of the Government that would assure Slovakia a standing as a separate administration unit. In 1927 the Prague Parliament passed 52 SLOVAKIA a law dividing the territory of Czecho-Slovakia into four administrative regions. Beginning January 1, 1928, Slovakia was to become one of these units. Slovakia was empowered to elect its own provincial representatives, forming a provincial assembly for the management of the economic, transportation, social, health and cultural needs of Slovakia. The Czechs felt that by this concession they were satisfying all the demands of Slovakia. However, the Slovaks saw in this reform only "the first ray of Slovak autonomy." The provincial assembly had no legislative powers, one-third of its members were named by the Prague Government, and its jurisdiction was limited. Still, it was a step forward, and it bolstered the hope in Slovakia that gradually the entire autonomistic program set forth in the Pittsburgh Agreement would be realized. The Slovaks were not oposed to the Czecho-Slovak Republic, of which they wanted their own State to be a member. In fact, they believed that, despite all the hardships which hampered the realization of their political program, they would eventually reach their goal. Nor were they against the Czech nation as such; but they resolutely rejected the myth of Czechoslovak national oneness and ever more boldly resisted the Czech imperialism which persisted even after the reorganization of the Government. Relations between the Slovaks and Czechs did not improve ; rather, the centralism of Prague became pronounced that the conditions for harmonious cohabitation between these two nations grew steadily worse. The elections of 1929 again proved the firm position of the Slovak People's Party and its abiding determination to defend the rights of the Slovak nation. It withdrew from the Government and, as on opposition Party, submitted to the Prague Parliament several proposals for the sanctioning of Slovak autonomy. The Prague Parliament rejected all these motions. It was evident that the fight would have to go to the finish. The first requirement for the attainment of Slovak autonomy was unity of all Slovaks. The Czechs had always been able to find means to thwart the unification of the Slovaks. Now the Slovaks had to discover something that would unite them and lead them toward a common goal. The Slovak People's Party, led by Andrej Hlinka, was SLOVAKIA 53 predominantly Catholic. The Slovak National Party (Slovenska Narodna Strana), headed by Martin Razus, had a majority of Lutheran members.6 These two political parties, fighting for the autonomy of Slovakia, came to an agreement on a united precedure in 1932, and in a joint resolution expressed their mutual determination not to surrender Slovak rights even thought it might cost the disintegration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. This resolve of the Slovak nation was further stiffened and given a mighty manifestation when, from August 13-15, 1933, the Slovaks gathered in Nitra, the ancient headquars of the Slovak princes, to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of the dedication of the first Christian church in Slovakia. At this occasion the Slovak people not only reminded themselves of their antiquity and the rich traditions of their Christian culture, but at the same time emphasized their right to a free national existence in a great demonstration. More than 100,000 Slovaks assembled at the historic site of glorious Slovak antiquity to express their unquenchable longing for a free Slovak future. As the Prague Government did not understand Slovakia, so did not comprehend what took place in Nitra. It saw in the events in Nitra simply a demonstration against the Government. This prompted the seizure of the Slovak People's Party's press, the trial of its editor-in-chief Karol Sidor, an investigation of Slovak students and other steps which evoked a new storm of apposition in Slovakia. The premier of the Prague Government, Jan Malypetr, himself issued a separate manifesto in which he stressed that the Czechs contributed to the support of Slovakia and that Slovakia was ungrateful for this magnanimity. To give this speech as much publicity as possible in Slovakia, he had it printed on large placards and posted in all Slovak cities and villages. This tactless and-for a premier of a government-undignified act deeply offended every Slovak, because no one in Slovakia believed that Slovakia was dependent on the Czechs for a subsidy. Equally as politically indescreet and mistaken in statesmanship was the procedure of Dr. Eduard Benes who, as foreign minister of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, in December of 1933 spoke in several Slovak cities on the 54 SLOVAKIA "Idea of Czechoslovak National Unity from the Viewpoint of International Policy." The Slovaks were to keep silent about their grievances and their rights because Prague supported Slovakia. They were to disavow their national independence without a struggle and betray themselves in order to strengthen the international position of the State in which they were not able to arouse justice and reform. Instead of being misled and bowing to the Prague Government at this suggestion, the Slovaks advanced tow~rd their goal. They were unwilling to surrender their rights even for the survival of the Czecho-Slovak Republic which at this very hour had got itself into a really dangerous situation. Adolf Hitler and his National-Socialist Party had come to power in neighboring Germany. The Slovaks were correct in assuming that this tense international situation would force the Czechs to fulfill the Slovak demands in order to strengthen the Czecho-Slovak Republic for the possible outbreak of new dangers. The Slovaks did not wish to cause internal difficulties in the CzechoSlovak Republic and, even at this time, they had the good will to come to an agreement with the Czechs and to defend their joint State with their united strength. When T . G. Masaryk resigned from the office of President on December 14, 1935, representatives of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, at the election of the new president on December 18, voted for Dr. Eduard Benes who prior to the election had promised to see that the Slovak demands would be fulfilled. Dr. Benes made the promise, but it turned out that there was no one to fulfill it. For the first time in the history of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, a Slovak, Dr. Milan Hodza, became premier of the Government and also Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was a politician of rich experience and wide vision but involved in his own political conceptions and indecisive especially concerning the Slovak question. At the time, even had he wanted to settle the standing of Slovakia, he could not devote himself to the question because he was obliged to center all his attention on the demands of the Sudeten Germans. The integrity and existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was seriously threatened and the position of SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia was left unsolved after twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak State. In 1938 the situation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic became even worse. On March 12 Hitler occupied and linked Austria to Germany. The Sudeten Germans presented their demands again, but the Prague Government had no answer to give that would satisfy both the Germans and the interests of the Czecho-Slovak State. The international situation grew more and more acute, and the Czecho-Slovak Republic, preparing to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, was experiencing moments of deep unrest and worrisome uncertainty. Even under these circumstances the Slovaks, who for twenty years had striven for autonomy and for twenty years had not been able to achieve their goal, were peacefully preparing to commemorate in a grand way the twentieth anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. On Pentecost Sunday, the 5th of June, 120,000 Slovaks gathered in Bratislava to declare most emphatically that they would never give up their rights. At this occasian a delegation of the Slovak League of America was present together with its president, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, who brought along the original of the Pittsburgh Pact. The American Slovaks represented by the Slovak League wished to certify by their presence at this commemoration that they stood on the same platform they had accepted twenty years earlier. The throngs of Slovaks who welcomed the delegation of the Slovak League of America in the capital of Slovakia were not fanatic masses, but the self-conscious Slovak nation, politically trained and exemplarily led by Andrej Hlinka, giving notice for the last time and in a very resolute-yet in every respect honorable-manner, that it would under no pressure give up the struggle for its rights to a free life. In Bratislava, for the last time, Andrej Hlinka himself appeared before the crowd of faithful fellow fighters to receive the homage of his people before his death. The Prague Government, even with the Slovak Dr. Milan Hodza at its helm, failed to understand the true meaning of this historical event and the very next day arranged a demonstration in Bratislava advocating the idea of Czechoslovak national oneness in opposition to 56 SLOVA KIA Slovak autono my. This blund ering step was the climax of all the mistak es made by the Pragu e Gover nment in its absur d policy conce rning Slovak ia. Andre j Hlink a died Augus t 16, 1938. The Slovak nation stood at his grave resolu tely determ ined to finish its great strugg le witho ut regard for the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic. The mome nt had come when the Slovak nation had to be conce rned only aboutl its own destin y. VIA AUTO NOMY TO THE SLOV AK STATE The positi on of the Slovak s in the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic preven ted them from determ ining even their own destin y. Much less were they able to steer the course of intern al affairs in this State. Least of all were they able to influe nce the foreig n policy direct ed by Dr. Eduar d Benes . Hence the Slovak s bore no respon sibilit y either for the develo pment of the intern al life or the intern ationa l standi ng of the Czecho-Slovak Repub lic and could not be blame d for the situati on into which the State got itself. Small nation s are not creato rs of intern ationa l situations. Often they are merely helple ss figurin es on the great chessb oard of intern ationa l politic s, which is the game of large nation s. Furthe rmore , the small nation witho ut to a gover nment of its own it not given an oppor tunity l ationa active ly interv ene in the appea semen t of an intern 1918 situati on. The Slovak s were in sucl\ a positi on from to 1938. If great nation s assum e the right to create intern ationa l situat ions in which they utilize small nation s for the realiza tion of their power plans, a small and enslav ed nation canno t be blame d if for its own protec tion it utilize s an oppor tunity offere d by the wave of histor ical events . It is eviden ce of the Slovak nation 's politic al matur ity that it knew how to grasp such an histor ical oppor tunity , not neglec ting to use it for the attain ment of a goal it coul not achiev e by its own power . The Slovak s grew tired of vainly repeat ing their justifi ed deman ds when there was no one to fulfill them. They were theref ore determ ined and prepa red to take what was rightfu lly theirs. Imme diatel y after the Bratis lava manif estatio n the Slovak People 's Party presen ted to the Pragu e Parlia ment SLOVA KIA 57 a new nation for a law provid ing Slovak ia with autono my. At the time, Czech o-Slov akia found itself in the midst of a seriou s intern al crisis and was shake n to the found ations by strong outwa rd pressu re. With the threat of war hangin g in the air, the Pragu e Gover nment , heade d since Septem ber 23, 1938 by Gener al Syrovy , procla imed total mobili zation , a necess ity hasten ed still more by the intern al chaos in the Czech o-Slov ak Repub lic. The issue did not lead to war, howev er, becau se the Czech o-Slov ak Gover nment, on the advice of the Allies, acctep ted the condit ions dictate d by Germa ny accord ing to which the Germa n Army was to occup y the territo ries of Czech o-Slov akia that were popul ated by Germa ns. Nor was the Pragu e Gover nment able to reject the ultima tum of Poland deman ding that the Polish -occup ied territo ry of Silesia be joined to Poland . These circum stance s left the Slovak s no choice but to look out for thems elves. After length y and fruitle ss concultati ons with repres entativ es of the Pragu e regime , the Slovak People 's Party, led by Dr. Jozef Tiso after the death of Andre j Hlink a, had to take the fate of Slovak ia into its own hands . On Octob er 5th Dr. Eduar d Benes resign ed as Presid ent of the Repub lic, and on the 6th of Octob er the Execu tive Comm ittee of the Slovak People 's Party met in Zilina and sugge sted that all power in Slovak ia be taken over by the Slovak s by right of self-de termin ation. This resolu tion of the Slovak People 's Party was acctep ted and approv ed in all its parts also by delega tes of all the remain ing non-le ftist Slovak partie s. In the rapid succes sion of storm y events , the Slovak nation had to stakei out its future alone in order to preven t others from makin g the decisi ons contra ry to its intere sts. All these politic al partie s agreed also to join with the Slovak People 's Party to form a single party: The Slovak Nation al Unity Party (Stran a sloven skej narod nej jednot y). The Pragu e Gover nment, alway s deaf to Slovak previous deman ds, recogn ized this unanim ous decisi on of the Slovak politic al partie s. Slovak ia obtain ed its autono mous govern ment with Dr. Jozef Tiso at its head as prime minist er. Later, on Novem ber 19, 1938, the Pragu e Parliament passed a consti tution al law for the govern ment of autono mous Slovak ia. In order that Slovak ia might be 58 SLOVAKIA properly represented also in the Central Government in Prague, Karol Sidor was made the vice-presiden t of that body. In addition, Slovakia had its own delegates in the ministries of foreign affairs, national defense and finance . The Slovak nation had just attained this goal when confronted by a catastrophe similar to that which was it the Bohemian lands. The southern section of visited had by Magyars, was claimed by the Magyars, inhabited Slovakia have liked to occupy all of Slovakia. fact in would who had to work out a new boundary government The Slovak 7 Discussions were based on government. Magyar with the of the population. The nationality the of the statistics 1930 census, whereas the of statistics the Magyars rejected taken during the statistics, 1910 the the Slovaks regarded setting of the The unjust. as period of Magyarizatio n, court impartial an to left new boundary was therefore Germany and Italy of of arbitration. The foreign ministers rendered a decision on November 2, 1938, which the Slovaks considered to be unfair. By it Hungary received and occupied cities and areas in southern Slovakia that were entirely or predominantl y Slovak. This decision resulted in many economic and commercial hardships for Slovakia because the new boundary severed railroads and roads, and a number of Slovak valleys, open toward the south, lost their connection with the territory of Slovakia. Even these injustices and hardships failed to shatter the spirit of the Slovak nation. The Slovak Government, by exerting all its energy endeavored to organize the administratio n of Slovakia in a way that would prove its ability to exist as an entity. It was anxious above all to see all Slovaks lay a strong foundation for the future of Slovakia by means of firm national unity and faithful cooperation. According to the declaration of Slovak autonomy, elections for seats in Parliament were held as early as December 18, 1938. Members of the Slovak Parliament became the representativ es not only of the Slovak People's Party, but also of the remaining political parties which now formed the Slovak National Unity Party as the result of the zilina agreement. In the Slovak Parliament national minorities also had their representativ es. A month later, January 18, 1939, the legislative assembly of autonomous SLOVAKIA 59 Slovakia was opened in a festive manner and began its activity. It soon appeared that the form and amount of selfgovernmen t which Slovakia possessed could not supply all the needs of Slovak national life. In its twenty-yea r struggle for its rights, the Slovak nation had reached a level of maturity, and had set its heart on a measure of freedom, for which autonomy was too small a frame. Not even the Czechs were satisfied with the autonomou s status of Slovakia. They found it hard to give up the rule of Slovakia even though responsibl e persons in the Prague Governme nt repeatedly complaine d that the Czechs were obliged to subsidize Slovakia. The Slovak nation felt that it was capable of taking over the administra tion of its country entirely, while the central departmen ts in Prague often proceeded as though there were no declaration of Slovak autonomy in existence. Fresh disagreeme nts and dissension s arose between the Slovaks and Czechs, and the situation in autonomou s Slovakia continued to be vague and confused. The situation was made worse by the intrusion of outside influences. This confusion, aggravated by the rapacity of its neighbors, could have had catastrophic consequen ces for the fate of Slovakia. The Slovaks longed for the peaceful growth of their own life, and the orn: condition necessary for such a life was the national independen ce of Slovakia. The Slovak nation, having come so far along the road of its historical evolution, was prepared and determined to take this step also, because it was convinced that it had a right not only to autonomy, but also to its own independen t state. And this step was the only refuge for Slovakia against the storm threatening it in the tense internation al situation. " FAITHFUL TO OURSELV ES FORWARD IN HARMONY ! " As a result of the constantly increasing demands of Germany, the situatjon which developed in Central Europe was very confused and perturbed at the beginning of March, 1939. It was clear, however, that the Czecho-Slo vak Republic had arrived at the edge of an abyss. The Slovaks did not feel duty-bound to hurl themselves into that gorge. 60 SLOVAKIA Rather, the Slovaks looked for an escape that would lead them to safety. In Bratislava representatives of Germany sought out Karol Sidor, whom they considered the most popular political leader in Slovakia, and urged him to declare the independent State of Slovakia over the radio. Dr. Jozef Tiso was invited to Berlin for a discussion with Adolf Hitler and his minister of foreign affairs, von Ribbentrop. They both informed the president of the Slovak government of the danger confronting Slovakia and demanded his decision at once. Neither Karol Sidor nor Dr. Jozef Tiso complied with this urgent demand because they considered any decisions regarding the future legal status of Slovakia to be the right and duty of the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava. The Slovak Parliament, elected according to the decree of Slovak autonomy, was called into session by the president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Dr. Emil Ha.cha, and on March 14, 1939, it declared Slovakia an independent and self-governing state by unanimous resolution. The presidium of the Parliament appointed the administration of independent Slovakia, with Dr. Jozef Tiso at his head, and the Slovak Government then took over all power in Slovakia into its own hands. Even though the international situation, during which Slovakia's declaration of independence was made, influenced the rapid succession of events in Slovakia, the Slovak Parliament-as the legal and authorized interpreter of the Slovak nation's will-did only what the Slovak nation had a right to do. Conscious of this right, the Slovak nation accepted the decision of the Slovak Parliament as the natural result of historical development not only with enthusiastic agreement and sincere joy, but also with a determination to bear the entire burden of responsibility for its own destiny and to prove that it was mature and ready for national independence. The proclamation of autonomous Slovakia as an independent state marked the end of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Even so, the Czecho-Slovak Republic would not have been able to survive the hurricane of events. Its fall would have been Slovakia's downfall also, and the Slovak nation would have been left to the mercy of its neighbors. The decisive action of the Slovak Parliament placed before SLOVAKIA 61 Slovakia's neighbors a ready reality, and the government of the neighboring states took this reality into consideration and respected it. The independent State of Slovakia was recognized either de iure or de facto by the following states: Belgium, ( de facto ), Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Equador, Estonia, Finland, France ( de facto ), Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Latvia, Manchuria, Poland, Siam, Soviet Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Vatican State and Yugoslavia, 27 nations in all. These states included great powers and small countries, neutrals as well as belligerents in the Second World War. Not even the allies of the former Czecho-Slovak Republic hesitated to recognize the national independence of Slovakia. Some of these nations established and maintained diplomatic and commercial relations with Slovakia, whereas others were not able to do so because they were obstructed by the War. The Slovak State did not solicit the protection of its German neighbor, but when the German Government itself came with the proposal of a defense pact, the Slovak Government, for various reasons, could not reject such an offer. True, this treaty restricted the sovereignty of the Slovak State to a certain extent, but on the other hand it assured the safety of Slovakia not only against the nation which frequently advanced its historical claims to Slovak lands, but also against Germany itself. Although the Slovaks had in the past claimed the right to a free life, the nations who were deciding the fate of Slovakia rejected these petitions, and, despite other proofs, kept insisting that Slovakia because of its small size could not maintain itself as a separate and independent political unit since it was not supposed to be economically selfsustaining. Therefore, they concluded, it would be to the advantage of Slovakia to be in a union with another state, and it was intimated that the Slovaks should be thankful if someone would be willing magnanimously to support them. From the very beginning of its life as an independent state, Slovakia strove to disprove this false legend of economic dependence. And it controverted it in such a way at every step that these arguments against Slovak independ- 62 SLOVAKIA ence completely disappeared. As soon as its autonomy was proclaimed, the Slovak Government floated a loan for the economic revival of Slovakia, and the Slovak people themselves in a short time subscribed an amount necessary to cover this need. In a similar manner a gold standard was created for the Slovak Republic, to which the Slovaks sacrificed their valuables. The mint at Kremnica which had coined Hungarian currency for 600 years, for the first time in its history began to mint money with the seal of the Slovak State. It was discovered that Slovakia had enough varied raw materials which it could work, and that Slovak industry could increase its production to the point where it could export its products. Slovakia concluded trade agreements with many European countries, and the foreign trade of the Slovak Republic was highly active. The Slovak "koruna" (crown) won a reputation as the "Tatra Dollar," and its steady value was the best proof of the settled economy of the Slovak State. The Slovak Parliament, as early as July 21, 1939. approved the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, thereby establishing a strong foundation of legal procedure and the future development of Slovak national life. 8 On October 26, 1939, Dr. Jozef Tiso was unanimously elected the first president of the Slovak Republic and was recognized by the Slovak nation as the successor of the 9th-century Slovak princes. His motto: "Faithful to Ourselves-Forward in Harmony!" succinctly expressed not only the principles he practiced in his own high office, but also the program of Slovak statehood. The Slovak nation, particularly during those tempestuous days, took careful note of all the advantages and disadvantages obtaining from its position at the historical crossroads of Central Europe. The generation: which lived to see liberty on the soil of the ancient Slovak fatherland wanted to forget the injustices of the past and sincerely to establish friendly relation with all the nations with which it would come into contact. It wished to stand not only on the free land of its ancestors, but also on the spiritual foundation of its own life, to retrieve in unity with all Slovaks what the Slovak nation had lost through no fault of its own, and to prepare a peaceful and prosperous future for generations to come. SLOVAKIA 63 It was along this road that Dr. Jozef Tiso led the Slovak nation as president of the Slovak Republic. As the Slovak nation was laying the foundations of its State and was taking its first steps on the road of a free life, the storm of war began to spread over Central Europe. Its flames grew and engulfed more and more countries. But the hurricane of war, moving from the west to the east, passed over Slovakia without damage. During the first years of the War, when the German armies penetrated through Poland and were headed for Moscow, reaching the Volga River and the foothills of the Caucasus, Slovakia remained in a sort of vacuum, free to develop in every respect without interference. Especially the cultural life of Slovakia blossomed at this time. In the Slovak University, the Technical Institute, the School of Commerce and Business, the Slovak National Library, the Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in its other older and newer cultural institutions the Slovak nation discovered media of growth such as it had never known in the past. The number of books increased daily, new radio stations were built, and the production of cultural and documentary films was initiated. Unusual cultural activity flourished throughout Slovakia with many Slovak villages erecting cultural buildings as agencies for their own progress. Slovakia grew because the creative abilities of the Slovak nation were not being exhausted in the defense of natural rights, now guaranteed by political independence and its own national administration. The Slovak Republic, emerging during the twilight of the great War, was beclouded by a crucial question: How would the War end, and what kind of fate awaited this small yet so promisingly developing State? The Slovak nation was determined to defend its national independence as the only real basis for its national liberty, and so it exerted itself to have the Slovak Republic remain on the map of postwar Europe. It had a right to believe that it could preserve its liberty and national independence, but it knew from its own experience the bitter truth that if the others decided the fate of a nation, the rights of a nation are seldom considered. The only desire of the Slovak nation at this time was the Slovak Republic be rid of the outward pressure which limited its sovereignty 64 SLOVAKIA and influenced its decisions. When a turn of events came in the War, and military danger began to approach from the East, the Slovak nation began to fear for its future . These fears grew as the Slovak nation realized that it did not have the strength to repel this threatening calamity. Besides this, it was aware of designs being made against the Slovak Republic in foreign countries.9 It was reasonable to presume that, because of the Soviet army's superior force, the hard-pressed German army would not retreat through the mountainous territory of Slovakia. In the north, the Soviet army advanced from the Carpathians through Poland, and in the south, through Hungary; and it could be sudmised that Slovakia would not become a battleground. It could expect to be spared at least the destruction of war. These suppositions, however, were not fulfilled, because the agents of Moscowwi th the help of Communist partisans, landed in the Slovak mountains by Soviet aircraft, organized an uprising in Slovakia in August, 1944, and produced a chaos which confused a portion of the native population. 10 This entire action had no political significance because it had no influence on the fate of Slovakia. From a military viewpoint the uprising was foolish, and it collapsed in a shameful manner. But from an economic point of view, the uprising caused greater damage than had been suffered by the country for centuries. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives for no reason, railroads, tunnels and bridges were arbitrarily destroyed, and many villages were reduced to ashes. With the blood that was needlessly spilled and the smoke which hung over the ruins perished not only the national independence of Slovakia, but also the liberty of the "liberated" Slovak nation. On the heels of the Soviet army's divisions and their unspeakable atrocities, from Moscow to desolated Slovakia came Dr. Eduard Benes with the government of a resurrected Czecho-Slovak Republic. After five years of existence in its own state the Slovak nation arrived, against its own will and contrary to all the principles of natural and self-determining rights, at a position in which it did not care to live at any price, with nothing but slavery staring it in the facp SLOVAKIA 65 BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN The Slovak Republic was a small state. It emerged in unusually restless times and grew under very complicated conditions. In view of these circumstances, it could not become an ideal or complete state. Large, ancient, and mighty nations have their faults and weaknesses, too . The Slovak Republic cannot be condemned for the imperfection connected with its infancy nor for the errors it made, which in more than one case were simply the result of outside influences. It is an incontrovertible historical fact that the Slovak nation, in all of i~ more than one-thousand year history, never had such liberty, such rights, so much employment, such a measure of material welfare, such conditions for spiritual growth and cultural progress, or so much joy in living, as it had in the years of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation was contented with its State, despite its deficiencies, and it did not long for any other kind of state, including the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The Slovak Republic conclusively refuted all the arguments against Slovak national independenqe. Every Slovak could see for himself that Slovakia, utilizing the industriousness of its people, is large enough and wealthy enough to provide all the economic conditions needed for indep8ndent national life . . The Slovak nation, during its five-year history of political independence, passed with remarkable success its test in the art of creating a government, and it deserved to be recognized as an independent and equal member in the family of free nations. By its experience as a Slovak republic, it is qualified to decide all questions pertaining to its own life, and is prepared to use its strength for the common welfare of the nations of Central Europe. One Slovak generation tasted the sweet fruit of liberty for which so many generations of the Slovak nation had fervently yearned, and therefore Slovaks will never again be satisfied with the bitter bread of slave labor. All this the Slovak nation learned in its own state. But all this was noted also by Dr. Eruard Benes, who observed the development of Slovak life abroad during 66 SLOVAKIA the war and in the spring of 1945, accompanied by Soviet bayonets, set foot on the blood-stained soil of Slovakia. The restoration of the Czecho-Slovak Republic was one of the g1·eat inter-national mistakes. The revival of this State not only could not draw the Slovaks and Czechs closer to each other, but, on the contrary, relations between the Slovaks and Czechs became extremely cold as a direct result of this forced cohabitation in a joint state. The so-called Kosice Agreement of April 5, 1945, which recognized in the Slovaks the distinctive marks of a nation and promised. them complete equality with the Czechs, was not a cure for the wound which Slovakia suffered by the loss of its national independence, nor could it serve as a basis for a satisfying cohabitation of these two nations within one state. This sort of solution of Slovak-Czech relations would have had a meaning when the Slovaks were seeking autonomy in the spirit of the Pittsburgh Pact. The declaration at Kosice and the promises of Klement Gottwald had no power of attraction after the violent destruction of the Slovak Republic. The national independence of Slovakia was trampled by the Soviet army, which was followed by the Government and President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The restored Czecho-Slovak Republic was alien to the Slovaks not only because it could in no way replace the Slovak State, but also because it brought Slovakia under the control of Moscow through the administration at Prague. Slovakia, even while silenced by the presence of the Soviet army, in no way concealed either its irreconcilable opposition to the situation in which it found itself or its desire for its own national independence. Dr. Eduard Benes, as president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, was determined to crack this opposition of Slovakia at any cost and by any means, and to strangle in the Slovak nation every longing for independence. If Dr. Eduard Benes, by his personal propaganda, enjoyed the reputation abroad of a great democrat and farsighted statesman, he now himself tore off this mask and showed himself to be a ruthless tyrant far removed from democracy and wise foresight. He saw in the Communist people's democracy a new, higher and more advanced form of democracy, and SLOVAKIA 67 as president of the restored Czecho-Slovak Republic he approved and confirmed all the violence committed by the Prague Government and its Bratislava agencies in the. name of the people's democracy. The Slovak nation now became a victim of revenge because it had its own state during the War. Criminal status was given not only to those who served in the Slovak Republic and had not redeemed their "crime" by the sin of treason, but also to those who disagreed with the new order. The executor of this people's democratic justice was the so-called "National Court" in Bratislava and the chain so-called "People's Courts" all over Slovakia . Since it was impossible to bring before the Court the entire "liberated" nation to condemn it , it was necessary to condemn hundreds and thousands of decent Slovaks in order that all Slovakia might be terrified silenced and coerced into slavish obedience. The " National Court" of Bratislava also condemned to death the president of the Slovak Republic Dr. Jozef Tiso, and the Czecho-Slovak Government together with its president saw to it that this judgment was carried out on April 18 , 1947. The execution of the President of the Slovak Republic evoked deep horror throughout Slovakia and at the same time extinguished the last spark of hope that Slovak~ and Czechs could live together in a common state. The gallows on which Dr. Jozef Tiso died a martyr's death stands above the chasm which once and for all obliterated any form of Czecho-Slovak state.11 Slovakia did not permit itself to be broken in its opposition to the Czecho-Slovak Republic nor to the Communistic people's democracy either by the murder of Dr. Jozef Tiso or by subsequent forcible measures. The Slovak nation is enduring the same wrongs, injustices and pains that are being suffered by all the other nations behind the Iron Curtain. The spirit and form of the Communist people's democracy are foreign, repulsive and unacceptable to the Slovak nation. With persistent and remarkable consistency, the Slovaks are rejecting everything that the Government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic as a servant of Moscow is 68 SLOVAKIA forcing upon them. And they are defending with heroic courage everything that feeds and strengthens their own life. 12 From the very dawn of its history, Slovakia has belonged to Western Europe, and for twelve centuries of its past it has lived in unity with the Christian civilization of the Western world. During this long historical evolution the Slovak nation has achieved a stature, spiritual character and moral tradition that cannot be reconciled with the godless materialism of Communist doctrine or with the un-Christian methods of the people's democracy. Even though its beautiful land serves as a huge prison behind the Iron Curtain, the Slovak nation has not lost, but continues to confess fearlessly, its faith in God as the source of its strength and hope. Deprived as it is of everything, it still does not surrender its claim to a free life in its own state, but insists on an independent position in the great family of equal nations in Europe. Could youf as a free citizen of a democratic country, say that the Slovak nation does not deserve freedom? Or that it want more than it has a right to expect? FOOTNOTES 1) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p . 308. 2) In addition to many articles, Konstantin culen has written a separate two-volume study on American Slovaks: Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1942. The cultural life of American Slovaks is described in his book Slovaci v Amerike (Slovaks in America), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1938. Several articles are devoted to the intervention of the Slovak League in America in the political conditions of Slovakia in the book Slovensk<i Liga v Amerike styridsat'rocnri (Fortieth Anniversary of the Slovak League in America), Scranton, Pa., 1947. These questions are dealt in detail also by Karol Sidor in the book Slovrici v zahranicnom odboji ( Slovaks in the Resistance Movement Abroad), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1928. A separate book on the Pittsburgh Agreement was written by Konstantin culen, Pittsburghskd dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1937. 3 ) Martin Greco, Martinsk<i deklar<icia (The St. Martin Declaration) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. SLOVAKIA 69 4) According to the 1930 census there were 3,329,793 inhabitants in 5) 6) 7) 8) Slovakia. Of this number, 2,284,355 were Roman Catholics, 213,725 Greek Catholics, 555,900 Protestants, 9,079 of the Orthodox faith . Only 16,890 were counted as not adhering to any religion: they were Czechs. The activity of Andrej Hlinka and the role of the Slovak People's Party are told in detail by Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934. The Slovak National Party was numerically small, gaining only one delegate in the election, but it numbered among its members many of the Lutheran intelligentsia. The cession of Slovakia southern lands to Hungary was decided already between the Prague Government and the administration of Hungary. The government of autonomous Slovakia was confronted by this prepared situation, and Dr. Jozef Tiso, who had led these conferences, was actually a delegate of the Central Government of Prague. The Constitution of the Slovak Republic was prepared by the vicepresident of Parliament and the chairman of the constitutional committee, Dr. Karol Mederly, who published it in an a separate brochure with a comprehensive introduction, Ostava Slovenslcej republilcy a jej zakladne smernice (The Constitution of the Slovak Republic and Its Basic Principles), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. 9) Plots against the independent statehood of Slovakia were led abroad by Dr. Eduard Benes who had resigned from the office of president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, had recognized Dr. Emil Hacha as his successor and then once again claimed the office of president. His faithful co-worker was the Slovak Communist, Dr. Vladimir Clementis. 10) The Soviet aircraft landed in Slovakia Slovak soldiers who had been captured by the Soviets and were obHged to join the so-called Czechoslovak Brigade in Russia. This entire brigade dispersed because the Slovak troops who had seen conditions in Soviet Russia with their own eyes did not wish to fight against the Slovak Republic, but fled to their homes at the first opportunity. 11) The entire address spoken by Dr. Jozef Tiso in Bratislava before his sentence has been published by the Slovak Catholic Sokol in a book entitled Dr. Jozef Tiso o sebe (Dr. Jozef Tiso, in His own Words), Slovak Catholic Sokol, Passaic, N. J., 1952, edited by Dr. Jozef Pauco. 12) Much valuable information regarding the resistance of the Slovaks against Communism may be found in the booklet by Dr. Jozef :Mikus, The Thee Slovak Bishops, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Passaic, N. J. 1953.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource This Is Slovakia Description An account of the resource Francis Hrušovský, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970 pp. 42-69 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrušovský, František, 1903-1956 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/67fece92abc1a2e7d4588c6a99c5c2ba.pdf 48f71b3dde4a29e319e2150fb4a1a45d PDF Text Text 74 SLOVAKIA This is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk:J}, Ph. D. Slovakia lies along the northern shore of the central Danube, where the eastern slopes of the Alps touch the western slopes of the Carpathian mountains, and its territory covers the northern part of the Danubian basin. Since the dawn of European history, a route has run through the gate of the Danube, connecting the West and the East. This important route was intersected at this very point by several routes which ran from south to north and linked the coasts of the Adriatic with those of the Baltic and North Seas. According to ancient Slovak legend, evil spirits used to gather at crossroads and there would lie in wait for travelers. Crossroads have always harbored danger, and still do. Therefore the Slovaks erect crosses at intersections, to protect travelers who ·pass these dangerous places. From earliest times, nations seeking new homelands have flowed over these routes which intersect along the Danube. Through the portals of the Danube marched aggressive conquerors, and the soil of this land frequently served as the stage for bloody conflicts. The nation which settled in such a bustling spot experienced little peace, continually having to defend itself to keep from being swept away by the raging storms. In defending its life its strength was exhausted, and hence it could not grow and develop as it might have in a peaceful atmosphere where catastrophe is not always imminent. Precisely because of their country's location, however, the Slovaks became accustomed to danger, learned not to yield to threats, and now know how to endure numerous hardships. Over the routes which crossed at the center of the Danube traveled not only nations which had no permanent home as yet, but also conquerors lusting for booty and the expansion of their power. At this noisy crossroads between the Alps and the Carpathians, spiritual movements �SLOVAKIA 75 met and penetrated each other, and these defined the cultural developement and progress of Central Europe. All these trends touched Slovakia, fertilized the soil of its spiritual growth, and enriched the life of a nation which had settled this country and occupied it for centuries. For all the disadvantages resulting from the geographical location of its country, the Slovak nation had this great advantage: it was in constant touch with the trends of European cultural life. Slovakia has behind it a rich and vibrant past, and the Slovak people have acquired sufficient historical experience to realize not only their position and vital strength, but also the right to their own life in their own ancient homeland. IN A COUNTRY OF HIGH MOUNTAINS AND DEEP VALLEYS Life was not easy in a country which for the greater part is covered with high mountains and furrowed with deep valleys . In ancient times, people who had to struggle with Nature for their daily bread with bare hands and primitive implements, sought out the broad plains where the fertile soil required less work and provided them with easier living conditions. The tributaries of the Vistula River, which flows into the Baltic Sea, and the tributaries of the Danube, which empties into the Black Sea, indicated the route to the passes in the Carpathian mountains, and through these passes people traveled from north to south and from south to north. Through Slovak territory, from the early Stone Age until deep into the Middle Ages, passed a great assortment of tribes, leaving behind in his country material relics of their life and cultural level.1 Also in the historical period, which in Slovakia begins around the birth of Christ, Slovakia was inhabited by people of various origins who stayed for a shorter or longer time at this crossroads. After the Celts, who left behind in Slovakia their names of the mountains and rivers, this region was occupied by the German Marcomanni and Quaddi. At the very beginning of the Christian era, the central section of the Danube became the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. The Roman legions which had built a string of �76 SLOVAKIA fortresses along both banks of the Danube, tried to restrict the attacts of the barbarians to the provinces on the far side of the Danube, and at the same time attempted to conquer the land of Slovakia and thus advance the imperial boundaries from the Danube to the Carpathians. Finally, the Roman emperors themselves had to come to the territory of Slovakia in order to subdue the stubborn Germans who were trying to push deeper into the Danubian basin. 2 When, at the end of the 4th century, the Romans had to withdraw from the Danube, and when, subsequently, the German tribes also left Slovakia, the Slavs flooded Central Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. Hardly had the ancestors of the Slovaks moved through the Carpathian passes into the southern foothills of these mountains when the Danube basin was invaded from the east by the warlike Avars who then held control of Slovakia from the end of the 6th to the end of the 8th century. At the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries, the armies of emperor Charlemagne broke the power of the Avars, and his successors strove to conquer the neighboring Slovak lands. These battles were waged along the entire Germano-Slovak border and were often repeated especially along the Danube, which was the natural route to the East for the Western population. It is no wonder that this kind of territory would attract many nations who were seeking new homelands in their search for a safe and peaceful life. When the Slovaks settled along the Danube, there was no longer any available space in Europe which would accomodate new inhabitants. The Slovaks occupied this country when it belonged to no one, and so it was that they found themselves on the western rim of the Slavic world as immediate neighbors of the Germans. The ancestors of the Slovak people attached to this country the destiny of all the succeeding Slovak generations, who, in turn established their claim to this land by the fact that during their more than thousand year history they never deserted or renounced it. Life in this country was hard, as hard as the rocks of the Slovak mountains and the rocky terrain of their foothills. As a result, the Slovaks had an opportunity to �SLOVAKIA 77 learn how to work hard, to live meagerly, and to hold firmly to the hereditary land of their ancestors. Only thus were they able to survive all the storms of history and the hardships of life. Above the rocky floor of this country there is always heard the soft murmur of impenetrable forests, and in the quiet valleys echoes the song of lively rivers and swift streams.3 This country with its particular geography pressed the seal of its character into the nature of the Slovak people, who have enough vital courage to wrestle with the hardships of their fate and with their deep emotion manage to find beauty and joy in living even among these hardships. IN THE FAMILY OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS OF EUROPE The external peril which constantly threatened Slovakia at this historical crossroads led the Slovak tribes living along the central Danube and its tributaries to unite and defend themselves with their combined strength. Out of the tiny Slovak principalities a united Slovak state came into existence already in the first half of the 9th century. It was the first organized state in Central Europe . Simultaneously with this development, Christianity penetrated Slovakia. The first teachers of the pagan Slovaks were missionaries from neighboring Bavaria. By the year 830, during the reign of Prince Pribina, a Christian church was standing in the ancient home of the Slovak princes of Nitra. It was the first Christian church, not only in Slovakia, but in the entire territory of the western Slavs. With the Christian faith , which took root in Slovakia rapidly and firmly, Christian civilization entered the country. In the 9th century, therefore, the Slovak nation was already a member of the civilized, that is, Christian, nations of Europe. The entire region settled by Slovaks and divided into small principalities was successfully united by prince Mojmir, who ruled the country until the year 846. His successor, Prince Rastislav (846-869 ), fully realinzing the outward dangers, wanted to provide his country with an internal strength that would be able to resist any attack. In the year 863 he invited SS. Cyril and Method, who completed the Christianizing of the Slovaks, �78 SLOVAKIA laid the foundations of Christian education, and sought to establish a self-sustaining church organization to support the political independence of Slovaks. The headquarters of the Slovak princes in Nitra was also the residence of the bishop as early as 879. Svatopluk ( 870-894), whom contemporary sources call a king and consider "the most glorious of the Slavonic rulers and almost as mighty as an emperor", extended his domain to include the neigboring Czech and Polish tribes. He waged successful wars against his Western neighbors, maintained diplomatic relations and concluded diplomatic peace treaties with neighboring rulers, safeguarded the independent status of his country, and, in the year 880, placed himself, his country and his people under the protection of the Holy See. His son and successor, Mojmir II ( 894-906) , stalwartly defended the heritage of his great ancestors against threats not only from the West, but also from the East. By the end of the 10th century, the Danube basin was invaded by the Magyars. In these battles, waged on two fronts, the Slovaks were bled. 4 Slovakia, at the threshold of the 10th century, lost the conditions necessary for independent development. A great and glorious chapter of Slovak history was ended, but neither its inspiring memory, nor the right of the Slovak nation to liberty and independence, ever faded. The Slovak nation, at the very beginning of its history, passed the test which proved its ability to govern its own land and keep pace with the development of Europe. Firmly implanted in the great family of civilized nations, it could not be shaken loose later by the pounding waves of historical movements. A THOUSAND YEARS UNDER A FOREIGN ROOF The invasion of the Danube basin by the pagan Magyars disrupted the political and cultural development of this region of Central Europe. Marauding bands of Magyars frequently traversed the devastated land of Slovakia and terrorized neighboring countries. Under these circumstances the organization of the Slovak State collapsed, the ecclesiastical management of Slovak territory disintegrated generally, many churches fell victim to destruction, and �SLOVAKIA 79 the advance of civilization was halted momentarily by the wide-spread ruin. But Slovakia, even after these calamities, was not left a barren wilderness. All the attainments of Western civilization appropriated by the Slovaks in the 9th century and all the spiritual values which they had constructed under their own rules were not to be destroyed by fire and sword. In the 10th century Slovak territory was no longer organized as an independent state, but neither did it belong to any other government, for there was no established government along the central Danube in those days. The Slovaks lived on their ancient homeland but they had no roof of their own above them to insure their peaceful growth. In the years 955 Emperor Otto dealt the Magyars a defeat which put an end to their sorties and former manner of life. Because of this blow they were forced to settle down permanently, establish their standing among their neighbors and adjust themselves to their new circumstances. They occupied the central region of the Danube basin and at the end of the 10th century, under the leadership of the princes of the Arpad dynasty, began to build a new state: Hungary. Sometime around the year 1000 Slovakia became a part of the Hungarian State. The Slovak people did not come into Hungary as a nation defeated and subdued. Exhausted as it was by long battles and devastated by wars, Slovakia had no alternative but to become a member of the new government which had begun to form in the Danube basin. The Slovaks did not enter the Hungarian State empty-handed, dependent upon the favor or disfavor of the new government. In addition to the territory of their own country, the Slovaks brought into the budding Hungarian State their entire material and spiritual heritage which had survived the tragedy of the Slovak State and the storms of the 10th century. This Slovak heritage served as a partial foundation for the government, the church organization, the economic life and the cultural growth of Hungary.5 For a long time Slovakia was the most Christian and most cultured region of medieval Hungary and remained so until the most recent times. �80 SLOVAKIA Gradually the entire Danube basin entered the union of the Hungarian State. Although Slovakia did not constitute a separate political and administrative unit in ancient Hungary, its geographical location, its topographical features, its national character, its historical past and its cultural maturity provided it with a special position and a role of its own, even in the framework of the Hungarian State. From the formation of the Hungarian State until the end of the 11th century Slovakia was a vassal principality. At the junction of the 13th and 14th centuries it was the political and military center of power of the "Master of the Vah and the Tatras", Matus cak Trenciansky. During the first half of the 15th century, in the hands of Jan Jiskra, Slovakia played a role in the internal conflicts of Hungary. From the year 1540, when the Turks occupied a large area of Hungary, and for more than a century and a half thereafter, it continued to become more prominent in the affairs of the Hungarian State. Hungary never was and never became a purely Magyar state. The Danube basin has always been a living mosaic composed of diversified national units: Slovaks, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Germans . Among these nations and national minorities the Magyars never comprised a numerical majority, but by virtue of their origin, language and character they were strangers to all other inhabitants of the Danube basin. Nevertheless, because of this very fact and because they occupied the most advantageous location in the very center of the Danube basin, they were able to attain the leading position in the State of Hungary. The ruling families which mounted the Hungarian throne, after the extinction of the Arpads in 1301, were of non-Magyar origin. The official language until the end of the 18th century was Latin. Furthermore, the culture which developed in Hungary was the common product of all the inhabitants of the Danube basin. Thanks to these circumstances, Slovakia, even though it did not enjoy the conditions necessary for independent growth, was not menaced in medieval Hungary and retained its individual ethnical character. The vitality of the �SLOVAKIA 81 Slovak nation was such that not only isolated immigrants of Eastern origin ( the Sikuli, Pecenci, Polovci, Kumani), but also large groups of German colonists who settled in Slovakia particularly during the 13th century, lost their identity in the Slovak surrounding by natural assimilation. The distinctly Slovak character of Slovakia, though frequently imperiled by foreign influences, remained inviolate until the most recent times. The Slovak language thrived not only among larger groups of people in the villages but was heard also in the castles of mighty lords. Not even the cities with their centuries-old privileged German population could withstand the strong influence of the Slovak environment; gradually they too assumed a Slovak character. A certain Slovak scholar, contemplating the strange fate of Slovakia in Hungary, compared the life of the Slovak nation to the life of the dense forest which covers a great part of the Slovak land surface. Storms can cause much damage in a forest. Windstorms can uproot centuryold trees. Woodchoppers can cut down the forest piecemeal. But in the place of the old uprooted or cut-down forest grows a new and strong stand of trees with roots penetrating deep into the earth, between the rocks, clinging tenaciously to the earth which nourishes it. The Slovak nation is like an indestructible Slovak forest, firmly rooted in its native earth and its age-old traditions. Only such a nation could survive a thousand years without a roof of its own. ON THE BOUNDARY LINE OF TWO CIVILIZATIONS The Carpathians constitute not only the eastern boundary of the Danube basin, but, in the Middle Ages, they formed also the eastern boundary of Western civilization, Roman Christianity and Latin culture. Because this basin is more exposed to the West, it was open to all the cultural trends of the neighboring Western countries. Slovakia's particular position in the Danube basin placed it under the constant influence of Western European culture directly from the west (through Vienna), from the north (via Prague and Cracow), and from the south (via Budin). Byzantine Christianity and Eastern civilization �82 SLOVAKIA did make an entry through the Carpathian passes, but its influence covered only the easternmost part of Slovakia. The military expeditions of the German kings who waged war with the Hungarian kings and the campaigns of the Czech Hussites in the 15th century were a menace to the economic life of Slovakia but not to its cultural development. However, through the Carpathians from the East, even during the Middle Ages, came bands of fierce nomads bringing new dangers to the cultural life of the Danube basin. Aftear the Avars who completely disappeared from the domestic population of the central Danube, and after the Magyars who embraced Christianity and adjusted themselves to their new circumstances, and after the small groups of other Eastern nomads of Mongolian origin, a great calamity was visited upon Slovakia by the Tatars who invaded Central Europe in the year 1241 and devastated some sections of Slovakia. Not only the economic and cultural life of the Danube basin, but also the Christianity of the inhabitants was threatened by the Turks who, following their occupation of the Balkans, extended their power to the foothills of the Slovak mountains after the Battle of Mohac in the year 1526. Although Slovakia felt the effects of all these attacks and upheavals, it managed to maintain throughout the Middle Ages a close and unbroken connection with Western Europe, and this fact had a determining influence on the economic progress, the social development and the cultural life of Slovakia. This lasting and living contact of Slovakia with Western Europe is attested to by the rich relics of creative art which we find from the western to the eastern boundaries of Slovakia. The oldest historical remains, relics of the Roman style which dominated in Slovakia until the 13th century, have succumbed to the ravages of time and the devastation of war, or they have been replaced by newer relics; but many are in a state of partial preservation to this day. In contrast with these, there are unusually valuable Gothic relics from the 13th to 15th centuries which testify that Slovakia, at the peak of the Middle Ages, had attained a high level of culture. The parish churches of certain Slovak cities (Bratislava, Trnava, Levoca, Presov, Bardejov, Kosice ) are magnificent monuments of Gothic architecture, �SLOVAKIA 83 and some of them with their rich interior decoration are true museums of Gothic art. Imposing Slovak cities, especially the rich mining centers in central Slovakia (Kremnica-where gold ducats were minted as early as 1333-Banska Bystrica and Banska ~tiavnica ) and cities in the Spis region (Spisska Nova Ves, Levoca, Kezmarok) , have retained much of their medieval character to this day, proving that a vigorous culture bloomed in these cities in addition to industry, commerce and prosperity. Nowhere in Central Europe have there been as many medieval castles created and preserved as in Slovakia. They were the headquarters of powerful rulers; they played an important role in political history and in the military defense of the country, and stand as monuments of medieval feudalism and mute witnesses of the fate of a loyal nation. Many of these castles have fallen into ruin with the passing of time; only portions of their stout walls still tower above the rocky cliffs and wooded mountains to heighten the romance of Slovakia's natural beauty. Some escaped destruction and are still intact today. Their collections of historical relics tell the past of the entire region. The Slovak people who lived in the cities and in the villages surrounding these castles for centuries survived not only the feudal lords, but the splendor of their dwellings as well . Interesting legends recall their ancient past and their plight in the shadows of these castles. Slovaks have had an opportunity to learn to believe- as the Slovak adage puts it-that "everything is temporary except God."6 Slovakia was touched also by waves of the cultural movement which had its cradle in Italy: Renaissance or Humanism. This new intellectual and artistic trend entered Slovakia in the second half of the 15th century when Gothic culture was in full bloom there. In Bratislava, already in the year 1460, a university was founded that was to become a center of Humanism. Renaissance architecture developed chiefly in the eastern part of Slovakia, leaving its mark on the construction of Slovak homes. This cultural movement, which was so strong in the land of its origin-where ancient traditions have always had a home-,was not able to develop more fully either in Central Europe or in Slovakia because, simul- �84 SLOVAKIA taneously with the Turkish invasion of the Danube basin, the calm life of the country was disrupted by the Reformation. Slovakia also became a participant in this new phase of history. SLOVAKIA AS A BASTION OF EUROPE Implausible as it may sound, it is nonetheless a historical fact that Slovakia served as a bastion in the bulwark that defended Christian Europe against the danger from the East. It played this role when the Turks were in control of the central region of the Danube basin and were attempting to conquer the neighboring European countries. Life was difficult for the Slovaks in their mountainous homeland, but these mountains often proved to be their strongest protection. In the endless wooded mountains of their country they had found shelter from the Tatars. and they found in them the same kind of refuge from the Turks. Life in the hills was hard enough, but the proximity of the Turks brought new hardships to the Slovaks. Upon the shoulders of the Slovak people fell the burden 01 responsibility attending an organized defense against the attacks of the Turks. Plundering bands of Turkish wariors disturbed the population of Slovakia by plunging deep into Slovak territory, against the current of the Slovak rivers, and returning with captives as well as spoil. In order to resist the Turks and provide sanctuars for large numbers of the population, it was necessary to repair and maintain the ancient castles in Slovakia. This work was done by the Slovaks as faithful subjects. The cities strengthened their defenses, and those cities wich previously did not have to be fortified had to erect bulwarks. Even some cloisters in the vicinity of the Turks were transformed into temporary fortresses. To support the military forces which were to fight in the event of a Turkish assault, higher taxes had to be paid. These contributions had to be made by those inhabitants of Hungary who were not in the hands of the Turksprimarely Slovakia. Along the southern border of Slovakia, new forts were erected according to the new military �SLOVAKIA 85 strategy, and these were to obstruct the advance of the Turks toward the mining cities of central Slovakia. For a century and a half (from 1540 until the end of the 17th century), Slovakia lived in continual military preparedness and had to bear the tremendous burdens connected with such an abnormal situation. In addition to this, the land of Slovakia provided the stage on which were enacted, first of all, the wars between the antikings, Ferdinand I of Hapsburg (1526-1564) and Jan Zapol'a (1526-1540 ), and, later, the uprisings against the Hapsburgs . These revolts, apart from other reasons, were caused chiefly by the developments of the religious situation stemming from the Reformation and the Catholic Restoration. The teachings of the Reformation proclaimed by Martin Luther found welcome soil at an early date, particularly among the German urban population, and later spread over all Slovakia. The Protestant Church had a strong organization by the year 1612. In the Protestant centers, schools and publishing houses sprang up and books were printed to spread the new teachings among the inhabitants of Slovakia. However, this movement had hardly gained a foothold in Slovakia when, upon the invitation of the archbishop of Ostrihom, whose headquarters were in Trnava, Jesuits entered the country and began to carry out a zealous program of recatholization.7 This activity was centered in Trnava, where a Catholic university was founded in the year 1635. Near the university a large publishing firm was set up to print, in addition to scholarly Latin books, popular writings in all the languages of Central Europe. 8 Even though these two movements met in open conflict on Slovak soil, and the struggle was attended by various tragic occurences, the results were not as catastrophic as they were in other countries because the conflict was waged mostly on a spiritual plane-on the floor of the diet in city council-and predominantly with cultural weapons. For that reason Slovakia kept on growing culturally despite these religious disturbances. Strong traces of this fervent religious experience in Slovakia are found in the numerous and lovely relics of �86 SLOVAKIA baroque art. The unusually well-developed period of Gothic art was followed by a relatively weak impression of the Renaissance; but baroque culture spread far and wide and reached a high level in Slovakia. This period is represented by several still extant majestic churches of which the university church in Trnava and the Jesuit church in Trencin are outstanding for their size and perfection of form. The new style became popular in secular architecture also. Slovak cities took on a new appearance as the wealthy lords left their highly-situated and uncomfortable castles and built their palaces on the plains. Various elements of baroque art crept into Slovak folk art as well. This is evident proof that the Slovak people, while suffering under oppression, retained their deep emotions, their sense of beauty, their creative abilities, and their facility in adapting foreign artistic values to their own taste. It was not until the end of the 18th century that the religious conflicts came to an end. Protestantism, after its early successes, withdrew into the background, and the Catholic Church regained the upper hand. One important feature of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation was that both parties, in trying to gain the largest number of adherents, concentrated on the use of the vernacular. Alongside official and cultural Latin, the Slovak language begins to emerge and express itself in literary form. And with the revival of the Slovak language, a Slovak national consciousness and a longing for a new form of national life begins to bud, supported by the influx of new intel-lectual trends. ON THE WAY TO A LIFE OF THEIR OWN In the year 1683 the Polish king Jan Sobieski dealt the Turks a defeat, at the walls of Vienna, which marked the beginning of their withdrawal from Central Europe. In 1686 they had to surrender Budin, and by the end of the 17th century they were pushed out of the Danube basin into the Balkans. In these battles against the Turks and their anti-Hapsburg allies, economic misery in Slovakia increased and the social position of the subjugated people became practically unbearable. It is no wonder that the Slovak people saw in Juraj Janosik-who was hanged in 1713 because "he robbed the rich and gave to the poor"-their �SLOVAKIA 87 heroic champion and immortalized him and his deeds in legends, songs and art glass. 9 Hungary was finally liberated from the Turks and unified, but it was devastated, and areas which had been under the Turkish domination for a long time were virtually depopulated. The Slovaks contributed to the reconstruction and elevation of Hungary not only by paying higher taxes but also by leaving their mountainous homeland in large numbers and emigrating to the southern region of Hungary which was more fertile but lacked inhabitants and manpower. Hungary, in the meantime, developed closer ties with the countries ruled by the Hapsburgs. Charles VI ( 171117 40) , lacking a male heir, decreed that female descendants of the Hapsburg lineage could succeed him. This was the first law governing all the countries under the rule of the Haps burgs. The successors of Charles VI, Maria Theresa ( 17401780) and her son Joseph II (1780-1790), sought to perfect and intergrate the rule of their countries by introducing social, administrative and ecclesiastical reforms in the liberal spirit of current intellectual trends, which, together with other new measures, formed the groundwork for centralization and the beginning of Germanization. These reforms evoked a stormy reaction especially from the Magyars, because they ignored the rights of individual nations and imposed on them the German language instead of Latin. The new ideas which later, under the slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", resulted in the French Revolution, made their way into the Danube basin and affected also the nations of that region. These ideas found fertile soil not only among the Magyars, but also among the other nations which occupied Hungary. While the Magyars opposed the centralization of power in Vienna and the attempts at Germanization by the Hapsburgs, the nonMagyar nations of Hungary were preparing to defend themselves against the Magyars whose dream was to eventually build a single Hungarian State. In the 18th century the Magyars constituted about one-third of the population of Hungary. Next in numerical �88 SLOVAKIA size were the Slovaks, who were becoming as conscious of their nationality as the Magyars. Slovak national consciousness sprang and grew from several sources: besides the contemporary trends of thought entering Slovakia from the outside and the pressure exerted upon the Slovaks by the Magyars, Slovak national consciousness was strongly rooted in Slovak life itself. The Slovaks were becoming convinced anew that the country which they occupied was their own country and that they were its autonomous inhabitants with all rights of ownership to that region of Hungary. Reflecting this conviction, Jan Baltazar Magin emphasized the rights of the Slovak nation in a book published in 1728.10 Slovak writers revived the memory of Slovak antiquity, especially the glorious deeds of the Slovak rulers of the 9th century, in order to awaken among their people a longing for a free national future. In this vein, Juraj Papanek returned to the Slovak past in a book entitled Of Slovak Kings and Kingdoms, published in the year 1780; Juraj Sklenar, in a book on Vel'ka Morava printed in 1783; and Juraj Fandli, in 1793, with a revision of Papanek's book. The great events of ancient Slovak history were portrayed in the epic poems of the highly-gifted Slovak poet Jan Holly, entitled Svdtopluk ( 1833), in his book S ldv (1834) and in Cyrilo-M ethodidda (1835). With the Reformation, the Czech language spread throughout Slovakia and took root chiefly among Slovak Protestants. But Czech proved to be as foreign and as dead a language in Slovakia as Latin; hence the Slovaks began to cultivate their own language. The scholar Matej BelFuntik (1687-1749), in Latin work, wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness and grandeur of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of French, the loftiness and strength of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian, or the imperious sternness of Hungarian." Anton Bernolak, in the year 1787, wrote a grammar of literary Slovak, and later published a six-volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Hungarian dictionary. In the year �SLOVAKIA 89 1843 definitive rules of Slovak grammar were established, and these then became the instrument of an independent Slovak literature. As with their language, the Slovaks began to pay attention to the distinctive products of Slovak folk culture, in which they recognized the creative abilities of the Slovak spirit. All this filled the Slovaks with a feeling of national consciousness and instilled them with courage to win for themselves the rights that belong to people who consider themselves a separate nation and yearn to live as such. The Slovaks did not forget, but rather remainded themselves clearly at this time, that their position on the western border of the Slavic world and their immediate proximity to non-Slavic countries exposed to new perils. They felt that they were not strong enough numerically to defend themselves against the pressure of their neighbors. Therefore, in addition to fostering their own national individuality, they began to take into consideration their relationship to the other Slavonic nations, hoping to find support for the growth of their own life in the great family of Slavs. The idea of Slavic brotherhood found expression in Sldvy dcera (Daughter of Shiva), 1824, a poem by Jan Kollar, and in the scholarly work of Pavol Jozef ~afarik Slovanske starozitnosti (Slavic Antiquities). These thoughts influenced Slovak national consciousness very much and were re-echoed especially in Slovak literature. Slovak literature, filled with such a spirit, did not penetrate the large masses of Slovak people who lived in feudal bondage until 1848 and therefore could not take part in public life. Slovak leaders, aware of the situation of the Slovak people, strove to elevate them economically, socially, morally and culturally so that they might be capable of grasping their political rights and assist in achieving a free national life. In the first half of the 19th century the Slovak people, who for many ages occupied the northern section of Hungary, became a nation which was prepared to go its own way and live its own life.11 �90 SLOVAKIA POINT OF NO RETURN Just as the Slovaks had awakened to a new life, had become conscious of their national identity, and were preparing to defend their rights, they found themselves in a strange and difficult situation. They lost that stratum of society whos~ standing, education and economic independence had given it a leading role in politics as well. The upper and lower aristocracy of Slovak origin, having reneged its Slovak identity, left the Slovak nation standing on the threshold of its new life with large masses of leaderless people. Under these circumstances, the educated sons of the Slovak nation assumed the leadership, combining their struggle for the political rights of their people with a fight for their economic welfare, social elevation and cultural progress. The struggle for liberty was at the same time a struggle for democracy. In this struggle an unusually important part was played by the clergy, who, by reason of their calling and their constant contact with the people, best understood their troubles and their needs. It should not surprise anyone therefore to see large numbers of Catholic and Protestant clergymen working zealously in every area of Slovak national life and making outstanding sacrifices for their cause. The writings of the great Slovak poet, the Catholic priest Jan Holly (1785-1849 ) , inspired his entire generation, the actual leader of which was Ludovit stur (1815-1856 ), teacher, writer, editor and political fighter. stur, together with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban (18171888 ) and Michal Miloslav Hodza (1811-1870) established the definitive form of literary Slovak, founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin ( 1844 ) , began to print political journal, Slovenske narodnie noviny-"Slovak National News"-(1845 ) , and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady-"Slovak Views"-(1846), achieved the unification of all Slovaks (1847), and gave Slovak national life a clear goal and a firm direction in the spirit of stur's slogan: "Backward We Cannot, Forward We Must!" "Forward" means to liberate the Slovak people from the yoke of slavery and lead them down the road of independent national and cultural growth to a free nation- �SLOVAKIA 91 al life. To achieve this goal the Slovak nation needed a political program. The Revolution which erupted in Paris in February, 1848, and reverberated throughout Europe, inspired a strong movement in Hungary also, affecting the development of Slovak life and speeding the ripening of the Slovak political program. Individual regions of Slovakia rebelled against the imposition of Hungarian as the only legal language and strove to get Slovak recognized as their official language. The language of the Slovak people represented the very existence of Slovakia, and the fight for "our Slovak language" was essentially a fight for all the rights of the Slovak nation. The foremost leaders of the Slovaks followed carefully the progress of revolutionary activity in Europe and Hungary and decided definitely that the Slovak nation must not stand in the background, gazing passively at these tempestuous changes. They made the necessary preparations in the various parts of Slovakia, and in May of 1848 gathered at the parsonage of Michal Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas where they drew up a program for Slovakia's political future under the heading "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." The Slovaks, in creating their political program, took into consideration not only their aims and desires, but existing circumstances as well. One such prominent circumstance was the fact that Slovakia was part of the Hungarian State, in which it did not even constitute a separate administrative unit. The Slovaks were not planning to tear away from Hungary; they merely wished to have the boundaries of the Slovak lands clearly defined so that the Slovak people might have guaranteed equality with the Magyars in Hungary, and that this equality might apply in all areas of political, social, and especially in cultural life. They intended to present these petitions to the King, the Parliament and the Government, but first they wanted the opinion of the Slovak people regarding them and their achievement. The Magyars, who fought for their own national rights with such determination and revolutionary boldness, opposed the just and justified petitions of the Slovak nation. They outlawed the assembling of Slovaks and �92 SLOVAKIA treated their political leaders as traitors worthy of imprisonment. When the Slovaks saw what obstacles their political program met and would meet in Hungary, they resorted to armed insurrection against the Magyars, who themselves were engaged in a rebellion against the Emperor and were fighting for the independence of Hungary. The Slovak uprising of 1848-49 ended without result. The Emperor, from whom the Slovaks expected understanding and protection, suppressed the revolt of the Magyars with the help of the Russian army, and introduced absolute rule. He punished the Magyars, and completely forgot the Slovaks.12 The Emperor failed to crush the Magyars, and the Slovaks likewise refused to surrender their rights. In the year 1860 the Emperor terminated absolute rule and sought an agreement with the Magyars that would not only placate the Magyars but would also not jeopardize the interests of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Immediately in the spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. First they detailed the principles of their political program in the newspapers, and then they called a general assembly to Turciansky Sv. Martin where the prominent attorney Stefan Marko Daxner formulated Slovak policy anew in the comprehensive "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation." Pointing to the conditions which had developed in Hungary, they asked that the Slovak nation be recognized by a special edict, that Slovakia constitute a distinctive administrative unit in Hungary, and that the Slovak people in their own territory be given the right to develop their own life without restriction.13 These petitions were submitted in a separate memorial document to Emperor Franz Jozef (1849-1916 ) by the noble Slovak bishop Stefan Moyses. 14 All that resulted was that the Slovaks, in 1863-on the 1000th anniversary of the coming of Cyril and Method to Slovakia-were permitted to establish a cultural institution called the "Matica Slovenska" and with their own funds opened three high schools for the training of Slovak youth. In 1867 the Emperor came to terms with the Magyars, with the result that Hungary gained a wide degree of independence and a decided influence in matters of mutual �SLOVAKIA 93 concern in the Monarchy. The position of the Slovaks in Hungary not only worsened but grew steadily and unbearably more desperate. By the year 1875 Slovak cultural and educational institutions were closed and Magyarization was spreading throughout Hungary. Hungary was not a Magyar state even now, but the aim of Budapest policy was to make it such as quickly as possible. The goal of Magyar political ideology was to mold Hungary into a unified state with a population politically unified under one official language. All nonMagyar nations and national minorities in Hungary were to be just "nationalities" comprising parts of a single Hungarian-that is, Magyar-nation. The Danube basin resembles a large bowl. The center was settled by the Magyars. Feeling strange and alone and numerically weak in their central position, they made every effort to grow and become strong, in order to make their future sure. To do that, their growth had to be artificial and at the expense of the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary. For many centuries a variety of nations and national minorities occupied the rim of this huge bowl, the mountainous regions of the Danube basin. These were pushed toward the center by their growing populations and hard living conditions, thus posing a threat to the Magyars. This interesting conflict to be or not to be was waged in the Danube basin until Hungary ceased to exist as a state. Feeling the pressure of denationalization at every step, the Slovaks saw danger that threatened them and loomed ever larger above them. Even so, they did not stop stating their allegiance to Hungary, and made several new attempts to achieve a state of equality with the Magyars. All these attempts came to naught because the Magyar politicians, blinded by the alluring features of a future Magyar Hungary, were determined to press their objectives persistently and ruthlessly. 15 The Emperor, who was also the King of Hungary, took no interest in the development of internal conditions in Hungary and was likewise deaf and blind to the situation o! the Slovak nation. Because of the election laws and practices which obtained in Hungary, Slovaks either did not get into the Budapest Parliament, or, if they did, �94 SLOVAKIA only in negligible numbers. The Hungarian Parliament passed legislation which suppressed Slovak life. Magyarization increased, especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Count Albert Apponyi, as Minister of Education, saw to it that school laws were enacted to bring about the complete Magyarization of all schools in Slovakia. And, of course, the Magyar schools which the Slovak young people had to attend, did not train them in the Slovak spirit nor for a Slovak existence. If any Slovak in these circumstances dared to defend the honor and rights of his own nation, as did Andrej Hlinka (1864-1938)-called a rebel, a Panslav and a traitor-with such exemplary fearlessness, he found himself in prison, unable to go on with his work. Yet not even these adversities broke the Slovak nation, for the Slovaks believed, with Andrej Hlinka, that "Truth has never yet suffered in vain, nor will our Slovak truth suffer needlessly," as Hlinka himself prophesied in 1907 as he was being led to prison. 16 1) A comprehensive picture of the prehistoric settlement of Slovakia is given in the work of Jan Eisner, Slovensko v praveku (Slovakia in Prehistoric Times), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1933. 2) Several studies on the contacts of Slovakia with the Romans have been written by Vojtech Ondrouch. He presents a review of these questions in his work Slovensko v dobe fimsko-germanske ( Slovakia in the Roman-Germanic Period), Prague, 1936. 3) Approximately 40 % of Slovakia's land area is still covered with forests . In the Middle Ages the forested area was much larger. 4) The ancient history of Slovakia is covered by Frantisek Hrusovsk~· in his book Slovenski vladari (Slovak Rulers), Obrana Press, Inc., Scranton, Pa., 1948. 5) Pavol Bujnak, "Obratenie Mad'arov na vieru krest'ansku" (The Conversion of the Magyars to Christianity), Risa vel'komoravskci (The Greater Moravian Empire), Praha, 1933. The latest wrinting on Slovak influence at the beginning of the Hungarian State comes from Juraj Hodal, "Vclenenie sa starych Mad'arov do staroslovenskeho spolocenskeho zriadenia" (The Integration of the Ancient Magyars into Old-Slovak Society), Historicky sbornik (Historical Review), Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1940. 6) A lucid study of the history of creative art in Slovakia is fount! in Vladimir Wagner's book Dejiny vytvarneho umenia na Slovensku (A History of Creative Art in Slovakia), Trnava, Slovakia, 1930. 7) Of the more recent literature on the Reformation in Slovakia, the book by Branislav Varsik, deserves attention, Husiti a reformacia na Slovensku do Zilinskej synody (The Hussites and the Reforma- �SLOVAKIA 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 95 tion in Slovakia up to the Synod of 2ilina), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. The beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation are discribed by Vojtech Bucko, Reformne hnutie v arcibiskupstve ostrihomskom do roku 1564 (The Reform Movement in the Ostrihom Archbishopric up to 1564), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. The origin, history and significance of this cultural institution were memorialized in an anniversary anthology in 1935 under the title Trnavskci univerzita (The University of Trnava), Trnava, Slovakia, 1935. The economic and social status of the Slovak people in the time of oppression is described in the scholarly work of Stefan Jansak, Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu (Slovakia in the Period of Hungarian Feudalism) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. Janosik as a champion of social justice was portrayed widely not only in literature, but also in the creative arts, in music and films. The comprehensive monography by A. A. Banik, Jan Baltazar Magin a jeho politickci, ncirodnci i kulturna obrana Slovcikov v roku 1728 (Jan Baltazar Magin and His Political, National and Cultural Defense of the Slovaks in 1728) , Trnava, Slovakia, 1936. The indications of tendencies to turn ancient Hungary into a monolithic Hungarian state are taken up in detail by Daniel Rapant, K pociatkom mad'arizcicie (The Beginnings of Magyarization), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1927, 1931. Daniel Rapant, Slovenske povstanie v roku 1848-49 (The Slovak Uprising of 1848-49), Vols. I and II, Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1937. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske ncirodne shromazdenie v roku 1861 (The Slovak National Assembly of 1861) Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Daniel Rapant, Viedenske memorandum slovenske z roku 1861 (The Slovak Memorandum of Vienna, 1861) , Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Frantisek Bokes, Slovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi (Slovak Attempts at Agreement with the Magyars), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p. 198. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed. � 74 SLOVAKIA This is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk:J}, Ph. D. Slovakia lies along the northern shore of the central Danube, where the eastern slopes of the Alps touch the western slopes of the Carpathian mountains, and its territory covers the northern part of the Danubian basin. Since the dawn of European history, a route has run through the gate of the Danube, connecting the West and the East. This important route was intersected at this very point by several routes which ran from south to north and linked the coasts of the Adriatic with those of the Baltic and North Seas. According to ancient Slovak legend, evil spirits used to gather at crossroads and there would lie in wait for travelers. Crossroads have always harbored danger, and still do. Therefore the Slovaks erect crosses at intersections, to protect travelers who ·pass these dangerous places. From earliest times, nations seeking new homelands have flowed over these routes which intersect along the Danube. Through the portals of the Danube marched aggressive conquerors, and the soil of this land frequently served as the stage for bloody conflicts. The nation which settled in such a bustling spot experienced little peace, continually having to defend itself to keep from being swept away by the raging storms. In defending its life its strength was exhausted, and hence it could not grow and develop as it might have in a peaceful atmosphere where catastrophe is not always imminent. Precisely because of their country's location, however, the Slovaks became accustomed to danger, learned not to yield to threats, and now know how to endure numerous hardships. Over the routes which crossed at the center of the Danube traveled not only nations which had no permanent home as yet, but also conquerors lusting for booty and the expansion of their power. At this noisy crossroads between the Alps and the Carpathians, spiritual movements �SLOVAKIA 75 met and penetrated each other, and these defined the cultural developement and progress of Central Europe. All these trends touched Slovakia, fertilized the soil of its spiritual growth, and enriched the life of a nation which had settled this country and occupied it for centuries. For all the disadvantages resulting from the geographical location of its country, the Slovak nation had this great advantage: it was in constant touch with the trends of European cultural life. Slovakia has behind it a rich and vibrant past, and the Slovak people have acquired sufficient historical experience to realize not only their position and vital strength, but also the right to their own life in their own ancient homeland. IN A COUNTRY OF HIGH MOUNTAINS AND DEEP VALLEYS Life was not easy in a country which for the greater part is covered with high mountains and furrowed with deep valleys . In ancient times, people who had to struggle with Nature for their daily bread with bare hands and primitive implements, sought out the broad plains where the fertile soil required less work and provided them with easier living conditions. The tributaries of the Vistula River, which flows into the Baltic Sea, and the tributaries of the Danube, which empties into the Black Sea, indicated the route to the passes in the Carpathian mountains, and through these passes people traveled from north to south and from south to north. Through Slovak territory, from the early Stone Age until deep into the Middle Ages, passed a great assortment of tribes, leaving behind in his country material relics of their life and cultural level.1 Also in the historical period, which in Slovakia begins around the birth of Christ, Slovakia was inhabited by people of various origins who stayed for a shorter or longer time at this crossroads. After the Celts, who left behind in Slovakia their names of the mountains and rivers, this region was occupied by the German Marcomanni and Quaddi. At the very beginning of the Christian era, the central section of the Danube became the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. The Roman legions which had built a string of �76 SLOVAKIA fortresses along both banks of the Danube, tried to restrict the attacts of the barbarians to the provinces on the far side of the Danube, and at the same time attempted to conquer the land of Slovakia and thus advance the imperial boundaries from the Danube to the Carpathians. Finally, the Roman emperors themselves had to come to the territory of Slovakia in order to subdue the stubborn Germans who were trying to push deeper into the Danubian basin. 2 When, at the end of the 4th century, the Romans had to withdraw from the Danube, and when, subsequently, the German tribes also left Slovakia, the Slavs flooded Central Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. Hardly had the ancestors of the Slovaks moved through the Carpathian passes into the southern foothills of these mountains when the Danube basin was invaded from the east by the warlike Avars who then held control of Slovakia from the end of the 6th to the end of the 8th century. At the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries, the armies of emperor Charlemagne broke the power of the Avars, and his successors strove to conquer the neighboring Slovak lands. These battles were waged along the entire Germano-Slovak border and were often repeated especially along the Danube, which was the natural route to the East for the Western population. It is no wonder that this kind of territory would attract many nations who were seeking new homelands in their search for a safe and peaceful life. When the Slovaks settled along the Danube, there was no longer any available space in Europe which would accomodate new inhabitants. The Slovaks occupied this country when it belonged to no one, and so it was that they found themselves on the western rim of the Slavic world as immediate neighbors of the Germans. The ancestors of the Slovak people attached to this country the destiny of all the succeeding Slovak generations, who, in turn established their claim to this land by the fact that during their more than thousand year history they never deserted or renounced it. Life in this country was hard, as hard as the rocks of the Slovak mountains and the rocky terrain of their foothills. As a result, the Slovaks had an opportunity to �SLOVAKIA 77 learn how to work hard, to live meagerly, and to hold firmly to the hereditary land of their ancestors. Only thus were they able to survive all the storms of history and the hardships of life. Above the rocky floor of this country there is always heard the soft murmur of impenetrable forests, and in the quiet valleys echoes the song of lively rivers and swift streams.3 This country with its particular geography pressed the seal of its character into the nature of the Slovak people, who have enough vital courage to wrestle with the hardships of their fate and with their deep emotion manage to find beauty and joy in living even among these hardships. IN THE FAMILY OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS OF EUROPE The external peril which constantly threatened Slovakia at this historical crossroads led the Slovak tribes living along the central Danube and its tributaries to unite and defend themselves with their combined strength. Out of the tiny Slovak principalities a united Slovak state came into existence already in the first half of the 9th century. It was the first organized state in Central Europe . Simultaneously with this development, Christianity penetrated Slovakia. The first teachers of the pagan Slovaks were missionaries from neighboring Bavaria. By the year 830, during the reign of Prince Pribina, a Christian church was standing in the ancient home of the Slovak princes of Nitra. It was the first Christian church, not only in Slovakia, but in the entire territory of the western Slavs. With the Christian faith , which took root in Slovakia rapidly and firmly, Christian civilization entered the country. In the 9th century, therefore, the Slovak nation was already a member of the civilized, that is, Christian, nations of Europe. The entire region settled by Slovaks and divided into small principalities was successfully united by prince Mojmir, who ruled the country until the year 846. His successor, Prince Rastislav (846-869 ), fully realinzing the outward dangers, wanted to provide his country with an internal strength that would be able to resist any attack. In the year 863 he invited SS. Cyril and Method, who completed the Christianizing of the Slovaks, �78 SLOVAKIA laid the foundations of Christian education, and sought to establish a self-sustaining church organization to support the political independence of Slovaks. The headquarters of the Slovak princes in Nitra was also the residence of the bishop as early as 879. Svatopluk ( 870-894), whom contemporary sources call a king and consider "the most glorious of the Slavonic rulers and almost as mighty as an emperor", extended his domain to include the neigboring Czech and Polish tribes. He waged successful wars against his Western neighbors, maintained diplomatic relations and concluded diplomatic peace treaties with neighboring rulers, safeguarded the independent status of his country, and, in the year 880, placed himself, his country and his people under the protection of the Holy See. His son and successor, Mojmir II ( 894-906) , stalwartly defended the heritage of his great ancestors against threats not only from the West, but also from the East. By the end of the 10th century, the Danube basin was invaded by the Magyars. In these battles, waged on two fronts, the Slovaks were bled. 4 Slovakia, at the threshold of the 10th century, lost the conditions necessary for independent development. A great and glorious chapter of Slovak history was ended, but neither its inspiring memory, nor the right of the Slovak nation to liberty and independence, ever faded. The Slovak nation, at the very beginning of its history, passed the test which proved its ability to govern its own land and keep pace with the development of Europe. Firmly implanted in the great family of civilized nations, it could not be shaken loose later by the pounding waves of historical movements. A THOUSAND YEARS UNDER A FOREIGN ROOF The invasion of the Danube basin by the pagan Magyars disrupted the political and cultural development of this region of Central Europe. Marauding bands of Magyars frequently traversed the devastated land of Slovakia and terrorized neighboring countries. Under these circumstances the organization of the Slovak State collapsed, the ecclesiastical management of Slovak territory disintegrated generally, many churches fell victim to destruction, and �SLOVAKIA 79 the advance of civilization was halted momentarily by the wide-spread ruin. But Slovakia, even after these calamities, was not left a barren wilderness. All the attainments of Western civilization appropriated by the Slovaks in the 9th century and all the spiritual values which they had constructed under their own rules were not to be destroyed by fire and sword. In the 10th century Slovak territory was no longer organized as an independent state, but neither did it belong to any other government, for there was no established government along the central Danube in those days. The Slovaks lived on their ancient homeland but they had no roof of their own above them to insure their peaceful growth. In the years 955 Emperor Otto dealt the Magyars a defeat which put an end to their sorties and former manner of life. Because of this blow they were forced to settle down permanently, establish their standing among their neighbors and adjust themselves to their new circumstances. They occupied the central region of the Danube basin and at the end of the 10th century, under the leadership of the princes of the Arpad dynasty, began to build a new state: Hungary. Sometime around the year 1000 Slovakia became a part of the Hungarian State. The Slovak people did not come into Hungary as a nation defeated and subdued. Exhausted as it was by long battles and devastated by wars, Slovakia had no alternative but to become a member of the new government which had begun to form in the Danube basin. The Slovaks did not enter the Hungarian State empty-handed, dependent upon the favor or disfavor of the new government. In addition to the territory of their own country, the Slovaks brought into the budding Hungarian State their entire material and spiritual heritage which had survived the tragedy of the Slovak State and the storms of the 10th century. This Slovak heritage served as a partial foundation for the government, the church organization, the economic life and the cultural growth of Hungary.5 For a long time Slovakia was the most Christian and most cultured region of medieval Hungary and remained so until the most recent times. �80 SLOVAKIA Gradually the entire Danube basin entered the union of the Hungarian State. Although Slovakia did not constitute a separate political and administrative unit in ancient Hungary, its geographical location, its topographical features, its national character, its historical past and its cultural maturity provided it with a special position and a role of its own, even in the framework of the Hungarian State. From the formation of the Hungarian State until the end of the 11th century Slovakia was a vassal principality. At the junction of the 13th and 14th centuries it was the political and military center of power of the "Master of the Vah and the Tatras", Matus cak Trenciansky. During the first half of the 15th century, in the hands of Jan Jiskra, Slovakia played a role in the internal conflicts of Hungary. From the year 1540, when the Turks occupied a large area of Hungary, and for more than a century and a half thereafter, it continued to become more prominent in the affairs of the Hungarian State. Hungary never was and never became a purely Magyar state. The Danube basin has always been a living mosaic composed of diversified national units: Slovaks, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Germans . Among these nations and national minorities the Magyars never comprised a numerical majority, but by virtue of their origin, language and character they were strangers to all other inhabitants of the Danube basin. Nevertheless, because of this very fact and because they occupied the most advantageous location in the very center of the Danube basin, they were able to attain the leading position in the State of Hungary. The ruling families which mounted the Hungarian throne, after the extinction of the Arpads in 1301, were of non-Magyar origin. The official language until the end of the 18th century was Latin. Furthermore, the culture which developed in Hungary was the common product of all the inhabitants of the Danube basin. Thanks to these circumstances, Slovakia, even though it did not enjoy the conditions necessary for independent growth, was not menaced in medieval Hungary and retained its individual ethnical character. The vitality of the �SLOVAKIA 81 Slovak nation was such that not only isolated immigrants of Eastern origin ( the Sikuli, Pecenci, Polovci, Kumani), but also large groups of German colonists who settled in Slovakia particularly during the 13th century, lost their identity in the Slovak surrounding by natural assimilation. The distinctly Slovak character of Slovakia, though frequently imperiled by foreign influences, remained inviolate until the most recent times. The Slovak language thrived not only among larger groups of people in the villages but was heard also in the castles of mighty lords. Not even the cities with their centuries-old privileged German population could withstand the strong influence of the Slovak environment; gradually they too assumed a Slovak character. A certain Slovak scholar, contemplating the strange fate of Slovakia in Hungary, compared the life of the Slovak nation to the life of the dense forest which covers a great part of the Slovak land surface. Storms can cause much damage in a forest. Windstorms can uproot centuryold trees. Woodchoppers can cut down the forest piecemeal. But in the place of the old uprooted or cut-down forest grows a new and strong stand of trees with roots penetrating deep into the earth, between the rocks, clinging tenaciously to the earth which nourishes it. The Slovak nation is like an indestructible Slovak forest, firmly rooted in its native earth and its age-old traditions. Only such a nation could survive a thousand years without a roof of its own. ON THE BOUNDARY LINE OF TWO CIVILIZATIONS The Carpathians constitute not only the eastern boundary of the Danube basin, but, in the Middle Ages, they formed also the eastern boundary of Western civilization, Roman Christianity and Latin culture. Because this basin is more exposed to the West, it was open to all the cultural trends of the neighboring Western countries. Slovakia's particular position in the Danube basin placed it under the constant influence of Western European culture directly from the west (through Vienna), from the north (via Prague and Cracow), and from the south (via Budin). Byzantine Christianity and Eastern civilization �82 SLOVAKIA did make an entry through the Carpathian passes, but its influence covered only the easternmost part of Slovakia. The military expeditions of the German kings who waged war with the Hungarian kings and the campaigns of the Czech Hussites in the 15th century were a menace to the economic life of Slovakia but not to its cultural development. However, through the Carpathians from the East, even during the Middle Ages, came bands of fierce nomads bringing new dangers to the cultural life of the Danube basin. Aftear the Avars who completely disappeared from the domestic population of the central Danube, and after the Magyars who embraced Christianity and adjusted themselves to their new circumstances, and after the small groups of other Eastern nomads of Mongolian origin, a great calamity was visited upon Slovakia by the Tatars who invaded Central Europe in the year 1241 and devastated some sections of Slovakia. Not only the economic and cultural life of the Danube basin, but also the Christianity of the inhabitants was threatened by the Turks who, following their occupation of the Balkans, extended their power to the foothills of the Slovak mountains after the Battle of Mohac in the year 1526. Although Slovakia felt the effects of all these attacks and upheavals, it managed to maintain throughout the Middle Ages a close and unbroken connection with Western Europe, and this fact had a determining influence on the economic progress, the social development and the cultural life of Slovakia. This lasting and living contact of Slovakia with Western Europe is attested to by the rich relics of creative art which we find from the western to the eastern boundaries of Slovakia. The oldest historical remains, relics of the Roman style which dominated in Slovakia until the 13th century, have succumbed to the ravages of time and the devastation of war, or they have been replaced by newer relics; but many are in a state of partial preservation to this day. In contrast with these, there are unusually valuable Gothic relics from the 13th to 15th centuries which testify that Slovakia, at the peak of the Middle Ages, had attained a high level of culture. The parish churches of certain Slovak cities (Bratislava, Trnava, Levoca, Presov, Bardejov, Kosice ) are magnificent monuments of Gothic architecture, �SLOVAKIA 83 and some of them with their rich interior decoration are true museums of Gothic art. Imposing Slovak cities, especially the rich mining centers in central Slovakia (Kremnica-where gold ducats were minted as early as 1333-Banska Bystrica and Banska ~tiavnica ) and cities in the Spis region (Spisska Nova Ves, Levoca, Kezmarok) , have retained much of their medieval character to this day, proving that a vigorous culture bloomed in these cities in addition to industry, commerce and prosperity. Nowhere in Central Europe have there been as many medieval castles created and preserved as in Slovakia. They were the headquarters of powerful rulers; they played an important role in political history and in the military defense of the country, and stand as monuments of medieval feudalism and mute witnesses of the fate of a loyal nation. Many of these castles have fallen into ruin with the passing of time; only portions of their stout walls still tower above the rocky cliffs and wooded mountains to heighten the romance of Slovakia's natural beauty. Some escaped destruction and are still intact today. Their collections of historical relics tell the past of the entire region. The Slovak people who lived in the cities and in the villages surrounding these castles for centuries survived not only the feudal lords, but the splendor of their dwellings as well . Interesting legends recall their ancient past and their plight in the shadows of these castles. Slovaks have had an opportunity to learn to believe- as the Slovak adage puts it-that "everything is temporary except God."6 Slovakia was touched also by waves of the cultural movement which had its cradle in Italy: Renaissance or Humanism. This new intellectual and artistic trend entered Slovakia in the second half of the 15th century when Gothic culture was in full bloom there. In Bratislava, already in the year 1460, a university was founded that was to become a center of Humanism. Renaissance architecture developed chiefly in the eastern part of Slovakia, leaving its mark on the construction of Slovak homes. This cultural movement, which was so strong in the land of its origin-where ancient traditions have always had a home-,was not able to develop more fully either in Central Europe or in Slovakia because, simul- �84 SLOVAKIA taneously with the Turkish invasion of the Danube basin, the calm life of the country was disrupted by the Reformation. Slovakia also became a participant in this new phase of history. SLOVAKIA AS A BASTION OF EUROPE Implausible as it may sound, it is nonetheless a historical fact that Slovakia served as a bastion in the bulwark that defended Christian Europe against the danger from the East. It played this role when the Turks were in control of the central region of the Danube basin and were attempting to conquer the neighboring European countries. Life was difficult for the Slovaks in their mountainous homeland, but these mountains often proved to be their strongest protection. In the endless wooded mountains of their country they had found shelter from the Tatars. and they found in them the same kind of refuge from the Turks. Life in the hills was hard enough, but the proximity of the Turks brought new hardships to the Slovaks. Upon the shoulders of the Slovak people fell the burden 01 responsibility attending an organized defense against the attacks of the Turks. Plundering bands of Turkish wariors disturbed the population of Slovakia by plunging deep into Slovak territory, against the current of the Slovak rivers, and returning with captives as well as spoil. In order to resist the Turks and provide sanctuars for large numbers of the population, it was necessary to repair and maintain the ancient castles in Slovakia. This work was done by the Slovaks as faithful subjects. The cities strengthened their defenses, and those cities wich previously did not have to be fortified had to erect bulwarks. Even some cloisters in the vicinity of the Turks were transformed into temporary fortresses. To support the military forces which were to fight in the event of a Turkish assault, higher taxes had to be paid. These contributions had to be made by those inhabitants of Hungary who were not in the hands of the Turksprimarely Slovakia. Along the southern border of Slovakia, new forts were erected according to the new military �SLOVAKIA 85 strategy, and these were to obstruct the advance of the Turks toward the mining cities of central Slovakia. For a century and a half (from 1540 until the end of the 17th century), Slovakia lived in continual military preparedness and had to bear the tremendous burdens connected with such an abnormal situation. In addition to this, the land of Slovakia provided the stage on which were enacted, first of all, the wars between the antikings, Ferdinand I of Hapsburg (1526-1564) and Jan Zapol'a (1526-1540 ), and, later, the uprisings against the Hapsburgs . These revolts, apart from other reasons, were caused chiefly by the developments of the religious situation stemming from the Reformation and the Catholic Restoration. The teachings of the Reformation proclaimed by Martin Luther found welcome soil at an early date, particularly among the German urban population, and later spread over all Slovakia. The Protestant Church had a strong organization by the year 1612. In the Protestant centers, schools and publishing houses sprang up and books were printed to spread the new teachings among the inhabitants of Slovakia. However, this movement had hardly gained a foothold in Slovakia when, upon the invitation of the archbishop of Ostrihom, whose headquarters were in Trnava, Jesuits entered the country and began to carry out a zealous program of recatholization.7 This activity was centered in Trnava, where a Catholic university was founded in the year 1635. Near the university a large publishing firm was set up to print, in addition to scholarly Latin books, popular writings in all the languages of Central Europe. 8 Even though these two movements met in open conflict on Slovak soil, and the struggle was attended by various tragic occurences, the results were not as catastrophic as they were in other countries because the conflict was waged mostly on a spiritual plane-on the floor of the diet in city council-and predominantly with cultural weapons. For that reason Slovakia kept on growing culturally despite these religious disturbances. Strong traces of this fervent religious experience in Slovakia are found in the numerous and lovely relics of �86 SLOVAKIA baroque art. The unusually well-developed period of Gothic art was followed by a relatively weak impression of the Renaissance; but baroque culture spread far and wide and reached a high level in Slovakia. This period is represented by several still extant majestic churches of which the university church in Trnava and the Jesuit church in Trencin are outstanding for their size and perfection of form. The new style became popular in secular architecture also. Slovak cities took on a new appearance as the wealthy lords left their highly-situated and uncomfortable castles and built their palaces on the plains. Various elements of baroque art crept into Slovak folk art as well. This is evident proof that the Slovak people, while suffering under oppression, retained their deep emotions, their sense of beauty, their creative abilities, and their facility in adapting foreign artistic values to their own taste. It was not until the end of the 18th century that the religious conflicts came to an end. Protestantism, after its early successes, withdrew into the background, and the Catholic Church regained the upper hand. One important feature of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation was that both parties, in trying to gain the largest number of adherents, concentrated on the use of the vernacular. Alongside official and cultural Latin, the Slovak language begins to emerge and express itself in literary form. And with the revival of the Slovak language, a Slovak national consciousness and a longing for a new form of national life begins to bud, supported by the influx of new intel-lectual trends. ON THE WAY TO A LIFE OF THEIR OWN In the year 1683 the Polish king Jan Sobieski dealt the Turks a defeat, at the walls of Vienna, which marked the beginning of their withdrawal from Central Europe. In 1686 they had to surrender Budin, and by the end of the 17th century they were pushed out of the Danube basin into the Balkans. In these battles against the Turks and their anti-Hapsburg allies, economic misery in Slovakia increased and the social position of the subjugated people became practically unbearable. It is no wonder that the Slovak people saw in Juraj Janosik-who was hanged in 1713 because "he robbed the rich and gave to the poor"-their �SLOVAKIA 87 heroic champion and immortalized him and his deeds in legends, songs and art glass. 9 Hungary was finally liberated from the Turks and unified, but it was devastated, and areas which had been under the Turkish domination for a long time were virtually depopulated. The Slovaks contributed to the reconstruction and elevation of Hungary not only by paying higher taxes but also by leaving their mountainous homeland in large numbers and emigrating to the southern region of Hungary which was more fertile but lacked inhabitants and manpower. Hungary, in the meantime, developed closer ties with the countries ruled by the Hapsburgs. Charles VI ( 171117 40) , lacking a male heir, decreed that female descendants of the Hapsburg lineage could succeed him. This was the first law governing all the countries under the rule of the Haps burgs. The successors of Charles VI, Maria Theresa ( 17401780) and her son Joseph II (1780-1790), sought to perfect and intergrate the rule of their countries by introducing social, administrative and ecclesiastical reforms in the liberal spirit of current intellectual trends, which, together with other new measures, formed the groundwork for centralization and the beginning of Germanization. These reforms evoked a stormy reaction especially from the Magyars, because they ignored the rights of individual nations and imposed on them the German language instead of Latin. The new ideas which later, under the slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", resulted in the French Revolution, made their way into the Danube basin and affected also the nations of that region. These ideas found fertile soil not only among the Magyars, but also among the other nations which occupied Hungary. While the Magyars opposed the centralization of power in Vienna and the attempts at Germanization by the Hapsburgs, the nonMagyar nations of Hungary were preparing to defend themselves against the Magyars whose dream was to eventually build a single Hungarian State. In the 18th century the Magyars constituted about one-third of the population of Hungary. Next in numerical �88 SLOVAKIA size were the Slovaks, who were becoming as conscious of their nationality as the Magyars. Slovak national consciousness sprang and grew from several sources: besides the contemporary trends of thought entering Slovakia from the outside and the pressure exerted upon the Slovaks by the Magyars, Slovak national consciousness was strongly rooted in Slovak life itself. The Slovaks were becoming convinced anew that the country which they occupied was their own country and that they were its autonomous inhabitants with all rights of ownership to that region of Hungary. Reflecting this conviction, Jan Baltazar Magin emphasized the rights of the Slovak nation in a book published in 1728.10 Slovak writers revived the memory of Slovak antiquity, especially the glorious deeds of the Slovak rulers of the 9th century, in order to awaken among their people a longing for a free national future. In this vein, Juraj Papanek returned to the Slovak past in a book entitled Of Slovak Kings and Kingdoms, published in the year 1780; Juraj Sklenar, in a book on Vel'ka Morava printed in 1783; and Juraj Fandli, in 1793, with a revision of Papanek's book. The great events of ancient Slovak history were portrayed in the epic poems of the highly-gifted Slovak poet Jan Holly, entitled Svdtopluk ( 1833), in his book S ldv (1834) and in Cyrilo-M ethodidda (1835). With the Reformation, the Czech language spread throughout Slovakia and took root chiefly among Slovak Protestants. But Czech proved to be as foreign and as dead a language in Slovakia as Latin; hence the Slovaks began to cultivate their own language. The scholar Matej BelFuntik (1687-1749), in Latin work, wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness and grandeur of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of French, the loftiness and strength of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian, or the imperious sternness of Hungarian." Anton Bernolak, in the year 1787, wrote a grammar of literary Slovak, and later published a six-volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Hungarian dictionary. In the year �SLOVAKIA 89 1843 definitive rules of Slovak grammar were established, and these then became the instrument of an independent Slovak literature. As with their language, the Slovaks began to pay attention to the distinctive products of Slovak folk culture, in which they recognized the creative abilities of the Slovak spirit. All this filled the Slovaks with a feeling of national consciousness and instilled them with courage to win for themselves the rights that belong to people who consider themselves a separate nation and yearn to live as such. The Slovaks did not forget, but rather remainded themselves clearly at this time, that their position on the western border of the Slavic world and their immediate proximity to non-Slavic countries exposed to new perils. They felt that they were not strong enough numerically to defend themselves against the pressure of their neighbors. Therefore, in addition to fostering their own national individuality, they began to take into consideration their relationship to the other Slavonic nations, hoping to find support for the growth of their own life in the great family of Slavs. The idea of Slavic brotherhood found expression in Sldvy dcera (Daughter of Shiva), 1824, a poem by Jan Kollar, and in the scholarly work of Pavol Jozef ~afarik Slovanske starozitnosti (Slavic Antiquities). These thoughts influenced Slovak national consciousness very much and were re-echoed especially in Slovak literature. Slovak literature, filled with such a spirit, did not penetrate the large masses of Slovak people who lived in feudal bondage until 1848 and therefore could not take part in public life. Slovak leaders, aware of the situation of the Slovak people, strove to elevate them economically, socially, morally and culturally so that they might be capable of grasping their political rights and assist in achieving a free national life. In the first half of the 19th century the Slovak people, who for many ages occupied the northern section of Hungary, became a nation which was prepared to go its own way and live its own life.11 �90 SLOVAKIA POINT OF NO RETURN Just as the Slovaks had awakened to a new life, had become conscious of their national identity, and were preparing to defend their rights, they found themselves in a strange and difficult situation. They lost that stratum of society whos~ standing, education and economic independence had given it a leading role in politics as well. The upper and lower aristocracy of Slovak origin, having reneged its Slovak identity, left the Slovak nation standing on the threshold of its new life with large masses of leaderless people. Under these circumstances, the educated sons of the Slovak nation assumed the leadership, combining their struggle for the political rights of their people with a fight for their economic welfare, social elevation and cultural progress. The struggle for liberty was at the same time a struggle for democracy. In this struggle an unusually important part was played by the clergy, who, by reason of their calling and their constant contact with the people, best understood their troubles and their needs. It should not surprise anyone therefore to see large numbers of Catholic and Protestant clergymen working zealously in every area of Slovak national life and making outstanding sacrifices for their cause. The writings of the great Slovak poet, the Catholic priest Jan Holly (1785-1849 ) , inspired his entire generation, the actual leader of which was Ludovit stur (1815-1856 ), teacher, writer, editor and political fighter. stur, together with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban (18171888 ) and Michal Miloslav Hodza (1811-1870) established the definitive form of literary Slovak, founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin ( 1844 ) , began to print political journal, Slovenske narodnie noviny-"Slovak National News"-(1845 ) , and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady-"Slovak Views"-(1846), achieved the unification of all Slovaks (1847), and gave Slovak national life a clear goal and a firm direction in the spirit of stur's slogan: "Backward We Cannot, Forward We Must!" "Forward" means to liberate the Slovak people from the yoke of slavery and lead them down the road of independent national and cultural growth to a free nation- �SLOVAKIA 91 al life. To achieve this goal the Slovak nation needed a political program. The Revolution which erupted in Paris in February, 1848, and reverberated throughout Europe, inspired a strong movement in Hungary also, affecting the development of Slovak life and speeding the ripening of the Slovak political program. Individual regions of Slovakia rebelled against the imposition of Hungarian as the only legal language and strove to get Slovak recognized as their official language. The language of the Slovak people represented the very existence of Slovakia, and the fight for "our Slovak language" was essentially a fight for all the rights of the Slovak nation. The foremost leaders of the Slovaks followed carefully the progress of revolutionary activity in Europe and Hungary and decided definitely that the Slovak nation must not stand in the background, gazing passively at these tempestuous changes. They made the necessary preparations in the various parts of Slovakia, and in May of 1848 gathered at the parsonage of Michal Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas where they drew up a program for Slovakia's political future under the heading "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." The Slovaks, in creating their political program, took into consideration not only their aims and desires, but existing circumstances as well. One such prominent circumstance was the fact that Slovakia was part of the Hungarian State, in which it did not even constitute a separate administrative unit. The Slovaks were not planning to tear away from Hungary; they merely wished to have the boundaries of the Slovak lands clearly defined so that the Slovak people might have guaranteed equality with the Magyars in Hungary, and that this equality might apply in all areas of political, social, and especially in cultural life. They intended to present these petitions to the King, the Parliament and the Government, but first they wanted the opinion of the Slovak people regarding them and their achievement. The Magyars, who fought for their own national rights with such determination and revolutionary boldness, opposed the just and justified petitions of the Slovak nation. They outlawed the assembling of Slovaks and �92 SLOVAKIA treated their political leaders as traitors worthy of imprisonment. When the Slovaks saw what obstacles their political program met and would meet in Hungary, they resorted to armed insurrection against the Magyars, who themselves were engaged in a rebellion against the Emperor and were fighting for the independence of Hungary. The Slovak uprising of 1848-49 ended without result. The Emperor, from whom the Slovaks expected understanding and protection, suppressed the revolt of the Magyars with the help of the Russian army, and introduced absolute rule. He punished the Magyars, and completely forgot the Slovaks.12 The Emperor failed to crush the Magyars, and the Slovaks likewise refused to surrender their rights. In the year 1860 the Emperor terminated absolute rule and sought an agreement with the Magyars that would not only placate the Magyars but would also not jeopardize the interests of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Immediately in the spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. First they detailed the principles of their political program in the newspapers, and then they called a general assembly to Turciansky Sv. Martin where the prominent attorney Stefan Marko Daxner formulated Slovak policy anew in the comprehensive "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation." Pointing to the conditions which had developed in Hungary, they asked that the Slovak nation be recognized by a special edict, that Slovakia constitute a distinctive administrative unit in Hungary, and that the Slovak people in their own territory be given the right to develop their own life without restriction.13 These petitions were submitted in a separate memorial document to Emperor Franz Jozef (1849-1916 ) by the noble Slovak bishop Stefan Moyses. 14 All that resulted was that the Slovaks, in 1863-on the 1000th anniversary of the coming of Cyril and Method to Slovakia-were permitted to establish a cultural institution called the "Matica Slovenska" and with their own funds opened three high schools for the training of Slovak youth. In 1867 the Emperor came to terms with the Magyars, with the result that Hungary gained a wide degree of independence and a decided influence in matters of mutual �SLOVAKIA 93 concern in the Monarchy. The position of the Slovaks in Hungary not only worsened but grew steadily and unbearably more desperate. By the year 1875 Slovak cultural and educational institutions were closed and Magyarization was spreading throughout Hungary. Hungary was not a Magyar state even now, but the aim of Budapest policy was to make it such as quickly as possible. The goal of Magyar political ideology was to mold Hungary into a unified state with a population politically unified under one official language. All nonMagyar nations and national minorities in Hungary were to be just "nationalities" comprising parts of a single Hungarian-that is, Magyar-nation. The Danube basin resembles a large bowl. The center was settled by the Magyars. Feeling strange and alone and numerically weak in their central position, they made every effort to grow and become strong, in order to make their future sure. To do that, their growth had to be artificial and at the expense of the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary. For many centuries a variety of nations and national minorities occupied the rim of this huge bowl, the mountainous regions of the Danube basin. These were pushed toward the center by their growing populations and hard living conditions, thus posing a threat to the Magyars. This interesting conflict to be or not to be was waged in the Danube basin until Hungary ceased to exist as a state. Feeling the pressure of denationalization at every step, the Slovaks saw danger that threatened them and loomed ever larger above them. Even so, they did not stop stating their allegiance to Hungary, and made several new attempts to achieve a state of equality with the Magyars. All these attempts came to naught because the Magyar politicians, blinded by the alluring features of a future Magyar Hungary, were determined to press their objectives persistently and ruthlessly. 15 The Emperor, who was also the King of Hungary, took no interest in the development of internal conditions in Hungary and was likewise deaf and blind to the situation o! the Slovak nation. Because of the election laws and practices which obtained in Hungary, Slovaks either did not get into the Budapest Parliament, or, if they did, �94 SLOVAKIA only in negligible numbers. The Hungarian Parliament passed legislation which suppressed Slovak life. Magyarization increased, especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Count Albert Apponyi, as Minister of Education, saw to it that school laws were enacted to bring about the complete Magyarization of all schools in Slovakia. And, of course, the Magyar schools which the Slovak young people had to attend, did not train them in the Slovak spirit nor for a Slovak existence. If any Slovak in these circumstances dared to defend the honor and rights of his own nation, as did Andrej Hlinka (1864-1938)-called a rebel, a Panslav and a traitor-with such exemplary fearlessness, he found himself in prison, unable to go on with his work. Yet not even these adversities broke the Slovak nation, for the Slovaks believed, with Andrej Hlinka, that "Truth has never yet suffered in vain, nor will our Slovak truth suffer needlessly," as Hlinka himself prophesied in 1907 as he was being led to prison. 16 1) A comprehensive picture of the prehistoric settlement of Slovakia is given in the work of Jan Eisner, Slovensko v praveku (Slovakia in Prehistoric Times), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1933. 2) Several studies on the contacts of Slovakia with the Romans have been written by Vojtech Ondrouch. He presents a review of these questions in his work Slovensko v dobe fimsko-germanske ( Slovakia in the Roman-Germanic Period), Prague, 1936. 3) Approximately 40 % of Slovakia's land area is still covered with forests . In the Middle Ages the forested area was much larger. 4) The ancient history of Slovakia is covered by Frantisek Hrusovsk~· in his book Slovenski vladari (Slovak Rulers), Obrana Press, Inc., Scranton, Pa., 1948. 5) Pavol Bujnak, "Obratenie Mad'arov na vieru krest'ansku" (The Conversion of the Magyars to Christianity), Risa vel'komoravskci (The Greater Moravian Empire), Praha, 1933. The latest wrinting on Slovak influence at the beginning of the Hungarian State comes from Juraj Hodal, "Vclenenie sa starych Mad'arov do staroslovenskeho spolocenskeho zriadenia" (The Integration of the Ancient Magyars into Old-Slovak Society), Historicky sbornik (Historical Review), Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1940. 6) A lucid study of the history of creative art in Slovakia is fount! in Vladimir Wagner's book Dejiny vytvarneho umenia na Slovensku (A History of Creative Art in Slovakia), Trnava, Slovakia, 1930. 7) Of the more recent literature on the Reformation in Slovakia, the book by Branislav Varsik, deserves attention, Husiti a reformacia na Slovensku do Zilinskej synody (The Hussites and the Reforma- �SLOVAKIA 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 95 tion in Slovakia up to the Synod of 2ilina), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. The beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation are discribed by Vojtech Bucko, Reformne hnutie v arcibiskupstve ostrihomskom do roku 1564 (The Reform Movement in the Ostrihom Archbishopric up to 1564), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. The origin, history and significance of this cultural institution were memorialized in an anniversary anthology in 1935 under the title Trnavskci univerzita (The University of Trnava), Trnava, Slovakia, 1935. The economic and social status of the Slovak people in the time of oppression is described in the scholarly work of Stefan Jansak, Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu (Slovakia in the Period of Hungarian Feudalism) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. Janosik as a champion of social justice was portrayed widely not only in literature, but also in the creative arts, in music and films. The comprehensive monography by A. A. Banik, Jan Baltazar Magin a jeho politickci, ncirodnci i kulturna obrana Slovcikov v roku 1728 (Jan Baltazar Magin and His Political, National and Cultural Defense of the Slovaks in 1728) , Trnava, Slovakia, 1936. The indications of tendencies to turn ancient Hungary into a monolithic Hungarian state are taken up in detail by Daniel Rapant, K pociatkom mad'arizcicie (The Beginnings of Magyarization), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1927, 1931. Daniel Rapant, Slovenske povstanie v roku 1848-49 (The Slovak Uprising of 1848-49), Vols. I and II, Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1937. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske ncirodne shromazdenie v roku 1861 (The Slovak National Assembly of 1861) Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Daniel Rapant, Viedenske memorandum slovenske z roku 1861 (The Slovak Memorandum of Vienna, 1861) , Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Frantisek Bokes, Slovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi (Slovak Attempts at Agreement with the Magyars), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p. 198. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1969, Vol. 19 Description An account of the resource Vol. 19 (No. 42), 1969. 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 1969 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 74 SLOVAKIA This is Slovakia By Francis Hrusovsk:J}, Ph. D. Slovakia lies along the northern shore of the central Danube, where the eastern slopes of the Alps touch the western slopes of the Carpathian mountains, and its territory covers the northern part of the Danubian basin. Since the dawn of European history, a route has run through the gate of the Danube, connecting the West and the East. This important route was intersected at this very point by several routes which ran from south to north and linked the coasts of the Adriatic with those of the Baltic and North Seas. According to ancient Slovak legend, evil spirits used to gather at crossroads and there would lie in wait for travelers. Crossroads have always harbored danger, and still do. Therefore the Slovaks erect crosses at intersections, to protect travelers who ·pass these dangerous places. From earliest times, nations seeking new homelands have flowed over these routes which intersect along the Danube. Through the portals of the Danube marched aggressive conquerors, and the soil of this land frequently served as the stage for bloody conflicts. The nation which settled in such a bustling spot experienced little peace, continually having to defend itself to keep from being swept away by the raging storms. In defending its life its strength was exhausted, and hence it could not grow and develop as it might have in a peaceful atmosphere where catastrophe is not always imminent. Precisely because of their country's location, however, the Slovaks became accustomed to danger, learned not to yield to threats, and now know how to endure numerous hardships. Over the routes which crossed at the center of the Danube traveled not only nations which had no permanent home as yet, but also conquerors lusting for booty and the expansion of their power. At this noisy crossroads between the Alps and the Carpathians, spiritual movements SLOVAKIA 75 met and penetrated each other, and these defined the cultural developement and progress of Central Europe. All these trends touched Slovakia, fertilized the soil of its spiritual growth, and enriched the life of a nation which had settled this country and occupied it for centuries. For all the disadvantages resulting from the geographical location of its country, the Slovak nation had this great advantage: it was in constant touch with the trends of European cultural life. Slovakia has behind it a rich and vibrant past, and the Slovak people have acquired sufficient historical experience to realize not only their position and vital strength, but also the right to their own life in their own ancient homeland. IN A COUNTRY OF HIGH MOUNTAINS AND DEEP VALLEYS Life was not easy in a country which for the greater part is covered with high mountains and furrowed with deep valleys . In ancient times, people who had to struggle with Nature for their daily bread with bare hands and primitive implements, sought out the broad plains where the fertile soil required less work and provided them with easier living conditions. The tributaries of the Vistula River, which flows into the Baltic Sea, and the tributaries of the Danube, which empties into the Black Sea, indicated the route to the passes in the Carpathian mountains, and through these passes people traveled from north to south and from south to north. Through Slovak territory, from the early Stone Age until deep into the Middle Ages, passed a great assortment of tribes, leaving behind in his country material relics of their life and cultural level.1 Also in the historical period, which in Slovakia begins around the birth of Christ, Slovakia was inhabited by people of various origins who stayed for a shorter or longer time at this crossroads. After the Celts, who left behind in Slovakia their names of the mountains and rivers, this region was occupied by the German Marcomanni and Quaddi. At the very beginning of the Christian era, the central section of the Danube became the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. The Roman legions which had built a string of 76 SLOVAKIA fortresses along both banks of the Danube, tried to restrict the attacts of the barbarians to the provinces on the far side of the Danube, and at the same time attempted to conquer the land of Slovakia and thus advance the imperial boundaries from the Danube to the Carpathians. Finally, the Roman emperors themselves had to come to the territory of Slovakia in order to subdue the stubborn Germans who were trying to push deeper into the Danubian basin. 2 When, at the end of the 4th century, the Romans had to withdraw from the Danube, and when, subsequently, the German tribes also left Slovakia, the Slavs flooded Central Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. Hardly had the ancestors of the Slovaks moved through the Carpathian passes into the southern foothills of these mountains when the Danube basin was invaded from the east by the warlike Avars who then held control of Slovakia from the end of the 6th to the end of the 8th century. At the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries, the armies of emperor Charlemagne broke the power of the Avars, and his successors strove to conquer the neighboring Slovak lands. These battles were waged along the entire Germano-Slovak border and were often repeated especially along the Danube, which was the natural route to the East for the Western population. It is no wonder that this kind of territory would attract many nations who were seeking new homelands in their search for a safe and peaceful life. When the Slovaks settled along the Danube, there was no longer any available space in Europe which would accomodate new inhabitants. The Slovaks occupied this country when it belonged to no one, and so it was that they found themselves on the western rim of the Slavic world as immediate neighbors of the Germans. The ancestors of the Slovak people attached to this country the destiny of all the succeeding Slovak generations, who, in turn established their claim to this land by the fact that during their more than thousand year history they never deserted or renounced it. Life in this country was hard, as hard as the rocks of the Slovak mountains and the rocky terrain of their foothills. As a result, the Slovaks had an opportunity to SLOVAKIA 77 learn how to work hard, to live meagerly, and to hold firmly to the hereditary land of their ancestors. Only thus were they able to survive all the storms of history and the hardships of life. Above the rocky floor of this country there is always heard the soft murmur of impenetrable forests, and in the quiet valleys echoes the song of lively rivers and swift streams.3 This country with its particular geography pressed the seal of its character into the nature of the Slovak people, who have enough vital courage to wrestle with the hardships of their fate and with their deep emotion manage to find beauty and joy in living even among these hardships. IN THE FAMILY OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS OF EUROPE The external peril which constantly threatened Slovakia at this historical crossroads led the Slovak tribes living along the central Danube and its tributaries to unite and defend themselves with their combined strength. Out of the tiny Slovak principalities a united Slovak state came into existence already in the first half of the 9th century. It was the first organized state in Central Europe . Simultaneously with this development, Christianity penetrated Slovakia. The first teachers of the pagan Slovaks were missionaries from neighboring Bavaria. By the year 830, during the reign of Prince Pribina, a Christian church was standing in the ancient home of the Slovak princes of Nitra. It was the first Christian church, not only in Slovakia, but in the entire territory of the western Slavs. With the Christian faith , which took root in Slovakia rapidly and firmly, Christian civilization entered the country. In the 9th century, therefore, the Slovak nation was already a member of the civilized, that is, Christian, nations of Europe. The entire region settled by Slovaks and divided into small principalities was successfully united by prince Mojmir, who ruled the country until the year 846. His successor, Prince Rastislav (846-869 ), fully realinzing the outward dangers, wanted to provide his country with an internal strength that would be able to resist any attack. In the year 863 he invited SS. Cyril and Method, who completed the Christianizing of the Slovaks, 78 SLOVAKIA laid the foundations of Christian education, and sought to establish a self-sustaining church organization to support the political independence of Slovaks. The headquarters of the Slovak princes in Nitra was also the residence of the bishop as early as 879. Svatopluk ( 870-894), whom contemporary sources call a king and consider "the most glorious of the Slavonic rulers and almost as mighty as an emperor", extended his domain to include the neigboring Czech and Polish tribes. He waged successful wars against his Western neighbors, maintained diplomatic relations and concluded diplomatic peace treaties with neighboring rulers, safeguarded the independent status of his country, and, in the year 880, placed himself, his country and his people under the protection of the Holy See. His son and successor, Mojmir II ( 894-906) , stalwartly defended the heritage of his great ancestors against threats not only from the West, but also from the East. By the end of the 10th century, the Danube basin was invaded by the Magyars. In these battles, waged on two fronts, the Slovaks were bled. 4 Slovakia, at the threshold of the 10th century, lost the conditions necessary for independent development. A great and glorious chapter of Slovak history was ended, but neither its inspiring memory, nor the right of the Slovak nation to liberty and independence, ever faded. The Slovak nation, at the very beginning of its history, passed the test which proved its ability to govern its own land and keep pace with the development of Europe. Firmly implanted in the great family of civilized nations, it could not be shaken loose later by the pounding waves of historical movements. A THOUSAND YEARS UNDER A FOREIGN ROOF The invasion of the Danube basin by the pagan Magyars disrupted the political and cultural development of this region of Central Europe. Marauding bands of Magyars frequently traversed the devastated land of Slovakia and terrorized neighboring countries. Under these circumstances the organization of the Slovak State collapsed, the ecclesiastical management of Slovak territory disintegrated generally, many churches fell victim to destruction, and SLOVAKIA 79 the advance of civilization was halted momentarily by the wide-spread ruin. But Slovakia, even after these calamities, was not left a barren wilderness. All the attainments of Western civilization appropriated by the Slovaks in the 9th century and all the spiritual values which they had constructed under their own rules were not to be destroyed by fire and sword. In the 10th century Slovak territory was no longer organized as an independent state, but neither did it belong to any other government, for there was no established government along the central Danube in those days. The Slovaks lived on their ancient homeland but they had no roof of their own above them to insure their peaceful growth. In the years 955 Emperor Otto dealt the Magyars a defeat which put an end to their sorties and former manner of life. Because of this blow they were forced to settle down permanently, establish their standing among their neighbors and adjust themselves to their new circumstances. They occupied the central region of the Danube basin and at the end of the 10th century, under the leadership of the princes of the Arpad dynasty, began to build a new state: Hungary. Sometime around the year 1000 Slovakia became a part of the Hungarian State. The Slovak people did not come into Hungary as a nation defeated and subdued. Exhausted as it was by long battles and devastated by wars, Slovakia had no alternative but to become a member of the new government which had begun to form in the Danube basin. The Slovaks did not enter the Hungarian State empty-handed, dependent upon the favor or disfavor of the new government. In addition to the territory of their own country, the Slovaks brought into the budding Hungarian State their entire material and spiritual heritage which had survived the tragedy of the Slovak State and the storms of the 10th century. This Slovak heritage served as a partial foundation for the government, the church organization, the economic life and the cultural growth of Hungary.5 For a long time Slovakia was the most Christian and most cultured region of medieval Hungary and remained so until the most recent times. 80 SLOVAKIA Gradually the entire Danube basin entered the union of the Hungarian State. Although Slovakia did not constitute a separate political and administrative unit in ancient Hungary, its geographical location, its topographical features, its national character, its historical past and its cultural maturity provided it with a special position and a role of its own, even in the framework of the Hungarian State. From the formation of the Hungarian State until the end of the 11th century Slovakia was a vassal principality. At the junction of the 13th and 14th centuries it was the political and military center of power of the "Master of the Vah and the Tatras", Matus cak Trenciansky. During the first half of the 15th century, in the hands of Jan Jiskra, Slovakia played a role in the internal conflicts of Hungary. From the year 1540, when the Turks occupied a large area of Hungary, and for more than a century and a half thereafter, it continued to become more prominent in the affairs of the Hungarian State. Hungary never was and never became a purely Magyar state. The Danube basin has always been a living mosaic composed of diversified national units: Slovaks, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Germans . Among these nations and national minorities the Magyars never comprised a numerical majority, but by virtue of their origin, language and character they were strangers to all other inhabitants of the Danube basin. Nevertheless, because of this very fact and because they occupied the most advantageous location in the very center of the Danube basin, they were able to attain the leading position in the State of Hungary. The ruling families which mounted the Hungarian throne, after the extinction of the Arpads in 1301, were of non-Magyar origin. The official language until the end of the 18th century was Latin. Furthermore, the culture which developed in Hungary was the common product of all the inhabitants of the Danube basin. Thanks to these circumstances, Slovakia, even though it did not enjoy the conditions necessary for independent growth, was not menaced in medieval Hungary and retained its individual ethnical character. The vitality of the SLOVAKIA 81 Slovak nation was such that not only isolated immigrants of Eastern origin ( the Sikuli, Pecenci, Polovci, Kumani), but also large groups of German colonists who settled in Slovakia particularly during the 13th century, lost their identity in the Slovak surrounding by natural assimilation. The distinctly Slovak character of Slovakia, though frequently imperiled by foreign influences, remained inviolate until the most recent times. The Slovak language thrived not only among larger groups of people in the villages but was heard also in the castles of mighty lords. Not even the cities with their centuries-old privileged German population could withstand the strong influence of the Slovak environment; gradually they too assumed a Slovak character. A certain Slovak scholar, contemplating the strange fate of Slovakia in Hungary, compared the life of the Slovak nation to the life of the dense forest which covers a great part of the Slovak land surface. Storms can cause much damage in a forest. Windstorms can uproot centuryold trees. Woodchoppers can cut down the forest piecemeal. But in the place of the old uprooted or cut-down forest grows a new and strong stand of trees with roots penetrating deep into the earth, between the rocks, clinging tenaciously to the earth which nourishes it. The Slovak nation is like an indestructible Slovak forest, firmly rooted in its native earth and its age-old traditions. Only such a nation could survive a thousand years without a roof of its own. ON THE BOUNDARY LINE OF TWO CIVILIZATIONS The Carpathians constitute not only the eastern boundary of the Danube basin, but, in the Middle Ages, they formed also the eastern boundary of Western civilization, Roman Christianity and Latin culture. Because this basin is more exposed to the West, it was open to all the cultural trends of the neighboring Western countries. Slovakia's particular position in the Danube basin placed it under the constant influence of Western European culture directly from the west (through Vienna), from the north (via Prague and Cracow), and from the south (via Budin). Byzantine Christianity and Eastern civilization 82 SLOVAKIA did make an entry through the Carpathian passes, but its influence covered only the easternmost part of Slovakia. The military expeditions of the German kings who waged war with the Hungarian kings and the campaigns of the Czech Hussites in the 15th century were a menace to the economic life of Slovakia but not to its cultural development. However, through the Carpathians from the East, even during the Middle Ages, came bands of fierce nomads bringing new dangers to the cultural life of the Danube basin. Aftear the Avars who completely disappeared from the domestic population of the central Danube, and after the Magyars who embraced Christianity and adjusted themselves to their new circumstances, and after the small groups of other Eastern nomads of Mongolian origin, a great calamity was visited upon Slovakia by the Tatars who invaded Central Europe in the year 1241 and devastated some sections of Slovakia. Not only the economic and cultural life of the Danube basin, but also the Christianity of the inhabitants was threatened by the Turks who, following their occupation of the Balkans, extended their power to the foothills of the Slovak mountains after the Battle of Mohac in the year 1526. Although Slovakia felt the effects of all these attacks and upheavals, it managed to maintain throughout the Middle Ages a close and unbroken connection with Western Europe, and this fact had a determining influence on the economic progress, the social development and the cultural life of Slovakia. This lasting and living contact of Slovakia with Western Europe is attested to by the rich relics of creative art which we find from the western to the eastern boundaries of Slovakia. The oldest historical remains, relics of the Roman style which dominated in Slovakia until the 13th century, have succumbed to the ravages of time and the devastation of war, or they have been replaced by newer relics; but many are in a state of partial preservation to this day. In contrast with these, there are unusually valuable Gothic relics from the 13th to 15th centuries which testify that Slovakia, at the peak of the Middle Ages, had attained a high level of culture. The parish churches of certain Slovak cities (Bratislava, Trnava, Levoca, Presov, Bardejov, Kosice ) are magnificent monuments of Gothic architecture, SLOVAKIA 83 and some of them with their rich interior decoration are true museums of Gothic art. Imposing Slovak cities, especially the rich mining centers in central Slovakia (Kremnica-where gold ducats were minted as early as 1333-Banska Bystrica and Banska ~tiavnica ) and cities in the Spis region (Spisska Nova Ves, Levoca, Kezmarok) , have retained much of their medieval character to this day, proving that a vigorous culture bloomed in these cities in addition to industry, commerce and prosperity. Nowhere in Central Europe have there been as many medieval castles created and preserved as in Slovakia. They were the headquarters of powerful rulers; they played an important role in political history and in the military defense of the country, and stand as monuments of medieval feudalism and mute witnesses of the fate of a loyal nation. Many of these castles have fallen into ruin with the passing of time; only portions of their stout walls still tower above the rocky cliffs and wooded mountains to heighten the romance of Slovakia's natural beauty. Some escaped destruction and are still intact today. Their collections of historical relics tell the past of the entire region. The Slovak people who lived in the cities and in the villages surrounding these castles for centuries survived not only the feudal lords, but the splendor of their dwellings as well . Interesting legends recall their ancient past and their plight in the shadows of these castles. Slovaks have had an opportunity to learn to believe- as the Slovak adage puts it-that "everything is temporary except God."6 Slovakia was touched also by waves of the cultural movement which had its cradle in Italy: Renaissance or Humanism. This new intellectual and artistic trend entered Slovakia in the second half of the 15th century when Gothic culture was in full bloom there. In Bratislava, already in the year 1460, a university was founded that was to become a center of Humanism. Renaissance architecture developed chiefly in the eastern part of Slovakia, leaving its mark on the construction of Slovak homes. This cultural movement, which was so strong in the land of its origin-where ancient traditions have always had a home-,was not able to develop more fully either in Central Europe or in Slovakia because, simul- 84 SLOVAKIA taneously with the Turkish invasion of the Danube basin, the calm life of the country was disrupted by the Reformation. Slovakia also became a participant in this new phase of history. SLOVAKIA AS A BASTION OF EUROPE Implausible as it may sound, it is nonetheless a historical fact that Slovakia served as a bastion in the bulwark that defended Christian Europe against the danger from the East. It played this role when the Turks were in control of the central region of the Danube basin and were attempting to conquer the neighboring European countries. Life was difficult for the Slovaks in their mountainous homeland, but these mountains often proved to be their strongest protection. In the endless wooded mountains of their country they had found shelter from the Tatars. and they found in them the same kind of refuge from the Turks. Life in the hills was hard enough, but the proximity of the Turks brought new hardships to the Slovaks. Upon the shoulders of the Slovak people fell the burden 01 responsibility attending an organized defense against the attacks of the Turks. Plundering bands of Turkish wariors disturbed the population of Slovakia by plunging deep into Slovak territory, against the current of the Slovak rivers, and returning with captives as well as spoil. In order to resist the Turks and provide sanctuars for large numbers of the population, it was necessary to repair and maintain the ancient castles in Slovakia. This work was done by the Slovaks as faithful subjects. The cities strengthened their defenses, and those cities wich previously did not have to be fortified had to erect bulwarks. Even some cloisters in the vicinity of the Turks were transformed into temporary fortresses. To support the military forces which were to fight in the event of a Turkish assault, higher taxes had to be paid. These contributions had to be made by those inhabitants of Hungary who were not in the hands of the Turksprimarely Slovakia. Along the southern border of Slovakia, new forts were erected according to the new military SLOVAKIA 85 strategy, and these were to obstruct the advance of the Turks toward the mining cities of central Slovakia. For a century and a half (from 1540 until the end of the 17th century), Slovakia lived in continual military preparedness and had to bear the tremendous burdens connected with such an abnormal situation. In addition to this, the land of Slovakia provided the stage on which were enacted, first of all, the wars between the antikings, Ferdinand I of Hapsburg (1526-1564) and Jan Zapol'a (1526-1540 ), and, later, the uprisings against the Hapsburgs . These revolts, apart from other reasons, were caused chiefly by the developments of the religious situation stemming from the Reformation and the Catholic Restoration. The teachings of the Reformation proclaimed by Martin Luther found welcome soil at an early date, particularly among the German urban population, and later spread over all Slovakia. The Protestant Church had a strong organization by the year 1612. In the Protestant centers, schools and publishing houses sprang up and books were printed to spread the new teachings among the inhabitants of Slovakia. However, this movement had hardly gained a foothold in Slovakia when, upon the invitation of the archbishop of Ostrihom, whose headquarters were in Trnava, Jesuits entered the country and began to carry out a zealous program of recatholization.7 This activity was centered in Trnava, where a Catholic university was founded in the year 1635. Near the university a large publishing firm was set up to print, in addition to scholarly Latin books, popular writings in all the languages of Central Europe. 8 Even though these two movements met in open conflict on Slovak soil, and the struggle was attended by various tragic occurences, the results were not as catastrophic as they were in other countries because the conflict was waged mostly on a spiritual plane-on the floor of the diet in city council-and predominantly with cultural weapons. For that reason Slovakia kept on growing culturally despite these religious disturbances. Strong traces of this fervent religious experience in Slovakia are found in the numerous and lovely relics of 86 SLOVAKIA baroque art. The unusually well-developed period of Gothic art was followed by a relatively weak impression of the Renaissance; but baroque culture spread far and wide and reached a high level in Slovakia. This period is represented by several still extant majestic churches of which the university church in Trnava and the Jesuit church in Trencin are outstanding for their size and perfection of form. The new style became popular in secular architecture also. Slovak cities took on a new appearance as the wealthy lords left their highly-situated and uncomfortable castles and built their palaces on the plains. Various elements of baroque art crept into Slovak folk art as well. This is evident proof that the Slovak people, while suffering under oppression, retained their deep emotions, their sense of beauty, their creative abilities, and their facility in adapting foreign artistic values to their own taste. It was not until the end of the 18th century that the religious conflicts came to an end. Protestantism, after its early successes, withdrew into the background, and the Catholic Church regained the upper hand. One important feature of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation was that both parties, in trying to gain the largest number of adherents, concentrated on the use of the vernacular. Alongside official and cultural Latin, the Slovak language begins to emerge and express itself in literary form. And with the revival of the Slovak language, a Slovak national consciousness and a longing for a new form of national life begins to bud, supported by the influx of new intel-lectual trends. ON THE WAY TO A LIFE OF THEIR OWN In the year 1683 the Polish king Jan Sobieski dealt the Turks a defeat, at the walls of Vienna, which marked the beginning of their withdrawal from Central Europe. In 1686 they had to surrender Budin, and by the end of the 17th century they were pushed out of the Danube basin into the Balkans. In these battles against the Turks and their anti-Hapsburg allies, economic misery in Slovakia increased and the social position of the subjugated people became practically unbearable. It is no wonder that the Slovak people saw in Juraj Janosik-who was hanged in 1713 because "he robbed the rich and gave to the poor"-their SLOVAKIA 87 heroic champion and immortalized him and his deeds in legends, songs and art glass. 9 Hungary was finally liberated from the Turks and unified, but it was devastated, and areas which had been under the Turkish domination for a long time were virtually depopulated. The Slovaks contributed to the reconstruction and elevation of Hungary not only by paying higher taxes but also by leaving their mountainous homeland in large numbers and emigrating to the southern region of Hungary which was more fertile but lacked inhabitants and manpower. Hungary, in the meantime, developed closer ties with the countries ruled by the Hapsburgs. Charles VI ( 171117 40) , lacking a male heir, decreed that female descendants of the Hapsburg lineage could succeed him. This was the first law governing all the countries under the rule of the Haps burgs. The successors of Charles VI, Maria Theresa ( 17401780) and her son Joseph II (1780-1790), sought to perfect and intergrate the rule of their countries by introducing social, administrative and ecclesiastical reforms in the liberal spirit of current intellectual trends, which, together with other new measures, formed the groundwork for centralization and the beginning of Germanization. These reforms evoked a stormy reaction especially from the Magyars, because they ignored the rights of individual nations and imposed on them the German language instead of Latin. The new ideas which later, under the slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", resulted in the French Revolution, made their way into the Danube basin and affected also the nations of that region. These ideas found fertile soil not only among the Magyars, but also among the other nations which occupied Hungary. While the Magyars opposed the centralization of power in Vienna and the attempts at Germanization by the Hapsburgs, the nonMagyar nations of Hungary were preparing to defend themselves against the Magyars whose dream was to eventually build a single Hungarian State. In the 18th century the Magyars constituted about one-third of the population of Hungary. Next in numerical 88 SLOVAKIA size were the Slovaks, who were becoming as conscious of their nationality as the Magyars. Slovak national consciousness sprang and grew from several sources: besides the contemporary trends of thought entering Slovakia from the outside and the pressure exerted upon the Slovaks by the Magyars, Slovak national consciousness was strongly rooted in Slovak life itself. The Slovaks were becoming convinced anew that the country which they occupied was their own country and that they were its autonomous inhabitants with all rights of ownership to that region of Hungary. Reflecting this conviction, Jan Baltazar Magin emphasized the rights of the Slovak nation in a book published in 1728.10 Slovak writers revived the memory of Slovak antiquity, especially the glorious deeds of the Slovak rulers of the 9th century, in order to awaken among their people a longing for a free national future. In this vein, Juraj Papanek returned to the Slovak past in a book entitled Of Slovak Kings and Kingdoms, published in the year 1780; Juraj Sklenar, in a book on Vel'ka Morava printed in 1783; and Juraj Fandli, in 1793, with a revision of Papanek's book. The great events of ancient Slovak history were portrayed in the epic poems of the highly-gifted Slovak poet Jan Holly, entitled Svdtopluk ( 1833), in his book S ldv (1834) and in Cyrilo-M ethodidda (1835). With the Reformation, the Czech language spread throughout Slovakia and took root chiefly among Slovak Protestants. But Czech proved to be as foreign and as dead a language in Slovakia as Latin; hence the Slovaks began to cultivate their own language. The scholar Matej BelFuntik (1687-1749), in Latin work, wrote of the Slovak language that "in no respect does it fall behind the ponderousness and grandeur of Spanish, the charm and smoothness of French, the loftiness and strength of English, the richness and emphasis of German, the softness and tenderness of Italian, or the imperious sternness of Hungarian." Anton Bernolak, in the year 1787, wrote a grammar of literary Slovak, and later published a six-volume SlovakCzech-Latin-German-Hungarian dictionary. In the year SLOVAKIA 89 1843 definitive rules of Slovak grammar were established, and these then became the instrument of an independent Slovak literature. As with their language, the Slovaks began to pay attention to the distinctive products of Slovak folk culture, in which they recognized the creative abilities of the Slovak spirit. All this filled the Slovaks with a feeling of national consciousness and instilled them with courage to win for themselves the rights that belong to people who consider themselves a separate nation and yearn to live as such. The Slovaks did not forget, but rather remainded themselves clearly at this time, that their position on the western border of the Slavic world and their immediate proximity to non-Slavic countries exposed to new perils. They felt that they were not strong enough numerically to defend themselves against the pressure of their neighbors. Therefore, in addition to fostering their own national individuality, they began to take into consideration their relationship to the other Slavonic nations, hoping to find support for the growth of their own life in the great family of Slavs. The idea of Slavic brotherhood found expression in Sldvy dcera (Daughter of Shiva), 1824, a poem by Jan Kollar, and in the scholarly work of Pavol Jozef ~afarik Slovanske starozitnosti (Slavic Antiquities). These thoughts influenced Slovak national consciousness very much and were re-echoed especially in Slovak literature. Slovak literature, filled with such a spirit, did not penetrate the large masses of Slovak people who lived in feudal bondage until 1848 and therefore could not take part in public life. Slovak leaders, aware of the situation of the Slovak people, strove to elevate them economically, socially, morally and culturally so that they might be capable of grasping their political rights and assist in achieving a free national life. In the first half of the 19th century the Slovak people, who for many ages occupied the northern section of Hungary, became a nation which was prepared to go its own way and live its own life.11 90 SLOVAKIA POINT OF NO RETURN Just as the Slovaks had awakened to a new life, had become conscious of their national identity, and were preparing to defend their rights, they found themselves in a strange and difficult situation. They lost that stratum of society whos~ standing, education and economic independence had given it a leading role in politics as well. The upper and lower aristocracy of Slovak origin, having reneged its Slovak identity, left the Slovak nation standing on the threshold of its new life with large masses of leaderless people. Under these circumstances, the educated sons of the Slovak nation assumed the leadership, combining their struggle for the political rights of their people with a fight for their economic welfare, social elevation and cultural progress. The struggle for liberty was at the same time a struggle for democracy. In this struggle an unusually important part was played by the clergy, who, by reason of their calling and their constant contact with the people, best understood their troubles and their needs. It should not surprise anyone therefore to see large numbers of Catholic and Protestant clergymen working zealously in every area of Slovak national life and making outstanding sacrifices for their cause. The writings of the great Slovak poet, the Catholic priest Jan Holly (1785-1849 ) , inspired his entire generation, the actual leader of which was Ludovit stur (1815-1856 ), teacher, writer, editor and political fighter. stur, together with the Lutheran pastors Jozef Miloslav Hurban (18171888 ) and Michal Miloslav Hodza (1811-1870) established the definitive form of literary Slovak, founded a literary and publishing society, Tatrin ( 1844 ) , began to print political journal, Slovenske narodnie noviny-"Slovak National News"-(1845 ) , and the literary monthly, Slovenske pohl'ady-"Slovak Views"-(1846), achieved the unification of all Slovaks (1847), and gave Slovak national life a clear goal and a firm direction in the spirit of stur's slogan: "Backward We Cannot, Forward We Must!" "Forward" means to liberate the Slovak people from the yoke of slavery and lead them down the road of independent national and cultural growth to a free nation- SLOVAKIA 91 al life. To achieve this goal the Slovak nation needed a political program. The Revolution which erupted in Paris in February, 1848, and reverberated throughout Europe, inspired a strong movement in Hungary also, affecting the development of Slovak life and speeding the ripening of the Slovak political program. Individual regions of Slovakia rebelled against the imposition of Hungarian as the only legal language and strove to get Slovak recognized as their official language. The language of the Slovak people represented the very existence of Slovakia, and the fight for "our Slovak language" was essentially a fight for all the rights of the Slovak nation. The foremost leaders of the Slovaks followed carefully the progress of revolutionary activity in Europe and Hungary and decided definitely that the Slovak nation must not stand in the background, gazing passively at these tempestuous changes. They made the necessary preparations in the various parts of Slovakia, and in May of 1848 gathered at the parsonage of Michal Miloslav Hodza in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas where they drew up a program for Slovakia's political future under the heading "Petitions of the Slovak Nation." The Slovaks, in creating their political program, took into consideration not only their aims and desires, but existing circumstances as well. One such prominent circumstance was the fact that Slovakia was part of the Hungarian State, in which it did not even constitute a separate administrative unit. The Slovaks were not planning to tear away from Hungary; they merely wished to have the boundaries of the Slovak lands clearly defined so that the Slovak people might have guaranteed equality with the Magyars in Hungary, and that this equality might apply in all areas of political, social, and especially in cultural life. They intended to present these petitions to the King, the Parliament and the Government, but first they wanted the opinion of the Slovak people regarding them and their achievement. The Magyars, who fought for their own national rights with such determination and revolutionary boldness, opposed the just and justified petitions of the Slovak nation. They outlawed the assembling of Slovaks and 92 SLOVAKIA treated their political leaders as traitors worthy of imprisonment. When the Slovaks saw what obstacles their political program met and would meet in Hungary, they resorted to armed insurrection against the Magyars, who themselves were engaged in a rebellion against the Emperor and were fighting for the independence of Hungary. The Slovak uprising of 1848-49 ended without result. The Emperor, from whom the Slovaks expected understanding and protection, suppressed the revolt of the Magyars with the help of the Russian army, and introduced absolute rule. He punished the Magyars, and completely forgot the Slovaks.12 The Emperor failed to crush the Magyars, and the Slovaks likewise refused to surrender their rights. In the year 1860 the Emperor terminated absolute rule and sought an agreement with the Magyars that would not only placate the Magyars but would also not jeopardize the interests of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Immediately in the spring of 1861 the Slovaks renewed their political activity. First they detailed the principles of their political program in the newspapers, and then they called a general assembly to Turciansky Sv. Martin where the prominent attorney Stefan Marko Daxner formulated Slovak policy anew in the comprehensive "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation." Pointing to the conditions which had developed in Hungary, they asked that the Slovak nation be recognized by a special edict, that Slovakia constitute a distinctive administrative unit in Hungary, and that the Slovak people in their own territory be given the right to develop their own life without restriction.13 These petitions were submitted in a separate memorial document to Emperor Franz Jozef (1849-1916 ) by the noble Slovak bishop Stefan Moyses. 14 All that resulted was that the Slovaks, in 1863-on the 1000th anniversary of the coming of Cyril and Method to Slovakia-were permitted to establish a cultural institution called the "Matica Slovenska" and with their own funds opened three high schools for the training of Slovak youth. In 1867 the Emperor came to terms with the Magyars, with the result that Hungary gained a wide degree of independence and a decided influence in matters of mutual SLOVAKIA 93 concern in the Monarchy. The position of the Slovaks in Hungary not only worsened but grew steadily and unbearably more desperate. By the year 1875 Slovak cultural and educational institutions were closed and Magyarization was spreading throughout Hungary. Hungary was not a Magyar state even now, but the aim of Budapest policy was to make it such as quickly as possible. The goal of Magyar political ideology was to mold Hungary into a unified state with a population politically unified under one official language. All nonMagyar nations and national minorities in Hungary were to be just "nationalities" comprising parts of a single Hungarian-that is, Magyar-nation. The Danube basin resembles a large bowl. The center was settled by the Magyars. Feeling strange and alone and numerically weak in their central position, they made every effort to grow and become strong, in order to make their future sure. To do that, their growth had to be artificial and at the expense of the non-Magyar peoples of Hungary. For many centuries a variety of nations and national minorities occupied the rim of this huge bowl, the mountainous regions of the Danube basin. These were pushed toward the center by their growing populations and hard living conditions, thus posing a threat to the Magyars. This interesting conflict to be or not to be was waged in the Danube basin until Hungary ceased to exist as a state. Feeling the pressure of denationalization at every step, the Slovaks saw danger that threatened them and loomed ever larger above them. Even so, they did not stop stating their allegiance to Hungary, and made several new attempts to achieve a state of equality with the Magyars. All these attempts came to naught because the Magyar politicians, blinded by the alluring features of a future Magyar Hungary, were determined to press their objectives persistently and ruthlessly. 15 The Emperor, who was also the King of Hungary, took no interest in the development of internal conditions in Hungary and was likewise deaf and blind to the situation o! the Slovak nation. Because of the election laws and practices which obtained in Hungary, Slovaks either did not get into the Budapest Parliament, or, if they did, 94 SLOVAKIA only in negligible numbers. The Hungarian Parliament passed legislation which suppressed Slovak life. Magyarization increased, especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Count Albert Apponyi, as Minister of Education, saw to it that school laws were enacted to bring about the complete Magyarization of all schools in Slovakia. And, of course, the Magyar schools which the Slovak young people had to attend, did not train them in the Slovak spirit nor for a Slovak existence. If any Slovak in these circumstances dared to defend the honor and rights of his own nation, as did Andrej Hlinka (1864-1938)-called a rebel, a Panslav and a traitor-with such exemplary fearlessness, he found himself in prison, unable to go on with his work. Yet not even these adversities broke the Slovak nation, for the Slovaks believed, with Andrej Hlinka, that "Truth has never yet suffered in vain, nor will our Slovak truth suffer needlessly," as Hlinka himself prophesied in 1907 as he was being led to prison. 16 1) A comprehensive picture of the prehistoric settlement of Slovakia is given in the work of Jan Eisner, Slovensko v praveku (Slovakia in Prehistoric Times), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1933. 2) Several studies on the contacts of Slovakia with the Romans have been written by Vojtech Ondrouch. He presents a review of these questions in his work Slovensko v dobe fimsko-germanske ( Slovakia in the Roman-Germanic Period), Prague, 1936. 3) Approximately 40 % of Slovakia's land area is still covered with forests . In the Middle Ages the forested area was much larger. 4) The ancient history of Slovakia is covered by Frantisek Hrusovsk~· in his book Slovenski vladari (Slovak Rulers), Obrana Press, Inc., Scranton, Pa., 1948. 5) Pavol Bujnak, "Obratenie Mad'arov na vieru krest'ansku" (The Conversion of the Magyars to Christianity), Risa vel'komoravskci (The Greater Moravian Empire), Praha, 1933. The latest wrinting on Slovak influence at the beginning of the Hungarian State comes from Juraj Hodal, "Vclenenie sa starych Mad'arov do staroslovenskeho spolocenskeho zriadenia" (The Integration of the Ancient Magyars into Old-Slovak Society), Historicky sbornik (Historical Review), Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1940. 6) A lucid study of the history of creative art in Slovakia is fount! in Vladimir Wagner's book Dejiny vytvarneho umenia na Slovensku (A History of Creative Art in Slovakia), Trnava, Slovakia, 1930. 7) Of the more recent literature on the Reformation in Slovakia, the book by Branislav Varsik, deserves attention, Husiti a reformacia na Slovensku do Zilinskej synody (The Hussites and the Reforma- SLOVAKIA 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 95 tion in Slovakia up to the Synod of 2ilina), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. The beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation are discribed by Vojtech Bucko, Reformne hnutie v arcibiskupstve ostrihomskom do roku 1564 (The Reform Movement in the Ostrihom Archbishopric up to 1564), Bratislava, Slovakia, 1939. The origin, history and significance of this cultural institution were memorialized in an anniversary anthology in 1935 under the title Trnavskci univerzita (The University of Trnava), Trnava, Slovakia, 1935. The economic and social status of the Slovak people in the time of oppression is described in the scholarly work of Stefan Jansak, Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu (Slovakia in the Period of Hungarian Feudalism) , Bratislava, Slovakia, 1932. Janosik as a champion of social justice was portrayed widely not only in literature, but also in the creative arts, in music and films. The comprehensive monography by A. A. Banik, Jan Baltazar Magin a jeho politickci, ncirodnci i kulturna obrana Slovcikov v roku 1728 (Jan Baltazar Magin and His Political, National and Cultural Defense of the Slovaks in 1728) , Trnava, Slovakia, 1936. The indications of tendencies to turn ancient Hungary into a monolithic Hungarian state are taken up in detail by Daniel Rapant, K pociatkom mad'arizcicie (The Beginnings of Magyarization), Vols. I and II, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1927, 1931. Daniel Rapant, Slovenske povstanie v roku 1848-49 (The Slovak Uprising of 1848-49), Vols. I and II, Turc. Sv. Martin, Slovakia, 1937. Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske ncirodne shromazdenie v roku 1861 (The Slovak National Assembly of 1861) Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Daniel Rapant, Viedenske memorandum slovenske z roku 1861 (The Slovak Memorandum of Vienna, 1861) , Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Frantisek Bokes, Slovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi (Slovak Attempts at Agreement with the Magyars), Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia, 1944. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, Bratislava, Slovakia, 1934, p. 198. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by whom it shall be governed.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource This is Slovakia Description An account of the resource Francis Hrušovský, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 19 (No. 42), 1969 pp. 74-95 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrušovský, František, 1903-1956 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5d874ab3ff3e920b5c4045f562f1bea1.pdf 069341f7fa513c43e52d7f06e07296cf PDF Text Text 30 SLOVA.KIA THEY WANTED TO BE FREE Enemles of Slovak independence and their servants claim that the proclamat!on of Slovak independence in 1939 was excluslvely the work of the Nazis, and the Slovaks, they say, did not want to be independent. At the end of May, 1952, there was publ!shed in Paris the d!ary ot Count John Szembek, who for many years was a State Secretary In the Pol!sh Mlnlstry of Forelgn Affairs. In his function as ViceMlnlster of Foreign Affairs he had the possib!llty of following at elose range Pollsh Foreign pollcy and to a certain extent even !nfluence lt. His "Diary," ,therefore, is an unusually valuable and worthy documentary work for European pol!tlcs and diplomatlc hlstory, as 1s emphaslzed In the introductlon of the book by Léon Noel, the former French ambassador to Warsow. For the Slovaks, thls book contains unusually valuable notes for assesslng Pol!sh-Slovak relatlonships, especlaJiy those of 1938-1939. Perhaps one of ,t he most interestlng ls the en1.ry about the conversatlon with Minister Karol Sidor. It ls one or the Jongest of his notes, oven though the book deals almost excluslvely with records of meetlngs with presldents, m!nlsters, ambassadora and other outstandlng public rtgures. The followlng passage, taken from Szembeťs "Dlary," refers to Sldor's vislts. ·, "OCTOBER 19, 1938" CONVERSATION WITH SIDOR "Today this SJov,ak representat!ve pald me a courtesy caJI. I assured h!m that we entertain the greatest aympathles for all the deslres of the Slovak natlon; I expressed the hope that bis country would !Ind a way af com!ng to some agreemenrt with the Magyars, •and I assured hlm that we are advlslng Budapest to proceed wlth moderation when formulatlng territorjal demands to the address of the Slovaks." · Furthermore, Szembek notes: "During the dinner whlch I gave in honor ot Sldor, and In whlch Arclszewsk1 and Kobylanskl particlpated, my guest descrlbed the situatlon in Slovakia. He told us that hls countrymen are endeavorlng to proclalm a completely Independent Slovak State, whlch, however, polltlcally, mllitarlly, as well aa from the cultural standpolnt would depend on Po!and and economlcally on Germany and Hungary. The Slovaks did not want to let In German and Magyar cultural lnfluences, but wished to place thelr country under some k.ind of polltlcal and m!Jlllary protectlon of Poland. Thls pro-Pol!&h oo'ientat!on is supportea by the entlre Slovak natlon. The natlon, however, 1s stunned - as he expres.sed lt - by the questlon of Pollsh demands regarding Spiš and Orava. Thls Ume Sldor spoke very cryfully. I answered that lf we were going to be concerned wlth 1md Independent Slovak State, thls questlon would no longer present 1my dlflcultles, because we woulld not present any terrltorial demands to Independent Slovakla and that OUT demands !or the adjustment of the border could not be regarded as unconditlonally necessary for the �SLOVA.KIA 31 norma! development of relatlon.s between Poland and Slovakla. The sltuatlon apparently would be dltferent, lf we had to present thls problem to the Czechoslovak State." In another part of the report, we read: "1 gave Sldor an audlence on October 20th. I asked hlm what lnstructions he had gotten kom hls own Government when he was leavlng !or Warsaw and what wa.s the actuall purpose of hls trip. He answered that the Slovak Government authorlzed bim to decla.re in Warsaw what Msgr. Tiso, as well as Papée (the Pollsh ambassador In Pra,gue), had already told us oarller, namely that tbe alm ot hls country 1s the creatlon of an independent Slovak State. I asked him to explaln to me what now was tbe 11tand ot the Slovak Government in regards to Prague. Sldor replled that hls country at present S'till forms a part of the Czechoslovak Republllc and that Slovak minister.s were members of the Czechoslovak Government, even though they do not actually take part In lts negotiations. Thus far only one minister pa11tlclpated in two ses• sions ot the Government. As far as questlons of forelgn affalrs are c oncerned, the Slovaks are pursulng thelr own policy, and thelr emissarles, who just a short time ago went to European oa.pitale, were sent there by the pres.ident or the Slovak Government, Tiso, and not by Prague. "I then asked Sidor the question what klnd of methods hls countrymen lntended to use to galn complete lndependence. According to him ('Sidor), Tiso intends to attaln his goal by legal means. It emanates from the following prlnciple: in the present sltuatlon, as a result of the chaos whlch relgns in the Republlc, and especlally because one half mllMon men of the Czech Army 1s garrisoned in Slovakla, which does not have an Independent army and whose Slovak soldlers are on tihe Czech borders (whlch presents a serlous :mpedlment to the deflnlte separatlon of Slovakla from Czechla, as Sldor underscored so empbatlca.lly), lt was not posslble to thlnk of uslng more radlcal method,s. Sldor pe rsonally would be willlng to use them and thlnks that lt mlght be usetul to us e what ls called t he 'Hlinka Guarď and the Natlonal Commlttees, which he d lrects. But In a spirit of loyalty, he obeya the Slovak Gove rnment. "Such ls the polltlcal program of Tls o, endeavorlng to adhere to legal methods: the electlon of a new presldent of tbe CzechosJovak Republlc !s supposed to take place not later tban October 28. The Slovaks are golng to demand the electlon ot a Catholic, who would guarantee a separatlon flrom Francophlle and Sovletophlle orlentatlon in Forelgn pollcy. ChvaJkovský 1s a candldate, and R llnka's Party !s golng to vote for him. Thls presldency, however, ls going to have only a temporary character and wrn end wlth a new adjustment of the Constitutlon. The new Constltutlon wlll create a federatlon, thanka to whlch Slovakla w111 attaln lte own parllament and a broad autonomy. From that moment on the Slovaks wlll negotlate wlth Pi,a,gue regardlng thelT demands. Sldor !s certaln that the Czeohs wlll never be able to flll them. The Slovak Parllament wlll lhen deflnitely proclatm the separation of Slovak.la from Czechla, as once bappened In the case of Sweden and Norway. Sldor thlnks th'at lt wlll be necessary t o watt two months before that point 1s reached. In the meantlme, the Slovak Government wlll complete its work ot decentrallzation and organlze Hs own police, gendarmery and �32 SLOVAK.IA army, whlch lt allready began to do. Int.ernal admlnistration already now !s in a large measure in Slovak hands. As far as finances are concerned, the Siovaks are taklng over all State properties on thelr terrltory. Tax incomes are already flowlng lnto Bratis,Java. The State Bank is already in the process of organlzation." So muoh for the Diary of the Polish Vice-Minister about bis conversation with Minister K. Sidor on October 20, 1938, therefore 14 days after the proclamation of Slovak autonomy in ~Uina and almost five months before the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia on March 14, 1939. This report proves that the Slovaks wanted to be independent long before Hitler offered to protect their independence. Furthermore, the Slovaks rejected unilateral German preponderance over the territory of Slovakia and would have preferred to replace it wilh a polilical and military protootion of Poland, cooperating only economically with the Germans and Magyars. Sidor was for Slovak independence. The development tended, emphasized by the intention of Tls o's Government, toward complete Slovak lndependence. Looking at lt from a historlcal perspectlve, German intervention in March, 1939, greatly harmed Slovak efforts for independence In substance. That is it cast a shadow of German interventlon on the actuality of the proc lamation of Sllovak independence, which hurt Slovak aspirations then and is damaging to them even today. Slovak development tended toward the idea! of Slovak independence. It is necessary to admit that, in the main and above all else, it was the fault of Czech imperiallsts, who unseated the Jega!I government of Tiso with a military putsch on March 9, 1939, and again installed Czech hegemony over Slovakia, which all served as a pretext for Hitler to lntervene into the development of the relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs. Szembek's "Diary" also clearly shows that Czech imperlalists drove the Slovaks into cooperation with the national-socialistic Germany of Adolph Hitler. Their treatment of Slovak problems only hurried the day of Slovak independence. (JAS) . • • • WHO SAID lT?: - "In negotiating the treaty we have just slgned, I did not betray my country to Russia. The Czechoslovaks are very bad deceivers. We intend to live our own llfe in our own way, and we know that Russia wlll reapect our way of living... , And so, my frlends, you and we are going to contlnue our policy of collaboration, friendship, confidence In, and good falth towards Soviet Russia. 1 am never going to undertake anythlng and nelther are you, whlch could be in any way agalnst the lntereat of thia vitally necessary collaboratlon. There are stm people Jeft who are afrald of thls collaboratlon. So far, Soviet Russla more than proved herself at Stalingrad, at Sevastapol, and on the Don. . .. I know the Russlan way o! llvlng; 1 belleve In lt; and I admire lt. We have a great deal In common wlth Soviet Russla. . . . So, wlth you, 1 half Soviet RuHla as a great and eHentlally necesaary factor In the present and future fortunes of Europe." - (Jan Masaryk, Hotel Commodore, New York City, December 21, 1943). � 30 SLOVA.KIA THEY WANTED TO BE FREE Enemles of Slovak independence and their servants claim that the proclamat!on of Slovak independence in 1939 was excluslvely the work of the Nazis, and the Slovaks, they say, did not want to be independent. At the end of May, 1952, there was publ!shed in Paris the d!ary ot Count John Szembek, who for many years was a State Secretary In the Pol!sh Mlnlstry of Forelgn Affairs. In his function as ViceMlnlster of Foreign Affairs he had the possib!llty of following at elose range Pollsh Foreign pollcy and to a certain extent even !nfluence lt. His "Diary," ,therefore, is an unusually valuable and worthy documentary work for European pol!tlcs and diplomatlc hlstory, as 1s emphaslzed In the introductlon of the book by Léon Noel, the former French ambassador to Warsow. For the Slovaks, thls book contains unusually valuable notes for assesslng Pol!sh-Slovak relatlonships, especlaJiy those of 1938-1939. Perhaps one of ,t he most interestlng ls the en1.ry about the conversatlon with Minister Karol Sidor. It ls one or the Jongest of his notes, oven though the book deals almost excluslvely with records of meetlngs with presldents, m!nlsters, ambassadora and other outstandlng public rtgures. The followlng passage, taken from Szembeťs "Dlary," refers to Sldor's vislts. ·, "OCTOBER 19, 1938" CONVERSATION WITH SIDOR "Today this SJov,ak representat!ve pald me a courtesy caJI. I assured h!m that we entertain the greatest aympathles for all the deslres of the Slovak natlon; I expressed the hope that bis country would !Ind a way af com!ng to some agreemenrt with the Magyars, •and I assured hlm that we are advlslng Budapest to proceed wlth moderation when formulatlng territorjal demands to the address of the Slovaks." · Furthermore, Szembek notes: "During the dinner whlch I gave in honor ot Sldor, and In whlch Arclszewsk1 and Kobylanskl particlpated, my guest descrlbed the situatlon in Slovakia. He told us that hls countrymen are endeavorlng to proclalm a completely Independent Slovak State, whlch, however, polltlcally, mllitarlly, as well aa from the cultural standpolnt would depend on Po!and and economlcally on Germany and Hungary. The Slovaks did not want to let In German and Magyar cultural lnfluences, but wished to place thelr country under some k.ind of polltlcal and m!Jlllary protectlon of Poland. Thls pro-Pol!&h oo'ientat!on is supportea by the entlre Slovak natlon. The natlon, however, 1s stunned - as he expres.sed lt - by the questlon of Pollsh demands regarding Spiš and Orava. Thls Ume Sldor spoke very cryfully. I answered that lf we were going to be concerned wlth 1md Independent Slovak State, thls questlon would no longer present 1my dlflcultles, because we woulld not present any terrltorial demands to Independent Slovakla and that OUT demands !or the adjustment of the border could not be regarded as unconditlonally necessary for the �SLOVA.KIA 31 norma! development of relatlon.s between Poland and Slovakla. The sltuatlon apparently would be dltferent, lf we had to present thls problem to the Czechoslovak State." In another part of the report, we read: "1 gave Sldor an audlence on October 20th. I asked hlm what lnstructions he had gotten kom hls own Government when he was leavlng !or Warsaw and what wa.s the actuall purpose of hls trip. He answered that the Slovak Government authorlzed bim to decla.re in Warsaw what Msgr. Tiso, as well as Papée (the Pollsh ambassador In Pra,gue), had already told us oarller, namely that tbe alm ot hls country 1s the creatlon of an independent Slovak State. I asked him to explaln to me what now was tbe 11tand ot the Slovak Government in regards to Prague. Sldor replled that hls country at present S'till forms a part of the Czechoslovak Republllc and that Slovak minister.s were members of the Czechoslovak Government, even though they do not actually take part In lts negotiations. Thus far only one minister pa11tlclpated in two ses• sions ot the Government. As far as questlons of forelgn affalrs are c oncerned, the Slovaks are pursulng thelr own policy, and thelr emissarles, who just a short time ago went to European oa.pitale, were sent there by the pres.ident or the Slovak Government, Tiso, and not by Prague. "I then asked Sidor the question what klnd of methods hls countrymen lntended to use to galn complete lndependence. According to him ('Sidor), Tiso intends to attaln his goal by legal means. It emanates from the following prlnciple: in the present sltuatlon, as a result of the chaos whlch relgns in the Republlc, and especlally because one half mllMon men of the Czech Army 1s garrisoned in Slovakla, which does not have an Independent army and whose Slovak soldlers are on tihe Czech borders (whlch presents a serlous :mpedlment to the deflnlte separatlon of Slovakla from Czechla, as Sldor underscored so empbatlca.lly), lt was not posslble to thlnk of uslng more radlcal method,s. Sldor pe rsonally would be willlng to use them and thlnks that lt mlght be usetul to us e what ls called t he 'Hlinka Guarď and the Natlonal Commlttees, which he d lrects. But In a spirit of loyalty, he obeya the Slovak Gove rnment. "Such ls the polltlcal program of Tls o, endeavorlng to adhere to legal methods: the electlon of a new presldent of tbe CzechosJovak Republlc !s supposed to take place not later tban October 28. The Slovaks are golng to demand the electlon ot a Catholic, who would guarantee a separatlon flrom Francophlle and Sovletophlle orlentatlon in Forelgn pollcy. ChvaJkovský 1s a candldate, and R llnka's Party !s golng to vote for him. Thls presldency, however, ls going to have only a temporary character and wrn end wlth a new adjustment of the Constitutlon. The new Constltutlon wlll create a federatlon, thanka to whlch Slovakla w111 attaln lte own parllament and a broad autonomy. From that moment on the Slovaks wlll negotlate wlth Pi,a,gue regardlng thelT demands. Sldor !s certaln that the Czeohs wlll never be able to flll them. The Slovak Parllament wlll lhen deflnitely proclatm the separation of Slovak.la from Czechla, as once bappened In the case of Sweden and Norway. Sldor thlnks th'at lt wlll be necessary t o watt two months before that point 1s reached. In the meantlme, the Slovak Government wlll complete its work ot decentrallzation and organlze Hs own police, gendarmery and �32 SLOVAK.IA army, whlch lt allready began to do. Int.ernal admlnistration already now !s in a large measure in Slovak hands. As far as finances are concerned, the Siovaks are taklng over all State properties on thelr terrltory. Tax incomes are already flowlng lnto Bratis,Java. The State Bank is already in the process of organlzation." So muoh for the Diary of the Polish Vice-Minister about bis conversation with Minister K. Sidor on October 20, 1938, therefore 14 days after the proclamation of Slovak autonomy in ~Uina and almost five months before the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia on March 14, 1939. This report proves that the Slovaks wanted to be independent long before Hitler offered to protect their independence. Furthermore, the Slovaks rejected unilateral German preponderance over the territory of Slovakia and would have preferred to replace it wilh a polilical and military protootion of Poland, cooperating only economically with the Germans and Magyars. Sidor was for Slovak independence. The development tended, emphasized by the intention of Tls o's Government, toward complete Slovak lndependence. Looking at lt from a historlcal perspectlve, German intervention in March, 1939, greatly harmed Slovak efforts for independence In substance. That is it cast a shadow of German interventlon on the actuality of the proc lamation of Sllovak independence, which hurt Slovak aspirations then and is damaging to them even today. Slovak development tended toward the idea! of Slovak independence. It is necessary to admit that, in the main and above all else, it was the fault of Czech imperiallsts, who unseated the Jega!I government of Tiso with a military putsch on March 9, 1939, and again installed Czech hegemony over Slovakia, which all served as a pretext for Hitler to lntervene into the development of the relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs. Szembek's "Diary" also clearly shows that Czech imperlalists drove the Slovaks into cooperation with the national-socialistic Germany of Adolph Hitler. Their treatment of Slovak problems only hurried the day of Slovak independence. (JAS) . • • • WHO SAID lT?: - "In negotiating the treaty we have just slgned, I did not betray my country to Russia. The Czechoslovaks are very bad deceivers. We intend to live our own llfe in our own way, and we know that Russia wlll reapect our way of living... , And so, my frlends, you and we are going to contlnue our policy of collaboration, friendship, confidence In, and good falth towards Soviet Russia. 1 am never going to undertake anythlng and nelther are you, whlch could be in any way agalnst the lntereat of thia vitally necessary collaboratlon. There are stm people Jeft who are afrald of thls collaboratlon. So far, Soviet Russla more than proved herself at Stalingrad, at Sevastapol, and on the Don. . .. I know the Russlan way o! llvlng; 1 belleve In lt; and I admire lt. We have a great deal In common wlth Soviet Russla. . . . So, wlth you, 1 half Soviet RuHla as a great and eHentlally necesaary factor In the present and future fortunes of Europe." - (Jan Masaryk, Hotel Commodore, New York City, December 21, 1943). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1952, Vol. 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 30 SLOVA.KIA THEY WANTED TO BE FREE Enemles of Slovak independence and their servants claim that the proclamat!on of Slovak independence in 1939 was excluslvely the work of the Nazis, and the Slovaks, they say, did not want to be independent. At the end of May, 1952, there was publ!shed in Paris the d!ary ot Count John Szembek, who for many years was a State Secretary In the Pol!sh Mlnlstry of Forelgn Affairs. In his function as ViceMlnlster of Foreign Affairs he had the possib!llty of following at elose range Pollsh Foreign pollcy and to a certain extent even !nfluence lt. His "Diary," ,therefore, is an unusually valuable and worthy documentary work for European pol!tlcs and diplomatlc hlstory, as 1s emphaslzed In the introductlon of the book by Léon Noel, the former French ambassador to Warsow. For the Slovaks, thls book contains unusually valuable notes for assesslng Pol!sh-Slovak relatlonships, especlaJiy those of 1938-1939. Perhaps one of ,t he most interestlng ls the en1.ry about the conversatlon with Minister Karol Sidor. It ls one or the Jongest of his notes, oven though the book deals almost excluslvely with records of meetlngs with presldents, m!nlsters, ambassadora and other outstandlng public rtgures. The followlng passage, taken from Szembeťs "Dlary," refers to Sldor's vislts. ·, "OCTOBER 19, 1938" CONVERSATION WITH SIDOR "Today this SJov,ak representat!ve pald me a courtesy caJI. I assured h!m that we entertain the greatest aympathles for all the deslres of the Slovak natlon; I expressed the hope that bis country would !Ind a way af com!ng to some agreemenrt with the Magyars, •and I assured hlm that we are advlslng Budapest to proceed wlth moderation when formulatlng territorjal demands to the address of the Slovaks." · Furthermore, Szembek notes: "During the dinner whlch I gave in honor ot Sldor, and In whlch Arclszewsk1 and Kobylanskl particlpated, my guest descrlbed the situatlon in Slovakia. He told us that hls countrymen are endeavorlng to proclalm a completely Independent Slovak State, whlch, however, polltlcally, mllitarlly, as well aa from the cultural standpolnt would depend on Po!and and economlcally on Germany and Hungary. The Slovaks did not want to let In German and Magyar cultural lnfluences, but wished to place thelr country under some k.ind of polltlcal and m!Jlllary protectlon of Poland. Thls pro-Pol!&h oo'ientat!on is supportea by the entlre Slovak natlon. The natlon, however, 1s stunned - as he expres.sed lt - by the questlon of Pollsh demands regarding Spiš and Orava. Thls Ume Sldor spoke very cryfully. I answered that lf we were going to be concerned wlth 1md Independent Slovak State, thls questlon would no longer present 1my dlflcultles, because we woulld not present any terrltorial demands to Independent Slovakla and that OUT demands !or the adjustment of the border could not be regarded as unconditlonally necessary for the SLOVA.KIA 31 norma! development of relatlon.s between Poland and Slovakla. The sltuatlon apparently would be dltferent, lf we had to present thls problem to the Czechoslovak State." In another part of the report, we read: "1 gave Sldor an audlence on October 20th. I asked hlm what lnstructions he had gotten kom hls own Government when he was leavlng !or Warsaw and what wa.s the actuall purpose of hls trip. He answered that the Slovak Government authorlzed bim to decla.re in Warsaw what Msgr. Tiso, as well as Papée (the Pollsh ambassador In Pra,gue), had already told us oarller, namely that tbe alm ot hls country 1s the creatlon of an independent Slovak State. I asked him to explaln to me what now was tbe 11tand ot the Slovak Government in regards to Prague. Sldor replled that hls country at present S'till forms a part of the Czechoslovak Republllc and that Slovak minister.s were members of the Czechoslovak Government, even though they do not actually take part In lts negotiations. Thus far only one minister pa11tlclpated in two ses• sions ot the Government. As far as questlons of forelgn affalrs are c oncerned, the Slovaks are pursulng thelr own policy, and thelr emissarles, who just a short time ago went to European oa.pitale, were sent there by the pres.ident or the Slovak Government, Tiso, and not by Prague. "I then asked Sidor the question what klnd of methods hls countrymen lntended to use to galn complete lndependence. According to him ('Sidor), Tiso intends to attaln his goal by legal means. It emanates from the following prlnciple: in the present sltuatlon, as a result of the chaos whlch relgns in the Republlc, and especlally because one half mllMon men of the Czech Army 1s garrisoned in Slovakla, which does not have an Independent army and whose Slovak soldlers are on tihe Czech borders (whlch presents a serlous :mpedlment to the deflnlte separatlon of Slovakla from Czechla, as Sldor underscored so empbatlca.lly), lt was not posslble to thlnk of uslng more radlcal method,s. Sldor pe rsonally would be willlng to use them and thlnks that lt mlght be usetul to us e what ls called t he 'Hlinka Guarď and the Natlonal Commlttees, which he d lrects. But In a spirit of loyalty, he obeya the Slovak Gove rnment. "Such ls the polltlcal program of Tls o, endeavorlng to adhere to legal methods: the electlon of a new presldent of tbe CzechosJovak Republlc !s supposed to take place not later tban October 28. The Slovaks are golng to demand the electlon ot a Catholic, who would guarantee a separatlon flrom Francophlle and Sovletophlle orlentatlon in Forelgn pollcy. ChvaJkovský 1s a candldate, and R llnka's Party !s golng to vote for him. Thls presldency, however, ls going to have only a temporary character and wrn end wlth a new adjustment of the Constitutlon. The new Constltutlon wlll create a federatlon, thanka to whlch Slovakla w111 attaln lte own parllament and a broad autonomy. From that moment on the Slovaks wlll negotlate wlth Pi,a,gue regardlng thelT demands. Sldor !s certaln that the Czeohs wlll never be able to flll them. The Slovak Parllament wlll lhen deflnitely proclatm the separation of Slovak.la from Czechla, as once bappened In the case of Sweden and Norway. Sldor thlnks th'at lt wlll be necessary t o watt two months before that point 1s reached. In the meantlme, the Slovak Government wlll complete its work ot decentrallzation and organlze Hs own police, gendarmery and 32 SLOVAK.IA army, whlch lt allready began to do. Int.ernal admlnistration already now !s in a large measure in Slovak hands. As far as finances are concerned, the Siovaks are taklng over all State properties on thelr terrltory. Tax incomes are already flowlng lnto Bratis,Java. The State Bank is already in the process of organlzation." So muoh for the Diary of the Polish Vice-Minister about bis conversation with Minister K. Sidor on October 20, 1938, therefore 14 days after the proclamation of Slovak autonomy in ~Uina and almost five months before the proclamation of the independence of Slovakia on March 14, 1939. This report proves that the Slovaks wanted to be independent long before Hitler offered to protect their independence. Furthermore, the Slovaks rejected unilateral German preponderance over the territory of Slovakia and would have preferred to replace it wilh a polilical and military protootion of Poland, cooperating only economically with the Germans and Magyars. Sidor was for Slovak independence. The development tended, emphasized by the intention of Tls o's Government, toward complete Slovak lndependence. Looking at lt from a historlcal perspectlve, German intervention in March, 1939, greatly harmed Slovak efforts for independence In substance. That is it cast a shadow of German interventlon on the actuality of the proc lamation of Sllovak independence, which hurt Slovak aspirations then and is damaging to them even today. Slovak development tended toward the idea! of Slovak independence. It is necessary to admit that, in the main and above all else, it was the fault of Czech imperiallsts, who unseated the Jega!I government of Tiso with a military putsch on March 9, 1939, and again installed Czech hegemony over Slovakia, which all served as a pretext for Hitler to lntervene into the development of the relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs. Szembek's "Diary" also clearly shows that Czech imperlalists drove the Slovaks into cooperation with the national-socialistic Germany of Adolph Hitler. Their treatment of Slovak problems only hurried the day of Slovak independence. (JAS) . • • • WHO SAID lT?: - "In negotiating the treaty we have just slgned, I did not betray my country to Russia. The Czechoslovaks are very bad deceivers. We intend to live our own llfe in our own way, and we know that Russia wlll reapect our way of living... , And so, my frlends, you and we are going to contlnue our policy of collaboration, friendship, confidence In, and good falth towards Soviet Russia. 1 am never going to undertake anythlng and nelther are you, whlch could be in any way agalnst the lntereat of thia vitally necessary collaboratlon. There are stm people Jeft who are afrald of thls collaboratlon. So far, Soviet Russla more than proved herself at Stalingrad, at Sevastapol, and on the Don. . .. I know the Russlan way o! llvlng; 1 belleve In lt; and I admire lt. We have a great deal In common wlth Soviet Russla. . . . So, wlth you, 1 half Soviet RuHla as a great and eHentlally necesaary factor In the present and future fortunes of Europe." - (Jan Masaryk, Hotel Commodore, New York City, December 21, 1943).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource They Wanted to Be Free Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 3 (5), December 1952 pp. 30-32 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1952 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/baa86b620a0ddcc8f8f978c58ea65751.pdf eeee6049adb987da89aae71e4b5ae408 PDF Text Text 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty �SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak �90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to �SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America. � 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty �SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak �90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to �SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1974, Vol. 24 Description An account of the resource Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak 90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Youth Conference - Slovak League of America Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 88-91 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/7244682d680670ec4c562ef840bbef03.pdf a7ccb8b62904ee62106e826f79d899c1 PDF Text Text SLOVAKlA 31 THE WlllTE LEGION OF SLOVAKIA B Y: ANO NYMOU S There is a strong, anti-oommunlst reslstance in Slovakia, the eastern porUon of the 111-!ated Czecho-Slovaki-a. The movement is ,;pea11headed by the WHITE LEGION (BIELA LEGIA) which has been menrtioned i,n the AlmerLcan press from time to time. Liťtle is knowu ahout M.s compOSiltlon and its leaders, hut there ls no doubt ahout the fact that the Wh1te Leglon 1s very effective in its work of opposlng the Red stooges ot ithe Kremlln and preparing Slovakia for the d,a y of liheraition from the pla,gue of cornmunisro. I know hecause I am directly connec.ted wi:ilth lt. The Whlte Legion has heen carefully organ.ized and has existP.d for .some tlme. ]t !s feared by 4he Red regime of Prague, and its members are the most hunted men in Slovakia. Golt.twia.ld - S,talln's man "Fl'iday" in Czecho,Slovalda - and Ibis red stooges In Sloviakla know that the Whd.te Legion has quite a following, bec-ause 1t seems to know everyl'thlng thaJt is happening or even going to h appen Iu Slovakla and her nelghbors. That is why purges are frequent in Slov ak'la and pri.som; ,an(I concerutration camps ftlled to capacity. ]jut the work of the White Legjon goes on . . The White Legion hroadcas'ts from its hidlng place every Saturday and Sunday. To get a true plcture of llhe effects of tts hroadcast.s, especlally In Slovakia, one would have to visi-t some communist fa,mlly durdng one of thes e bTOadcais.ts and observe its reactions. The faces of the 11steners grow teruie and pale and seem to ask the questlon: '·Do they also know a,bout me? wm they reveal something about mc, too?" About the middle of lasit December, the White Leg!on broadcast poin,ted out thart Cp'l. Francls Gasparik of Žilina was a communlsit, a dangerous dndivldual and !Illforaner, and exhorted lts llsteners to be on guard. Up to that tlm e Gasparlk was quite cocky and imperlous, hut atlter the broa.doast •b ecame sullen and downcast; he was completely b roken. Ga,s,pardk remained home for a week, felgning illness, and llhen asked to b e tran.s.fe.i,red from Žilína. The Whlte Legjon was lnform ed by one of Gasparik's "frlends" that he had revealed resigned-Iy: "Now I k:now ľm a goner!" 'I\he White Leg·i on has proved to the commurústs that their par• tlsan appara.tus is not as perfect as they thought lit to he and that their activitles a.re not as secret as t-hey had wished them to he. The White Legion poses ca serlous prohlem to the Communi-st Party, hecause lt knows of the disasitrous effeots lt has on lts memhers. The Reds, of course, have ralsed a hue and a cry to securtty officials to llquldaite the Wihllte Leg'ion. Red offlclals and memhers ask qutzicatly why ithe White Leglon has not as yet heen uncovered and Ji. quldated? Seoorlty ofticlals ialways have the same answer: we are on the trail of the 'trailtors and lhope to make arrests soon. But the underground work ot the Wihiite Leglon goes on. · Last December several leadlng communls-ts of Prešov were arre&ted. This was the b eginilllng of the purge in connectrion w1 th th e so~alled Clemenitls ''deviMlonls,t" affair. It so happened that the �32 SLOVAKIA Whtte Legion r1adio beca.me sileni about the same tlme and rema.ined silent for a month. Was Clementis secretly associated witb the White Legion? Of course not, and <t.he communists knew he was not, but they had •to make hay. The people of Slovakia were iense and curfous; they gathered secretly about their receivers and listened for some sign of the Wrute Legion broadcasts. But the voice of 1Jbe Whiie Legion remained sllen,t. Coonmunist commissars were ex· tremely nervous. As the days passed, the communi11ts regaáned a measure of composure and told the Slovaks that tlhe White Legion had been líquidated. Preparations were in order to celebrate the apprehension and 1iquidation of rthe "traltors" In al! ,t he larger towns. Then, on the second Sunday of February, 1951, like a bolt out of t he clear, blue sky, the Wh~te Legion again began beaming its broadéas.ts. "The WMte Legion is broadcasting again and you can he-ar it bel!ter than ever" spread ex<:!tedly from person to person ihroughout Slovakla. 'rule stooges of Gottwald and Stalin had to postpone their fes.ti~tles: the White Legion was stm much alive! The inmates of the ooncentration camp at Novaky got the news of the White Legion broadcast that very Sunday evening and patriotic Slovak songs were sung deep into the n•i ght. All thanked God that the White Legion leaders were not captured as they had aJ. ready feared they had been. 'Dhe General Secretariate of the Communist Party in Slovakia meets frequeDJtly In the striotest secrecy. One of t he maln themes dijscussed 1s the Whlte Legion. With rare sincerity the communlsts themselves have admitted that tlhe influence of the Whňe Legion and lis broadca&ts ls much greaiter fäa,n they had supposed it to be. Because of it, the reliabillty o.f •the security organs in Slovakfa is constantly questioned and shake-ups are frequent. It seem.s that even the leadlng •Reds do not know who 1s trustwo11thy; everybody seems io be susplcious of everybody else and Ibis brother. Dlrectlves given by •t he White Legion are simple and clear. The people of Slovakia have been thoroughly instructed by the Legion broadcasts how -to protect themselves agalnst snares of ,the hated Secret Police. The Slovaks know the methods used by the Red secret agents; they know how to act, whrut to do and what to say in any particular case involváng the security police. They are patiently bldlng their tlme and avoiding as much open hostility as poss ible to prevent useless shedding or blood, but they vow that "our tíme shall come!" The lnfluen,ce of the White Legion is tremendously sign1flcant. Its services have saved hundreds of Slovaks from lncarcer-a.tion and persecuUon. 'I'he WhHe Legion flghits against Red tyranny without itself re.sorting to ,terror. The ranks of aotlve anti-communists in Slovakia are lncreasing steadily and t'he Reds there are displaying a grea.ter amdety about their future in the !and of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Slovak Apostles. The methods employed by the Whlte Legion have been quŕte successful. The White Legion ls teachlng the people of Slovakda to help and protec,t them selv01! and thus to defend human ri~ts against communis.tic terror of the regime. In Slovakia it has been definitely shown that the popuJ.ation, lf counseled properly, 1s capable of resisting its oppre.ssors even for a longer Ume. �SLOVAKIA 33 Credit must also be given 1the White Legion that the border guards are not performi-ng their duties very conscientiously. This allows a greater percentage of escapees to make its way to the free West. Of course, the communlsrts are aware of this and, consquently, frontitir guards are ohanged more frequerutly and checked more closely. But Slovaks, especially many of those tagged by the communists, still make their way to the West. Naturally the Whlte Legtion is ",taboo" in Slovakia. Its name must not be mentioned in public under penalty of imprisonmerut or worse. To minlmize 4he effectiveness of the White Legion, newspapers and radlo broadcasts - all government controlled - are forbidden to mention t!he name of the White Legion or its activities. One of the chief occupwtions of the Secret Police in Czecho-Slovakla i.s to track down the Wihilte Legäon. Great efforts have been expended to trace its transmitter, blrt to no avall. Slovakia is replete with legends about the movements of the Wblite Legion in the mountalns of Slovakia. Secret Police following -these leads have been known to disappear without a trace. As far as the Red bosses of Slovakia are concerned, the Whi,te Legion is no longer a nuisance, but a real menace to the securl.ty of the Red regime, which they term the "State." The view prevails even in high communisit circles thait army officia!ls and securJty agents are in some way connected with the While Legion, otherwtise - ii !s asked - how would it be possiible for the W•h lte Legion to carry on its "subversive" actlvities for such a long Ume wjthout being uncovered? From time to time the White Legion transmi,tter becomes sdlent. That, too, ls quíte understandable. It would be folly to carry on when danger threatens or when condi· tions are not jUS't right for the Legion's functions. The Reds in Slovak.ia have jammed Whi-te Legion broadcasts. At flrs,t their jammlng was not S'trong enough to cause too much difflculty, but slnce March of this year they have been more successful in preventing the White Legion broadcasts from being heard clearly. The White Legion has counteracted this measure by changing the wave-leng,th of its broadcasts frequently; before the Reds can change over to the proper w1ave-length, the W·hirt.e Legion is usually through witlh iJts most important repor-ts and directives. I have been informed tha4 the Wh'ite Legion is now coulllteracting the Red jammlng process by more eMectlive means. We must remember that the Reds in Slovakia have ithe modern appa.ratus of the State at their disposal. while the Whlte Legion has only whait it can get hold of on the black market. The duel between the broadca sts of the White Legion and the Red reglme of Czecho-Slovakla is quite interesting. I listened to the Whi,te Legion's; broadcasts recenUy and can honestiy say that the White Legion is winning its battle against the Red jammers of Prague and Bratislava. The Wihite Legion ls in existence for almost two years and has grown dear to the hearts of the Slovaks, who pray and hope for a hasiened liberatíon day. The White Legion has become a symbol of hope and courage to the Slovak people. The White Legion keeps lln telling the people of Slovakia thM the Reds and their stooges can be, must be, and wlll be driven out of thelr Iand, lf they are on the alert and follow t he directives of the Legion broadcasts. The White Le- �34 SLOVA.KlA gion has returned self-.confildence to the people; they feel that Red oppression can,not la,st long and are determined to be rea.dy for cthe grea,t drive on the Red tyrants when the opportune tlme presents itsell. The Wh1te Legion has taken hold of old and young allke and has influenced communists as well as non-communists. In the latter it strengthens the falth that their ens-lavement by the Reds shall not la.st long, wh.lle the fot•mer it divests of courage and underm1nes their faith in their own strength and their belief in victory. The White Legion has a.cco.mplished this revolution in the thlnldng of the Slovak.s in a smooth, peaceful wiay. To help those who are In immediate danger is considered llhe rurst civic duty oť all me.mbers of the White Leglon. The White Legion urges the Slovaks to persevere in their resistance to godless communlmn, to unite in the flght agains,t communtsm and in the defense of human rJghts and freedom. The program.s of tb.e White Legion are not chauvinistic; they fully realize they are not the only people who were forced behind the Iron Cur.tain after the war. Iťs a f,ight between the sons ol evll and the sons of good, a fight between the fooces of ligl:l't and fäe forces of darkness. The broadcasts of the W•h1te Legion do not mince words; opinions are stated llirectly and wlthou,t fea:r a bout the most burning question.s of éhe times. ShorUy ~ter its inaugurartion in April 1950, tbe White Legion transmitter reacted enthusia.stically to Presldent Truman's launched "truth offensive." A:t thait tlime it said that it identifies ltsell utterly ,v;ith the argumeD1ts advanced by Truman and ,that lt shall do everything wirt:hin its power to contrdbute to the succes.s of tlhat of'ďenslve. Slnce that Ume much has been said and wribten by man,y imporbant persons of the world, ,b ut I can say wÚhout fear of contradiction that very few people a.od organizart:íons with almost unMmited resources •have aotually contributed as much to that oampaign of truth as has the Whlte Legion of Slovalda with i-t.s very limited resources. Slova.ks can be 11lg1htfully proud of the fact that the WMte L egion orlginated in Slov,a.kia. But this did not happen by accident. The White Legion resulted from the century-old fight of the Slovak people against oommuni:&m. llt is a liv.ing testimony of true SloV'ak mentaUty - a menta:lity to which violence is alien. It is a system thait has been brougblt lnto being by v.Jolence, but does not exis,t by vlolence. Pemecuted by terror and ruthless tyranny, it efffectively flghts tyrants and terrorists without vengeance and aggressive violence. Today, the movement of the White Legion is uo Ionger llmited to tJhe terratory of Slovaldia; lt already has a foothold in Bohem:la and Moravfa, Poland and Hungary. Probably we shall not have to wait too long before the radlo transmitters of the White Legion corps or these nations begin haunting thelr respeictlve llttle Red dictart.ors and stooges of the KTemlln. The Whi-t.e Leg.ion of Slovak.la has a great and serious miss ion: to liberate the SJov,ak natlon from Red dominat1on and to f-!ght In the defense of, natural human rights. The Whlte Leglon has proved ltself. It deserves a ll the mora! and material help the western democraicie~ can give it . . . . BUT N O , W! � SLOVAKlA 31 THE WlllTE LEGION OF SLOVAKIA B Y: ANO NYMOU S There is a strong, anti-oommunlst reslstance in Slovakia, the eastern porUon of the 111-!ated Czecho-Slovaki-a. The movement is ,;pea11headed by the WHITE LEGION (BIELA LEGIA) which has been menrtioned i,n the AlmerLcan press from time to time. Liťtle is knowu ahout M.s compOSiltlon and its leaders, hut there ls no doubt ahout the fact that the Wh1te Leglon 1s very effective in its work of opposlng the Red stooges ot ithe Kremlln and preparing Slovakia for the d,a y of liheraition from the pla,gue of cornmunisro. I know hecause I am directly connec.ted wi:ilth lt. The Whlte Legion has heen carefully organ.ized and has existP.d for .some tlme. ]t !s feared by 4he Red regime of Prague, and its members are the most hunted men in Slovakia. Golt.twia.ld - S,talln's man "Fl'iday" in Czecho,Slovalda - and Ibis red stooges In Sloviakla know that the Whd.te Legion has quite a following, bec-ause 1t seems to know everyl'thlng thaJt is happening or even going to h appen Iu Slovakla and her nelghbors. That is why purges are frequent in Slov ak'la and pri.som; ,an(I concerutration camps ftlled to capacity. ]jut the work of the White Legjon goes on . . The White Legion hroadcas'ts from its hidlng place every Saturday and Sunday. To get a true plcture of llhe effects of tts hroadcast.s, especlally In Slovakia, one would have to visi-t some communist fa,mlly durdng one of thes e bTOadcais.ts and observe its reactions. The faces of the 11steners grow teruie and pale and seem to ask the questlon: '·Do they also know a,bout me? wm they reveal something about mc, too?" About the middle of lasit December, the White Leg!on broadcast poin,ted out thart Cp'l. Francls Gasparik of Žilina was a communlsit, a dangerous dndivldual and !Illforaner, and exhorted lts llsteners to be on guard. Up to that tlm e Gasparlk was quite cocky and imperlous, hut atlter the broa.doast •b ecame sullen and downcast; he was completely b roken. Ga,s,pardk remained home for a week, felgning illness, and llhen asked to b e tran.s.fe.i,red from Žilína. The Whlte Legjon was lnform ed by one of Gasparik's "frlends" that he had revealed resigned-Iy: "Now I k:now ľm a goner!" 'I\he White Leg·i on has proved to the commurústs that their par• tlsan appara.tus is not as perfect as they thought lit to he and that their activitles a.re not as secret as t-hey had wished them to he. The White Legion poses ca serlous prohlem to the Communi-st Party, hecause lt knows of the disasitrous effeots lt has on lts memhers. The Reds, of course, have ralsed a hue and a cry to securtty officials to llquldaite the Wihllte Leg'ion. Red offlclals and memhers ask qutzicatly why ithe White Leglon has not as yet heen uncovered and Ji. quldated? Seoorlty ofticlals ialways have the same answer: we are on the trail of the 'trailtors and lhope to make arrests soon. But the underground work ot the Wihiite Leglon goes on. · Last December several leadlng communls-ts of Prešov were arre&ted. This was the b eginilllng of the purge in connectrion w1 th th e so~alled Clemenitls ''deviMlonls,t" affair. It so happened that the �32 SLOVAKIA Whtte Legion r1adio beca.me sileni about the same tlme and rema.ined silent for a month. Was Clementis secretly associated witb the White Legion? Of course not, and <t.he communists knew he was not, but they had •to make hay. The people of Slovakia were iense and curfous; they gathered secretly about their receivers and listened for some sign of the Wrute Legion broadcasts. But the voice of 1Jbe Whiie Legion remained sllen,t. Coonmunist commissars were ex· tremely nervous. As the days passed, the communi11ts regaáned a measure of composure and told the Slovaks that tlhe White Legion had been líquidated. Preparations were in order to celebrate the apprehension and 1iquidation of rthe "traltors" In al! ,t he larger towns. Then, on the second Sunday of February, 1951, like a bolt out of t he clear, blue sky, the Wh~te Legion again began beaming its broadéas.ts. "The WMte Legion is broadcasting again and you can he-ar it bel!ter than ever" spread ex<:!tedly from person to person ihroughout Slovakla. 'rule stooges of Gottwald and Stalin had to postpone their fes.ti~tles: the White Legion was stm much alive! The inmates of the ooncentration camp at Novaky got the news of the White Legion broadcast that very Sunday evening and patriotic Slovak songs were sung deep into the n•i ght. All thanked God that the White Legion leaders were not captured as they had aJ. ready feared they had been. 'Dhe General Secretariate of the Communist Party in Slovakia meets frequeDJtly In the striotest secrecy. One of t he maln themes dijscussed 1s the Whlte Legion. With rare sincerity the communlsts themselves have admitted that tlhe influence of the Whňe Legion and lis broadca&ts ls much greaiter fäa,n they had supposed it to be. Because of it, the reliabillty o.f •the security organs in Slovakfa is constantly questioned and shake-ups are frequent. It seem.s that even the leadlng •Reds do not know who 1s trustwo11thy; everybody seems io be susplcious of everybody else and Ibis brother. Dlrectlves given by •t he White Legion are simple and clear. The people of Slovakia have been thoroughly instructed by the Legion broadcasts how -to protect themselves agalnst snares of ,the hated Secret Police. The Slovaks know the methods used by the Red secret agents; they know how to act, whrut to do and what to say in any particular case involváng the security police. They are patiently bldlng their tlme and avoiding as much open hostility as poss ible to prevent useless shedding or blood, but they vow that "our tíme shall come!" The lnfluen,ce of the White Legion is tremendously sign1flcant. Its services have saved hundreds of Slovaks from lncarcer-a.tion and persecuUon. 'I'he WhHe Legion flghits against Red tyranny without itself re.sorting to ,terror. The ranks of aotlve anti-communists in Slovakia are lncreasing steadily and t'he Reds there are displaying a grea.ter amdety about their future in the !and of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Slovak Apostles. The methods employed by the Whlte Legion have been quŕte successful. The White Legion ls teachlng the people of Slovakda to help and protec,t them selv01! and thus to defend human ri~ts against communis.tic terror of the regime. In Slovakia it has been definitely shown that the popuJ.ation, lf counseled properly, 1s capable of resisting its oppre.ssors even for a longer Ume. �SLOVAKIA 33 Credit must also be given 1the White Legion that the border guards are not performi-ng their duties very conscientiously. This allows a greater percentage of escapees to make its way to the free West. Of course, the communlsrts are aware of this and, consquently, frontitir guards are ohanged more frequerutly and checked more closely. But Slovaks, especially many of those tagged by the communists, still make their way to the West. Naturally the Whlte Legtion is ",taboo" in Slovakia. Its name must not be mentioned in public under penalty of imprisonmerut or worse. To minlmize 4he effectiveness of the White Legion, newspapers and radlo broadcasts - all government controlled - are forbidden to mention t!he name of the White Legion or its activities. One of the chief occupwtions of the Secret Police in Czecho-Slovakla i.s to track down the Wihilte Legäon. Great efforts have been expended to trace its transmitter, blrt to no avall. Slovakia is replete with legends about the movements of the Wblite Legion in the mountalns of Slovakia. Secret Police following -these leads have been known to disappear without a trace. As far as the Red bosses of Slovakia are concerned, the Whi,te Legion is no longer a nuisance, but a real menace to the securl.ty of the Red regime, which they term the "State." The view prevails even in high communisit circles thait army officia!ls and securJty agents are in some way connected with the While Legion, otherwtise - ii !s asked - how would it be possiible for the W•h lte Legion to carry on its "subversive" actlvities for such a long Ume wjthout being uncovered? From time to time the White Legion transmi,tter becomes sdlent. That, too, ls quíte understandable. It would be folly to carry on when danger threatens or when condi· tions are not jUS't right for the Legion's functions. The Reds in Slovak.ia have jammed Whi-te Legion broadcasts. At flrs,t their jammlng was not S'trong enough to cause too much difflculty, but slnce March of this year they have been more successful in preventing the White Legion broadcasts from being heard clearly. The White Legion has counteracted this measure by changing the wave-leng,th of its broadcasts frequently; before the Reds can change over to the proper w1ave-length, the W·hirt.e Legion is usually through witlh iJts most important repor-ts and directives. I have been informed tha4 the Wh'ite Legion is now coulllteracting the Red jammlng process by more eMectlive means. We must remember that the Reds in Slovakia have ithe modern appa.ratus of the State at their disposal. while the Whlte Legion has only whait it can get hold of on the black market. The duel between the broadca sts of the White Legion and the Red reglme of Czecho-Slovakla is quite interesting. I listened to the Whi,te Legion's; broadcasts recenUy and can honestiy say that the White Legion is winning its battle against the Red jammers of Prague and Bratislava. The Wihite Legion ls in existence for almost two years and has grown dear to the hearts of the Slovaks, who pray and hope for a hasiened liberatíon day. The White Legion has become a symbol of hope and courage to the Slovak people. The White Legion keeps lln telling the people of Slovakia thM the Reds and their stooges can be, must be, and wlll be driven out of thelr Iand, lf they are on the alert and follow t he directives of the Legion broadcasts. The White Le- �34 SLOVA.KlA gion has returned self-.confildence to the people; they feel that Red oppression can,not la,st long and are determined to be rea.dy for cthe grea,t drive on the Red tyrants when the opportune tlme presents itsell. The Wh1te Legion has taken hold of old and young allke and has influenced communists as well as non-communists. In the latter it strengthens the falth that their ens-lavement by the Reds shall not la.st long, wh.lle the fot•mer it divests of courage and underm1nes their faith in their own strength and their belief in victory. The White Legion has a.cco.mplished this revolution in the thlnldng of the Slovak.s in a smooth, peaceful wiay. To help those who are In immediate danger is considered llhe rurst civic duty oť all me.mbers of the White Leglon. The White Legion urges the Slovaks to persevere in their resistance to godless communlmn, to unite in the flght agains,t communtsm and in the defense of human rJghts and freedom. The program.s of tb.e White Legion are not chauvinistic; they fully realize they are not the only people who were forced behind the Iron Cur.tain after the war. Iťs a f,ight between the sons ol evll and the sons of good, a fight between the fooces of ligl:l't and fäe forces of darkness. The broadcasts of the W•h1te Legion do not mince words; opinions are stated llirectly and wlthou,t fea:r a bout the most burning question.s of éhe times. ShorUy ~ter its inaugurartion in April 1950, tbe White Legion transmitter reacted enthusia.stically to Presldent Truman's launched "truth offensive." A:t thait tlime it said that it identifies ltsell utterly ,v;ith the argumeD1ts advanced by Truman and ,that lt shall do everything wirt:hin its power to contrdbute to the succes.s of tlhat of'ďenslve. Slnce that Ume much has been said and wribten by man,y imporbant persons of the world, ,b ut I can say wÚhout fear of contradiction that very few people a.od organizart:íons with almost unMmited resources •have aotually contributed as much to that oampaign of truth as has the Whlte Legion of Slovalda with i-t.s very limited resources. Slova.ks can be 11lg1htfully proud of the fact that the WMte L egion orlginated in Slov,a.kia. But this did not happen by accident. The White Legion resulted from the century-old fight of the Slovak people against oommuni:&m. llt is a liv.ing testimony of true SloV'ak mentaUty - a menta:lity to which violence is alien. It is a system thait has been brougblt lnto being by v.Jolence, but does not exis,t by vlolence. Pemecuted by terror and ruthless tyranny, it efffectively flghts tyrants and terrorists without vengeance and aggressive violence. Today, the movement of the White Legion is uo Ionger llmited to tJhe terratory of Slovaldia; lt already has a foothold in Bohem:la and Moravfa, Poland and Hungary. Probably we shall not have to wait too long before the radlo transmitters of the White Legion corps or these nations begin haunting thelr respeictlve llttle Red dictart.ors and stooges of the KTemlln. The Whi-t.e Leg.ion of Slovak.la has a great and serious miss ion: to liberate the SJov,ak natlon from Red dominat1on and to f-!ght In the defense of, natural human rights. The Whlte Leglon has proved ltself. It deserves a ll the mora! and material help the western democraicie~ can give it . . . . BUT N O , W! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SLOVAKlA 31 THE WlllTE LEGION OF SLOVAKIA B Y: ANO NYMOU S There is a strong, anti-oommunlst reslstance in Slovakia, the eastern porUon of the 111-!ated Czecho-Slovaki-a. The movement is ,;pea11headed by the WHITE LEGION (BIELA LEGIA) which has been menrtioned i,n the AlmerLcan press from time to time. Liťtle is knowu ahout M.s compOSiltlon and its leaders, hut there ls no doubt ahout the fact that the Wh1te Leglon 1s very effective in its work of opposlng the Red stooges ot ithe Kremlln and preparing Slovakia for the d,a y of liheraition from the pla,gue of cornmunisro. I know hecause I am directly connec.ted wi:ilth lt. The Whlte Legion has heen carefully organ.ized and has existP.d for .some tlme. ]t !s feared by 4he Red regime of Prague, and its members are the most hunted men in Slovakia. Golt.twia.ld - S,talln's man "Fl'iday" in Czecho,Slovalda - and Ibis red stooges In Sloviakla know that the Whd.te Legion has quite a following, bec-ause 1t seems to know everyl'thlng thaJt is happening or even going to h appen Iu Slovakla and her nelghbors. That is why purges are frequent in Slov ak'la and pri.som; ,an(I concerutration camps ftlled to capacity. ]jut the work of the White Legjon goes on . . The White Legion hroadcas'ts from its hidlng place every Saturday and Sunday. To get a true plcture of llhe effects of tts hroadcast.s, especlally In Slovakia, one would have to visi-t some communist fa,mlly durdng one of thes e bTOadcais.ts and observe its reactions. The faces of the 11steners grow teruie and pale and seem to ask the questlon: '·Do they also know a,bout me? wm they reveal something about mc, too?" About the middle of lasit December, the White Leg!on broadcast poin,ted out thart Cp'l. Francls Gasparik of Žilina was a communlsit, a dangerous dndivldual and !Illforaner, and exhorted lts llsteners to be on guard. Up to that tlm e Gasparlk was quite cocky and imperlous, hut atlter the broa.doast •b ecame sullen and downcast; he was completely b roken. Ga,s,pardk remained home for a week, felgning illness, and llhen asked to b e tran.s.fe.i,red from Žilína. The Whlte Legjon was lnform ed by one of Gasparik's "frlends" that he had revealed resigned-Iy: "Now I k:now ľm a goner!" 'I\he White Leg·i on has proved to the commurústs that their par• tlsan appara.tus is not as perfect as they thought lit to he and that their activitles a.re not as secret as t-hey had wished them to he. The White Legion poses ca serlous prohlem to the Communi-st Party, hecause lt knows of the disasitrous effeots lt has on lts memhers. The Reds, of course, have ralsed a hue and a cry to securtty officials to llquldaite the Wihllte Leg'ion. Red offlclals and memhers ask qutzicatly why ithe White Leglon has not as yet heen uncovered and Ji. quldated? Seoorlty ofticlals ialways have the same answer: we are on the trail of the 'trailtors and lhope to make arrests soon. But the underground work ot the Wihiite Leglon goes on. · Last December several leadlng communls-ts of Prešov were arre&ted. This was the b eginilllng of the purge in connectrion w1 th th e so~alled Clemenitls ''deviMlonls,t" affair. It so happened that the 32 SLOVAKIA Whtte Legion r1adio beca.me sileni about the same tlme and rema.ined silent for a month. Was Clementis secretly associated witb the White Legion? Of course not, and <t.he communists knew he was not, but they had •to make hay. The people of Slovakia were iense and curfous; they gathered secretly about their receivers and listened for some sign of the Wrute Legion broadcasts. But the voice of 1Jbe Whiie Legion remained sllen,t. Coonmunist commissars were ex· tremely nervous. As the days passed, the communi11ts regaáned a measure of composure and told the Slovaks that tlhe White Legion had been líquidated. Preparations were in order to celebrate the apprehension and 1iquidation of rthe "traltors" In al! ,t he larger towns. Then, on the second Sunday of February, 1951, like a bolt out of t he clear, blue sky, the Wh~te Legion again began beaming its broadéas.ts. "The WMte Legion is broadcasting again and you can he-ar it bel!ter than ever" spread ex<:!tedly from person to person ihroughout Slovakla. 'rule stooges of Gottwald and Stalin had to postpone their fes.ti~tles: the White Legion was stm much alive! The inmates of the ooncentration camp at Novaky got the news of the White Legion broadcast that very Sunday evening and patriotic Slovak songs were sung deep into the n•i ght. All thanked God that the White Legion leaders were not captured as they had aJ. ready feared they had been. 'Dhe General Secretariate of the Communist Party in Slovakia meets frequeDJtly In the striotest secrecy. One of t he maln themes dijscussed 1s the Whlte Legion. With rare sincerity the communlsts themselves have admitted that tlhe influence of the Whňe Legion and lis broadca&ts ls much greaiter fäa,n they had supposed it to be. Because of it, the reliabillty o.f •the security organs in Slovakfa is constantly questioned and shake-ups are frequent. It seem.s that even the leadlng •Reds do not know who 1s trustwo11thy; everybody seems io be susplcious of everybody else and Ibis brother. Dlrectlves given by •t he White Legion are simple and clear. The people of Slovakia have been thoroughly instructed by the Legion broadcasts how -to protect themselves agalnst snares of ,the hated Secret Police. The Slovaks know the methods used by the Red secret agents; they know how to act, whrut to do and what to say in any particular case involváng the security police. They are patiently bldlng their tlme and avoiding as much open hostility as poss ible to prevent useless shedding or blood, but they vow that "our tíme shall come!" The lnfluen,ce of the White Legion is tremendously sign1flcant. Its services have saved hundreds of Slovaks from lncarcer-a.tion and persecuUon. 'I'he WhHe Legion flghits against Red tyranny without itself re.sorting to ,terror. The ranks of aotlve anti-communists in Slovakia are lncreasing steadily and t'he Reds there are displaying a grea.ter amdety about their future in the !and of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Slovak Apostles. The methods employed by the Whlte Legion have been quŕte successful. The White Legion ls teachlng the people of Slovakda to help and protec,t them selv01! and thus to defend human ri~ts against communis.tic terror of the regime. In Slovakia it has been definitely shown that the popuJ.ation, lf counseled properly, 1s capable of resisting its oppre.ssors even for a longer Ume. SLOVAKIA 33 Credit must also be given 1the White Legion that the border guards are not performi-ng their duties very conscientiously. This allows a greater percentage of escapees to make its way to the free West. Of course, the communlsrts are aware of this and, consquently, frontitir guards are ohanged more frequerutly and checked more closely. But Slovaks, especially many of those tagged by the communists, still make their way to the West. Naturally the Whlte Legtion is ",taboo" in Slovakia. Its name must not be mentioned in public under penalty of imprisonmerut or worse. To minlmize 4he effectiveness of the White Legion, newspapers and radlo broadcasts - all government controlled - are forbidden to mention t!he name of the White Legion or its activities. One of the chief occupwtions of the Secret Police in Czecho-Slovakla i.s to track down the Wihilte Legäon. Great efforts have been expended to trace its transmitter, blrt to no avall. Slovakia is replete with legends about the movements of the Wblite Legion in the mountalns of Slovakia. Secret Police following -these leads have been known to disappear without a trace. As far as the Red bosses of Slovakia are concerned, the Whi,te Legion is no longer a nuisance, but a real menace to the securl.ty of the Red regime, which they term the "State." The view prevails even in high communisit circles thait army officia!ls and securJty agents are in some way connected with the While Legion, otherwtise - ii !s asked - how would it be possiible for the W•h lte Legion to carry on its "subversive" actlvities for such a long Ume wjthout being uncovered? From time to time the White Legion transmi,tter becomes sdlent. That, too, ls quíte understandable. It would be folly to carry on when danger threatens or when condi· tions are not jUS't right for the Legion's functions. The Reds in Slovak.ia have jammed Whi-te Legion broadcasts. At flrs,t their jammlng was not S'trong enough to cause too much difflculty, but slnce March of this year they have been more successful in preventing the White Legion broadcasts from being heard clearly. The White Legion has counteracted this measure by changing the wave-leng,th of its broadcasts frequently; before the Reds can change over to the proper w1ave-length, the W·hirt.e Legion is usually through witlh iJts most important repor-ts and directives. I have been informed tha4 the Wh'ite Legion is now coulllteracting the Red jammlng process by more eMectlive means. We must remember that the Reds in Slovakia have ithe modern appa.ratus of the State at their disposal. while the Whlte Legion has only whait it can get hold of on the black market. The duel between the broadca sts of the White Legion and the Red reglme of Czecho-Slovakla is quite interesting. I listened to the Whi,te Legion's; broadcasts recenUy and can honestiy say that the White Legion is winning its battle against the Red jammers of Prague and Bratislava. The Wihite Legion ls in existence for almost two years and has grown dear to the hearts of the Slovaks, who pray and hope for a hasiened liberatíon day. The White Legion has become a symbol of hope and courage to the Slovak people. The White Legion keeps lln telling the people of Slovakia thM the Reds and their stooges can be, must be, and wlll be driven out of thelr Iand, lf they are on the alert and follow t he directives of the Legion broadcasts. The White Le- 34 SLOVA.KlA gion has returned self-.confildence to the people; they feel that Red oppression can,not la,st long and are determined to be rea.dy for cthe grea,t drive on the Red tyrants when the opportune tlme presents itsell. The Wh1te Legion has taken hold of old and young allke and has influenced communists as well as non-communists. In the latter it strengthens the falth that their ens-lavement by the Reds shall not la.st long, wh.lle the fot•mer it divests of courage and underm1nes their faith in their own strength and their belief in victory. The White Legion has a.cco.mplished this revolution in the thlnldng of the Slovak.s in a smooth, peaceful wiay. To help those who are In immediate danger is considered llhe rurst civic duty oť all me.mbers of the White Leglon. The White Legion urges the Slovaks to persevere in their resistance to godless communlmn, to unite in the flght agains,t communtsm and in the defense of human rJghts and freedom. The program.s of tb.e White Legion are not chauvinistic; they fully realize they are not the only people who were forced behind the Iron Cur.tain after the war. Iťs a f,ight between the sons ol evll and the sons of good, a fight between the fooces of ligl:l't and fäe forces of darkness. The broadcasts of the W•h1te Legion do not mince words; opinions are stated llirectly and wlthou,t fea:r a bout the most burning question.s of éhe times. ShorUy ~ter its inaugurartion in April 1950, tbe White Legion transmitter reacted enthusia.stically to Presldent Truman's launched "truth offensive." A:t thait tlime it said that it identifies ltsell utterly ,v;ith the argumeD1ts advanced by Truman and ,that lt shall do everything wirt:hin its power to contrdbute to the succes.s of tlhat of'ďenslve. Slnce that Ume much has been said and wribten by man,y imporbant persons of the world, ,b ut I can say wÚhout fear of contradiction that very few people a.od organizart:íons with almost unMmited resources •have aotually contributed as much to that oampaign of truth as has the Whlte Legion of Slovalda with i-t.s very limited resources. Slova.ks can be 11lg1htfully proud of the fact that the WMte L egion orlginated in Slov,a.kia. But this did not happen by accident. The White Legion resulted from the century-old fight of the Slovak people against oommuni:&m. llt is a liv.ing testimony of true SloV'ak mentaUty - a menta:lity to which violence is alien. It is a system thait has been brougblt lnto being by v.Jolence, but does not exis,t by vlolence. Pemecuted by terror and ruthless tyranny, it efffectively flghts tyrants and terrorists without vengeance and aggressive violence. Today, the movement of the White Legion is uo Ionger llmited to tJhe terratory of Slovaldia; lt already has a foothold in Bohem:la and Moravfa, Poland and Hungary. Probably we shall not have to wait too long before the radlo transmitters of the White Legion corps or these nations begin haunting thelr respeictlve llttle Red dictart.ors and stooges of the KTemlln. The Whi-t.e Leg.ion of Slovak.la has a great and serious miss ion: to liberate the SJov,ak natlon from Red dominat1on and to f-!ght In the defense of, natural human rights. The Whlte Leglon has proved ltself. It deserves a ll the mora! and material help the western democraicie~ can give it . . . . BUT N O , W!  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The White Legion of Slovakia Description An account of the resource Anonymous Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 pp. 31-34 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anonymous Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1951 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/568464b43fc472446ee6cd783df5b5c9.pdf b656347b7ad1a0531248650d01bf3dd5 PDF Text Text SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable �52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to �SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 �54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, �56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 �SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on �58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy �SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, �60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 �SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. �62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. �SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2. � SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable �52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to �SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 �54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied �SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, �56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 �SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on �58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy �SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, �60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 �SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. �62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. �SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1965, Vol. 15 Description An account of the resource Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965. 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 1965 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 SJ,..OVAKIA 51 A CRITICAL DECADE THE WHITE HOUSE .A.NiD 'l1HE SLOVAKS By Sister M. Evangela, SS. C. M . In a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation, Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles told the United States Ambassador in France, William Bullitt, that President Roosevelt did not intend to make a comment on the Slovak Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on March 14, 1939. 1 Hitler's invasion of Czecho-Slovakia the following day terminated all possibility of diplomatic negotiations. Minister Wilbur J. Carr informed the Secretary of State four days later that the Czecho-Slovak Foreign office had been closed. German military and civil authorities had assumed administrative power; as a result, there were no officials of the former Government with whom to maintain relations. 2 Although Dr. Bene~ had resigned his office as President of Czecho-Slovakia, he continued to use his past official signature in the telegrams of protest he sent to President Roosevelt, Chamberlain, Daladier, Litvinov, and to the President of the League of Nations' Council.3 He credits Roosevelt's attitude towards Hitler's occupation of Czecho-Slovakia to his foresight. "On the day of occupation I wired to President Roosevelt . . . The American Government immediately declined to recognize the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and repudiated it. " 4 When the Czecho-Slovak Minister in France, Mr. Stephen Osusky, turned over the keys of the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Paris to the French Authorities, the United States invited Mr. Vladimir Hurban to do the same. But, as long as the United States did not recognize the disappearance of his country, Minister Hurban decided to stay on in his official former capacity while he hoped to enjoy the full and active support of the United States. In fact, he proposed to act as the Czecho-Slovak Government in order to safeguard, as he saw fit, the physical properties and assets of the CzechoSlovak Legation. Legally, of course, this was a questionable 52 SLOVAKIA procedure. He went so far as to suggest that Dr. Cervenka, the First Secretary of the Czecho-Slovak Degation in Washington, be recognized as Charge d' Affaires in the Minister's absence. In the interest of everyone concerned, President Roosevelt advised Benes, under the circumstances, not to come to Washington nor to seek an interview. 5 Earlier in the year, Dr. Benes had left London, where he had been staying since his resignation, for the United States. His purpose was "to inform it (the United States) of my intentions and plans and to draw its attention to what it was to expect and for what it had to prepare itself, the State and the Nation." 6 Accepting the Chair of Sociology, he lectured in the University of Chicago from February, 1939 to June, 1939. In the meantime, his friend from World War I days, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs and President Roosevelt's regular adviser in matters of foreign policy, arranged a meeting between the President and Dr. Benes at Hyde Park for May 28, 1939. 7 Of this visit, Mr. Benes wrote: "I was received by President Roosevelt in May (28), 1939 ... Even at that time he promised me the recognition of our independence and of our future government as far as developments and possibilities in his own country would permit." 8 "We have helped you once. We will help you again. Do remain in contact with me and let me know how your affairs progress," Roosevelt encouraged the former Czecho-Slovak President. He added, "You may be sure that in this war we will not do less for you than in the last war." 9 However, when World War II broke out, the United States remained neutral and reserved toward Benes, "this being in line with its general policy," explained the Czech leader. 10 During his stay at London, Benes, though an exile without authority, nominated a Czechoslovak State Council, and then had himself confirmed as President by that Council which then became the Provisional Government-in-exile. 11 Great Britain was the first to accord it recognition (July 21, 1940) and other Allied nations followed suit. Benes waited until June 4, 1941, before requesting the United States for a formal recognition of the Czechoslovak Government in London. On July 30, 1941, Roosevelt penned these words to SLOVAKIA 53 him: "The American Government has decided to accredit an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in London for closer contact in the common interests of the two countries until the institutions of free government are re-estabHshed in Czechoslovakia." 12 The novel method by which Benes had again become President amazed many Slovaks who were of the opinion that the Allied recognition of this Provisional Czechoslovak Government was rather unique in political history. They became suspicious and uneasy when they discovered that the self-appointed President of a nonexistent State became one of the most influential counsellors to the Western Democracies on matters of European politics. 13 In the meantime, Slovaks in America had been urging the United States Government to recognize the Republic of Slovakia. The President of the Slovak League of America, Mr. Joseph Rusek, wrote to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on April 24 and again in August, 1939, concerning this matter. Iri his second letter, Mr. Rusek indicated very practical reasons for a reversal of the American policy on Slovakia. There a r e hundreds of Sl ovak American s who hol d property a nd h ave other mater ial inter ests i n Slovakia, w hich, due to th e u ncerta in conditi ons existing gener a ll y in E ur ope today, th ey a r e a nxious to liquidate. Since Slovakia h as no official r epresentative in the U nited States through w h om s uch matters could best b e handled, th ese Slovak Am ericans, w ho are citizen s of the U nited States, have already suffe r ed m uch anxiety a nd mater ial loss. If your Honor h a s r easons for n ot r econizing DE J UR!E this younges t of E ur opean ,s tates, I ask you to consider the m ater ial in terests of these America n citizens a nd again urge fo r y our consideration th e petition o f the Slovak L eague of America for, a t leas t DE FACTO r ecognition of 1Slova kia by th e U nited Stat es . .. 14 Mr. Hull treated this plea as he had the plea of the Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ferdinand Durcansky, filing it but not acknowledging it. Instead, the Secretary of State wrote to the Charge in Hungary, Mr. Howard K. Travers, that, despite the hardship suffered through a lack of American consular offices in Slovakia, the United States would not abandon its position of non-recognition of Slovakia because of German military occupation of parts of West~ ern and Northern Slovakia.15 54 SLOVAKIA It seems that it had been Dr. Benes who was more or less responsible for the American position on Slovakia. On May 12, 1939, he had sent Dr. George Slavik to the Slovak League of America to influence it against the Slovak Republic. For the failure of Slavik's mission, the League was subjected to a propaganda barrage discrediting it in Washington, D. C. 16 In an effort to offset Benes's attacks, the Slovak League established an information chancery in Washington, D. C. for the purpose of exposing the falseness of various circulating reports. It also published factual works on the Slovak nation. It took steps to acquaint the Foreign Relation Committee with the desirability of recognizing Slovakia. Under its aegis, the members subscribed $52,632,224.45 in war bonds and purchased, through the Slovenska Obrana Newspaper and the Osadne Hlasy drives, three training airplanes called the "Spirit of the Slovak League of America." 17 To list all that the patriotic zeal and loyalty of this very active organization meant to the United States would be impossible. Yet, despite the evident sincerity of many Americans of Slovak descent, investigations of their membership in the League were frequent. 18 During his residence in London, Dr. Benes had made a radio statement on December 3, 1939, that injured the reputation of numerous Slovak American citizens. He said at the time, "The entire Czechoslovak America is with us except for a small group of paid Nazi helpers." 19 The Presidents of several influential Slovak organizations in America wrote to Mr. Robert H. Jackson, United States Attorney General, requesting the Department of Justice for an investigation of the charge.20 The Slovak League also suffered accusations brought against it before the Dies Committee of the United States House of Representatives as a subversive organization. Twice Mr. Rusek (October 6 and October 28, 1939) asked Mr. Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee, for an explanation of the circumstances which prompted the action of the Committee opposing the League. 21 None was given. To disprove the pro-Hitler accusations, "American-born, public-spirited, war-winning-minded Monsignor F. J. Dubosh of Cleveland, Ohio, leader of the Slovaks in America, offered to do this: to broadcast to the Slovaks in occupied SLOVAKIA 55 Slovakia to rise against Hitler. He was turned down by Washington on this proposal. " 22 Finally, official Washington became convinced that the smears leveled against the League were unjustified since the FBI could produce no convicting evidence. The Department of Justice then assured the President of the League, "The fact that the Department of Justice instituted no prosecution against the Slovak League of America, would serve to disprove the accusations to which you refer. " 23 However, by that time, Benes's plan to discredit the League and Slovakia had fulfilled its purpose. As far as the United States was concerned, the Republic of Slovakia did not exist. President Roosevelt's will in this case was inflexible. Efforts on the part of Slovak Americans to foster a better understanding with him failed. One writer relates his sad experience as follows: . . . no amount of our effort could change the official position of our State Department and of our Government. I vi.sited F1DR In the White House on October 18, 1'940, along with a ,Slovak 'League delegation and, in discussing these matters, F1DR told us that President Benes was his friend and they were interested in the restoration of CzechoSlovakia.24 At this point, the question presents itself: Was Benes alone responsible for the non-recognition of the Republic of Slovakia, or was there another cause or influencing factor? In her research the · writer has come across another point of view. Unfortunately, the sources cannot be disclosed because of possible reprisals; however, this writer believes the new slant of sufficent importance to warrant inclusion in this present study on the role of Slovakia in the relations of the United States with Czecho-Slovakia. Persons having vested interests in a government would quite naturally wish to see its preservation. It is understandable why the Jews who had invested in the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia would be very interested in the perpetuation of the State at least until such a time as most of their money could be taken out safely. Slovakia posed a threat to their investment. Furthermore, because of past detrimental effects on the Catholic State of Slovakia, the newlyiounded Republic clamped down on all Freemason lodges, 56 SLOVAKIA clissolving Freemasonary in the country, and placing controls on the .Jews. 25 It is, therefore, not surprising that the nonCatholic elements in Slovakia and elsewhere would combine with the Freemasons and secretly but effectively prevent, if not the formation, then the recognition of a new State whose citizenry would be in vast majority Catholic.26 Oddly ,enough, Masonic influence in England, France and, perhaps in Scandinavia, is quite powerful, and yet these countries recognized the new Slovak State. In America, it appears that the influence of the Jews was added to that of the Freemasons, Communists, and Czechs. Together they formed a bloc strong enough to influence FDR's non-recognition policy, a fact further strengthened by the knowledge of President Roosevelt's membership in the Masonic fraternity. 27 President Benes paid another official visit to the United States in May, 1943. He talked with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Secretaries Morgenthau, Knox, Stimson and many other political, military and economic leaders of this country. He addressed both Houses of Congress as well as numerous representative gatherings in Washington, D.C. , New York, and Chicago. 28 This second visit with President Roosevelt confirmed and consolidated Benes's official, international, and legal position in the United States.29 It was immediately after this second visit that the CzechoSlovak Legation was raised to an Embassy with the appointment of Colonel Vladimir Hurban as the first Czecho-Slovak Ambassador to the United States, June 28, 1943. On that historic occasion, Roosevelt asserted his feelings toward · the Czech leader thus: The elevation of our respective diplomatic missions to the r ank or Embassy r eaffirms the friendship whi ch has always uni ted our two peoples and emphasize li our common aim of working togethe r to destroy the evil forces w hich s ought t o impose u pon th e world their immoral d omination . .. I shall be gr ateful, Mr . Ambassador , if you will convey to His Excellency President Benes, whose r ecent visit was a fur th er la ndmark in our efforts t o achieve fi na l victory , my ,sincere goo d ,wishes for his welfa r e a nd for the early liber ation of th e people of iCzecho-i.SloTakia.30 On June 9 and September 28, 1942, the British and the Soviet Governments accorded the Czecho-Slovak Government the status of Ambassador to their Ministers.31 SLOVAKIA 57 Leaving the United States with a sense of relief and satisfaction after his second visit, President Benes noted that both on the domestic and the international levels friendly cooperation between America and the Soviets was functioning well. 32 From this point on, one sees a somewhat quickening get-togetherness developing between Stalin and Benes. Long years before, Masaryk, who had looked upon the Communist seizure of power in Russia with evident satisfaction, had predicted: "The revolution in Russia will bring great changes politically, socially and culturally, so that in the future we shall come to a close cooperation and a national and political reapprochement with her." 33 Prominent Czechs had believed cooperation with Russia was not only possible but also desirable. 34 Benes himself stated in his Memoirs that after the Treaty of 1935 with P.msia, Czecho-Slovak cooperation with the Soviet Union was "normal, lasting, and consistent. " 35 Imitation is the greatest compliment. Creeping socialism began only a few years after the First Republic of CzechoS1ovakia came into existence. In 1938, a visitor noted with surprise a distinct progress toward social control of the nation's industries. Railroads, mines, hydro-electric plants, fisheries, smelting and radium works, Czech Postal Savings Bank were all in the hands of the Government. 315 Under pressure of leftist leaders, the Government-inexile initiated discussions for large-scale nationalization as early as 1943. No definite plan emerged until the Kosice Agreement of 1945. By then, it was too late to turn back from the road of socialism which was to end in total involvement with communism. 37 After Stalingrad, Benes concluded that Russia would escalade the apex of Europe's political power. He found it expedient to adjust Czecho-Slovakia to the eminent position of the Soviet Union, making his country the first to line itself up voluntarily on the side of the stronghold of communism. 38 Against British advice, Benes went to Moscow to make a new treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. 39 The SovietCzech Mutual Aid Treaty, a twenty years treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post was collaboration, was signed on 58 SLOVAKIA December 12, 1943. 40 London at first opposed the Pact and Washington did not react favorably to it because it veered away from a world security league. 41 The Treaty did not change Roosevelt's benevolent attitude toward Stalin and Benes. In fact, "according to his own account, Benes's influence on Roosevelt's ideas concerning Central and Eastern Europe was considerable at this time; and, though not present at Teheran, he cast a fatal shadow on it from the background. He strengthened Roosevelt's sublime trust in the men of Kremlin." 42 Benes supports this interpretation with the statement, "I think, therefore, that I am not wrong in supposing that the Moscow Conference (and by implication, Teheran) was the direct result or was .:.t least hastened by the negotiations for our treaty with :Moscow." Later he observed that the Moscow Conference laid the "foundations for real agreement and friendship between the three participating Powers." 43 How far his political friendships of this period were responsible for the debacle that was to follow after the War cannot be ascertained. The facts are that the Soviets showed li.ttle regard for their treaty obligations in May, 1944, when the Red, Army liberated Pilsen and Prague and seized Ruthenia; when the Allies, without consulting Benes or notifying him, made an agreement with the Russians regarding zones of occupation; when Benes suddenly realized that CzechoSlovakia was under the immediate control of the Red Army. 44 "The American Army's failure to liberate Prague in April, 1945, is considered by many Czechs the most fateful mistake of American policy." 45 It is the opinion of some that the United States Army could have saved Czecho-Slovakia for the West as it had Vienna and Berlin. 46 The Reds made propaganda out of this by telling the people of Czecho-Slovakia that America had refused to aid their country. 47 On this case, documentary evidence proves that No prior political agreements or commitments h ad been made with respect to Czecho-'Slovakia, and the Allied Command m ade perfectly clear its willi ngness to complete the des truction of the enemy in Czecho-Slovakia as well a:s in other areas. It was only at the specific request of the Soviet High Command, and a!ter assurances were received, that the Soviet Army was already in a position to delitroy SLOVAKIA 59 the enemy in the Vltava Valley, in which Praha (Prague) is situated, that the advance beyond the Pilsen line was halted.48 Czecho-Slovakia was to become the victim of the aggressive foreign policy of the East and a negative policy of withdrawal by the West. 49 It could have profited to a great extent from the publishing of George Kennan's excellent advice on policy toward Russia. In his American Diplomacy, Kennan stresses the point that the United States must "regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner in the political arena." 50 Roosevelt and Benes both needed to be told this. The book, unfortunately, came out a few years too late for their benefit. On the other hand, Kurt Glaser concludes that "considering the entire record, ... the Western Powers had no reason to believe that the Czechs were in anyway dissatisfied with the prospect of Russian 'liberation'." 51 Certainly Benes could agree with that viewpoint inasmuch as he inked the following remarks in his Memoirs: I . . . regarded the Teheran Conference as a great success and I moulded all my further discussions in Moscow as .well as my later ones in London and our negotiations with :the Americans to fit the results of Teheran. This also covered the advance of the Soviet Army into ,Central ·E urope and on to our territory :which I regarded as a certainity - especially after Tehera n - though I did not exclude the possibility that the Western Allies would also try to reach it.52 The last sentence of the above quote clearly indicates Benes's thinking on the subject of liberation. The events following the liberation of Czecho-Slovakia were to be the saddest in its history. Preiident Roosevelt and the British War Cabinet approved a plan for the transfer of Sudeten Germans. The Czecho-Slovak Minister of Propaganda, Vaclav Kopecky, declared, "We shall expel all the Germans, we shall confiscate their property, we shall de-nationalize ... the whole area ... " 53 At Potsdam, Truman, Attlee, aod their advisers, incorrectly informed, could not prevent the total expulsion of fifteen million Germans from their original homes. The Potsdam Agreement sanctioned their transfer "in an orderly and human way." 54 What followed was a barbaric resurgence. Meanwhile an uprising, Communist led and inspired, 60 SLOVAKIA occurred in Slovakia in 1944. The German Army crushed the improvised rebellion and the Soviet Army used the occasion to occupy Slovakia's territory by mid-April, 1945. Control of the Slovak Republic passed into hands of the Prague pro-communist government which initiated a reign of terror. 55 President Benes had organized a coalition government with the help of Moscow. Together with Premier Klement Gottwald, leader of the Czech Communists, he proclaimed the Kosice Program, April 5, 1945, for the new Government of the reestablished Czecho-Slovakia. Without any form of plebiscite, Slovakia was reintegrated into the State and promised equal rights. 56 The Kosice Program was the door to Communist seizure of power three years later. The Slovak National Council, an ligency of the communist-dominated central government of Prague, created several institutions of political justice on May 15, 1945. "The legal task of these courts was to judge war criminals, but their political purpose was to get rid of the political adversaries of the two factions in power, under the pretext of collaboration with Germany." 57 President Jozef Tiso, with a majority of representatives of the Slovak Republic, placed himself in the hands of the military of the United States after the occupation of Slovakia by the Soviet Army. He remained in the American detention camp for a short time and then was surrendered to Benes who gave him to the Communists in charge of the "people's court" in Bratislava. 58 The international law expert, Dr. Fer.dinand Durcansky, declared that, "according to accepted principles of international law and traditional practices of civilized nations, a political refugee, politically guilty or not, is not to be given over to a government against which he worked, and certainly not when such a government is one from which he fled . . ." 59 His explanation demonstrates that the American officers had no legal basis for turning over Dr. Tiso and the Slovak representatives to the National Court of CzechoSlovakia. If these men had been suspected of some military crime, their trial properly belonged to the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal. 60 SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes had made it clear to the Slovak National Council that sentence of death upon President Tiso was a matter of necessity. The National Court in Bratislava was, therefore, devoid of impartiality and objectivity. Since it was through the intrumentality of its Army of Occupation that Tiso was released to the Czech Government, the United States was bound to intervene.61 Why it did not do so, despite the earnest pleadings of Slovak Americans, will remain a secret in the confidential files of the State Department. Dr. Tiso died on the gallows at dawn on April 18, 1947.62 In his speech, "Murder in Slovakia," delivered in the House of Representatives on April 23, 1947, Congressman Alvin E. O'Konski of Wisconsin emphasized that the hanging of Monsignor Tiso itself is not the greatest tragedy. "The greatest tragedy is the silence by our American President and by our American State Deparment while this murder was going on." He decried the fact that our national leaders did not so much as file a protest against the execution of one "whose only crime was that he hated communism just as he hated nazism." 63 FOOTNOTES 1. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1 939), p. 41. 2. IBID., pp. 48-51 . 3. Eduard Benes, MEMOJJRS: FROM MUNICH TO NEW WAR AND NEW VICTORY (Boston, 1954), p . 19. 4. Eduard Benes, IN 'HDS OWIN WORDS (New York, 1944), p. 133. 5. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 56. 6. IBID., p. 54. 7. IBID., p . 75. 8. Benes, IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. 9. Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 79-80. 10. Benes. IN HIS OWN WORDS, p. 133. "The question of the recognition of the Czechoslovak Government was being examined carefully at Washington." Benes, MIDMOIRS, p. 176. 11. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 175. 12. IBID., pp. 176-77. 13 . Memorandum of the Slovak National Cottncil Abroad to His Excellency John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State (May 28, 1953), p.11. 14. Joseph Rusek to Cordell Hull, August 4, 1939. 15. FOREIGN IRElLATIONS, Vol. I (1939). pp. 69-71. 62 SLOVAKIA 16. Mikula§ i:§princ, ed., SLOViENSKA LIGA V AM1E RIKE ~TYRlDSA 'l'ROONA (Sc;ranton, 1947), pp. 70-71. 17. IBID., p. 84. 18. Correspondence in re Slova,kia. 19. IBID., The statement appeared in the Czech newspapars in the United States and was thus brought to the attention or many Americans of Slovak origin. 20. IBID. 21. J. Husak to Hon. Martin Dies, October 6 and 28, 1939. 22. Peter P. Yurchak, "Inside •CzechoJSlovak!a," THE CA'l1HOLIC WOO.Iill, CLIX (May, 1944). p. 162. 23. Frantisek J. Dubosh, "Slovenska Liga pofas vojny," (T-he Slovak League during the War), XXXV Congress of the Slovak League of America (May 26, 1957), p. 15. 24. tDr. Peter P. Hletko, President of the Slovak League or .America, to the writer, July 2, 1962. 25. CZEOHOSLOVAKIA F1IGH'DS BACK, A DOCUMENT OF THE ,CZEJOROS,L OVAK MLNILSTRY OF FOREIGN A1F1FAIRS with an Introduction by Jan Masaryk (1Washington, D. C., 1943), p. 158. 26. Dr. Tiso has sometimes been charged with persecuting the Jews, contrary to an official report of the International Committee or the Red Cross which recorded :that "at definite periods SloTakia was actually regarded as a relative asylum for Jews ... The Jews that remain ed in Slovakia were comparatively safe until the revolt which took place at the end of August, 1944." Cited by Kirschbaum from •R EVUE IN'DERNATIO::--rAL !DE LA CROIX ROUGE, 1947, iN. 348, pp. 957-9 59 in "The ,Politics of Hlinka's Party." S.IJO'VAKIA, I (May, 1951), 48. 27. ENCYCLiOPEtDIA AMEJRICANA (1958), XVIII, p. 888. 28. CZECHOSJ..JOVA.KiLA rnlGHiTS BA:OK, p. 1,9,4. 29. Benes, IN H.l!S OWN WlORDS, p. 133. 30. CZEOHiOSiLOVAKIA FIGHTS BAOK, p. 196. 31. IBID., p. 196. WORDS, p. 135. 32. Benes, IN HIS ow 33. Thomas G. -Masaryk, THE MAKING OF A STATE, New York, 1927), pp. 14-15. 34. FOREIGN RELATIONS, Vol. I (1935), p. 226. Benes, MEMOIRS, p. 40. 35. 36. Harry W. Laidler, "The ,Czecho-Slovakia That Was," THE NEW REPUB!LIC, XCViIII (Ma.rch 29, 1939), 213. 37. Winifred Hadsel, "Czechoslovakia's Road to Socialism," FOREIGN BOLICY IRJEBORTS, XXIV (February 15, 1947), 271. 38. IBID., %73. 39. Wilhelm Turnwald, iRENAISCIDNCE OR iDEJOI.iINE OF CIDNTRAL EJUROPE (Munich, 1954), p. 60. 40. "American War Documents," OURREJNT HISTORY, VI (February, 1944), 15G. 41. "Russian Czech Pact Brings Up Puzzle Big Three Didn't Solve," NEWSWEEK, XXII (December 27, 1943), 30. 4!. Turnwald, IRIDNASCFl..'-.CE OR DECL]NE, p. 62. SLOVAKIA 63 43 Benes, MEMOIRS, pp. 245-249. 44. Edward Taborsky, "Benes and the Soviets," F10REIGN AFFA!IRS, XXVH (January, 1949), 309-14. 45. Joseph Wechsberg, "They're Losing Faith in America," SATURDAY EVENING POST, CCXXIX (July 28, 1956), 93. 46. 1'BlD., 93. 47. Hubert Ripka, -CZECHOSLOVAKIA EJN5LAVED (London, 1950), p. 38. 48. UNITIDD ,STATES DEPA!RTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN, XX (May 22, 19 49) , ti 65. 49. Andrew Gyorgy, GOVEJRNMEJNTS OF DANIUBIAN EUROPE (New York, 1949), p. 103. 50. George tF. Kennan, AMERICAN DIPLOMA!CY, 1900-1950 (Chicago, 1952), p. 104. 51. Kurt Glaser, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: A ORITIOAL HISTORY (Caldwell, Idaho, 1961), p. 109. From the Munich crisis on to the final ,t ragedy of communist takeover in 1948, Eduard Benes is a difficult character to understand. There is a bit of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde about him as he proceeds from confussion to frustration during the declining decade of his years. 52. Benes, MEMO-IRS, p. 253. 53. TtRAGEDY OF A PEOBLE, RACIAl.JISM IN ,CZEJOHO-SLOVAKIA, n. a. (New York, 1946), p. 19. 5-4 . .Glasser, CZEGHO-SLO'VA>KIA: A CRITICAL HIS'I\ORY, p. 129. Since American troops still occupied part of Czecho-Slovakia, Truman could have demanded ,that the ,Czechs discontinue the persecution of Sudeten Germans or else risk the annexation of Western Bohemia to the United States' Zone of Germany. J:BID., p. 130. 55. Joseph Pauco, CHRISTIAJ..~ SLOVAKIA UNDER COMMUNISM (Valpa.raiso, Indiana, 1959), p. 15. · 56 . •COMMUNIST TAKEOVER AND OCCUPATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Special Report No. 8. Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representives, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 15. 57. INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST AGGRESSION, Tenth Interim !Report of Hearings, 83rd Congress, Second Session, p. 166. 58. Gilbert L. Oddo, SlJOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE (New York, 1960), p. 310. 59. Petition of the ,S lovak Action Committee to the United Nations in the Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, n. p. 60. IBlD., n. p. As late as 1963·, the State Department refused to give out any information that it has in its files on Dr. Tiso. "As far as can be ascertained, the State Depa11trnent of the United States ordered the surrender of President Tiso and members of the Slovak Government in its custody without even investigating their status." Oddo, SLCNAKIA ANtD ITS PEOPLE, p. 310. 61. IBID., n . p. 62. Oddo, SLOVAKIA AND ITS PEOPLE, p. 315. 63. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Proceedings and Debates, 80th CoRgress, First Session, Special Reprint, p. 2.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The White House and the Slovaks Description An account of the resource Sister M. Evangela, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 15 (No. 38), 1965 pp. 51-63 Contributor notes in backmatter indicate that Sr. Evangela published the thesis at DePaul University in 1964 found at <a href="https://depaul.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4186612">https://depaul.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4186612</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubek, Sister M. Evangela, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/2a4b83e16a2e4ecc21626e84333fa6cb.pdf e39d5329f6fef123f4b813fdf01964ef PDF Text Text 64 SLOVAKIA The United State~ of A111erica The Nation With a Purpose Stephen B . Roman, LL.D. We know from history that the process man learned, which distinguished him from the animals he hunted, was and still is, the civilizing process of a society. Out of tribes--nations emerged. Their leaders guided them through a life which the civilized man found to be satisfying for himself and his family. The world went through many upheavals that, in retrospect, we realize were hard evolutionary processes. Man that evolved as an individual endorsed and accepted his first immediate grouping-his family. Later, through necessity, he organized himself into a stronger unit-a tribe. Again, by necessity of hard evolutionary fact, tribes evolved into modern nations. In Europe and Asia where history has best been documented, we have seen the emergence of powers which tried to dominate the entire world before. And again, we have seen governments which sought to offer the freedoms with which all human beings were endowed as their birthright. Looking in retrospect, we can analyze those values which enhanced man's progress; and those which retarded most of his efforts. The former, offered the individual a chance to develop the power which were really his to use to his best ability. The latter, bound the very energies which a state needs for its fullest development. At the beginning of the 17th century, events in Europe appeared to stifle the human spirit. The urge, by man, to venture to other areas of the world developed into an exodus to a newly discovered continent-to America. The first American settler yearned for the values which came from his heart and soul, and were nurtured by his intellect. He set about fulfilling his visions with his own might, and the blessing from the One in whom he found his greatest trust- his God. But, as the honest man proposes and flounders about, �SLOVAKIA 65 t hrough trial and error, so must he use his spirit and his intellect responsibly to reach his goals. Goals which not only prime his inspiration, but become the guide for others to follow. Guided by their desire to build America free and prosperous, the generations of Americans not only marvelled at the human concepts they were promoting, but had set a new poli tical philosophy to work . This concept required a new sense of realism in dealing with problems that were sure to emerge. It was a pragmatic approach in every sense, but one which always acknowledged the Divine Creator in Whose trust the nation was dedicated. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln -and others after them-will forever guide the spirit of free men, not only in the United States but everywhere. The young nation tried to do a lot, and surely accomplished a lot. The country expanded its horizons, and within its borders accepted the men, women and children who wanted to live in the free and peaceful environment. However, we see the erroneous effect of the American policy in recent decades, that stemmed from the confusion created by the ideologists, that wanted to set America on a new course. Though Mr. Roosevelt had offered the greatest freedom of movement and practical affluence to his generation of Americans, which touched the hearts of all the people everywhere, he failed to use that which was his greatest contribution to the American nation-the natural, practical and idealistic approach that had guided America before. The Second World War emerged as a conflict between strong nations-not so much to gain territorial possessions; but more to impose its national philosophies on weaker nations. We all know the course of history. Where freedom once flourished, people were left to their horrible fate , to endure decades of misery. In my opinion, what should have been the destruction of dangerous ideologies turned out to be the war of interests of national philosophies; and thus, extended the possibility to another major war. The ideological confrontation that we are in constant fear of, can bring our world to destruction, such as no civilization has witnessed before. During the past half century the world witnessed �66 SLOVAKIA several forms of domination, along with expanding colonial empires. Several compromises by honourable men dealing in good faith. But, always the same result. The good intentions on one side would not eliminate the treachery and intrigue on the other. The free world, dealing in good faith, always lost and compromised the principles of freedom and democracy. Tyranny, using its devious ways and forms, always triumphed for a time. There was no doubt in Hitler's plans to conquer the world. But why were there doubts-doubts that still remain -that Soviet communism seeks to do the same? One sought to enslave man's bodies. But the other, seeks to destroy every vestige of his previous political and philosophical persuasion. To compel him, without mercy, to adopt a form of totalitarian exploitation-bod y and soul alike. Why is it then that the nation's leaders, calling upon Divine Providence to lead the world in freedom, justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, could not recognize the dangers of confusion, that they were creating by trying to resolve long term problems by expedient means. As such a close neighbour to your great and powerful nation, you must realize Canada tends to be extra-sensitive to your every thought and action. It is a trite Canadian expression that when the United States sneezes, Canada catches the cold. That I should be standing here about to discuss the role of the United States in the world today, indicates your awareness of the sensitive and friendly reactions of Canadians to your way of life, and the factors which influence your country. Why is it that we are unable to ferret out the essence of imminent aggression and its accompanying consequences, before millions of people are compelled to bow to the whim and wish of a tyrannical system? The hope of mankind was riding high when the Atlantic Charter and Four Freedoms were held as a beacon for man everywhere. But how depressed and low it fell when, in spite of that American ideal, one hundred million people that had known freedom, were placed under communism against their will! How depressing it gets when one action leads to another, and shows that the American ideal of free men everywhere slides into the background! Ravaging �SLOVAKIA 67 communism emerges stronger and stronger, with complete government apparatus supporting its every move for further expansion. · Must we succumb to the devious schemes of dictators who always seem to be right on time to create confusion and turmoil? Can we not analyze a potential threat to humanity? Can we not offer a solution which would alleviate the situation before it gets out of hand? Before it engulfs man ~n despair, and leads the entire world into catastrophe? Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the title of my comments-A Nation With a Purpose-indicates what Canadians think about you, Americans; and, the position of the United States in the world today. Many of you must be bewildered by some of the terrible events which have occured in your nation. By political assassinations, by riots and near anarchy, and by crime. The cynic might say, today, that the United States has lost its purpose . I disagree violently. I can tell you that most people in the world, disagree. To most people in the world the United States r epresents hope ; and to many of them the only hope, that their fate will be changed for the better. The man broken under the abuses of those political and ideological systems looks hopefully-and secretly-to the United States. I can stand back at a distance and tell you that to men and women living outside your borders, you appear as a strong nation created by pioneers; and perpetuated by ideals of freedom, justice and liberty. Your forefathers were fighting to establish the uniqueness of the individual in a society. They worked to help that individual achieve his fondest aspirations-to live in freedom . Let us not forget the beginnings of your American history. The downtrodden, the beaten and weary came to America from societies where political and social systems had taken away the dignity of man. From societies that turned man into a lesser creature-than Divine Providence intended him to be. The purpose of the American nation was established, from its earliest days; to provide opportunity for men to �68 SLOVAKIA be free; to show the rest of the world that only in free societies can man evolve to his ultimate. Contrast this root of the American culture and purpose, and American history with other parts of the world. The world which is under the domination of what we define as a communist system. In that world, man as an individual is non-existent. Man is only a tool to be manipulated-to be used, by a select few within the power structure. My viewpoint is, that this essential purpose of the American nation-this constant drive for individual freedom-is the greatest strength which less fortunate man everywhere can look up to, today. Despite occasional setbacks of the American policy, the American purpose remains the only hope of those people who are locked into the communist system and ideologies. Your nation is the only hope of the free world, if the world, as we know it today, is to survive. The United States is the only nation capable of deterring the expansion of the evil ideology that is so vehemently trying to encircle individual man. As I have mentioned, this role of champion of individual dignity, and freedom, was thrust on the United States by history. It has taken two world wars to arrive at the present crucial stage of direct confrontation. The confrontation between the ideology of the innate dignity and freedom of man; and, the opposing ideology that man has no b asic individuality, but is only another animal to b e used , by the state. Champi oning individual liberties has become part of y our nation's identi ty. Naturally, this task has never been easy nor always crowned with success. Two world wars have been fought over fundamental issues which are more relevant today than they were in 1918. The confrontation between the ideology which is used as a mask for enslavement, on one side, and, the ideology that contains freedom, and liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the individual, on the other. The struggle of these ideologies continues, and this confrontation will go on unti l free men will win. Communism, which might have started with the intention of helping the individual to improve his lot, cannot be defended today as such. Even its own theorists cannot �SLOVAKIA 69 show that the continuation of that intention is the purpose of the system. Events and facts show us the grotesque size of this fallacy. For . over 50 years Russia, as the core of the communist way, has used all its strength for only one purposethe imposition of the dominance of its state, and its government, and its ideology on the rest of the world. In other words-for the destruction of freedom and liberty. The Kremlin leaders try to convince the world that its difficulties stem from a difference in ideas. The true situation is, that the world's biggest problem is a fight between free nations willing to give freedom to all people, on one side; and, Soviet imperialism, on the other. The Soviet tactics have been terrifyingly successful. The communist area, today, covers one-quarter of the world's land territory, and one-third of the world's peoples. Why have we permitted this situation to develop? We have developed this crisis situation because of mistakes both, in the way we think, and in the methods we employ. Because we have taken our freedom for granted, we have been trapped into making mistakes which have furthered the efforts of communists to dominate mankind. The United States, as leader and mentor, has been unwittingly tricked into fighting the battle between freedom and slavery, under the rules laid down by the enslavers. As your nation rose in stature, and sought to influence the world-it made mistakes. These mistakes were inevitable at times. But the major errors, I feel were the results of confusion and hesitation. It may have been a possible lack of confidence among leading Americans in the historical purpose of the nation. It was almost as if some of your politicians felt guilty, or somewhat ashamed, about words like freedom, justice, liberty, equality-and, phrases like, the pursuit of happiness. You may feel self-conscious hearing them now. I am proud to be free--and able--to use these words. As your President, Mr. Nixon, stated in his Inaugural Address: "America must appraise her weaknesses". But let me say, the entire world shouts to you to appraise �70 SLOVAKIA the weakness of yours, and mankind's adverseries. And, he also said: "the American dream does not come to those who fall asleep". So must America understand, when the people of the world call on this generation of Americans to awaken from its lethargy and pursue its American purpose. Yes, no man can be fully free when his neighbour is not. The purpose of your nation, today, is to recognize the choice between your original idealistic goal of freedom , and self-respect of man, on one side; and, his enslavement by communism, on the other. Today, ladies and gentlemen, time has passed when international order can be guaranteed by power, alone. A good example of this is the result of the Second World War. I believe, and believe very strongly, that in our world of ideas and ideals, military confrontation will be the end result:-unless , we are willing, to weaken the enemy by the greatest strength we have at our disposal-the yearning for freedom by enslaved men. I , for one, believe that mankind would survive a nuclear war, but only as a small fragment of what man and civilization represent today. But, I also believe that the confrontation is not necessary. Re-appraisal of the way to go about strengthening our side, and weakening the adverseries, is an immediate need-and, a high priority item . We hear a cry from a number of responsible thoughtmolders in the United States, and some beyond your borders, about the lack of American leadership, on the international scene. It, therefore, become the task of this generation of Americans to clearly re-establish that leadership which will capture the imagination of, not only America and the free world, but also the people that are suffering tyranny. Surely American leadership must understand the plight of nations seeking freedom, and inspire them to promote their self-determination. The indecisions, and hesitancies, and contradictions of our leaders in recent years, have only confused the rest �SLOVAKIA 71 of the world. They have given ammunitio n to the communist argument that the United States is an arrogant nation, and not a liberator, and fighter for freedom and liberty. But, ladies and gentlemen, let us hope that this is in the past. I am heartened by the evidence of realistic thinking about the basic aim and role, of your nation, on the world stage. I sense a return to the purpose which drives America. The right of the individual to seek-to achieve his aspirations in an atmospher e of freedom , and equality. What does the world long for today? I am convinced that the solution of the problem is, simply: First. Establishm ent of American leadership that will freely entice all the peoples fighting for, and respecting freedom, under its banner. Second. Re-apprais al of the policy of containme nt and status quo should be considered . In today's world-sta tus quo-is virtually the same as standing still in our fastmoving world. Therefore, unless the Western nations begin making their own revolution -a revolution to extend and expand the areas of freedom-t he free man will not survive as such. It is indeed time for America to remember the strength and power of the people yearning for freedom in the Soviet system. Only through that particular power can we expect, and eventually achieve, victory of free men without nuclear holocaust. Let our systems compete peacefully. But let the competitio n be based on equal hadicaps. The test is, to bring to light the real motivating force , and seek to understand its future moves. Knowledge is free man's most important asset, as well as dictators' greatest liability. The picture I can see in this kind of competitio n will not be bleak for our side. The competitiv e spirit of free man is, today, one of his greatest assets-an asset that will triumph in the end. The power of free man is the power of America. A power which is unparallell ed with any of its adverseries . �72 SLOVAKIA Make use of it! Give your youth the visions of conquering man's ills! Stimulate the interest in that power, in the masses of enslaved people! Do this with a courage and zeal that gets the job done, and instills responsibility for the objectives. Third. It is in your interest, and in the interest of free people everywhere to neutralize communists' two most powerful states-The Soviet Union and Communist China. An elastic and skillful policy towards China on the part of the United States and the free world shoul be considered. I would like to stress that nothing is more remote from my mind than backing the political concepts which could lead to strengthening the communist tyranny in any way, even in the smallest country in the world. I am interested in not missing any opportunities that would give the idea of freedom a little time to germinate. In order to survive, the communist world must keep its people in constant fear and turmoil. It must obtain from its subjects the greatest possible sacrifices. Is it not better then, that two of our adverseries are fighting between themselves, rather than both be left free to fight with us? I feel the world would not be in danger of a nuclear holocaust if the strength of communism could be diminished by its own inherent, internal weaknesses. Fourth. The free world's communications media must be committed to developing the strains of understanding which make up the moral fiber of the Western man, rather than inflame the antagonisms which promote conflict. The ideologists of all dictatorships will be pleased to see America flounder; and therefore, responsible communication is a must. If the best is required of political leaders today; if the highest qualities are demanded of your scientists; then certainly, not any less should be the criteria by which the communicators in the West should be motivated. Ultimately each must seek the same goal-to promote t he best which the Free Society can inspire. Fifth. Expanding your horizons is, indeed, very im- �SLOVAKIA 73 portant for America today. Think in terms of the future problems that you can surmount, rather than be dismayed by them. Freedom has the same meaning to all people, whether one lives in the United States, in Russia, or in Czecho-Slovakia. It is this concept of freedom which eventually overcomes dictatorships. Communism carries within itself a seed of self-destruction. Let's nurture that seed for our benefit, and for the benefit of freedom. Your nation stands on the foundation with the wonderful human goals. The goals of freedom and justice for all-equality of opportunity to achieve one's personal happiness. Your nation recognizes the dignity of man. The United States was formed for a purpose, and with the purpose, to provide a home whether physical or spiritual for those who love freedom and crave for dignity. That purpose is more vital to the world today than ever before. It is your purpose-your nation's purpose. And the people yearning for freedom see, in the United States, an irreplaceable leader of their hope and their trust. And I know, that people held down by political and ideological tyrannies are waiting to hear you proclaim it. This address was delivered on February 17, 1969 to Palm Beach Round Table meeting and we are pleased to publish it because of its interesting and timely contents. - Editor. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America lias always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic 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. � 64 SLOVAKIA The United State~ of A111erica The Nation With a Purpose Stephen B . Roman, LL.D. We know from history that the process man learned, which distinguished him from the animals he hunted, was and still is, the civilizing process of a society. Out of tribes--nations emerged. Their leaders guided them through a life which the civilized man found to be satisfying for himself and his family. The world went through many upheavals that, in retrospect, we realize were hard evolutionary processes. Man that evolved as an individual endorsed and accepted his first immediate grouping-his family. Later, through necessity, he organized himself into a stronger unit-a tribe. Again, by necessity of hard evolutionary fact, tribes evolved into modern nations. In Europe and Asia where history has best been documented, we have seen the emergence of powers which tried to dominate the entire world before. And again, we have seen governments which sought to offer the freedoms with which all human beings were endowed as their birthright. Looking in retrospect, we can analyze those values which enhanced man's progress; and those which retarded most of his efforts. The former, offered the individual a chance to develop the power which were really his to use to his best ability. The latter, bound the very energies which a state needs for its fullest development. At the beginning of the 17th century, events in Europe appeared to stifle the human spirit. The urge, by man, to venture to other areas of the world developed into an exodus to a newly discovered continent-to America. The first American settler yearned for the values which came from his heart and soul, and were nurtured by his intellect. He set about fulfilling his visions with his own might, and the blessing from the One in whom he found his greatest trust- his God. But, as the honest man proposes and flounders about, �SLOVAKIA 65 t hrough trial and error, so must he use his spirit and his intellect responsibly to reach his goals. Goals which not only prime his inspiration, but become the guide for others to follow. Guided by their desire to build America free and prosperous, the generations of Americans not only marvelled at the human concepts they were promoting, but had set a new poli tical philosophy to work . This concept required a new sense of realism in dealing with problems that were sure to emerge. It was a pragmatic approach in every sense, but one which always acknowledged the Divine Creator in Whose trust the nation was dedicated. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln -and others after them-will forever guide the spirit of free men, not only in the United States but everywhere. The young nation tried to do a lot, and surely accomplished a lot. The country expanded its horizons, and within its borders accepted the men, women and children who wanted to live in the free and peaceful environment. However, we see the erroneous effect of the American policy in recent decades, that stemmed from the confusion created by the ideologists, that wanted to set America on a new course. Though Mr. Roosevelt had offered the greatest freedom of movement and practical affluence to his generation of Americans, which touched the hearts of all the people everywhere, he failed to use that which was his greatest contribution to the American nation-the natural, practical and idealistic approach that had guided America before. The Second World War emerged as a conflict between strong nations-not so much to gain territorial possessions; but more to impose its national philosophies on weaker nations. We all know the course of history. Where freedom once flourished, people were left to their horrible fate , to endure decades of misery. In my opinion, what should have been the destruction of dangerous ideologies turned out to be the war of interests of national philosophies; and thus, extended the possibility to another major war. The ideological confrontation that we are in constant fear of, can bring our world to destruction, such as no civilization has witnessed before. During the past half century the world witnessed �66 SLOVAKIA several forms of domination, along with expanding colonial empires. Several compromises by honourable men dealing in good faith. But, always the same result. The good intentions on one side would not eliminate the treachery and intrigue on the other. The free world, dealing in good faith, always lost and compromised the principles of freedom and democracy. Tyranny, using its devious ways and forms, always triumphed for a time. There was no doubt in Hitler's plans to conquer the world. But why were there doubts-doubts that still remain -that Soviet communism seeks to do the same? One sought to enslave man's bodies. But the other, seeks to destroy every vestige of his previous political and philosophical persuasion. To compel him, without mercy, to adopt a form of totalitarian exploitation-bod y and soul alike. Why is it then that the nation's leaders, calling upon Divine Providence to lead the world in freedom, justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, could not recognize the dangers of confusion, that they were creating by trying to resolve long term problems by expedient means. As such a close neighbour to your great and powerful nation, you must realize Canada tends to be extra-sensitive to your every thought and action. It is a trite Canadian expression that when the United States sneezes, Canada catches the cold. That I should be standing here about to discuss the role of the United States in the world today, indicates your awareness of the sensitive and friendly reactions of Canadians to your way of life, and the factors which influence your country. Why is it that we are unable to ferret out the essence of imminent aggression and its accompanying consequences, before millions of people are compelled to bow to the whim and wish of a tyrannical system? The hope of mankind was riding high when the Atlantic Charter and Four Freedoms were held as a beacon for man everywhere. But how depressed and low it fell when, in spite of that American ideal, one hundred million people that had known freedom, were placed under communism against their will! How depressing it gets when one action leads to another, and shows that the American ideal of free men everywhere slides into the background! Ravaging �SLOVAKIA 67 communism emerges stronger and stronger, with complete government apparatus supporting its every move for further expansion. · Must we succumb to the devious schemes of dictators who always seem to be right on time to create confusion and turmoil? Can we not analyze a potential threat to humanity? Can we not offer a solution which would alleviate the situation before it gets out of hand? Before it engulfs man ~n despair, and leads the entire world into catastrophe? Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the title of my comments-A Nation With a Purpose-indicates what Canadians think about you, Americans; and, the position of the United States in the world today. Many of you must be bewildered by some of the terrible events which have occured in your nation. By political assassinations, by riots and near anarchy, and by crime. The cynic might say, today, that the United States has lost its purpose . I disagree violently. I can tell you that most people in the world, disagree. To most people in the world the United States r epresents hope ; and to many of them the only hope, that their fate will be changed for the better. The man broken under the abuses of those political and ideological systems looks hopefully-and secretly-to the United States. I can stand back at a distance and tell you that to men and women living outside your borders, you appear as a strong nation created by pioneers; and perpetuated by ideals of freedom, justice and liberty. Your forefathers were fighting to establish the uniqueness of the individual in a society. They worked to help that individual achieve his fondest aspirations-to live in freedom . Let us not forget the beginnings of your American history. The downtrodden, the beaten and weary came to America from societies where political and social systems had taken away the dignity of man. From societies that turned man into a lesser creature-than Divine Providence intended him to be. The purpose of the American nation was established, from its earliest days; to provide opportunity for men to �68 SLOVAKIA be free; to show the rest of the world that only in free societies can man evolve to his ultimate. Contrast this root of the American culture and purpose, and American history with other parts of the world. The world which is under the domination of what we define as a communist system. In that world, man as an individual is non-existent. Man is only a tool to be manipulated-to be used, by a select few within the power structure. My viewpoint is, that this essential purpose of the American nation-this constant drive for individual freedom-is the greatest strength which less fortunate man everywhere can look up to, today. Despite occasional setbacks of the American policy, the American purpose remains the only hope of those people who are locked into the communist system and ideologies. Your nation is the only hope of the free world, if the world, as we know it today, is to survive. The United States is the only nation capable of deterring the expansion of the evil ideology that is so vehemently trying to encircle individual man. As I have mentioned, this role of champion of individual dignity, and freedom, was thrust on the United States by history. It has taken two world wars to arrive at the present crucial stage of direct confrontation. The confrontation between the ideology of the innate dignity and freedom of man; and, the opposing ideology that man has no b asic individuality, but is only another animal to b e used , by the state. Champi oning individual liberties has become part of y our nation's identi ty. Naturally, this task has never been easy nor always crowned with success. Two world wars have been fought over fundamental issues which are more relevant today than they were in 1918. The confrontation between the ideology which is used as a mask for enslavement, on one side, and, the ideology that contains freedom, and liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the individual, on the other. The struggle of these ideologies continues, and this confrontation will go on unti l free men will win. Communism, which might have started with the intention of helping the individual to improve his lot, cannot be defended today as such. Even its own theorists cannot �SLOVAKIA 69 show that the continuation of that intention is the purpose of the system. Events and facts show us the grotesque size of this fallacy. For . over 50 years Russia, as the core of the communist way, has used all its strength for only one purposethe imposition of the dominance of its state, and its government, and its ideology on the rest of the world. In other words-for the destruction of freedom and liberty. The Kremlin leaders try to convince the world that its difficulties stem from a difference in ideas. The true situation is, that the world's biggest problem is a fight between free nations willing to give freedom to all people, on one side; and, Soviet imperialism, on the other. The Soviet tactics have been terrifyingly successful. The communist area, today, covers one-quarter of the world's land territory, and one-third of the world's peoples. Why have we permitted this situation to develop? We have developed this crisis situation because of mistakes both, in the way we think, and in the methods we employ. Because we have taken our freedom for granted, we have been trapped into making mistakes which have furthered the efforts of communists to dominate mankind. The United States, as leader and mentor, has been unwittingly tricked into fighting the battle between freedom and slavery, under the rules laid down by the enslavers. As your nation rose in stature, and sought to influence the world-it made mistakes. These mistakes were inevitable at times. But the major errors, I feel were the results of confusion and hesitation. It may have been a possible lack of confidence among leading Americans in the historical purpose of the nation. It was almost as if some of your politicians felt guilty, or somewhat ashamed, about words like freedom, justice, liberty, equality-and, phrases like, the pursuit of happiness. You may feel self-conscious hearing them now. I am proud to be free--and able--to use these words. As your President, Mr. Nixon, stated in his Inaugural Address: "America must appraise her weaknesses". But let me say, the entire world shouts to you to appraise �70 SLOVAKIA the weakness of yours, and mankind's adverseries. And, he also said: "the American dream does not come to those who fall asleep". So must America understand, when the people of the world call on this generation of Americans to awaken from its lethargy and pursue its American purpose. Yes, no man can be fully free when his neighbour is not. The purpose of your nation, today, is to recognize the choice between your original idealistic goal of freedom , and self-respect of man, on one side; and, his enslavement by communism, on the other. Today, ladies and gentlemen, time has passed when international order can be guaranteed by power, alone. A good example of this is the result of the Second World War. I believe, and believe very strongly, that in our world of ideas and ideals, military confrontation will be the end result:-unless , we are willing, to weaken the enemy by the greatest strength we have at our disposal-the yearning for freedom by enslaved men. I , for one, believe that mankind would survive a nuclear war, but only as a small fragment of what man and civilization represent today. But, I also believe that the confrontation is not necessary. Re-appraisal of the way to go about strengthening our side, and weakening the adverseries, is an immediate need-and, a high priority item . We hear a cry from a number of responsible thoughtmolders in the United States, and some beyond your borders, about the lack of American leadership, on the international scene. It, therefore, become the task of this generation of Americans to clearly re-establish that leadership which will capture the imagination of, not only America and the free world, but also the people that are suffering tyranny. Surely American leadership must understand the plight of nations seeking freedom, and inspire them to promote their self-determination. The indecisions, and hesitancies, and contradictions of our leaders in recent years, have only confused the rest �SLOVAKIA 71 of the world. They have given ammunitio n to the communist argument that the United States is an arrogant nation, and not a liberator, and fighter for freedom and liberty. But, ladies and gentlemen, let us hope that this is in the past. I am heartened by the evidence of realistic thinking about the basic aim and role, of your nation, on the world stage. I sense a return to the purpose which drives America. The right of the individual to seek-to achieve his aspirations in an atmospher e of freedom , and equality. What does the world long for today? I am convinced that the solution of the problem is, simply: First. Establishm ent of American leadership that will freely entice all the peoples fighting for, and respecting freedom, under its banner. Second. Re-apprais al of the policy of containme nt and status quo should be considered . In today's world-sta tus quo-is virtually the same as standing still in our fastmoving world. Therefore, unless the Western nations begin making their own revolution -a revolution to extend and expand the areas of freedom-t he free man will not survive as such. It is indeed time for America to remember the strength and power of the people yearning for freedom in the Soviet system. Only through that particular power can we expect, and eventually achieve, victory of free men without nuclear holocaust. Let our systems compete peacefully. But let the competitio n be based on equal hadicaps. The test is, to bring to light the real motivating force , and seek to understand its future moves. Knowledge is free man's most important asset, as well as dictators' greatest liability. The picture I can see in this kind of competitio n will not be bleak for our side. The competitiv e spirit of free man is, today, one of his greatest assets-an asset that will triumph in the end. The power of free man is the power of America. A power which is unparallell ed with any of its adverseries . �72 SLOVAKIA Make use of it! Give your youth the visions of conquering man's ills! Stimulate the interest in that power, in the masses of enslaved people! Do this with a courage and zeal that gets the job done, and instills responsibility for the objectives. Third. It is in your interest, and in the interest of free people everywhere to neutralize communists' two most powerful states-The Soviet Union and Communist China. An elastic and skillful policy towards China on the part of the United States and the free world shoul be considered. I would like to stress that nothing is more remote from my mind than backing the political concepts which could lead to strengthening the communist tyranny in any way, even in the smallest country in the world. I am interested in not missing any opportunities that would give the idea of freedom a little time to germinate. In order to survive, the communist world must keep its people in constant fear and turmoil. It must obtain from its subjects the greatest possible sacrifices. Is it not better then, that two of our adverseries are fighting between themselves, rather than both be left free to fight with us? I feel the world would not be in danger of a nuclear holocaust if the strength of communism could be diminished by its own inherent, internal weaknesses. Fourth. The free world's communications media must be committed to developing the strains of understanding which make up the moral fiber of the Western man, rather than inflame the antagonisms which promote conflict. The ideologists of all dictatorships will be pleased to see America flounder; and therefore, responsible communication is a must. If the best is required of political leaders today; if the highest qualities are demanded of your scientists; then certainly, not any less should be the criteria by which the communicators in the West should be motivated. Ultimately each must seek the same goal-to promote t he best which the Free Society can inspire. Fifth. Expanding your horizons is, indeed, very im- �SLOVAKIA 73 portant for America today. Think in terms of the future problems that you can surmount, rather than be dismayed by them. Freedom has the same meaning to all people, whether one lives in the United States, in Russia, or in Czecho-Slovakia. It is this concept of freedom which eventually overcomes dictatorships. Communism carries within itself a seed of self-destruction. Let's nurture that seed for our benefit, and for the benefit of freedom. Your nation stands on the foundation with the wonderful human goals. The goals of freedom and justice for all-equality of opportunity to achieve one's personal happiness. Your nation recognizes the dignity of man. The United States was formed for a purpose, and with the purpose, to provide a home whether physical or spiritual for those who love freedom and crave for dignity. That purpose is more vital to the world today than ever before. It is your purpose-your nation's purpose. And the people yearning for freedom see, in the United States, an irreplaceable leader of their hope and their trust. And I know, that people held down by political and ideological tyrannies are waiting to hear you proclaim it. This address was delivered on February 17, 1969 to Palm Beach Round Table meeting and we are pleased to publish it because of its interesting and timely contents. - Editor. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America lias always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic 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 1969, Vol. 19 Description An account of the resource Vol. 19 (No. 42), 1969. 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 1969 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 64 SLOVAKIA The United State~ of A111erica The Nation With a Purpose Stephen B . Roman, LL.D. We know from history that the process man learned, which distinguished him from the animals he hunted, was and still is, the civilizing process of a society. Out of tribes--nations emerged. Their leaders guided them through a life which the civilized man found to be satisfying for himself and his family. The world went through many upheavals that, in retrospect, we realize were hard evolutionary processes. Man that evolved as an individual endorsed and accepted his first immediate grouping-his family. Later, through necessity, he organized himself into a stronger unit-a tribe. Again, by necessity of hard evolutionary fact, tribes evolved into modern nations. In Europe and Asia where history has best been documented, we have seen the emergence of powers which tried to dominate the entire world before. And again, we have seen governments which sought to offer the freedoms with which all human beings were endowed as their birthright. Looking in retrospect, we can analyze those values which enhanced man's progress; and those which retarded most of his efforts. The former, offered the individual a chance to develop the power which were really his to use to his best ability. The latter, bound the very energies which a state needs for its fullest development. At the beginning of the 17th century, events in Europe appeared to stifle the human spirit. The urge, by man, to venture to other areas of the world developed into an exodus to a newly discovered continent-to America. The first American settler yearned for the values which came from his heart and soul, and were nurtured by his intellect. He set about fulfilling his visions with his own might, and the blessing from the One in whom he found his greatest trust- his God. But, as the honest man proposes and flounders about, SLOVAKIA 65 t hrough trial and error, so must he use his spirit and his intellect responsibly to reach his goals. Goals which not only prime his inspiration, but become the guide for others to follow. Guided by their desire to build America free and prosperous, the generations of Americans not only marvelled at the human concepts they were promoting, but had set a new poli tical philosophy to work . This concept required a new sense of realism in dealing with problems that were sure to emerge. It was a pragmatic approach in every sense, but one which always acknowledged the Divine Creator in Whose trust the nation was dedicated. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln -and others after them-will forever guide the spirit of free men, not only in the United States but everywhere. The young nation tried to do a lot, and surely accomplished a lot. The country expanded its horizons, and within its borders accepted the men, women and children who wanted to live in the free and peaceful environment. However, we see the erroneous effect of the American policy in recent decades, that stemmed from the confusion created by the ideologists, that wanted to set America on a new course. Though Mr. Roosevelt had offered the greatest freedom of movement and practical affluence to his generation of Americans, which touched the hearts of all the people everywhere, he failed to use that which was his greatest contribution to the American nation-the natural, practical and idealistic approach that had guided America before. The Second World War emerged as a conflict between strong nations-not so much to gain territorial possessions; but more to impose its national philosophies on weaker nations. We all know the course of history. Where freedom once flourished, people were left to their horrible fate , to endure decades of misery. In my opinion, what should have been the destruction of dangerous ideologies turned out to be the war of interests of national philosophies; and thus, extended the possibility to another major war. The ideological confrontation that we are in constant fear of, can bring our world to destruction, such as no civilization has witnessed before. During the past half century the world witnessed 66 SLOVAKIA several forms of domination, along with expanding colonial empires. Several compromises by honourable men dealing in good faith. But, always the same result. The good intentions on one side would not eliminate the treachery and intrigue on the other. The free world, dealing in good faith, always lost and compromised the principles of freedom and democracy. Tyranny, using its devious ways and forms, always triumphed for a time. There was no doubt in Hitler's plans to conquer the world. But why were there doubts-doubts that still remain -that Soviet communism seeks to do the same? One sought to enslave man's bodies. But the other, seeks to destroy every vestige of his previous political and philosophical persuasion. To compel him, without mercy, to adopt a form of totalitarian exploitation-bod y and soul alike. Why is it then that the nation's leaders, calling upon Divine Providence to lead the world in freedom, justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, could not recognize the dangers of confusion, that they were creating by trying to resolve long term problems by expedient means. As such a close neighbour to your great and powerful nation, you must realize Canada tends to be extra-sensitive to your every thought and action. It is a trite Canadian expression that when the United States sneezes, Canada catches the cold. That I should be standing here about to discuss the role of the United States in the world today, indicates your awareness of the sensitive and friendly reactions of Canadians to your way of life, and the factors which influence your country. Why is it that we are unable to ferret out the essence of imminent aggression and its accompanying consequences, before millions of people are compelled to bow to the whim and wish of a tyrannical system? The hope of mankind was riding high when the Atlantic Charter and Four Freedoms were held as a beacon for man everywhere. But how depressed and low it fell when, in spite of that American ideal, one hundred million people that had known freedom, were placed under communism against their will! How depressing it gets when one action leads to another, and shows that the American ideal of free men everywhere slides into the background! Ravaging SLOVAKIA 67 communism emerges stronger and stronger, with complete government apparatus supporting its every move for further expansion. · Must we succumb to the devious schemes of dictators who always seem to be right on time to create confusion and turmoil? Can we not analyze a potential threat to humanity? Can we not offer a solution which would alleviate the situation before it gets out of hand? Before it engulfs man ~n despair, and leads the entire world into catastrophe? Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the title of my comments-A Nation With a Purpose-indicates what Canadians think about you, Americans; and, the position of the United States in the world today. Many of you must be bewildered by some of the terrible events which have occured in your nation. By political assassinations, by riots and near anarchy, and by crime. The cynic might say, today, that the United States has lost its purpose . I disagree violently. I can tell you that most people in the world, disagree. To most people in the world the United States r epresents hope ; and to many of them the only hope, that their fate will be changed for the better. The man broken under the abuses of those political and ideological systems looks hopefully-and secretly-to the United States. I can stand back at a distance and tell you that to men and women living outside your borders, you appear as a strong nation created by pioneers; and perpetuated by ideals of freedom, justice and liberty. Your forefathers were fighting to establish the uniqueness of the individual in a society. They worked to help that individual achieve his fondest aspirations-to live in freedom . Let us not forget the beginnings of your American history. The downtrodden, the beaten and weary came to America from societies where political and social systems had taken away the dignity of man. From societies that turned man into a lesser creature-than Divine Providence intended him to be. The purpose of the American nation was established, from its earliest days; to provide opportunity for men to 68 SLOVAKIA be free; to show the rest of the world that only in free societies can man evolve to his ultimate. Contrast this root of the American culture and purpose, and American history with other parts of the world. The world which is under the domination of what we define as a communist system. In that world, man as an individual is non-existent. Man is only a tool to be manipulated-to be used, by a select few within the power structure. My viewpoint is, that this essential purpose of the American nation-this constant drive for individual freedom-is the greatest strength which less fortunate man everywhere can look up to, today. Despite occasional setbacks of the American policy, the American purpose remains the only hope of those people who are locked into the communist system and ideologies. Your nation is the only hope of the free world, if the world, as we know it today, is to survive. The United States is the only nation capable of deterring the expansion of the evil ideology that is so vehemently trying to encircle individual man. As I have mentioned, this role of champion of individual dignity, and freedom, was thrust on the United States by history. It has taken two world wars to arrive at the present crucial stage of direct confrontation. The confrontation between the ideology of the innate dignity and freedom of man; and, the opposing ideology that man has no b asic individuality, but is only another animal to b e used , by the state. Champi oning individual liberties has become part of y our nation's identi ty. Naturally, this task has never been easy nor always crowned with success. Two world wars have been fought over fundamental issues which are more relevant today than they were in 1918. The confrontation between the ideology which is used as a mask for enslavement, on one side, and, the ideology that contains freedom, and liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the individual, on the other. The struggle of these ideologies continues, and this confrontation will go on unti l free men will win. Communism, which might have started with the intention of helping the individual to improve his lot, cannot be defended today as such. Even its own theorists cannot SLOVAKIA 69 show that the continuation of that intention is the purpose of the system. Events and facts show us the grotesque size of this fallacy. For . over 50 years Russia, as the core of the communist way, has used all its strength for only one purposethe imposition of the dominance of its state, and its government, and its ideology on the rest of the world. In other words-for the destruction of freedom and liberty. The Kremlin leaders try to convince the world that its difficulties stem from a difference in ideas. The true situation is, that the world's biggest problem is a fight between free nations willing to give freedom to all people, on one side; and, Soviet imperialism, on the other. The Soviet tactics have been terrifyingly successful. The communist area, today, covers one-quarter of the world's land territory, and one-third of the world's peoples. Why have we permitted this situation to develop? We have developed this crisis situation because of mistakes both, in the way we think, and in the methods we employ. Because we have taken our freedom for granted, we have been trapped into making mistakes which have furthered the efforts of communists to dominate mankind. The United States, as leader and mentor, has been unwittingly tricked into fighting the battle between freedom and slavery, under the rules laid down by the enslavers. As your nation rose in stature, and sought to influence the world-it made mistakes. These mistakes were inevitable at times. But the major errors, I feel were the results of confusion and hesitation. It may have been a possible lack of confidence among leading Americans in the historical purpose of the nation. It was almost as if some of your politicians felt guilty, or somewhat ashamed, about words like freedom, justice, liberty, equality-and, phrases like, the pursuit of happiness. You may feel self-conscious hearing them now. I am proud to be free--and able--to use these words. As your President, Mr. Nixon, stated in his Inaugural Address: "America must appraise her weaknesses". But let me say, the entire world shouts to you to appraise 70 SLOVAKIA the weakness of yours, and mankind's adverseries. And, he also said: "the American dream does not come to those who fall asleep". So must America understand, when the people of the world call on this generation of Americans to awaken from its lethargy and pursue its American purpose. Yes, no man can be fully free when his neighbour is not. The purpose of your nation, today, is to recognize the choice between your original idealistic goal of freedom , and self-respect of man, on one side; and, his enslavement by communism, on the other. Today, ladies and gentlemen, time has passed when international order can be guaranteed by power, alone. A good example of this is the result of the Second World War. I believe, and believe very strongly, that in our world of ideas and ideals, military confrontation will be the end result:-unless , we are willing, to weaken the enemy by the greatest strength we have at our disposal-the yearning for freedom by enslaved men. I , for one, believe that mankind would survive a nuclear war, but only as a small fragment of what man and civilization represent today. But, I also believe that the confrontation is not necessary. Re-appraisal of the way to go about strengthening our side, and weakening the adverseries, is an immediate need-and, a high priority item . We hear a cry from a number of responsible thoughtmolders in the United States, and some beyond your borders, about the lack of American leadership, on the international scene. It, therefore, become the task of this generation of Americans to clearly re-establish that leadership which will capture the imagination of, not only America and the free world, but also the people that are suffering tyranny. Surely American leadership must understand the plight of nations seeking freedom, and inspire them to promote their self-determination. The indecisions, and hesitancies, and contradictions of our leaders in recent years, have only confused the rest SLOVAKIA 71 of the world. They have given ammunitio n to the communist argument that the United States is an arrogant nation, and not a liberator, and fighter for freedom and liberty. But, ladies and gentlemen, let us hope that this is in the past. I am heartened by the evidence of realistic thinking about the basic aim and role, of your nation, on the world stage. I sense a return to the purpose which drives America. The right of the individual to seek-to achieve his aspirations in an atmospher e of freedom , and equality. What does the world long for today? I am convinced that the solution of the problem is, simply: First. Establishm ent of American leadership that will freely entice all the peoples fighting for, and respecting freedom, under its banner. Second. Re-apprais al of the policy of containme nt and status quo should be considered . In today's world-sta tus quo-is virtually the same as standing still in our fastmoving world. Therefore, unless the Western nations begin making their own revolution -a revolution to extend and expand the areas of freedom-t he free man will not survive as such. It is indeed time for America to remember the strength and power of the people yearning for freedom in the Soviet system. Only through that particular power can we expect, and eventually achieve, victory of free men without nuclear holocaust. Let our systems compete peacefully. But let the competitio n be based on equal hadicaps. The test is, to bring to light the real motivating force , and seek to understand its future moves. Knowledge is free man's most important asset, as well as dictators' greatest liability. The picture I can see in this kind of competitio n will not be bleak for our side. The competitiv e spirit of free man is, today, one of his greatest assets-an asset that will triumph in the end. The power of free man is the power of America. A power which is unparallell ed with any of its adverseries . 72 SLOVAKIA Make use of it! Give your youth the visions of conquering man's ills! Stimulate the interest in that power, in the masses of enslaved people! Do this with a courage and zeal that gets the job done, and instills responsibility for the objectives. Third. It is in your interest, and in the interest of free people everywhere to neutralize communists' two most powerful states-The Soviet Union and Communist China. An elastic and skillful policy towards China on the part of the United States and the free world shoul be considered. I would like to stress that nothing is more remote from my mind than backing the political concepts which could lead to strengthening the communist tyranny in any way, even in the smallest country in the world. I am interested in not missing any opportunities that would give the idea of freedom a little time to germinate. In order to survive, the communist world must keep its people in constant fear and turmoil. It must obtain from its subjects the greatest possible sacrifices. Is it not better then, that two of our adverseries are fighting between themselves, rather than both be left free to fight with us? I feel the world would not be in danger of a nuclear holocaust if the strength of communism could be diminished by its own inherent, internal weaknesses. Fourth. The free world's communications media must be committed to developing the strains of understanding which make up the moral fiber of the Western man, rather than inflame the antagonisms which promote conflict. The ideologists of all dictatorships will be pleased to see America flounder; and therefore, responsible communication is a must. If the best is required of political leaders today; if the highest qualities are demanded of your scientists; then certainly, not any less should be the criteria by which the communicators in the West should be motivated. Ultimately each must seek the same goal-to promote t he best which the Free Society can inspire. Fifth. Expanding your horizons is, indeed, very im- SLOVAKIA 73 portant for America today. Think in terms of the future problems that you can surmount, rather than be dismayed by them. Freedom has the same meaning to all people, whether one lives in the United States, in Russia, or in Czecho-Slovakia. It is this concept of freedom which eventually overcomes dictatorships. Communism carries within itself a seed of self-destruction. Let's nurture that seed for our benefit, and for the benefit of freedom. Your nation stands on the foundation with the wonderful human goals. The goals of freedom and justice for all-equality of opportunity to achieve one's personal happiness. Your nation recognizes the dignity of man. The United States was formed for a purpose, and with the purpose, to provide a home whether physical or spiritual for those who love freedom and crave for dignity. That purpose is more vital to the world today than ever before. It is your purpose-your nation's purpose. And the people yearning for freedom see, in the United States, an irreplaceable leader of their hope and their trust. And I know, that people held down by political and ideological tyrannies are waiting to hear you proclaim it. This address was delivered on February 17, 1969 to Palm Beach Round Table meeting and we are pleased to publish it because of its interesting and timely contents. - Editor. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA condemns and unequivocally opposes all forms of tyranny, every form of totalitarian political system. The Slovak League of America lias always recognized the Godless philosophy of materialistic 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 The United States of America: The Nation With a Purpose Description An account of the resource Stephen B. Roman, LL.D. Slovakia, Vol. 19 (No. 42), 1969 pp. 64-73 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 1969 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/10029788e7f575435cf4af118dd06ced.pdf 5bb4e9251654dd57696a86b37ddefc5e PDF Text Text 8 SLOVAKIA T11E TWO EUROP:ES OR. JOSEPH CIEKER The divi:sion ot Europe is not only a military, political and social reality, but also a mora! and spiritual reality. The indlvislble body, ot Europe wa.s violeutly ,spllt into ,two parbs, each or which lives its own speclal llfe-it the mora! and material misery int.o which the ualtions of centra! and eastern Europe were cast can be called· Jifeat all. · The entire milltary and political effort ot the past war resulled in the terrible reality of two Europes which do not understand each other, which cannot and ,shall not b€' able to tind a form of cooperation and positive cohabitatlon, which .stand agalnst each other, and which one day, sooner or later, shall have to !lght the declsive battle which shall force common norms on the whole ot the European contln.eu t. The present s!tuation cannot be consldered a definite solution under any clrcumstance,s. Two Europes cannot exlst on the territory of the continent whlch creat.ed the idea of EUROPE, whlctt tormed its unity throughout the centuries, and the members of whlch cannot live without belng united. lndestructible torces are ever endeavorlng to unite that whlch was artitlcially dlvided, to eradii'ate that which was brought into being by force as a resull ot ignorance, illusions, cowardice, an1i treachery. We are witnesses ot a vlolent process whlch 1s being suffered by the fatally wounded Europe, wrlthing in a traglc effort to once agaln attaln its historlcal form, to reconstruot 11.<S centuries-old ,personality. There is no doubt that th<ese two Europes-the Jegitimate result or contemporary errors which hav-e been committed not only by pollticlans, diplomats and soldiers, but also by European lntellectualsshall cease to ex.lst and that there shall •be only one Europe, assumlng, however, that whatever takes th~ place of ithe present ,s ltuatlon shall be able to carry the name whlch symbolizes all that humanity has orealted throughout the centnrles. The divlsion of the European body wlll uot he able to be maintained forever. The maimed Idea of Europe shall !ose its historical sense, its mora! content and lts real mh,sion, 1f it cannot live and be enjoyed in !ts '8Iltire eX>tent. What 1s or the utmost im.portance to humanity is the question ot what forces shall brlng about the heal!ng of the div!ded parbs into one European body. Behind the boundary line, whlch once leadlng European factorsespecially forelgn factors--wanted tlo regard only as a symbolic boundary between mutual influences, there 1s now being bom a new world, an alien, terrlble world, a frankenstein world. On the rulns of th,e Chrlstlan countrles of eastern and centra! IEurope, Communi,sm 1s bulld!ng a new "humanity," a mon,strous humanity, whlch baslcally 1s in contlict wlth the prlnciples of ancloot and hlstorlcal Europe. The Soviet system-and in th!s name we need not see only a terr!ble police instrument, a vislble instrumoot !or physical tortureselzlng ,totally and without any llmltatlons whatsoever a half of Eu• �SLOVAKIA 9 rope, ia lnJectlng into the severe<! part of the European body new forms of llfe, a n-ew notlon of culture, a new ldeology, a new mlsslon. Communlsm, already partlally destroylng every1thlng which re• called the idea of anclent Europe, !.s forcing a new idea. which ls sev• erlng tradltlonal ties an<l lifting itselt a-s a legitimate resutt of the unfettered forces ot human periphery. This process of tundamental changes, made posslble by the use of cruel means of -violence, as well as the conscious or unconscious COII!Plicity of gullt of the west, is creating before ithe terrltled eyes of the western peoples "a humanity bereft of humanity" which is bendlng over the boundary line, is showing lts a.nti-Europea,n a.nd anti-Christian face and is causlng understandable cha.os a.nd uncertalnty In ,the west. To better understand the eX!tent of the da:nger whlch threatens the very idea of Europe, we would have to go on -the other slde or the Iron Curta.ln. What ls taklng place in that immense human IM:,oratory, in that area of mlsery and slav-ery, canno.t be fully real!z.ed by lndlvldual n&wspaper reports and reports or news agencles. The Soviet machine is exerting itself to the utmos,t. T,h ere is no rest. The process of change does not have t he character of development, because it is the most a.wful revolution whlch is shaklng the deepest fo1.1:ndatlons of this part of Europe. And thls Europe s,tands ta.ce to face with the forces which are incompatlble with the ma.nner of Evropean Jife. There is no competitlon of thoughts, there are no lntellectuals. There is no asslmilation between what represents tradition a.nd wbat brlngs somethlng new. lt would be a. big mlsta.ke, indeed, to suppose that this historlcal process can glve blrth to something new which might be acceptable to the Idea or Europe. Communism burns evolutlonary eras, destroys l!ves and kills ideas. What 1s ha,ppening behlnd the Iron Curtain is not a renaissance, a. rerorma.tion, a. klnd of enllghtenwent, or a llterary movement; a.nd it certainly is not an expression of Jlberallsm or constitut!onalism. But it is an aotual rlgh>t ,between llfe and death. If Communism were only a force which caused changes of a . political nature, if l!t requlred only a new ,social system, !! lt would want to reallze only the parcelling or large estates, if lt would only want to national!2e industry and economy, the danger of lt would not be or ,such historlcal dimen-slons. But Communlsm 1s much more tha.n a slmple, social reform. Those who vlew the phenomenon of Communism only from that vlewpolnt shall notlce only that whlch ls secondary in it, forgettlng at the same ,tlme to look at lts actual substance. The results attalned by Communism in tha,t part of Europe where it came !nto power by force relate not only to a polltlcal, social and ,physlcal change, but prlmarlly to a mora! a.nd splrltual change. Barbarians have inva.d-ed Uterature, culture, the sciences and arts and the tabernacles. They kllled crea.tive splrlts, or enslaved them, tran.sforming them into lntellectual automats. Poets, romance wrŕters, publlcists, sclentlfic worker,s, and proressors, wh0,; dld not. want to or could not orl~tate themsele,es to the brutlsh norms or ignorance and splrltual prosUtutlon, have elther dled or a.re dying. The schools are produclng a youth whlch 1s not allowed to know anythlng of the pa.st. Unlverslty halls are belng rmoo wtth th6 atmos• phere of Soviet factorles, where the product or Soviet dissolution )s �10 SLOVAKIA offered, where instructions are given to deform the youth morally and intellectually, where the culture of the periphery is forced upon iL This radical ľevolution which concerns fundamental human values, this sup,pression of the human person, thls eradication of everythlng Divine and -eternal, this materializing ot the noble deslres of mankind-all this is creatlng the new world, a steippe without a horizon, an earthly tlre-rulns, the splrltless, inhuman, fanatical, mechanlzed robot.s. To eJGpect such an environment a blessed productiveness of crea• tive s pirlts, works of real art, works of unlversal culture, to SIL{)pose that on this dead soli can grow intellectuals wlth a world-wide per• s~tive, with a European soul and a Christian love-that would mean as much as not to realize what Communlsm really 1.5. True it is that heroes of unattainable moral heights are !Íl existence and are being born, bu,t they are also dying like torches in the desert wbich the hurricane sweeping down fľom the steppes 1s ex.tlnguishlng. The division of Europe ls being deepened, systematized and widened. Everyit,hing is being destroyed so that a "new" Europe can be built. Things are belng produced not only in the pbyslcal, but also the splritual field in an environment of •terror, corporeal fear, in an environment of unceasing haste. Stachanov is the idea! not only for the manual worker, but also for the sp.rltual worker. And this new type of standardized intellectual works and produces like a machine filled with blood and spirit. U the w,,rth of moral and spirit-lial values would ,b e measured in terms of the number of books -published, fabrlcated artistic works, in .terms of their propagatlon, the creatlvE> ability of rthe tradltional and Chrlstian European world would be surpassed. But something that !s fundamental, et<Qornal and unlversally valid, is lacking in all thls produclion whlch was crea.ted and accumulated so feverlshly. On thls steppe of the world that is being born, gigantic pyramlds are rlslng which were ordered to be bullt by Pharaohs, but from them are blowlng the breezes of death. Robots cannot create, because they lack the divine spark and do not have any inspiration, either human or divine. They denied God and killed ,the man In themselves. Today there no longer exlst any llluslons about the inevitable and historlcal disentangllng of the tragedy of the two Europes. Only bltnd people and su\cides-and some of these still exlstdo not see the shadow which thls spectľe is casting over .the most distant corners of Europe, lf not the world, and ls making ready to take the flnal step to unlte dlvlded 1l)urope in tis own fashion. The forces of human perlphery, the forces of darkness and barbarism, organh:lng themselves accord!ng to the Jaws of the jungle, present t o 1the western world a concrete problem of European unlty. This 1s paradoxlcal, but it !s the truth. Barbarians . want to unite that which Europeans had divlded. A ·b oundary line ls not a barrÍ'er for them and it never was. \After swallowlng and digestlng a half or Europe they must thrust themselves on the second half and devoU1° lt, or perlsh in the atitempt. In the meantlme, whlle this barbarlsm-whlch untll recently was evaluated as a pos~tlve and ,equlvalent component ot Euro• peantsm, as a value comparable wlth mora! and splrltual no- �SLOVAKIA 11 blesse-:-is offering a pian ,for uuiting Europe, which in reality is already destroyed_ aQ.d dead Iu embryo and Iu its. very suQl}t.a.nce. the west, polsoned by the poison of dissolu.tlon, nE)glect an:d collective fear, ls wasting tim!l with formalltles and naivities, in con!erences and in solemn though frequent useless assembl!es, as it the lrreconcllable totalitarian beast sensed a duty or some klnd or necesslty to respect -these "European experiences," which it already had destroyed in a brutal manner In the countries behlnd the Iron Curtaiu. The uniflcation of divi-ded EuľoPe is not only a necessity for Communlsm, whlch it doouces ťrom the established progr8./1Il ot lts ideology, hu t also the result of persistent forces of the European whole whlch are calling for the unification of that which was dlvlded, that which was· cu,t off !rom it without analyzing the methods and forms. of thls u nlficatlon. This unlfication by Communism means dea.th for Europe. It 1s sad, indeed, even it 'not tragic, that this anti-European, anti-Chrlstian spectre holds the initiatlve of this unification in its 11ands. The western world would, perhaps, be satisfled with a maimed Europe, if that were ' posslble and if the barbarlans would allow it. Some IE}uropean-s m1ght consider it possible to live in a divlded Europe and probably would even be satlsfied with the loss -of the Chrlstian countries of central and eastern Europe, if at such a prlce they might gain weltare and comfort. This defensive stand, these methods to preserve what has remained of E urope, are the fundamental differences which distlngulsh the traditional world !rom the one which is belng born behind the boundary line or dlvldoo Euro,pe. Whlle it seemed that the west was no Ionger inteľested in rts indivisible part, the east-personlfied by the Sovleit spectres--was very muoh lnte-re-sted. This stand can be e xplained, but it can never l>e justifioo. lt ls slgnlflcan-t that it was the Europeans themselves who were abandoning the Idea of Europe. R seemed, as if the weariness caused by two successlve wars, had overwhelmed the very -substance of European sentiment. In European society there has appeared an une:x;pected phenomenon: the attempt to accustom itsel[ e=n to lrreparable losses. The mind was captured by the fiction that the questlon of the European idea would b e resol~ by the hauling of foodstufts and machlnery into Europe by both Americas. lt is, therefore, understandable that in such an envlroument there could not be and was not bom any force of unlversal grea,tness which could be vlctorlous over the forces of dissoluton which were ga;therlng strength from ·fäe east. The undertakings of European dimenslons- the Crusades, ,the herolsm of Lepant, the Tridentine Councll!-these joint efforts of European h e ro· ism, it seems, were all forgotten. In ,the face of the crude ln!tlatlve -of the east, the west created ,t he conditions for a gradual retreat. Even though the situatlon ls extremely grave, we must not de• s pair. The hlstorical forces of the west wlth thelľ vitality, with ,their mora) and spiritual designs, with thelr own orlgln, can and must excel over the forces that would destroy Europe. Europe can and must f!nd itself. Agalnst the concrete program proferred by Communism, Eu• rope must offer Lts own concrete program-not only a defens!ve one. but an offensive one as well. There !s no place, neither is thPre �12 SLOVAKIA much tlme, for hesitation, for useless phlloéophislng, for nalvltles, for half-way declslons, for neutrality. 'ľhe formula, which the -communistlc system offers the remalnder or Europe for European unlfication, !nevl.tably !ncludes all natlons, all ideologŇls, all confessions, aml. ' all peoples. In 1he cage ot the Soviet system there is room for everything: for materlal and splritual tn!ngs, for ordinary Ml well as sacred things, for the work&r and the lntellectual. Not to recognize rthis law ot Communlsm and attempt to argue lt away would mean to commrt an unpardonable and lrreparable blunder. Either all Eu ropean1 1hall aave themaelve- r elae alt ahall perlah. So that ,t he wesť could save !tself and not perlsh In 4he embrace ot the spectre, lt is being given a last opportunlty to rehablli.ta.te !t· self and ·perform !ts h!stor!cal m!sslon. On-e thl.ng, however, !s certain: l!t shall not be a-ble to fulflll th!s mlsslon by ,the me4hods it has used thus far, the methods w-hlch led to the dlvlslon of Europe. And lt certainly wlll not be able to do !t wlth ,people who have grown old morally a.nd splrLtually. It .ithe west w!shes •to avoid ,the fate ot centra! and ~ste~n Europe, !.f it w!shes to come to terms with the un!fy!ng spectre- of Commun!sm ln a dlgnltled manner, !t must revlve the permanent torces ot the west-ern natlon-s, !t must breathe in,to <the idea of Europe a real European and Chri-stlan content, !t must sleze the lnltiatlve ot un!fy!ng Europe. Even barbar!ans know how to produce and bu!l<i tactories, br!dges, great iron and steel entemprises, rallroads, airfields and bomba. Wha1 •they do not know, and what they shall never know !s how to glve materlal a breath ot humanity, subord!nate it t o the !nterests of the dlgn!ty ot mankind and glve the world a sense ot lts true mission. The positlons are well defined. The hour ha.s come to declde the fate of Europe. The sys tem ot two Europes, which arose and was malntalned by the tault ot the west, cannot last. The west is not Europe, and we cannot regard the east as Europe e•ther. The west cannot harbor bopes ithat lt shall avol-d an lnvaslon by the barbarians by toresaklng the east-ern part of Europe to Communlsm. Al!, long a s one substantlal portlon of Europe 1-s undergolng a feverlsh change. as long as everythlng there, which symbolized the Chrlstlan and European splr•t, is retreating before th-e aggresslveness of the barbarlan and is wlthdrawlng to the hlllsldes and int.o the catacombs, a s long as half of 1Europe -does not live, belleve and t~I accordlng to the thousand-year-old Chrl&tlan and Europeain laws, there shall be no contentmen,t ot •the spirit, ,n or shall th-ere be material welfare In the the west. Tbe Idea of Europe lncludes In itself tbe west as equally a s the ea st. lt -embraces 1he distant plalns of Poland, the Ukraine, White Russla, the Slovak and Rumanla,n valleys, as well as ,th& green fleld s ot France and Germany, and even the broad Iberlan horizons. We must resolve: There shall be only one Europe--a Chrlstlan, hlstorlcal Europe-a free and democratlc Europe. � 8 SLOVAKIA T11E TWO EUROP:ES OR. JOSEPH CIEKER The divi:sion ot Europe is not only a military, political and social reality, but also a mora! and spiritual reality. The indlvislble body, ot Europe wa.s violeutly ,spllt into ,two parbs, each or which lives its own speclal llfe-it the mora! and material misery int.o which the ualtions of centra! and eastern Europe were cast can be called· Jifeat all. · The entire milltary and political effort ot the past war resulled in the terrible reality of two Europes which do not understand each other, which cannot and ,shall not b€' able to tind a form of cooperation and positive cohabitatlon, which .stand agalnst each other, and which one day, sooner or later, shall have to !lght the declsive battle which shall force common norms on the whole ot the European contln.eu t. The present s!tuation cannot be consldered a definite solution under any clrcumstance,s. Two Europes cannot exlst on the territory of the continent whlch creat.ed the idea of EUROPE, whlctt tormed its unity throughout the centuries, and the members of whlch cannot live without belng united. lndestructible torces are ever endeavorlng to unite that whlch was artitlcially dlvided, to eradii'ate that which was brought into being by force as a resull ot ignorance, illusions, cowardice, an1i treachery. We are witnesses ot a vlolent process whlch 1s being suffered by the fatally wounded Europe, wrlthing in a traglc effort to once agaln attaln its historlcal form, to reconstruot 11.<S centuries-old ,personality. There is no doubt that th<ese two Europes-the Jegitimate result or contemporary errors which hav-e been committed not only by pollticlans, diplomats and soldiers, but also by European lntellectualsshall cease to ex.lst and that there shall •be only one Europe, assumlng, however, that whatever takes th~ place of ithe present ,s ltuatlon shall be able to carry the name whlch symbolizes all that humanity has orealted throughout the centnrles. The divlsion of the European body wlll uot he able to be maintained forever. The maimed Idea of Europe shall !ose its historical sense, its mora! content and lts real mh,sion, 1f it cannot live and be enjoyed in !ts '8Iltire eX>tent. What 1s or the utmost im.portance to humanity is the question ot what forces shall brlng about the heal!ng of the div!ded parbs into one European body. Behind the boundary line, whlch once leadlng European factorsespecially forelgn factors--wanted tlo regard only as a symbolic boundary between mutual influences, there 1s now being bom a new world, an alien, terrlble world, a frankenstein world. On the rulns of th,e Chrlstlan countrles of eastern and centra! IEurope, Communi,sm 1s bulld!ng a new "humanity," a mon,strous humanity, whlch baslcally 1s in contlict wlth the prlnciples of ancloot and hlstorlcal Europe. The Soviet system-and in th!s name we need not see only a terr!ble police instrument, a vislble instrumoot !or physical tortureselzlng ,totally and without any llmltatlons whatsoever a half of Eu• �SLOVAKIA 9 rope, ia lnJectlng into the severe<! part of the European body new forms of llfe, a n-ew notlon of culture, a new ldeology, a new mlsslon. Communlsm, already partlally destroylng every1thlng which re• called the idea of anclent Europe, !.s forcing a new idea. which ls sev• erlng tradltlonal ties an<l lifting itselt a-s a legitimate resutt of the unfettered forces ot human periphery. This process of tundamental changes, made posslble by the use of cruel means of -violence, as well as the conscious or unconscious COII!Plicity of gullt of the west, is creating before ithe terrltled eyes of the western peoples "a humanity bereft of humanity" which is bendlng over the boundary line, is showing lts a.nti-Europea,n a.nd anti-Christian face and is causlng understandable cha.os a.nd uncertalnty In ,the west. To better understand the eX!tent of the da:nger whlch threatens the very idea of Europe, we would have to go on -the other slde or the Iron Curta.ln. What ls taklng place in that immense human IM:,oratory, in that area of mlsery and slav-ery, canno.t be fully real!z.ed by lndlvldual n&wspaper reports and reports or news agencles. The Soviet machine is exerting itself to the utmos,t. T,h ere is no rest. The process of change does not have t he character of development, because it is the most a.wful revolution whlch is shaklng the deepest fo1.1:ndatlons of this part of Europe. And thls Europe s,tands ta.ce to face with the forces which are incompatlble with the ma.nner of Evropean Jife. There is no competitlon of thoughts, there are no lntellectuals. There is no asslmilation between what represents tradition a.nd wbat brlngs somethlng new. lt would be a. big mlsta.ke, indeed, to suppose that this historlcal process can glve blrth to something new which might be acceptable to the Idea or Europe. Communism burns evolutlonary eras, destroys l!ves and kills ideas. What 1s ha,ppening behlnd the Iron Curtain is not a renaissance, a. rerorma.tion, a. klnd of enllghtenwent, or a llterary movement; a.nd it certainly is not an expression of Jlberallsm or constitut!onalism. But it is an aotual rlgh>t ,between llfe and death. If Communism were only a force which caused changes of a . political nature, if l!t requlred only a new ,social system, !! lt would want to reallze only the parcelling or large estates, if lt would only want to national!2e industry and economy, the danger of lt would not be or ,such historlcal dimen-slons. But Communlsm 1s much more tha.n a slmple, social reform. Those who vlew the phenomenon of Communism only from that vlewpolnt shall notlce only that whlch ls secondary in it, forgettlng at the same ,tlme to look at lts actual substance. The results attalned by Communism in tha,t part of Europe where it came !nto power by force relate not only to a polltlcal, social and ,physlcal change, but prlmarlly to a mora! a.nd splrltual change. Barbarians have inva.d-ed Uterature, culture, the sciences and arts and the tabernacles. They kllled crea.tive splrlts, or enslaved them, tran.sforming them into lntellectual automats. Poets, romance wrŕters, publlcists, sclentlfic worker,s, and proressors, wh0,; dld not. want to or could not orl~tate themsele,es to the brutlsh norms or ignorance and splrltual prosUtutlon, have elther dled or a.re dying. The schools are produclng a youth whlch 1s not allowed to know anythlng of the pa.st. Unlverslty halls are belng rmoo wtth th6 atmos• phere of Soviet factorles, where the product or Soviet dissolution )s �10 SLOVAKIA offered, where instructions are given to deform the youth morally and intellectually, where the culture of the periphery is forced upon iL This radical ľevolution which concerns fundamental human values, this sup,pression of the human person, thls eradication of everythlng Divine and -eternal, this materializing ot the noble deslres of mankind-all this is creatlng the new world, a steippe without a horizon, an earthly tlre-rulns, the splrltless, inhuman, fanatical, mechanlzed robot.s. To eJGpect such an environment a blessed productiveness of crea• tive s pirlts, works of real art, works of unlversal culture, to SIL{)pose that on this dead soli can grow intellectuals wlth a world-wide per• s~tive, with a European soul and a Christian love-that would mean as much as not to realize what Communlsm really 1.5. True it is that heroes of unattainable moral heights are !Íl existence and are being born, bu,t they are also dying like torches in the desert wbich the hurricane sweeping down fľom the steppes 1s ex.tlnguishlng. The division of Europe ls being deepened, systematized and widened. Everyit,hing is being destroyed so that a "new" Europe can be built. Things are belng produced not only in the pbyslcal, but also the splritual field in an environment of •terror, corporeal fear, in an environment of unceasing haste. Stachanov is the idea! not only for the manual worker, but also for the sp.rltual worker. And this new type of standardized intellectual works and produces like a machine filled with blood and spirit. U the w,,rth of moral and spirit-lial values would ,b e measured in terms of the number of books -published, fabrlcated artistic works, in .terms of their propagatlon, the creatlvE> ability of rthe tradltional and Chrlstian European world would be surpassed. But something that !s fundamental, et<Qornal and unlversally valid, is lacking in all thls produclion whlch was crea.ted and accumulated so feverlshly. On thls steppe of the world that is being born, gigantic pyramlds are rlslng which were ordered to be bullt by Pharaohs, but from them are blowlng the breezes of death. Robots cannot create, because they lack the divine spark and do not have any inspiration, either human or divine. They denied God and killed ,the man In themselves. Today there no longer exlst any llluslons about the inevitable and historlcal disentangllng of the tragedy of the two Europes. Only bltnd people and su\cides-and some of these still exlstdo not see the shadow which thls spectľe is casting over .the most distant corners of Europe, lf not the world, and ls making ready to take the flnal step to unlte dlvlded 1l)urope in tis own fashion. The forces of human perlphery, the forces of darkness and barbarism, organh:lng themselves accord!ng to the Jaws of the jungle, present t o 1the western world a concrete problem of European unlty. This 1s paradoxlcal, but it !s the truth. Barbarians . want to unite that which Europeans had divlded. A ·b oundary line ls not a barrÍ'er for them and it never was. \After swallowlng and digestlng a half or Europe they must thrust themselves on the second half and devoU1° lt, or perlsh in the atitempt. In the meantlme, whlle this barbarlsm-whlch untll recently was evaluated as a pos~tlve and ,equlvalent component ot Euro• peantsm, as a value comparable wlth mora! and splrltual no- �SLOVAKIA 11 blesse-:-is offering a pian ,for uuiting Europe, which in reality is already destroyed_ aQ.d dead Iu embryo and Iu its. very suQl}t.a.nce. the west, polsoned by the poison of dissolu.tlon, nE)glect an:d collective fear, ls wasting tim!l with formalltles and naivities, in con!erences and in solemn though frequent useless assembl!es, as it the lrreconcllable totalitarian beast sensed a duty or some klnd or necesslty to respect -these "European experiences," which it already had destroyed in a brutal manner In the countries behlnd the Iron Curtaiu. The uniflcation of divi-ded EuľoPe is not only a necessity for Communlsm, whlch it doouces ťrom the established progr8./1Il ot lts ideology, hu t also the result of persistent forces of the European whole whlch are calling for the unification of that which was dlvlded, that which was· cu,t off !rom it without analyzing the methods and forms. of thls u nlficatlon. This unlfication by Communism means dea.th for Europe. It 1s sad, indeed, even it 'not tragic, that this anti-European, anti-Chrlstian spectre holds the initiatlve of this unification in its 11ands. The western world would, perhaps, be satisfled with a maimed Europe, if that were ' posslble and if the barbarlans would allow it. Some IE}uropean-s m1ght consider it possible to live in a divlded Europe and probably would even be satlsfied with the loss -of the Chrlstian countries of central and eastern Europe, if at such a prlce they might gain weltare and comfort. This defensive stand, these methods to preserve what has remained of E urope, are the fundamental differences which distlngulsh the traditional world !rom the one which is belng born behind the boundary line or dlvldoo Euro,pe. Whlle it seemed that the west was no Ionger inteľested in rts indivisible part, the east-personlfied by the Sovleit spectres--was very muoh lnte-re-sted. This stand can be e xplained, but it can never l>e justifioo. lt ls slgnlflcan-t that it was the Europeans themselves who were abandoning the Idea of Europe. R seemed, as if the weariness caused by two successlve wars, had overwhelmed the very -substance of European sentiment. In European society there has appeared an une:x;pected phenomenon: the attempt to accustom itsel[ e=n to lrreparable losses. The mind was captured by the fiction that the questlon of the European idea would b e resol~ by the hauling of foodstufts and machlnery into Europe by both Americas. lt is, therefore, understandable that in such an envlroument there could not be and was not bom any force of unlversal grea,tness which could be vlctorlous over the forces of dissoluton which were ga;therlng strength from ·fäe east. The undertakings of European dimenslons- the Crusades, ,the herolsm of Lepant, the Tridentine Councll!-these joint efforts of European h e ro· ism, it seems, were all forgotten. In ,the face of the crude ln!tlatlve -of the east, the west created ,t he conditions for a gradual retreat. Even though the situatlon ls extremely grave, we must not de• s pair. The hlstorical forces of the west wlth thelľ vitality, with ,their mora) and spiritual designs, with thelr own orlgln, can and must excel over the forces that would destroy Europe. Europe can and must f!nd itself. Agalnst the concrete program proferred by Communism, Eu• rope must offer Lts own concrete program-not only a defens!ve one. but an offensive one as well. There !s no place, neither is thPre �12 SLOVAKIA much tlme, for hesitation, for useless phlloéophislng, for nalvltles, for half-way declslons, for neutrality. 'ľhe formula, which the -communistlc system offers the remalnder or Europe for European unlfication, !nevl.tably !ncludes all natlons, all ideologŇls, all confessions, aml. ' all peoples. In 1he cage ot the Soviet system there is room for everything: for materlal and splritual tn!ngs, for ordinary Ml well as sacred things, for the work&r and the lntellectual. Not to recognize rthis law ot Communlsm and attempt to argue lt away would mean to commrt an unpardonable and lrreparable blunder. Either all Eu ropean1 1hall aave themaelve- r elae alt ahall perlah. So that ,t he wesť could save !tself and not perlsh In 4he embrace ot the spectre, lt is being given a last opportunlty to rehablli.ta.te !t· self and ·perform !ts h!stor!cal m!sslon. On-e thl.ng, however, !s certain: l!t shall not be a-ble to fulflll th!s mlsslon by ,the me4hods it has used thus far, the methods w-hlch led to the dlvlslon of Europe. And lt certainly wlll not be able to do !t wlth ,people who have grown old morally a.nd splrLtually. It .ithe west w!shes •to avoid ,the fate ot centra! and ~ste~n Europe, !.f it w!shes to come to terms with the un!fy!ng spectre- of Commun!sm ln a dlgnltled manner, !t must revlve the permanent torces ot the west-ern natlon-s, !t must breathe in,to <the idea of Europe a real European and Chri-stlan content, !t must sleze the lnltiatlve ot un!fy!ng Europe. Even barbar!ans know how to produce and bu!l<i tactories, br!dges, great iron and steel entemprises, rallroads, airfields and bomba. Wha1 •they do not know, and what they shall never know !s how to glve materlal a breath ot humanity, subord!nate it t o the !nterests of the dlgn!ty ot mankind and glve the world a sense ot lts true mission. The positlons are well defined. The hour ha.s come to declde the fate of Europe. The sys tem ot two Europes, which arose and was malntalned by the tault ot the west, cannot last. The west is not Europe, and we cannot regard the east as Europe e•ther. The west cannot harbor bopes ithat lt shall avol-d an lnvaslon by the barbarians by toresaklng the east-ern part of Europe to Communlsm. Al!, long a s one substantlal portlon of Europe 1-s undergolng a feverlsh change. as long as everythlng there, which symbolized the Chrlstlan and European splr•t, is retreating before th-e aggresslveness of the barbarlan and is wlthdrawlng to the hlllsldes and int.o the catacombs, a s long as half of 1Europe -does not live, belleve and t~I accordlng to the thousand-year-old Chrl&tlan and Europeain laws, there shall be no contentmen,t ot •the spirit, ,n or shall th-ere be material welfare In the the west. Tbe Idea of Europe lncludes In itself tbe west as equally a s the ea st. lt -embraces 1he distant plalns of Poland, the Ukraine, White Russla, the Slovak and Rumanla,n valleys, as well as ,th& green fleld s ot France and Germany, and even the broad Iberlan horizons. We must resolve: There shall be only one Europe--a Chrlstlan, hlstorlcal Europe-a free and democratlc Europe. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 8 SLOVAKIA T11E TWO EUROP:ES OR. JOSEPH CIEKER The divi:sion ot Europe is not only a military, political and social reality, but also a mora! and spiritual reality. The indlvislble body, ot Europe wa.s violeutly ,spllt into ,two parbs, each or which lives its own speclal llfe-it the mora! and material misery int.o which the ualtions of centra! and eastern Europe were cast can be called· Jifeat all. · The entire milltary and political effort ot the past war resulled in the terrible reality of two Europes which do not understand each other, which cannot and ,shall not b€' able to tind a form of cooperation and positive cohabitatlon, which .stand agalnst each other, and which one day, sooner or later, shall have to !lght the declsive battle which shall force common norms on the whole ot the European contln.eu t. The present s!tuation cannot be consldered a definite solution under any clrcumstance,s. Two Europes cannot exlst on the territory of the continent whlch creat.ed the idea of EUROPE, whlctt tormed its unity throughout the centuries, and the members of whlch cannot live without belng united. lndestructible torces are ever endeavorlng to unite that whlch was artitlcially dlvided, to eradii'ate that which was brought into being by force as a resull ot ignorance, illusions, cowardice, an1i treachery. We are witnesses ot a vlolent process whlch 1s being suffered by the fatally wounded Europe, wrlthing in a traglc effort to once agaln attaln its historlcal form, to reconstruot 11.<S centuries-old ,personality. There is no doubt that th<ese two Europes-the Jegitimate result or contemporary errors which hav-e been committed not only by pollticlans, diplomats and soldiers, but also by European lntellectualsshall cease to ex.lst and that there shall •be only one Europe, assumlng, however, that whatever takes th~ place of ithe present ,s ltuatlon shall be able to carry the name whlch symbolizes all that humanity has orealted throughout the centnrles. The divlsion of the European body wlll uot he able to be maintained forever. The maimed Idea of Europe shall !ose its historical sense, its mora! content and lts real mh,sion, 1f it cannot live and be enjoyed in !ts '8Iltire eX>tent. What 1s or the utmost im.portance to humanity is the question ot what forces shall brlng about the heal!ng of the div!ded parbs into one European body. Behind the boundary line, whlch once leadlng European factorsespecially forelgn factors--wanted tlo regard only as a symbolic boundary between mutual influences, there 1s now being bom a new world, an alien, terrlble world, a frankenstein world. On the rulns of th,e Chrlstlan countrles of eastern and centra! IEurope, Communi,sm 1s bulld!ng a new "humanity," a mon,strous humanity, whlch baslcally 1s in contlict wlth the prlnciples of ancloot and hlstorlcal Europe. The Soviet system-and in th!s name we need not see only a terr!ble police instrument, a vislble instrumoot !or physical tortureselzlng ,totally and without any llmltatlons whatsoever a half of Eu• SLOVAKIA 9 rope, ia lnJectlng into the severe<! part of the European body new forms of llfe, a n-ew notlon of culture, a new ldeology, a new mlsslon. Communlsm, already partlally destroylng every1thlng which re• called the idea of anclent Europe, !.s forcing a new idea. which ls sev• erlng tradltlonal ties an<l lifting itselt a-s a legitimate resutt of the unfettered forces ot human periphery. This process of tundamental changes, made posslble by the use of cruel means of -violence, as well as the conscious or unconscious COII!Plicity of gullt of the west, is creating before ithe terrltled eyes of the western peoples "a humanity bereft of humanity" which is bendlng over the boundary line, is showing lts a.nti-Europea,n a.nd anti-Christian face and is causlng understandable cha.os a.nd uncertalnty In ,the west. To better understand the eX!tent of the da:nger whlch threatens the very idea of Europe, we would have to go on -the other slde or the Iron Curta.ln. What ls taklng place in that immense human IM:,oratory, in that area of mlsery and slav-ery, canno.t be fully real!z.ed by lndlvldual n&wspaper reports and reports or news agencles. The Soviet machine is exerting itself to the utmos,t. T,h ere is no rest. The process of change does not have t he character of development, because it is the most a.wful revolution whlch is shaklng the deepest fo1.1:ndatlons of this part of Europe. And thls Europe s,tands ta.ce to face with the forces which are incompatlble with the ma.nner of Evropean Jife. There is no competitlon of thoughts, there are no lntellectuals. There is no asslmilation between what represents tradition a.nd wbat brlngs somethlng new. lt would be a. big mlsta.ke, indeed, to suppose that this historlcal process can glve blrth to something new which might be acceptable to the Idea or Europe. Communism burns evolutlonary eras, destroys l!ves and kills ideas. What 1s ha,ppening behlnd the Iron Curtain is not a renaissance, a. rerorma.tion, a. klnd of enllghtenwent, or a llterary movement; a.nd it certainly is not an expression of Jlberallsm or constitut!onalism. But it is an aotual rlgh>t ,between llfe and death. If Communism were only a force which caused changes of a . political nature, if l!t requlred only a new ,social system, !! lt would want to reallze only the parcelling or large estates, if lt would only want to national!2e industry and economy, the danger of lt would not be or ,such historlcal dimen-slons. But Communlsm 1s much more tha.n a slmple, social reform. Those who vlew the phenomenon of Communism only from that vlewpolnt shall notlce only that whlch ls secondary in it, forgettlng at the same ,tlme to look at lts actual substance. The results attalned by Communism in tha,t part of Europe where it came !nto power by force relate not only to a polltlcal, social and ,physlcal change, but prlmarlly to a mora! a.nd splrltual change. Barbarians have inva.d-ed Uterature, culture, the sciences and arts and the tabernacles. They kllled crea.tive splrlts, or enslaved them, tran.sforming them into lntellectual automats. Poets, romance wrŕters, publlcists, sclentlfic worker,s, and proressors, wh0,; dld not. want to or could not orl~tate themsele,es to the brutlsh norms or ignorance and splrltual prosUtutlon, have elther dled or a.re dying. The schools are produclng a youth whlch 1s not allowed to know anythlng of the pa.st. Unlverslty halls are belng rmoo wtth th6 atmos• phere of Soviet factorles, where the product or Soviet dissolution )s 10 SLOVAKIA offered, where instructions are given to deform the youth morally and intellectually, where the culture of the periphery is forced upon iL This radical ľevolution which concerns fundamental human values, this sup,pression of the human person, thls eradication of everythlng Divine and -eternal, this materializing ot the noble deslres of mankind-all this is creatlng the new world, a steippe without a horizon, an earthly tlre-rulns, the splrltless, inhuman, fanatical, mechanlzed robot.s. To eJGpect such an environment a blessed productiveness of crea• tive s pirlts, works of real art, works of unlversal culture, to SIL{)pose that on this dead soli can grow intellectuals wlth a world-wide per• s~tive, with a European soul and a Christian love-that would mean as much as not to realize what Communlsm really 1.5. True it is that heroes of unattainable moral heights are !Íl existence and are being born, bu,t they are also dying like torches in the desert wbich the hurricane sweeping down fľom the steppes 1s ex.tlnguishlng. The division of Europe ls being deepened, systematized and widened. Everyit,hing is being destroyed so that a "new" Europe can be built. Things are belng produced not only in the pbyslcal, but also the splritual field in an environment of •terror, corporeal fear, in an environment of unceasing haste. Stachanov is the idea! not only for the manual worker, but also for the sp.rltual worker. And this new type of standardized intellectual works and produces like a machine filled with blood and spirit. U the w,,rth of moral and spirit-lial values would ,b e measured in terms of the number of books -published, fabrlcated artistic works, in .terms of their propagatlon, the creatlvE> ability of rthe tradltional and Chrlstian European world would be surpassed. But something that !s fundamental, et<Qornal and unlversally valid, is lacking in all thls produclion whlch was crea.ted and accumulated so feverlshly. On thls steppe of the world that is being born, gigantic pyramlds are rlslng which were ordered to be bullt by Pharaohs, but from them are blowlng the breezes of death. Robots cannot create, because they lack the divine spark and do not have any inspiration, either human or divine. They denied God and killed ,the man In themselves. Today there no longer exlst any llluslons about the inevitable and historlcal disentangllng of the tragedy of the two Europes. Only bltnd people and su\cides-and some of these still exlstdo not see the shadow which thls spectľe is casting over .the most distant corners of Europe, lf not the world, and ls making ready to take the flnal step to unlte dlvlded 1l)urope in tis own fashion. The forces of human perlphery, the forces of darkness and barbarism, organh:lng themselves accord!ng to the Jaws of the jungle, present t o 1the western world a concrete problem of European unlty. This 1s paradoxlcal, but it !s the truth. Barbarians . want to unite that which Europeans had divlded. A ·b oundary line ls not a barrÍ'er for them and it never was. \After swallowlng and digestlng a half or Europe they must thrust themselves on the second half and devoU1° lt, or perlsh in the atitempt. In the meantlme, whlle this barbarlsm-whlch untll recently was evaluated as a pos~tlve and ,equlvalent component ot Euro• peantsm, as a value comparable wlth mora! and splrltual no- SLOVAKIA 11 blesse-:-is offering a pian ,for uuiting Europe, which in reality is already destroyed_ aQ.d dead Iu embryo and Iu its. very suQl}t.a.nce. the west, polsoned by the poison of dissolu.tlon, nE)glect an:d collective fear, ls wasting tim!l with formalltles and naivities, in con!erences and in solemn though frequent useless assembl!es, as it the lrreconcllable totalitarian beast sensed a duty or some klnd or necesslty to respect -these "European experiences," which it already had destroyed in a brutal manner In the countries behlnd the Iron Curtaiu. The uniflcation of divi-ded EuľoPe is not only a necessity for Communlsm, whlch it doouces ťrom the established progr8./1Il ot lts ideology, hu t also the result of persistent forces of the European whole whlch are calling for the unification of that which was dlvlded, that which was· cu,t off !rom it without analyzing the methods and forms. of thls u nlficatlon. This unlfication by Communism means dea.th for Europe. It 1s sad, indeed, even it 'not tragic, that this anti-European, anti-Chrlstian spectre holds the initiatlve of this unification in its 11ands. The western world would, perhaps, be satisfled with a maimed Europe, if that were ' posslble and if the barbarlans would allow it. Some IE}uropean-s m1ght consider it possible to live in a divlded Europe and probably would even be satlsfied with the loss -of the Chrlstian countries of central and eastern Europe, if at such a prlce they might gain weltare and comfort. This defensive stand, these methods to preserve what has remained of E urope, are the fundamental differences which distlngulsh the traditional world !rom the one which is belng born behind the boundary line or dlvldoo Euro,pe. Whlle it seemed that the west was no Ionger inteľested in rts indivisible part, the east-personlfied by the Sovleit spectres--was very muoh lnte-re-sted. This stand can be e xplained, but it can never l>e justifioo. lt ls slgnlflcan-t that it was the Europeans themselves who were abandoning the Idea of Europe. R seemed, as if the weariness caused by two successlve wars, had overwhelmed the very -substance of European sentiment. In European society there has appeared an une:x;pected phenomenon: the attempt to accustom itsel[ e=n to lrreparable losses. The mind was captured by the fiction that the questlon of the European idea would b e resol~ by the hauling of foodstufts and machlnery into Europe by both Americas. lt is, therefore, understandable that in such an envlroument there could not be and was not bom any force of unlversal grea,tness which could be vlctorlous over the forces of dissoluton which were ga;therlng strength from ·fäe east. The undertakings of European dimenslons- the Crusades, ,the herolsm of Lepant, the Tridentine Councll!-these joint efforts of European h e ro· ism, it seems, were all forgotten. In ,the face of the crude ln!tlatlve -of the east, the west created ,t he conditions for a gradual retreat. Even though the situatlon ls extremely grave, we must not de• s pair. The hlstorical forces of the west wlth thelľ vitality, with ,their mora) and spiritual designs, with thelr own orlgln, can and must excel over the forces that would destroy Europe. Europe can and must f!nd itself. Agalnst the concrete program proferred by Communism, Eu• rope must offer Lts own concrete program-not only a defens!ve one. but an offensive one as well. There !s no place, neither is thPre 12 SLOVAKIA much tlme, for hesitation, for useless phlloéophislng, for nalvltles, for half-way declslons, for neutrality. 'ľhe formula, which the -communistlc system offers the remalnder or Europe for European unlfication, !nevl.tably !ncludes all natlons, all ideologŇls, all confessions, aml. ' all peoples. In 1he cage ot the Soviet system there is room for everything: for materlal and splritual tn!ngs, for ordinary Ml well as sacred things, for the work&r and the lntellectual. Not to recognize rthis law ot Communlsm and attempt to argue lt away would mean to commrt an unpardonable and lrreparable blunder. Either all Eu ropean1 1hall aave themaelve- r elae alt ahall perlah. So that ,t he wesť could save !tself and not perlsh In 4he embrace ot the spectre, lt is being given a last opportunlty to rehablli.ta.te !t· self and ·perform !ts h!stor!cal m!sslon. On-e thl.ng, however, !s certain: l!t shall not be a-ble to fulflll th!s mlsslon by ,the me4hods it has used thus far, the methods w-hlch led to the dlvlslon of Europe. And lt certainly wlll not be able to do !t wlth ,people who have grown old morally a.nd splrLtually. It .ithe west w!shes •to avoid ,the fate ot centra! and ~ste~n Europe, !.f it w!shes to come to terms with the un!fy!ng spectre- of Commun!sm ln a dlgnltled manner, !t must revlve the permanent torces ot the west-ern natlon-s, !t must breathe in,to <the idea of Europe a real European and Chri-stlan content, !t must sleze the lnltiatlve ot un!fy!ng Europe. Even barbar!ans know how to produce and bu!l<i tactories, br!dges, great iron and steel entemprises, rallroads, airfields and bomba. Wha1 •they do not know, and what they shall never know !s how to glve materlal a breath ot humanity, subord!nate it t o the !nterests of the dlgn!ty ot mankind and glve the world a sense ot lts true mission. The positlons are well defined. The hour ha.s come to declde the fate of Europe. The sys tem ot two Europes, which arose and was malntalned by the tault ot the west, cannot last. The west is not Europe, and we cannot regard the east as Europe e•ther. The west cannot harbor bopes ithat lt shall avol-d an lnvaslon by the barbarians by toresaklng the east-ern part of Europe to Communlsm. Al!, long a s one substantlal portlon of Europe 1-s undergolng a feverlsh change. as long as everythlng there, which symbolized the Chrlstlan and European splr•t, is retreating before th-e aggresslveness of the barbarlan and is wlthdrawlng to the hlllsldes and int.o the catacombs, a s long as half of 1Europe -does not live, belleve and t~I accordlng to the thousand-year-old Chrl&tlan and Europeain laws, there shall be no contentmen,t ot •the spirit, ,n or shall th-ere be material welfare In the the west. Tbe Idea of Europe lncludes In itself tbe west as equally a s the ea st. lt -embraces 1he distant plalns of Poland, the Ukraine, White Russla, the Slovak and Rumanla,n valleys, as well as ,th& green fleld s ot France and Germany, and even the broad Iberlan horizons. We must resolve: There shall be only one Europe--a Chrlstlan, hlstorlcal Europe-a free and democratlc Europe.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Two Europes Description An account of the resource Dr. Joseph Cieker Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 pp. 8-12 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cieker, Jozef, 1907-1969 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1951 LCNAF+dates https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/044357522c52853da1a344e606669d95.pdf 69c2b082e074d0f90f76f0df0cc936cd PDF Text Text JULY, 1953 SLOV.AKI.A 1 THE TRUE FACE OF SLOVAK.IA Joseph M. Kirschbaum, M.A., LL.D. There is a peculiar phenomenon in the political and historical works of American or English scholars about Slovakia. With the exception of the British author C. A. Macartney, followed to a certain extent by A. J. D. Taylor and professor Seton-Watson, the Anglo-Saxon history writers an:d -p ublicists show not only a considerable lack of knowledge of historical facts concerning Slovakia, but they serve, probably unconsciously, the aims of imperialistic tendencies of some Central-European ,peoples. For many of them "Slovak is the name given to the easternmost division of the Czech speaking people" (1) and they seem to know nothing about the fact that the Slovaks were among the first Slovanic peoples converted to Christianity and that as early as the ninth century they founded the first Slovanic state, known in history under the name of the Great Moravian Empire (2); they also persistently present Slovakia as a backward agrarian country marked by illiteracy and poverty. This misrepresentation happens especially when comparison is made between Slovaks and, in the Anglo-Saxon world, the very favored Czechs who are, from the linguistic point of view, quite close to the Slovaks, from the cultural and historical standpoint, however, quite different. Or as Wm. Diamond writes: "Slovakia and the Czech lands are two areas speaking quite similar languages but having different histories and political traditions. They have a deep-rooted and intense distrust, sometimes amounting to antipathy, for each other. A thousand years of separat~on, during which ,p olitical and economic development went off on different tracks, were neither forgotten nor overcome after the establishment of the (Czecho-'Slovak) Republic." The line followed by Anglo-Saxon writers when speaking about Slovakia is nearly the same as that expressed in the books of J. S. Roucek (Eastern-Central Europe, crucible of world wars, and Slavonic Encyclopedia) and R. J. Kerner (Czechoslovakia), who as late as 1946-1949 presented Slovakia as follows: �SLOVAKIA 1. "In the Slovak province of Czechoslovakia, for instance, as many as 57 per cent could not read and write. The (Czechoslovak) Republic esta:blished middleschool and university education in Slovakia, where it was practically non-existent ,b efore 1918." - J. S. Roucek (3). 2. "Wherea'S 1:Jhe standard of ,] iteracy among the Czechs was high, the •p ercentage 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" - Kerner <4). 1 3. The Slovaks are according to Mr. Roucek "simple and pastoral" and in the opinion of Mr. Kerner "the Slovaks remained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture." This portrayal of Slovakia i,s so general in the American and English ,p ress that to many people, who are not acquainted with the Slovak past and the actual circm;nstances, it may appear not only probruble ,b ut true. Slovakia has been presented in this light for about 35 years. The world is supposed to 'believe that culture, literacy and civilization were brought into Slovakia only by the Czechs in 1918-19, according to these "scientific revelations", and that Slovakia remained even during the last 30 years predominantly agrarian, pastoral and illiterate. What is the truth? Now, the truth is quite different. After having lost their political independence in the tenth and definitely in the 13th century in favor of the· Hungarians, the Slovaks did not appear in European history as a political factor for many centuries. Germans, Hungarians and Czechs, who in a common effort succeeded to disintegrate the first Slovak State, could not, however, destroy the civilization which had already existed in that country. As a result Slovakia became even under the Hungarian rule a first-rate cultural centre in Ce11tral Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the 1'5th century and a Catholic university in the 17th century at Trnava (5). �SLOVAKIA 3 The culture spread from these universities developed, naturally, not in the 'Slovak, but in the Latin language, a general phenomenon at that time in Central Europe. Nevertheless, it was a culture of the •p opulation of Slovakia which at all times has been predominantly of Slovak origin, and the archives prove that the majority of professors and students was Slovak also. The same rule can be applied to the epoch when, under the influence of nationalism, the Hungarians began to demand the use of the Magyar language instead of the Latin and when expressions of growing national consciousness of the non~Magyar nationalities were answered by an increased attempt at Magyarization. It is true that .Slovak schools were closed by the Hungarian regime in the last decades of the 19th century, and nobody can deny the tendency of Budapest to assimilate the Slovak population. On the other hand, it is false and tendencious to say that Slova:kia before 1918 was a .b ackward and illiterate country and that culture was brought into Slovakia by Czech teachers and intellectuals. If we can measure the cultural level of any country by the number of schools, as it is generally done, then the statistics regarding the number of schools in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule (1918) and at the end of the Czech rule (1939) obviously deny the Czech .propaganda about the illiteracy and the Czech cultural mission in Slovakia. The data pU!blished in this regard by a former member of the Prague government, Prof. A. Stefanek (6) give us the following picture: A) Number of public schools in Slovakia 1917-18 1937-38 Schools administered by church ____ 2723 2487 Schools administered by state _____ 797 1104 Total ________________ 3520 3591 B) Number of high schools in Slovakia 1918-19 1936-37 High schools ____________________ _ 44 46 Teachers' schools ________________ _ 15 16 Tot~ _________________ _ 61 63 �4 SLOVAKIA The number of students at the above schools in 1918 was 15,354; and in 1939 - 23,937; but only 20,018 of them were of Slovak origin. As far as the percentage of Slovaks who could not read and write is concerned, the above quoted statement of Prof. Roucek is obviously at odds with the truth. Unfortunately, there are in exile no statistics available aJbout the situation in this regard in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule. But if we take into consideration the fact that according to the official Czech statistics there were in 1930 only 6.8 % inhabitants of Slovak origin who could not read and write and the number of schools was as shown above, it may be safely assumed that in 1919, when the number of schools was nearly the same, the percentage of analphabets could hardly be much different. Logic does not admit any doubt in this regard. At present about 3 % of the inhabitants of Slovakia cannot read and write, which means that Slovakia comes not only before many Central-European countries, but is much ahead of countries like Italy, Spain, etc. II As false at the presentation of Slovakia in the light of illiteracy is also any talk about Slovakia's economic backwardness. After the first World War when the Slovaks and Czechs came together, it was decided ,b y the Czech government that Slovakia must remain an agricultural complement of the Czech lands. Consequently, the rise in the industrial population of Slovakia which 1b egan in the 19th century, when the industrial revolution took hold in Hungary, not only began to slow down, but, according to Macartney, one third of Slovakia's industry was dismantled and destroyed by the Czech banks and industrialists who did not wish to have any competition in Slovakia (7). 1 Despite these anti-Slovak economic measures of the Prague government and Czech industrialists, the majority of Slovakia's population was neither ",pastoral" nor agrarian. According to Czech official statistics the percentage of Slovakia's population which gave their occupation as agriculture was as follows (8) : �SLOVAKIA Year 1900 1921 1930 5 % 63.0 60.6 56.8 Measured by Central-European standards, Slovakia in 1930 was one of the well industrialized countries, since in Poland, ,Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia the percentage of agrarian population at that time was much higher (Poland 69 % , Bulgaria 80 % , Romania 80% , etc.) even according Mr. Roucek's "Central Eastern Europe". Since 1930 the above percentage changed in Slovakia to a considera'ble extent, especially during the years 19391945. Wm. Dia:mond in his book "Czechoslovakia between East and West" - very favorable to the post-war Czechoslovakia and to Czechs writes in this regard: "Slovakia's brief experience as an independent state had a salutary effect on its industry, which expanded in an effort to replace products once obtained from the factories of the Czech lands and, under German pressure, to increase the output of armaments. The esta'blishment of new enteq,rises and the increase in the number of industrial workers raised the importance of Slovak industry in the country as a whole. The industrial ca:pacity of Slovakia increased particularly in metal- and wood-working, mining, textiles, footwear, and food processing" (9). The Czech Minister on Industry described the situation as follows: •~on the whole, it may ,b e said of Slovak industry that its development in the last few years, with the exception of armament production, was, comparatively speaking, quick and sound. It is true that not many new factories have been built, but many of the existing ones have been enlarged and modernized. The most important structural change 'has :b een an increased emphasis on metallurgy, textiles and, to a certain extent, on mining" (10). �6 SLOVAKIA The Communist regime in Slovakia did not stop this development. On the contrary, if we can trust Communist statistics, many new industries have been built in Slovakia and the percentage of the population working in agriculture should be only a,bout 35 % at the .present time. The regime is inhuman, tyrannic and cruel, but it changes the social structure of Slovakia in favor of the industrial "proletariat" not only in order to furnish Russia industrial products, ibut also because of political reasons: a peasant is considered an enemy of Communism. III · While, consciously or unconsciously, American authors present, under the cover of "scientific" works, the Slovak people as a part of the Czech nation and Slovakia as a backward country in order to support the Czech claim to rule over Slovakia, life marks quite different tracks of evolution in the relations between Czechs and Slovaks. "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Slovaks," writes Wm. Diamond and continues: "So important was the Slovak problem in the minds of both Czech and Slovak leaders, that it was a major subject of study and debate during the war and has continued to be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice .Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itself a complete reversal of the ethni~ theory on which the first Repubilc was built: the belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kosice Program further provided that "the Slovaks should :be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland" and that the government "will regard the Slovak National Council not only as the rightful representative of the individual Slovak nation, but also as the bearer of sovereign right on Slovak territory" (11). The same change as in the political relations between Czechs and Slovaks was ,b rought a;bout in regard to the �S LOVAKIA 7 general level of civilization in Slovakia. Already during the Second World War there was no lack of trained and educateq. officials, professors, lawyers, physicians, etc., but a constderable surplus. When the "Czechoslovak Republic" had been restored against the wishes of the majority of Slovakia's population in 1945 and a bout 5 thousand Slovak intellectuals left the country and other thousands were jailed, deported to Siberia, and confined in concentration camps for alleged collaboration with Nazis, but in fact for their anti-Communism, there was no difficulty to replace them, ·b ecause the trend of civilization and development, which, since the First World War, brought to maturity and self-government about 30 former colonies and mandatory territories, did not stop in Slovakia in order to fulfill the wishes of some Czech politicians who desired to see Slovakia as a backward country and the Slovaks as a part of the Czech nation. Slovakia developed considerably not only economically during its short separation from the Czech lands, but also from the point of view of culture and civilization. This can be seen again in the light of statistics concerning the number of university students during the Czech rule (1918--38) and during the Slovakia's independence (1939-415) ,published by Prof. Stefanek. 1 After 20 years of Czech rule in Slovakia, there were at the University in Bratislava in the schoolyear 1938--39 only 153'5 students of Slovak origin, but this number increased to 4485 in the third year of Slovakia's independence (1942-43), while aibout 500 others studied abroad. Altogether, during the five years of Slovakia's separation from Czechs, 14,965 students studied at the University of Bratislava, which also became an attractive center for foreign students. In the year 1941-42, for instance, there were 518 students from Bulgaria, 120 Czech students, 154 Germans, 106 Russians, 171 Hungarians and many others. As far as the professors were concerned, out of a total of 107 professors, 78 were of Slovak origin, 20 Czechs, 7 Russians, one German, one Italian; the 1'59 assistants and lecturers were all of Slovak origin (12). This is the true face of Slovakia, ,p resented by some 1 �SLOVAKIA 8 American writers and university professors as a backward country of illiteracy and poverty. Do not American students deserve professors and lecturers who respect facts and the truth more objectively and more consistently? (1) J. S. Roucek, Central Eastern Europe, New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946, p. 353; 2) Dr. Milan Hodza, Federation in Central Europe, London, Jarolds, 1942, pp. 85-94, 104, 131, etc.; 3) Lbidem, p. 354; 4) "Czechoslovakia" edited by R. J. Kerner, University of California Press, Berkeley, Cal. 1949, pp. 184-185; 5) Dr. M. Hodza, op. cit.; 6) Anton Stefanek, Zur Sociographie Der Geistigen Kultur in der Slowakei, Academia Scientiarum et Artiurn Slovaca, Bratislava, 1944, pp. 40'4-405; 7) C. A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors, London, 19·3 7; 8) Annuaire statistique de la Republique Tcheco,Slovaque, 1938, p. 15; 9) William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1947, p. 172; 10) Prumyslovy Vestnik, March 10, 1947, p. 180-1; 11) Ibidem, p. 50; 12) A. Stefanek, op. cit., ·p. 413-15. WHO SAID IT? - "Basically our political program, our political llne, completely agrees with the line and the program of the Slovak Communist Party. Up to the rebellion there really was no difference between an adherent of the Slovak Communist Party and an adherent of the Democratic Party. When did this relationship deteriorate? I t.hink it was after our complete liberation. Well, in general, there can be no taJk about any great deterioration. But I think that if we let ourselves get drunk by our present victory in the elections and if, incidentally, even the effectiveness of the Slovak Communist Party should decrease because of the factual failure in the elections, then we would fall and the communists also would fail. I emphasize that we must mutually help each other and th 'l-t all of us mu.st solve common problems together, because onoe and for all time we must realize that there is no fundamental difference between the Slovak Communist Party and the Democratic Party. Differences have appeared a.nd are appearing, but only In methods." (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former Chairman of the Slovak Democratic Party and President of the Slovak National Council and now Y.ice-Preeident of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia: "My 46" - No. 23, June 8, 1946 - Prague) . WHO SAID IT? - • • • "The religious cleft (between the Slovaks ana the Czechs) is deep. For the Czechs, Master John Hus was and is not only a religious but essentially a national figure; and, if the nation returned to Catholicism under the pressure of the Counter-Reformation, it is a truism that every Czech is a H ussite at heart - a Hussfte in the wider sense of the term, denoting a blend of somewhat selfassertive nationalism with a "Protestant" attitude towards all authority, social, national, or religious, which is felt to be in any way alien. For the Slovaks, Hussitism was the alien doctrine, Catholicism the natural faith." (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS - London, 1937). � JULY, 1953 SLOV.AKI.A 1 THE TRUE FACE OF SLOVAK.IA Joseph M. Kirschbaum, M.A., LL.D. There is a peculiar phenomenon in the political and historical works of American or English scholars about Slovakia. With the exception of the British author C. A. Macartney, followed to a certain extent by A. J. D. Taylor and professor Seton-Watson, the Anglo-Saxon history writers an:d -p ublicists show not only a considerable lack of knowledge of historical facts concerning Slovakia, but they serve, probably unconsciously, the aims of imperialistic tendencies of some Central-European ,peoples. For many of them "Slovak is the name given to the easternmost division of the Czech speaking people" (1) and they seem to know nothing about the fact that the Slovaks were among the first Slovanic peoples converted to Christianity and that as early as the ninth century they founded the first Slovanic state, known in history under the name of the Great Moravian Empire (2); they also persistently present Slovakia as a backward agrarian country marked by illiteracy and poverty. This misrepresentation happens especially when comparison is made between Slovaks and, in the Anglo-Saxon world, the very favored Czechs who are, from the linguistic point of view, quite close to the Slovaks, from the cultural and historical standpoint, however, quite different. Or as Wm. Diamond writes: "Slovakia and the Czech lands are two areas speaking quite similar languages but having different histories and political traditions. They have a deep-rooted and intense distrust, sometimes amounting to antipathy, for each other. A thousand years of separat~on, during which ,p olitical and economic development went off on different tracks, were neither forgotten nor overcome after the establishment of the (Czecho-'Slovak) Republic." The line followed by Anglo-Saxon writers when speaking about Slovakia is nearly the same as that expressed in the books of J. S. Roucek (Eastern-Central Europe, crucible of world wars, and Slavonic Encyclopedia) and R. J. Kerner (Czechoslovakia), who as late as 1946-1949 presented Slovakia as follows: �SLOVAKIA 1. "In the Slovak province of Czechoslovakia, for instance, as many as 57 per cent could not read and write. The (Czechoslovak) Republic esta:blished middleschool and university education in Slovakia, where it was practically non-existent ,b efore 1918." - J. S. Roucek (3). 2. "Wherea'S 1:Jhe standard of ,] iteracy among the Czechs was high, the •p ercentage 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" - Kerner <4). 1 3. The Slovaks are according to Mr. Roucek "simple and pastoral" and in the opinion of Mr. Kerner "the Slovaks remained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture." This portrayal of Slovakia i,s so general in the American and English ,p ress that to many people, who are not acquainted with the Slovak past and the actual circm;nstances, it may appear not only probruble ,b ut true. Slovakia has been presented in this light for about 35 years. The world is supposed to 'believe that culture, literacy and civilization were brought into Slovakia only by the Czechs in 1918-19, according to these "scientific revelations", and that Slovakia remained even during the last 30 years predominantly agrarian, pastoral and illiterate. What is the truth? Now, the truth is quite different. After having lost their political independence in the tenth and definitely in the 13th century in favor of the· Hungarians, the Slovaks did not appear in European history as a political factor for many centuries. Germans, Hungarians and Czechs, who in a common effort succeeded to disintegrate the first Slovak State, could not, however, destroy the civilization which had already existed in that country. As a result Slovakia became even under the Hungarian rule a first-rate cultural centre in Ce11tral Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the 1'5th century and a Catholic university in the 17th century at Trnava (5). �SLOVAKIA 3 The culture spread from these universities developed, naturally, not in the 'Slovak, but in the Latin language, a general phenomenon at that time in Central Europe. Nevertheless, it was a culture of the •p opulation of Slovakia which at all times has been predominantly of Slovak origin, and the archives prove that the majority of professors and students was Slovak also. The same rule can be applied to the epoch when, under the influence of nationalism, the Hungarians began to demand the use of the Magyar language instead of the Latin and when expressions of growing national consciousness of the non~Magyar nationalities were answered by an increased attempt at Magyarization. It is true that .Slovak schools were closed by the Hungarian regime in the last decades of the 19th century, and nobody can deny the tendency of Budapest to assimilate the Slovak population. On the other hand, it is false and tendencious to say that Slova:kia before 1918 was a .b ackward and illiterate country and that culture was brought into Slovakia by Czech teachers and intellectuals. If we can measure the cultural level of any country by the number of schools, as it is generally done, then the statistics regarding the number of schools in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule (1918) and at the end of the Czech rule (1939) obviously deny the Czech .propaganda about the illiteracy and the Czech cultural mission in Slovakia. The data pU!blished in this regard by a former member of the Prague government, Prof. A. Stefanek (6) give us the following picture: A) Number of public schools in Slovakia 1917-18 1937-38 Schools administered by church ____ 2723 2487 Schools administered by state _____ 797 1104 Total ________________ 3520 3591 B) Number of high schools in Slovakia 1918-19 1936-37 High schools ____________________ _ 44 46 Teachers' schools ________________ _ 15 16 Tot~ _________________ _ 61 63 �4 SLOVAKIA The number of students at the above schools in 1918 was 15,354; and in 1939 - 23,937; but only 20,018 of them were of Slovak origin. As far as the percentage of Slovaks who could not read and write is concerned, the above quoted statement of Prof. Roucek is obviously at odds with the truth. Unfortunately, there are in exile no statistics available aJbout the situation in this regard in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule. But if we take into consideration the fact that according to the official Czech statistics there were in 1930 only 6.8 % inhabitants of Slovak origin who could not read and write and the number of schools was as shown above, it may be safely assumed that in 1919, when the number of schools was nearly the same, the percentage of analphabets could hardly be much different. Logic does not admit any doubt in this regard. At present about 3 % of the inhabitants of Slovakia cannot read and write, which means that Slovakia comes not only before many Central-European countries, but is much ahead of countries like Italy, Spain, etc. II As false at the presentation of Slovakia in the light of illiteracy is also any talk about Slovakia's economic backwardness. After the first World War when the Slovaks and Czechs came together, it was decided ,b y the Czech government that Slovakia must remain an agricultural complement of the Czech lands. Consequently, the rise in the industrial population of Slovakia which 1b egan in the 19th century, when the industrial revolution took hold in Hungary, not only began to slow down, but, according to Macartney, one third of Slovakia's industry was dismantled and destroyed by the Czech banks and industrialists who did not wish to have any competition in Slovakia (7). 1 Despite these anti-Slovak economic measures of the Prague government and Czech industrialists, the majority of Slovakia's population was neither ",pastoral" nor agrarian. According to Czech official statistics the percentage of Slovakia's population which gave their occupation as agriculture was as follows (8) : �SLOVAKIA Year 1900 1921 1930 5 % 63.0 60.6 56.8 Measured by Central-European standards, Slovakia in 1930 was one of the well industrialized countries, since in Poland, ,Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia the percentage of agrarian population at that time was much higher (Poland 69 % , Bulgaria 80 % , Romania 80% , etc.) even according Mr. Roucek's "Central Eastern Europe". Since 1930 the above percentage changed in Slovakia to a considera'ble extent, especially during the years 19391945. Wm. Dia:mond in his book "Czechoslovakia between East and West" - very favorable to the post-war Czechoslovakia and to Czechs writes in this regard: "Slovakia's brief experience as an independent state had a salutary effect on its industry, which expanded in an effort to replace products once obtained from the factories of the Czech lands and, under German pressure, to increase the output of armaments. The esta'blishment of new enteq,rises and the increase in the number of industrial workers raised the importance of Slovak industry in the country as a whole. The industrial ca:pacity of Slovakia increased particularly in metal- and wood-working, mining, textiles, footwear, and food processing" (9). The Czech Minister on Industry described the situation as follows: •~on the whole, it may ,b e said of Slovak industry that its development in the last few years, with the exception of armament production, was, comparatively speaking, quick and sound. It is true that not many new factories have been built, but many of the existing ones have been enlarged and modernized. The most important structural change 'has :b een an increased emphasis on metallurgy, textiles and, to a certain extent, on mining" (10). �6 SLOVAKIA The Communist regime in Slovakia did not stop this development. On the contrary, if we can trust Communist statistics, many new industries have been built in Slovakia and the percentage of the population working in agriculture should be only a,bout 35 % at the .present time. The regime is inhuman, tyrannic and cruel, but it changes the social structure of Slovakia in favor of the industrial "proletariat" not only in order to furnish Russia industrial products, ibut also because of political reasons: a peasant is considered an enemy of Communism. III · While, consciously or unconsciously, American authors present, under the cover of "scientific" works, the Slovak people as a part of the Czech nation and Slovakia as a backward country in order to support the Czech claim to rule over Slovakia, life marks quite different tracks of evolution in the relations between Czechs and Slovaks. "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Slovaks," writes Wm. Diamond and continues: "So important was the Slovak problem in the minds of both Czech and Slovak leaders, that it was a major subject of study and debate during the war and has continued to be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice .Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itself a complete reversal of the ethni~ theory on which the first Repubilc was built: the belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kosice Program further provided that "the Slovaks should :be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland" and that the government "will regard the Slovak National Council not only as the rightful representative of the individual Slovak nation, but also as the bearer of sovereign right on Slovak territory" (11). The same change as in the political relations between Czechs and Slovaks was ,b rought a;bout in regard to the �S LOVAKIA 7 general level of civilization in Slovakia. Already during the Second World War there was no lack of trained and educateq. officials, professors, lawyers, physicians, etc., but a constderable surplus. When the "Czechoslovak Republic" had been restored against the wishes of the majority of Slovakia's population in 1945 and a bout 5 thousand Slovak intellectuals left the country and other thousands were jailed, deported to Siberia, and confined in concentration camps for alleged collaboration with Nazis, but in fact for their anti-Communism, there was no difficulty to replace them, ·b ecause the trend of civilization and development, which, since the First World War, brought to maturity and self-government about 30 former colonies and mandatory territories, did not stop in Slovakia in order to fulfill the wishes of some Czech politicians who desired to see Slovakia as a backward country and the Slovaks as a part of the Czech nation. Slovakia developed considerably not only economically during its short separation from the Czech lands, but also from the point of view of culture and civilization. This can be seen again in the light of statistics concerning the number of university students during the Czech rule (1918--38) and during the Slovakia's independence (1939-415) ,published by Prof. Stefanek. 1 After 20 years of Czech rule in Slovakia, there were at the University in Bratislava in the schoolyear 1938--39 only 153'5 students of Slovak origin, but this number increased to 4485 in the third year of Slovakia's independence (1942-43), while aibout 500 others studied abroad. Altogether, during the five years of Slovakia's separation from Czechs, 14,965 students studied at the University of Bratislava, which also became an attractive center for foreign students. In the year 1941-42, for instance, there were 518 students from Bulgaria, 120 Czech students, 154 Germans, 106 Russians, 171 Hungarians and many others. As far as the professors were concerned, out of a total of 107 professors, 78 were of Slovak origin, 20 Czechs, 7 Russians, one German, one Italian; the 1'59 assistants and lecturers were all of Slovak origin (12). This is the true face of Slovakia, ,p resented by some 1 �SLOVAKIA 8 American writers and university professors as a backward country of illiteracy and poverty. Do not American students deserve professors and lecturers who respect facts and the truth more objectively and more consistently? (1) J. S. Roucek, Central Eastern Europe, New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946, p. 353; 2) Dr. Milan Hodza, Federation in Central Europe, London, Jarolds, 1942, pp. 85-94, 104, 131, etc.; 3) Lbidem, p. 354; 4) "Czechoslovakia" edited by R. J. Kerner, University of California Press, Berkeley, Cal. 1949, pp. 184-185; 5) Dr. M. Hodza, op. cit.; 6) Anton Stefanek, Zur Sociographie Der Geistigen Kultur in der Slowakei, Academia Scientiarum et Artiurn Slovaca, Bratislava, 1944, pp. 40'4-405; 7) C. A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors, London, 19·3 7; 8) Annuaire statistique de la Republique Tcheco,Slovaque, 1938, p. 15; 9) William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1947, p. 172; 10) Prumyslovy Vestnik, March 10, 1947, p. 180-1; 11) Ibidem, p. 50; 12) A. Stefanek, op. cit., ·p. 413-15. WHO SAID IT? - "Basically our political program, our political llne, completely agrees with the line and the program of the Slovak Communist Party. Up to the rebellion there really was no difference between an adherent of the Slovak Communist Party and an adherent of the Democratic Party. When did this relationship deteriorate? I t.hink it was after our complete liberation. Well, in general, there can be no taJk about any great deterioration. But I think that if we let ourselves get drunk by our present victory in the elections and if, incidentally, even the effectiveness of the Slovak Communist Party should decrease because of the factual failure in the elections, then we would fall and the communists also would fail. I emphasize that we must mutually help each other and th 'l-t all of us mu.st solve common problems together, because onoe and for all time we must realize that there is no fundamental difference between the Slovak Communist Party and the Democratic Party. Differences have appeared a.nd are appearing, but only In methods." (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former Chairman of the Slovak Democratic Party and President of the Slovak National Council and now Y.ice-Preeident of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia: "My 46" - No. 23, June 8, 1946 - Prague) . WHO SAID IT? - • • • "The religious cleft (between the Slovaks ana the Czechs) is deep. For the Czechs, Master John Hus was and is not only a religious but essentially a national figure; and, if the nation returned to Catholicism under the pressure of the Counter-Reformation, it is a truism that every Czech is a H ussite at heart - a Hussfte in the wider sense of the term, denoting a blend of somewhat selfassertive nationalism with a "Protestant" attitude towards all authority, social, national, or religious, which is felt to be in any way alien. For the Slovaks, Hussitism was the alien doctrine, Catholicism the natural faith." (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS - London, 1937). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 JULY, 1953 SLOV.AKI.A 1 THE TRUE FACE OF SLOVAK.IA Joseph M. Kirschbaum, M.A., LL.D. There is a peculiar phenomenon in the political and historical works of American or English scholars about Slovakia. With the exception of the British author C. A. Macartney, followed to a certain extent by A. J. D. Taylor and professor Seton-Watson, the Anglo-Saxon history writers an:d -p ublicists show not only a considerable lack of knowledge of historical facts concerning Slovakia, but they serve, probably unconsciously, the aims of imperialistic tendencies of some Central-European ,peoples. For many of them "Slovak is the name given to the easternmost division of the Czech speaking people" (1) and they seem to know nothing about the fact that the Slovaks were among the first Slovanic peoples converted to Christianity and that as early as the ninth century they founded the first Slovanic state, known in history under the name of the Great Moravian Empire (2); they also persistently present Slovakia as a backward agrarian country marked by illiteracy and poverty. This misrepresentation happens especially when comparison is made between Slovaks and, in the Anglo-Saxon world, the very favored Czechs who are, from the linguistic point of view, quite close to the Slovaks, from the cultural and historical standpoint, however, quite different. Or as Wm. Diamond writes: "Slovakia and the Czech lands are two areas speaking quite similar languages but having different histories and political traditions. They have a deep-rooted and intense distrust, sometimes amounting to antipathy, for each other. A thousand years of separat~on, during which ,p olitical and economic development went off on different tracks, were neither forgotten nor overcome after the establishment of the (Czecho-'Slovak) Republic." The line followed by Anglo-Saxon writers when speaking about Slovakia is nearly the same as that expressed in the books of J. S. Roucek (Eastern-Central Europe, crucible of world wars, and Slavonic Encyclopedia) and R. J. Kerner (Czechoslovakia), who as late as 1946-1949 presented Slovakia as follows: SLOVAKIA 1. "In the Slovak province of Czechoslovakia, for instance, as many as 57 per cent could not read and write. The (Czechoslovak) Republic esta:blished middleschool and university education in Slovakia, where it was practically non-existent ,b efore 1918." - J. S. Roucek (3). 2. "Wherea'S 1:Jhe standard of ,] iteracy among the Czechs was high, the •p ercentage 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" - Kerner <4). 1 3. The Slovaks are according to Mr. Roucek "simple and pastoral" and in the opinion of Mr. Kerner "the Slovaks remained agriculturists and under a Magyar (that is, Eastern) type of culture." This portrayal of Slovakia i,s so general in the American and English ,p ress that to many people, who are not acquainted with the Slovak past and the actual circm;nstances, it may appear not only probruble ,b ut true. Slovakia has been presented in this light for about 35 years. The world is supposed to 'believe that culture, literacy and civilization were brought into Slovakia only by the Czechs in 1918-19, according to these "scientific revelations", and that Slovakia remained even during the last 30 years predominantly agrarian, pastoral and illiterate. What is the truth? Now, the truth is quite different. After having lost their political independence in the tenth and definitely in the 13th century in favor of the· Hungarians, the Slovaks did not appear in European history as a political factor for many centuries. Germans, Hungarians and Czechs, who in a common effort succeeded to disintegrate the first Slovak State, could not, however, destroy the civilization which had already existed in that country. As a result Slovakia became even under the Hungarian rule a first-rate cultural centre in Ce11tral Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the 1'5th century and a Catholic university in the 17th century at Trnava (5). SLOVAKIA 3 The culture spread from these universities developed, naturally, not in the 'Slovak, but in the Latin language, a general phenomenon at that time in Central Europe. Nevertheless, it was a culture of the •p opulation of Slovakia which at all times has been predominantly of Slovak origin, and the archives prove that the majority of professors and students was Slovak also. The same rule can be applied to the epoch when, under the influence of nationalism, the Hungarians began to demand the use of the Magyar language instead of the Latin and when expressions of growing national consciousness of the non~Magyar nationalities were answered by an increased attempt at Magyarization. It is true that .Slovak schools were closed by the Hungarian regime in the last decades of the 19th century, and nobody can deny the tendency of Budapest to assimilate the Slovak population. On the other hand, it is false and tendencious to say that Slova:kia before 1918 was a .b ackward and illiterate country and that culture was brought into Slovakia by Czech teachers and intellectuals. If we can measure the cultural level of any country by the number of schools, as it is generally done, then the statistics regarding the number of schools in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule (1918) and at the end of the Czech rule (1939) obviously deny the Czech .propaganda about the illiteracy and the Czech cultural mission in Slovakia. The data pU!blished in this regard by a former member of the Prague government, Prof. A. Stefanek (6) give us the following picture: A) Number of public schools in Slovakia 1917-18 1937-38 Schools administered by church ____ 2723 2487 Schools administered by state _____ 797 1104 Total ________________ 3520 3591 B) Number of high schools in Slovakia 1918-19 1936-37 High schools ____________________ _ 44 46 Teachers' schools ________________ _ 15 16 Tot~ _________________ _ 61 63 4 SLOVAKIA The number of students at the above schools in 1918 was 15,354; and in 1939 - 23,937; but only 20,018 of them were of Slovak origin. As far as the percentage of Slovaks who could not read and write is concerned, the above quoted statement of Prof. Roucek is obviously at odds with the truth. Unfortunately, there are in exile no statistics available aJbout the situation in this regard in Slovakia at the end of the Hungarian rule. But if we take into consideration the fact that according to the official Czech statistics there were in 1930 only 6.8 % inhabitants of Slovak origin who could not read and write and the number of schools was as shown above, it may be safely assumed that in 1919, when the number of schools was nearly the same, the percentage of analphabets could hardly be much different. Logic does not admit any doubt in this regard. At present about 3 % of the inhabitants of Slovakia cannot read and write, which means that Slovakia comes not only before many Central-European countries, but is much ahead of countries like Italy, Spain, etc. II As false at the presentation of Slovakia in the light of illiteracy is also any talk about Slovakia's economic backwardness. After the first World War when the Slovaks and Czechs came together, it was decided ,b y the Czech government that Slovakia must remain an agricultural complement of the Czech lands. Consequently, the rise in the industrial population of Slovakia which 1b egan in the 19th century, when the industrial revolution took hold in Hungary, not only began to slow down, but, according to Macartney, one third of Slovakia's industry was dismantled and destroyed by the Czech banks and industrialists who did not wish to have any competition in Slovakia (7). 1 Despite these anti-Slovak economic measures of the Prague government and Czech industrialists, the majority of Slovakia's population was neither ",pastoral" nor agrarian. According to Czech official statistics the percentage of Slovakia's population which gave their occupation as agriculture was as follows (8) : SLOVAKIA Year 1900 1921 1930 5 % 63.0 60.6 56.8 Measured by Central-European standards, Slovakia in 1930 was one of the well industrialized countries, since in Poland, ,Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia the percentage of agrarian population at that time was much higher (Poland 69 % , Bulgaria 80 % , Romania 80% , etc.) even according Mr. Roucek's "Central Eastern Europe". Since 1930 the above percentage changed in Slovakia to a considera'ble extent, especially during the years 19391945. Wm. Dia:mond in his book "Czechoslovakia between East and West" - very favorable to the post-war Czechoslovakia and to Czechs writes in this regard: "Slovakia's brief experience as an independent state had a salutary effect on its industry, which expanded in an effort to replace products once obtained from the factories of the Czech lands and, under German pressure, to increase the output of armaments. The esta'blishment of new enteq,rises and the increase in the number of industrial workers raised the importance of Slovak industry in the country as a whole. The industrial ca:pacity of Slovakia increased particularly in metal- and wood-working, mining, textiles, footwear, and food processing" (9). The Czech Minister on Industry described the situation as follows: •~on the whole, it may ,b e said of Slovak industry that its development in the last few years, with the exception of armament production, was, comparatively speaking, quick and sound. It is true that not many new factories have been built, but many of the existing ones have been enlarged and modernized. The most important structural change 'has :b een an increased emphasis on metallurgy, textiles and, to a certain extent, on mining" (10). 6 SLOVAKIA The Communist regime in Slovakia did not stop this development. On the contrary, if we can trust Communist statistics, many new industries have been built in Slovakia and the percentage of the population working in agriculture should be only a,bout 35 % at the .present time. The regime is inhuman, tyrannic and cruel, but it changes the social structure of Slovakia in favor of the industrial "proletariat" not only in order to furnish Russia industrial products, ibut also because of political reasons: a peasant is considered an enemy of Communism. III · While, consciously or unconsciously, American authors present, under the cover of "scientific" works, the Slovak people as a part of the Czech nation and Slovakia as a backward country in order to support the Czech claim to rule over Slovakia, life marks quite different tracks of evolution in the relations between Czechs and Slovaks. "Slovak tradition and economy stand as a barrier between Czechs and Slovaks," writes Wm. Diamond and continues: "So important was the Slovak problem in the minds of both Czech and Slovak leaders, that it was a major subject of study and debate during the war and has continued to be ever since. An effort was made to solve the problem in 194'5 in the Kosice .Programme, in which Czechs and Slovaks are defined as two distinct nations united by common interest in a single state. This is in itself a complete reversal of the ethni~ theory on which the first Repubilc was built: the belief that Czechs and Slovaks constituted a single nation. The Kosice Program further provided that "the Slovaks should :be the masters in their Slovak lands, just as the Czechs in their Czech homeland" and that the government "will regard the Slovak National Council not only as the rightful representative of the individual Slovak nation, but also as the bearer of sovereign right on Slovak territory" (11). The same change as in the political relations between Czechs and Slovaks was ,b rought a;bout in regard to the S LOVAKIA 7 general level of civilization in Slovakia. Already during the Second World War there was no lack of trained and educateq. officials, professors, lawyers, physicians, etc., but a constderable surplus. When the "Czechoslovak Republic" had been restored against the wishes of the majority of Slovakia's population in 1945 and a bout 5 thousand Slovak intellectuals left the country and other thousands were jailed, deported to Siberia, and confined in concentration camps for alleged collaboration with Nazis, but in fact for their anti-Communism, there was no difficulty to replace them, ·b ecause the trend of civilization and development, which, since the First World War, brought to maturity and self-government about 30 former colonies and mandatory territories, did not stop in Slovakia in order to fulfill the wishes of some Czech politicians who desired to see Slovakia as a backward country and the Slovaks as a part of the Czech nation. Slovakia developed considerably not only economically during its short separation from the Czech lands, but also from the point of view of culture and civilization. This can be seen again in the light of statistics concerning the number of university students during the Czech rule (1918--38) and during the Slovakia's independence (1939-415) ,published by Prof. Stefanek. 1 After 20 years of Czech rule in Slovakia, there were at the University in Bratislava in the schoolyear 1938--39 only 153'5 students of Slovak origin, but this number increased to 4485 in the third year of Slovakia's independence (1942-43), while aibout 500 others studied abroad. Altogether, during the five years of Slovakia's separation from Czechs, 14,965 students studied at the University of Bratislava, which also became an attractive center for foreign students. In the year 1941-42, for instance, there were 518 students from Bulgaria, 120 Czech students, 154 Germans, 106 Russians, 171 Hungarians and many others. As far as the professors were concerned, out of a total of 107 professors, 78 were of Slovak origin, 20 Czechs, 7 Russians, one German, one Italian; the 1'59 assistants and lecturers were all of Slovak origin (12). This is the true face of Slovakia, ,p resented by some 1 SLOVAKIA 8 American writers and university professors as a backward country of illiteracy and poverty. Do not American students deserve professors and lecturers who respect facts and the truth more objectively and more consistently? (1) J. S. Roucek, Central Eastern Europe, New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946, p. 353; 2) Dr. Milan Hodza, Federation in Central Europe, London, Jarolds, 1942, pp. 85-94, 104, 131, etc.; 3) Lbidem, p. 354; 4) "Czechoslovakia" edited by R. J. Kerner, University of California Press, Berkeley, Cal. 1949, pp. 184-185; 5) Dr. M. Hodza, op. cit.; 6) Anton Stefanek, Zur Sociographie Der Geistigen Kultur in der Slowakei, Academia Scientiarum et Artiurn Slovaca, Bratislava, 1944, pp. 40'4-405; 7) C. A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors, London, 19·3 7; 8) Annuaire statistique de la Republique Tcheco,Slovaque, 1938, p. 15; 9) William Diamond, Czechoslovakia between East and West, London, Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1947, p. 172; 10) Prumyslovy Vestnik, March 10, 1947, p. 180-1; 11) Ibidem, p. 50; 12) A. Stefanek, op. cit., ·p. 413-15. WHO SAID IT? - "Basically our political program, our political llne, completely agrees with the line and the program of the Slovak Communist Party. Up to the rebellion there really was no difference between an adherent of the Slovak Communist Party and an adherent of the Democratic Party. When did this relationship deteriorate? I t.hink it was after our complete liberation. Well, in general, there can be no taJk about any great deterioration. But I think that if we let ourselves get drunk by our present victory in the elections and if, incidentally, even the effectiveness of the Slovak Communist Party should decrease because of the factual failure in the elections, then we would fall and the communists also would fail. I emphasize that we must mutually help each other and th 'l-t all of us mu.st solve common problems together, because onoe and for all time we must realize that there is no fundamental difference between the Slovak Communist Party and the Democratic Party. Differences have appeared a.nd are appearing, but only In methods." (Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former Chairman of the Slovak Democratic Party and President of the Slovak National Council and now Y.ice-Preeident of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia: "My 46" - No. 23, June 8, 1946 - Prague) . WHO SAID IT? - • • • "The religious cleft (between the Slovaks ana the Czechs) is deep. For the Czechs, Master John Hus was and is not only a religious but essentially a national figure; and, if the nation returned to Catholicism under the pressure of the Counter-Reformation, it is a truism that every Czech is a H ussite at heart - a Hussfte in the wider sense of the term, denoting a blend of somewhat selfassertive nationalism with a "Protestant" attitude towards all authority, social, national, or religious, which is felt to be in any way alien. For the Slovaks, Hussitism was the alien doctrine, Catholicism the natural faith." (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS - London, 1937).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The True Face of Slovakia Description An account of the resource Joseph Kirschbaum, M. A., LL. D. Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 2 (7), July 1953 pp. 1-8 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 July 1953 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/006f0e8f1b2b40dd7a01877c9000076b.pdf 2d6648d8c8f73dc1a78c92eebb9f6f72 PDF Text Text 18 SLOVAKIA 2019 THE TRANSATLANTIC SLOVAK QUESTION DURING THE INTERW AR YEARS Michael Cude The relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs is an issue that has persisted through the modem hi story of the two peoples. From the 19 th century ' national awakenings ' in Austria-Hungary to the Velvet Divorce between the Slovaks and Czechs in 1993, this 'Slovak question' was at the center of key events, including the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, its breakup and reestablishment after World War II, and the 1968 Prague Spring. 1 While many recent works have addressed the Slovak question, many have underappreciated the extent to which modem Slovak national identity formation was a transatlantic phenomenon. Historians examining this topic from the domestic Slovak perspective rarely delve deeply beyond Slovak borders, while histories of Slovaks abroad have focused predominantly on the Slovaks' place as immigrant communities . In doing so, such histories overlook how interlinked Slovak national politics in Slovakia were to Slovak communities abroad, particularly in North America, and the critical role they played in shaping Slovak national identity formation. Addressed by only a handful of recent works, the transatlantic Slovak question requires more attention.2 1 Reference key for shortened arc hi val ci tations: IHRC : Slovak American Collection, Immi gratio n History Research Center, University of Minneso ta. fil: Slovak Institute, Cleveland, OH. DoS CS 1910-44: Records of th e U.S. Department of Stale Relating to th e Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944, Microfilm (Washin gton D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1982). 2 For some examples of sc holarship considering the Slovak question from a transatlantic perspective, see: M. Mark Sto larik, Where is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( /8 70-2010) (Bern : Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907- 1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35 . Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia, 1914-19 I 8," Slovak Studies, 8, Hi stori ca 5 ( 1968), 7-82. Stefan Kucik, Podiel americkych S!ovakov na aulonomistickom hnuti na Slovensku 191 8-/938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 20 I I). Gregory Curtis Ference, Sixteen Months of Indecision : Slovak American Viewpoints Toward Compatriots and the Homeland from �SLOVAKIA 2019 19 The Slovak efforts abroad during World War I remain the best told component of this story. The foundation of the transatlantic Slovak question was laid in the periods leading up to the First World War, when Slovak-American organizations began to campaign for Slovak political autonomy within the Kingdom of Hungary. The central organization for Slovak national activism became the Slovak League of America (SLA), founded in May 1907 by Slovak-American leaders to unify the disparate Slovak groups in the United States in common political action. The SLA ' s main objectives were to develop the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in America as a means of supporting the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in the homeland and to fight for Slovak national self-determination. 3 World War I and its accompanying 'Wilsonian moment' entrenched important symbols of Slovak national self-determination, as Slovak immigrant communities contributed to the establishment of the new Czechoslovak Republic. The wartime Czechoslovak National Council and its leaders, including Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik, utilized Slovak-American organizations for financial , military, and diplomatic support. Consequently, Slovak-American demands led to the creation of the most important document relating to Slovak nationalism for the following twenty years: the Pittsburgh Agreement. Signed on 31 May 1918, this document declared common action between the Czechs and Slovaks in the formation of a democratic republic. Nevertheless, the agreement made a clear assertion for Slovak autonomy, under the terms that the Slovaks would I 9 I 4 to I 9 I 5 as Viewed by the Slovak Language Press in Pennsylvania (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna Uni versity Press, 1995). Michael Cude, "The Imagined Exiles: Slovak-Americans and the Slovak Question during the First Czechoslovak Republic," in From Exsilium to Exile: Coercion in Migration, Studia Historica Gedanensia, vo l. 5, ed. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Gdansk, Poland: University of Gdansk History Institute, 20 14), 287-305 3 Konstantin Culen, History of Slovaks in America, Daniel C. Necas, trans. (St. Paul, MN : Czechoslovak Genealogical Society, 2007). Jan Pankuch, History of the Slovaks of Cleveland and Lakewood, Rasto Gallo, trans. (Cleveland: Czechoslovak Genealogical Society & Western Reserve Historical Society, 2001), 29-38. Stolarik, " Rol e," 7-82 . Stephanie 0. Husek, "Slovak American Fraternal, Cultural, and Civic Organizations to 19 I 4," in Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study, Joseph C. Krajsa, ed. (Middletown: Slovak League of America, 1978), 23 -38 . Joseph A. Mikus "The Slovak League of America: A Historical Survey," in Slovaks, Krajsa, ed., 3956. R. Vladimir Baumgarten & Joseph Stefka, The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, I 890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990), 17-33. �20 SLOVAKIA 2019 have their "own administration, own parliament, and own courts." In the short term, the Pittsburgh Agreement appeased the Slovak-Americans, who consolidated their support around the budding state, while Masaryk used the agreement to legitimize Czech-Slovak coop4 eration in his diplomatic efforts. This campaign allowed Slovak-American leaders a sense of direct influence on the affairs of their homeland, although the Czechoslovak National Council quickly stymied this hope. While the Slovak-Americans had been able to pressure Masaryk into symbolically accepting their goals for Slovak autonomy, their influence only extended to his need to provide evidence of Slovak participation in his political program as he sought recognition from the Entente powers. As a result, the Slovak-Americans found themselves on the margins during the building of the state . Accordingly, many historians consider the Pittsburgh Agreement as a matter of domestic Slovak politics after its initial signing, with little further consideration for the Slovaks abroad. In doing so, they neglect the fact that transatlantic activities continued through the interwar period.5 With the establishment of Czechoslovakia following the war, Slovak national activists on both sides of the Atlantic, hereto identi- 4 "Pittsburgska Dohoda" in Dok:umenty slovenskej narodnej identity a statnosti, vol. I, eds. Jan Benko, et al (Narodne literame centrum: Dom slovenskej literatury, 1998), 484-7. " Masaryk to Mamatey, 22 September 1918," SLA Cabinet, F:llth Congress, Slovak Institute (S I), Cleveland, OH. Pankuch, History, 145-50. Stolarik, "Role," 32-54. Karo l Sidor, ''The Slovak League of America and the Slovak Nation 's Struggle for Autonomy," Slovakia I 7, 40 ( I 967), 39-46. Peter P. Hletko, "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact," Slovakia l 8, 41 ( 1968), 5-54. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , "The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Documents," in Slovakia 36, 66 & 67 ( 1998), 81-97. lmrich Mazar, A History of the Binghamton Slovaks : Over a Period of Forty Years, 1879-1919, ed. Wilhelmina Mazar Salina, trans. Thomas Janacek (Phoenix: Via Press, 2003), 203-17. Baumgarten & Stefka, National, 81-3. 5 James Ramon Felak, At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, I 994). Peter A. Toma & Dusan Kovac, Slovakia: From Samo to Dzurinda (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 200 I). Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia : The Struggle for Survival, 2nd ed. (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Jan Rychlik, "Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia, I 918-1939," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918- 1948, eds . Mark Cornwall, R.J.W . Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 13-26. Elisabeth Bakke, "Czechoslovakism in Slovak History," in Slovakia in History, eds. Mikulas Teich, et al (Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press, 2011), 247-68. �SLOVAKIA 2019 21 fied as the Slovak 'autonomists,' had full expectations of a federal relationship that would recognize Slovak cultural uniqueness and grant the Slovaks civic equality with autonomy over domestic affairs under the terms of the Pittsburgh Agreement. In contrast, most Czech leaders wanted a strongly centralized state, justified by arguments of the commonality of the Czechs and Slovaks, the threat of Hungarian and German irredentism, and the believed necessity of Czech oversight to modernize Slovakia. They relied on support from Slovak ' centralists,' who identified the Czechs and Slovaks as a common people. Slovak autonomists, who saw the Slovaks as a culturally distinct people from the Czechs, perceived this ' Prague centralism' as a form of cultural and political hegemony. In response, they replanted their fight over the Slovak question against the newly formed government in Prague. Both autonomists and centralists mobilized Slovaks at home and abroad behind their version of the state, with the transatlantic component focused on lobbying foreign governments. As with many other nationality groups, Slovak leaders saw the postwar peace process as a key moment to make their case. With the centralists represented at the Versailles Peace Conference by the formal delegation from Czechoslovakia, the autonomists attempted to present their own view, including a flurry of correspondence from Slovak-Americans to United States President Woodrow Wilson and an unofficial delegation led by Slovak nationalist leader Andrej Hlinka. The autonomists appealed for recognition of an independent Slovak identity and the establishment of a federalist system in Czechoslovakia that granted greater domestic political autonomy to Slovakia. Wilson and other western leaders, however, prioritized economic and political modernity as a necessary quality for selfgovernrnent. Czechoslovakia's centralist leaders appealed to the Wilsonian prioritization of modernism to gain American acceptance of their vision, and used a proposed uplift of the Slovaks into modernity to advance this cause. They nonetheless pursued this objective in a way that often cast the Slovaks in a disparaging light and sowed further discord. The Conference in turn legitimated this organization of the Czechoslovak state and ignored Slovak autonomist appeals. 6 6 For more, see : Michael Cude, "Wilsonian National Self-determination and the Slovak Question during th e Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918-192 1," Diplomatic Histo,y (2016) 40, I: 155-80 �22 SLOVAKIA 2019 This failure at Versailles did not dissuade transatlantic Slovak activities. From the conclusion of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, the Slovak question persisted in the First Czechoslovak Republic. The interwar period saw the Slovak autonomist movement survive with the Czechoslovak state arrayed against them . Slovak autonomists regularly looked across the Atlantic for support in pressuring Prague to change its stance. The Slovak autonomists continued to reference the spirit and goals of Wilsonianism to justify their claims for autonomy, and the Pittsburgh Agreement became their primary symbol. SlovakAmerican autonomists accepted their leading role of defending the Slovaks internationally, and they remained hopeful of convincing world leaders, particularly those in the United States, to embrace their view. This task remained an uphill battle, given the autonomists' inability to match the resources or international connections maintained by Prague, as centralists worked to discredit the idea of domestic autonomy for Slovakia. The Czech and Slovak centralists polarized the issue as a support for state unity through centralism or support for the destruction of the state through autonomy. In international appeals, the centralists disparaged Slovak capabilities for selfgovernment, and presented the Slovak autonomists as a parochial fringe, ignorant of world affairs. Accordingly, this transatlantic debate heavily contributed to the failure of the Czechoslovak concept in the interwar period by helping sow the entrenched distrust that culminated in the splintering of the Czechoslovak Republic in March of 1939. The question of Slovak autonomy remained a principal component of Slovak politics during the First Czechoslovak Republic. The Slovaks split into three general categories on the Slovak question. The smallest of these groups were the Czechoslovakists, who wanted a close, non-differential linkage with the Czechs. Vavro Srobar, the first appointed Minister for Slovakia in 1918, exemplified this faction. Another group consisted of moderate nationalists who pursued cooperation with the Czechs, but wanted recognition of separate Slovak identity and political autonomy. Milan Hodza, Prime Minister of the republic in the late 1930s and leader of the Agrarian Party, best exemplified this faction. Hodza and others supported a federalist model to address national minority questions. Most of the former two groups came from Slovakia's Lutheran minority. The Slovak auton- �SLOVAKIA 2019 23 omists, who were predominantly Catholics, were the most controversial. The Reverend Andrej Hlinka represented them as leader of the Slovak People 's Party. Hlinka and his supporters pushed for complete autonomy within Czechoslovakia, although the radical end of the party increasingly sought greater independence while a smaller minority even promoted a return to Hungary under a promise of autonomy. The Slovak People's Party (SPP) remained the most popular party in Slovakia and mixed cooperation with opposition to push for Slovak autonomy. The Agrarian Party followed in popular support, and it gradually pushed for more autonomy, albeit in a more deliberate fashion than the SPP. The Slovak National Party, the Slovak Communists, and the Hungarian Parties joined them in support of autonomy.7 Politically, some Slovaks took prominent positions in the central government, most notably Hodza. Prague allowed Slovak autonomists to organize and hold seats in Parliament, but it continued to censor nationali st viewpoints and it regularly pursued smear campaigns against Slovak autonomist leaders. The SPP joined the government in 1927, arranged by Hodza after promises of Slovak autonomy, but Hodza's plan proceeded in a watered-down fashion. The SPP participation lasted only two years before accusations of treason against radical politician Vojtech Tuka led to the SPP's withdrawal from the government. The SPP later exploited the Munich Agreement to force Prague's hand to achieve autonomy during the short-lived Second Republic, and then seceded from the state in March of 1939.8 7 Prague regularly promoted the idea that most of the Slovak people opposed autonomy, because the SPP only maintained 30-35% of the electorate in Slovakia. Although it is difficult to determine the true popular support of autonomy based strictly on the electoral support of each party, the support in Slovakia for Prague's version of centralism was probably we ll in the minority when one considers that the three largest parties-SPP, Agrarian, and Communists- all embraced some level of Slovak autonomy. 8 For more on this period in Slovak hi story, see: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism, Slovakia, and the Communists 1918- 1948 (New York: Columbia University, 1983). Susan Mikula, "The Politics of Frustration : The Slovak Politica l Experience, 191 8-1938," in Reflections on Slovak Histo ry, eds. Stanislav Kirschbaum & Anne C. Rom an (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1987), 73 -88. James Felak, "Slovak Considerations of the Slovak Question: The Ludak, Agrarian, Socialist, and Communi st views in lnterwar Czechoslovakia" in The Czech and Slovak Experience, ed . John Morison (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 136-62. Felak, At the �24 SLOVAKIA 2019 The Slovak-A mericans also consolidated their positions on the issue in a similar fas hi on. After an early divide, the leaders of the Slovak League of America gave up on Prague and embraced the autonomist position, as did the large Catholic fraternal organization the First Catholic Slovak Union, and other, smaller organizations, such as the Friends of Slovak Freedom (FSF), an organization formed in the 1920s w ith the singul ar goal of addressing the Slovak question . The large, secular and large ly Protestant, fraternal organizations, the National Slovak Society and the Slovak Evangeli cal Un ion, at first embraced the centralist Slovaks, but nationalist pressure ultimatel y led them to try to moderate between the centrali st and autonomist positions. They ultim ate ly embraced the gradualist position of Hodza. In response, the Czechoslovaki sts established the Slovak National A lliance to serve as the arm of Prague among the SlovakAmericans, along with the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol. Consisting mostl y of secularists and some Lutherans, these organizations regularly attacked the SLA for its Catholic and autonomist leanings and promoted the strict uni ty of the Czechs and Slovaks. 9 As the Slovak question became entrenched in Czechoslovak politics, each competing side pursued a voluminous international lobby ing campaign to build western support for its respective position. This included a fact ion demanding a revision of the Trianon Treaty to return Slovakia to Hungary. The primary international Slovak advocate of this position was the Reverend Francis Jehlicka and hi s organization, the Slovak Council , founded in 1933 . Jehlicka had attended the Paris Peace Conference wi th Hlinka, but decided afterwards that the Slovaks could not trust the Czechs. Jehlicka remained abroad, where he lobbied fo r a Slovak reunion with Hungary based on Hun ga ri an promises of Slovak autonomy. He attempted to build Price of th e Republic. Toma & Kovac, Slovakia, 78-1 06. Kirsc hbaum, History of Slovakia , 155-84. Ryc hlik, "Czec h-Sl ovak Relations," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, 13-2 6. R.J.W. Evans, " Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks : Some Mutual Perceptions," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, I 09-22 . Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia : The State that Failed (New Haven: Yale Uni vers ity Press, 2009), 48-86. Nata lia Kraj covicova, " Slovakia in Czechoslovakia," in Slovakia in History, 137-56. 9 Joseph Pauco, "Slovaks Abroad and Their Relati onship with Slovakia," in Slo vakia in the 19th & 20th Centuries, ed. Joseph M. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1973), 333-42. Josep h V. Adamec, "The Slovak Cath olic Federation," in Slovaks in America, 223-32 . Baumgarten & Stetl<a, National, 85-7. Pankuch, History, 177-86 . Stolarik, " Slovak League," 7-35 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 25 support from the Slovak-Americans by appealing to Slovakia's historical and economic roots in Hungary and exposing claimed mistreatment of the Slovaks by Prague. ' 0 Jehlicka could express his voice abroad because of support from Budapest and later Nazi Germany, and he convinced a few figures in the West, most notably the British publi sher Lord Rothermere, who campaigned on behalf of Hungary internationally. Jehlicka ' s arguments nevertheless carried little weight in other circles . Scottish historian R. W. Seton-Watson, a prominent supporter of the Czechoslovak Republic , pursued a constant back and forth against Jehlicka, and, on both sides of the Atlantic, Slovaks and Czechs of different politica l views unified against Slovakia ' s return to Hungary. The Slovak autonomi sts and centralists , for example, collaborated in an open letter denouncing Jehlicka . 11 Slovak-Americans likewise continued to lobby against Hungarian claims, reminding readers about the old magyarization policy to eliminate Slovak national identity. Slovak-American publisher Jan Pankuch claimed that this was the sole occas ion when the Slovak-American autonomi sts, Czech-Americans, and Slovak10 Anthony Pessenl ehner, "Czechoslovakia' s Ri ght to Statehood Assa iled," Current History, 14, 5 (Aug. I 92 1), 845-8. Dr. F. Jehlicka: Kto on je a co chce (C leveland: 1920). Francis Jehlicka, Reply to Mr. R. W. Seton-Watson 's Book 'Slovakia Th en and Now ' (Vienn a, 1932). The Slovak Co uncil , Th e Unsolved Slovak Problem (Vienna: Slovak Council, 1933). The Slovak Co un cil , Bolsevizmus a slovenska otazka (Geneva: Slovak Council , 193 6), in : 8 : Resolutions, Memoranda, Proclamations, SI. The Slovak Council , Sh ould Great Britain go to Wa r- fo r Czechoslovakia: An Appeal to British Common Sense for th e Sake of Wo rld Peace (London: Haze l, Watson, & Viney, 1937) . Francis Jehli cka, Fa1her Hlinka 's Struggle fo r Slovak Freedom (London: Slova k Council , 1938), 34-5. "The German Minister in Czechoslovaki a (Eisenlohr) to the German Foreign Ministry (Doc 57)," Documen1s on German Foreign Policy, Seri es D, V2 (Was hington, D.C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 132-3 . 11 R.W. Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers ( London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1934). " Seton-Watson to Alois Ka lisek" (Doc I 32) in R. W. SetonWa tson and His Relations with the Czechs and Slovaks: Documents, / 906- 195 1, vol. I, eds. Jan Ryc hlik, et al (Prague: Ustav T. G. Masaryka, I 995), 393-6. "The Situati on in Slova ki a and the Magyar Minori ty" (Doc 139) in Seton-Watson, 409-25. "Seton-Watson to Martin Razus" (Doc 155 ) in Seton- Watson, 454-5 . "Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc I 60) in Seton-Watson, 465-9. C. L Orbach, "Czechoslovakia ' s Place in the Sun," Current Histo1y, 14, 6 (Sept I 92 1), 944-5. Anonymous, "Another Defense of Czechoslovaki a" Curren/ History, 14, 6 (Sept 192 1), 945-6. Adam Poliak, "Czechos lova ki a's Right to Statehood," Current History, I 5, 3 (Dec I 92 1), 499. " Slovaki a' s Pro test" (Doc 156) in Seton-Watson, 456-9. �26 SLOVAKIA 2019 American centralists came together in common cause, although the resolution almost failed when the two sides sparred over whether the text should declare the Slovaks and Czechs as one nation. The proHungarian autonomists, thus, remained on the periphery of the Sio• 12 va k question. The unified opposition against Hungarian irredentism otherwise did little to ease the conflict between the centralists and autonomists. The Czech and Slovak centralists made the Slovak question a primary component of their international propaganda, and they often perpetuated negative stereotypes of the Slovaks to promote the Czechoslovak vision. The official press in Prague released ample publications by Czech nationali st leaders in the English language on the topic. President Masaryk, for example, made clear his disappointment with the "po litical immaturity" of the Slovak autonomist movement. Masaryk, who continued to highlight his own partial Slovak heritage, likewise claimed to have proven his great love for Slovakia by having liberated it from Hungary and he asserted that Slovak nationalists could prove their own love by embracing Prague 's authority. 13 Edvard Benes, who served as Foreign Minister until succeeding Masaryk to the presidency in 1935, in tum argued that the Czechs and Slovaks remained unified, except for a "fringe minority," working for a return to the pre-war order, and the "dictates of local , provin12 "Rezolucie Vznesene Ustrednym Vyborom Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike na schodzi , vzdrziavanej IO novembra 1920," Person File (PF): Bielek, SI. Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America, Count Albert Apponyi or Revival of Magyar Propaganda in America (Scranton, Pa: Bosak Press, 1923), in: B: Resolutions, SI. American Citizens of Slovak Origin, The Refutation to the Arguments of the Hungarian Kossuth Delegation ( 1928), in: The Podkrivacky, Adam Papers, B: 17, Slovak American Collection, Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), Uni versity of Minnesota. "What the Magyars Forget," The National Slovak Society (NSS) of the US.A . Records, B: 168, F: Slovak League of America (SLA), lHRC. "The Cleveland District Assembly of the SLA to Hoover," 4 December 1929, F#: 860F.00/306, Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944 (DoS CS 1910-44), Microfilm (Washington D.C .: National Archi ves and Records Service, 1982). Pankuch, History, 186-90. 13 Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 1914-1918, trans. Henry Wickham Steed (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1927), 2 1, 41 , 208-11 , 338, 361. Thomas G. Masaryk, Masa,yk on Thought and Life: Conversations with Karel Capek, reprint ed., trans. M. & R. Weatherall (New York: Arno Press, 1971 ). "T.G. Masaryk on the Pittsburgh Agreement" (Doc 30) in Slovakia : Political, 209- 10. �SLOVAKIA 2019 27 cial, factional and individualist interests ." 14 Czech scholars, journalists and officials also contributed to this campaign, mostly through studies of the Czechs that glossed over the Slovaks except to praise 15 how the Czechs had liberated them. For example, Czech historian Albert Prazak praised the Czech ro le in uplifting the Slovaks, and condemned Hlinka and the SPP as tools of Hungary and as part of a Catholic conspiracy to take over Central Europe. Prazak then dismissed the Pittsburgh Agreement as "merely a flight of fancy ," rooted in "immaturity of political judgment and lack of understanding." 16 Czech journalist Ales Broz likewise condemned the Slovaks as " retarded in their development" versus the " well educated, practical, realistic" Czechs, and praised the direction of Slovakia under the Czechs for allowing the two peoples to become "one stock, one cul. ,, I 7 ture, one nat10n . Centralist Slovaks also contributed to this campaign, including articles by Interior Minister Juraj Slavik and Minister to France Stefan Osusky on the nationality questions in Czec hoslovakia, as well as one by Education Minister Anton Stefanek praising Prague ' s 14 Eduard Benes, My War Memoirs, trans. Paul Seiver (London : George Allen & Unwin, 1928), 348, 448, 469, 472-8 1. Edvard Benes, Christmas Message (Prague: Orb is, 193 7), 17. Edvard Benes, "Of Czechoslovak Unity" in We Were and We Shall Be: Th e Czechoslovak Spirit th rough th e Centuries , eds. Zdenk a & Jan Mun zer (New York : Un gar, 1941), 164-6. 15 Kami I Krofta & Jiri Hoetzel, A Short Histo,y of Czechoslovakia ( ew York: Robert McBride & Co, 1934), 137-8, 142, 149-52. Kami! Krofta, "Czechs and Slovaks (I)" The Slavonic and East European Review, 13, 38 (January 1935), 363-7 1. Kami I Kroft a, "Czechs and Slovaks ( II )" The Slavonic and East European Review, I 3, 39 (April 1935), 6 11-26. Josef Borovicka, Ten Years of Czechoslovak Politics (Prague: Orbis, 1929), 7-8, 13 , 20-1 , 44, 111-1 2, I I 9-20, I 24-6. Emanuel Capek, "The Background of Political Parti es in Czechoslovaki a" The Sla vonic and East European Review, I 0, 28 (June 193 1), 90- 104. Ales Broz, " Minori ty Ri ghts in th e Czechoslova k State," Foreign Affairs, 6, I (October 1927), 158-60. Ales Broz, " President Masaryk, Creator of the Czechos lovak Republic," Current Histo,y , 24, I (April I 926), 48-53. 16 Prague appointed Prazak, a Czech, to erve at Comenius Uni versity in Brati slava as its primary hi stori an of the Slova ks. The Slavonic Review labeled Prazak the "foremost li ving authority on Slovak History." Albert Prazak, " Review : The ew Slovaki a by R. W. Seton-W atso n" The Slavonic Review, 3, 9 (March 1925), 71 3-20. 17 Ales Broz, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Czech Standpoint," Curren/ Histo,y, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-8 . �28 SLOVAKIA 2019 development of Slovak education. 18 Slovak Social Democrat, and rigid Czechoslovakist, [van Derer's short book on the Pittsburgh Agreement provided the most thorough effort in English to discredit the Slovak autonomists . Derer claimed that most Slovaks embraced the state as constructed, and that only a " pro-Magyar" minority supported autonomy. He likewise dismissed the Slovak-American signers of the Pittsburgh Agreement as not " true" Slovak nationals, because they lived in America. Derer argued that the document had meant simply local administrative autonomy, which he claimed Prague had granted. He then portrayed the Czechs as the Slovaks' saviors and condemned Slovak autonomy: In return for their having helped Slovakia when things were at th eir worst, in return for their having saved our liberty and an independent state apparatus, railway and postal communications, and a Slovak system of education at the tim e when the Slovaks th emselves were weak, unprepared, often distrustful and inclined rather to continue to live under their thousand-year yoke than to live in freedom, in return for having shed their blood for our country on the battlefronts in the Great War, and in the fights against Bolshevist Hungary in I 9 I 9 and thus saving Slovakia from a new occupation by the Magyars -in return for all this are we to remove the Czechs from Slovakia ? 19 Prague also maintained support from American and Eng lish academics and journalists in perpetuating Czechoslovakism. SetonWatson remained a staunch supporter of the idea, boasting how he regularly discredited "cantankerous Slovaks who accused Masaryk and hi s friend s of 'Czec hi sation."' He publicly condemned Hlinka and the SPP and repudiated their criticisms of Prague. Seton-Watson a lso actively denied Slovak agency in Slovak national development. 18 Juraj Slavik, "The Nationality Question in Slovakia," Central European Observer, 11 , 26 (Dec 18, 1933), 463-5 . Stefan Osusky, " Wh y Czechoslovakia?" Foreign Affairs, 15 , 3 (Apri l 1937), 455-71. Anton Stefanek, " Education in Slovakia," Th e Slavonic Review, 2, 5 (Dec 1923), 308-27. 19 Ivan Derer, The Unity of th e Czechs and Slovaks: Has th e Pittsburgh Declaration Been Carried Out? (Prague: Orbis, 193 8). �SLOVAKIA 2019 29 The Slovaks should therefore be thankful that fate has made them dependent upon a race so efficient, so well-educated and well-disciplined as the Czechs ... .At the critical moment, the Slovaks made the impression of a helpless animal fascinated by the approach of the boa-constrictor, and Prague was literally the sole hope.-'0 On the Slovak question, Seton-Watson blamed the " hypersensitive" Slovaks as simply being too parochial, religiously backward and ill developed, and he dismissed autonomist arguments as the "wild talk of extremists." Even in a work of collected essays designed to "show that the Slovaks themselves have had a much greater share in the reconstruction of their country than is often supposed," Seton-Watson turned predominantly to centralist Slovaks whose contributions consisted mostly of self-promotion and praise for the merits of centralism.21 The American philanthropist and writer Kenneth D. Miller was another avid promoter of Czechoslovakism. "Everything points to the wisdom of a cultural as well as political union between the two nationalities. No matter what the cultural development may be, neither nationality can well maintain its political independence without the other." He likewise felt that the Slovak question would disappear with the development of the "slow, passive Slovak," who yet lacked initiative, and who was prone to immorality and drunkenness, and to "religious vagary or fanaticism." 22 Other presentations ranged from industrialist and diplomat John Crane, who attacked the "backward ignorance" of the Slovaks for resisting secularization, to YMCA secretary Fred Rindge who criticized a claimed lack of Slovak interest 20 R.W. Seton-Watson , Th e New Slovakia (Prague: Fr. Borovy, 1924), 3, 23-4. R.W. Seton-Watson, Masaryk in England (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 61. "Seton-Watson Open Letter to Hlinka" (Doc 108), in Seton-Watson, 343-4. "SetonWatson to Alois Kolisek" (Doc 135), in Seton-Watson, 401-2. R.W. Seton-Watson, ed. Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1931). When planning the book, Seton-Watson expressed his desire to have an article from a SPP leader, so that Slovak autonomists could not accuse him of onesidedness. He considered an article on the issue of autonomy, but decided only to allow an article on Slovak religion by Hlinka. "Seton-Watson to Milan Hodza" (Docs 144 & 145), in Seton-Watson, 431-2 . 22 Kenneth D. Mill er, The Czecho-Slovaks in America (New York: Doran Company, 1922), 14-25, 121-122, 158-160. 21 �30 SLOVAK.IA 2019 in the arts. Journalist C.J.C. Street claimed, "The Slovak dream was always to regain their lost unity with the Czechs and as a united nation to secure the tolerable conditions of existence. " 23 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia pursued a few efforts during the interwar period to counter this campaign, although they lacked equivalent resources and connections to those held by Prague. The SPP' s most notable attempt was the Zilina Memorandum of 1922. Released to the western press and governments, the document sought to expose the Slovak question to the world, beginning with its sensationalist title, "a country doomed to death, a nation in her last agonies implores the civilized world for help." It decried the failures of Wilsonianism, which had allowed Prague to "bamboozle" the Slovaks "out of the freedom promised to them ." The text went on to explain their issues with the Czechs, discussing concerns from the treatment of religion, to economic exploitation, and the denial of autonomy. The memorandum also condemned Czechoslovakism as simply a tool for domination. The Czechs and Slovaks have been always forming two separate little worlds with a very different character due to their different geographical and economic conditions, their different way of thinking, of feeling and of mind. We have a different view of life, other morals and other traditions; we have a different social structure, different legal rules and different ideas about political economy and culture. The document ultimately claimed the world could still save the Slovaks if it acted quickly. The key of the iron cage in which the Slo vak Nation is being mercilessly incarcerated lays in the hands of the Great Powers. This memorial is our last expedient and our last weap23 John 0. Crane, "Church and State in Czechoslovakia" The Slavonic Review, 6, 17 (Dec. 1927), 364-78. Fred H. Rindge, Jr. "The Charm of Czechoslovakia" Current History, 22, 3 (June 1925), 447-50. C. J. C. Street, Slovakia Past and Present (Westm inster, UK: P.S. King & Son, 1928). For more examples, see: Robert Machray, "Czechoslova ki a a Pioneer in Central European Politics" Current Hislo ry, 25, 6 (Mar. 1927), 839-43 . J. H. Wallis, "The Upbuilding of Czechoslovakia," Curren/ Histo1y, 14, 5 (Aug. 192 1), 835-45 . �SLOVAK.IA 2019 31 on ... Though only clad in the rags of our torn freedom we nevertheless appear as accusers before the world, charging the rulers of Prague who are still deluding the powers, and the powers themselves for having out of sheer ignorance become their accomplices. To ignore the Slovak case, thus, would be to support the trampling of liberty. 24 After the Zilina Memorandum bore no fruit, the Slovak autonomists pursued fewer efforts to court the west. They made a few sporadic attempts, such as a translation of the SPP •program in 1930, written by Jozef Tiso, which outlined the SPPs vision of a Slovak national Christian democracy, and appealed for autonomy as a protection of the Slovak cultural tradition. It argued that the Slovak nation's religious roots encouraged it toward a peaceful selfpreservation, unlike other nations that turned toward national chauvinism. 25 Slovak priest and publicist Anton Kompanek also produced an article that emphasized Slovak Christianity as a symbol of Slovak worthiness for self-government. Kompanek believed Slovakia served as an example of how the Church and state could find balance in the modem world. 26 These publications, however, remained exceptions, as the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia maintained little faith in western governments, recognizing Prague's stranglehold over their image internationally. They instead relied on the Slovak-Americans to lead the way in their defense internationally. Slovak nationalist politician Karol Sidor claimed that despite a continued interest in the homeland, the Slovak-Americans began to lose their "onetime vitality and ardor" during the interwar period. He linked this outcome to greater assimilation and a decreasing knowledge of the Slovak language.27 This claim is somewhat true. The energy of the war years certainly diminished, particularly in the 24 "Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 02) & "Covering Letter for the Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 03), in Seton-Watson, pp. 319-33 . 25 Jozef Tiso, The Ideology of th e Slovak Populist Party (Prague: 1930). 26 Anton Kompanek, "The Catholic Church in Slovakia" Th e Sla vonic and East European Review, 12, 36 (April 1934), 611-21. 27 Sidor, "Slovak League," 59-62. �32 SLOVAKIA 2019 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression.28 Sidor, however, understated how much the Slovak-Americans remained at the forefront of the international efforts to gain recognition of the Slovak question. Historian Jozef Pauco 's interpretation is much more accurate: "For twenty years the Slovak League of America defended the spirit and letter of the Pittsburgh Pact and by using the freedom of the press and the freedom of assembly on American soil, they did so more freely and energetically than the two political parties in their homeland." 29 Based on the volume of publications and direct communications with government officials on both side of the Atlantic, it is clear that the Slovak question continued to dominate the transatlantic interests of the Slovak Americans, as they bolstered their compatriots' activities within Czechoslovakia by applying external pressure on Prague. The Slovak fraternal organizations made constant efforts to keep their members linked to their Slovak cultural identity, and to aid in the fight for autonomy in the homeland. They pursued these efforts through education programs such as national lectures, art and photography tours, but also symbolic actions such as erecting a statue of General Milan R. Stefanik in Cleveland in 1924 and the planting of a Linden Tree on Capitol Hill in honor of Stefanik in 1934. 30 The Slovak question remained high on the list of Slovak-American concerns, and the various Slovak organizations produced a flurry of pamphlets and informative documents on the issue. The Pittsburgh Agreement remained at the center of this debate, with Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic continuing to affirm its legality against the centralist dismissals that it was simply a non-binding text designed to placate the Slovak-Americans during the war. Autonomist publica28 June Alexander, for example, shows how assimilation became an internal issue for Slovak-Americans, as the older generations struggled to assure that their American born children maintained links to their ethnic heritage. June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Jn terwar Era (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004), 93-19 I. 29 Pauco, "S lovaks Abroad," 333-42. 30 "Ot. Svec to Podkrivacky," 3 Oct. 1938," PF: Adam Podkrivacky, SI. "S LA to Jakub Vitostak, 30 Nov 1923 ," The First Catholic Slovak Union of America (FCSU) Records, F: 1303, IHRC. "Jan Kocur to Michael Senko, 30 Nov 1926," FCSU, F: 1304, IHRC. 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastisla v Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924), 82-3 . "SLA to Arthur Colegrove," NSS, 8 : 168, F: SLA, IHRC. �SLOVAKIA 2019 33 tions looked to inform about the Slovaks, to expose the failed promises of Prague on autonomy, and to defend against the accusations of Prague centralists. The Slovak League remained at the forefront, hoping that exposure of the situation to the American press and pub1ic would spur sympathy and support? In many cases, the Slovak-Americans directed these publications at Prague, with the hope of convincing a change in policy . They, nevertheless, would consecutively produce English versions, which they then sent to the American President, members of Congress, the Department of State, and assorted press outlets. For example, in 1921 the SLA wrote to Masaryk calling for the immediate implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement. When Prague did not respond, the League followed up with a more detailed Memorandum on November 9, 1922. This document called on Prague to make good on the Pittsburgh Agreement in the name of natural rights and to reward the sacrifices made by Slovak-Americans during World War I. It highlighted Masaryk's role in the formation of the Agreement, and then provided a photograph of the original text as well as a series of letters between the SLA and various Czechoslovak officials that had promised its implementation to show how promises made to the Slovak-Americans never lived up to reality. The text then defended the legitimacy of Slovak autonomy. We are convinced that the honest and upright materialization of the Pittsburgh Pact in no way will harm the unity of the State; on the contrary it will mean a considerable reinforcement within and without and make possible united co-operation of all patriotic forces against the elements of disintegration, depriving them of a dangerous weapon, which they cannot effectively employ against the Republic, fanning discontent, mistrust and spreading hatred between both nations comprising the state. The League made clear, however, that this good will rested "solely upon a sincere Czecho-Slovak reciprocity." It then gave an alternative: 31 "Telegram to Ivan Bielek on 29 Nov 1934," NSS, B: 168, F: SLA , IHRC. �34 SLOVAKIA 2019 We feel it is our duty to emphasize that if our sincere and friendly attempt, which has at its heart the welfare, interest and future of the Republic, should fail to meet with success, the Slovak l eague of America would not be able to prevent the American Slovaks and their factors from turning to the Court of Public Opinion of the civilized world. While the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia acknowledged the letter, Prague neglected to respond. 32 The SLA then passed a follow-up resolution. Asserting that it "fights with fire and sword with everyone who is in favor of autonomy of the Slovak nation," it admonished Prague for manipulating the world into believing the Czechoslovakist image and for leading a smear campaign against the SLA. It then provided a list of examples of hostility, including efforts to undermine its finances , blackmail, the bullying of Slovak-American leaders and press, and attempts to send government officials to propagandize against them . It once again emphasized how the League had made every effort to resolve the Slovak question within the confines of the Czechoslovak Republic , but it would soon submit the issue "to the judgment of public opinion of the civilized world," if Prague continued to treat them with disdain.33 Many more publications followed. The Friends of Slovak Freedom , for example, released two protests in 1923. These texts defended the va lidi ty of the Slovak-Americans as representatives of the Slovak people, and condemned Prague's actions against Slovak autonomists, including such accusations as "false signatures or resolutions, false numbers of people attending their lectures, insulting the Slovak journalists, insulting the Slovak League as anti-state, and many other lies," as well as criticisms about press censorship in Slo- 32 SLA , Memorandum S/ovenskej Ligy v Amerike upra vene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Slo venskej Republiky v zaujme vtelenia Pittsburgskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, 1922). Both the full Slovak and English versions of this Document are avai lab le at: SLA Cab, F: Memorandum /922 v Zaum e Pitts. Dohody, SI. Also avai lable in: " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Arnerike" in Dokumenty, Vol 2, 138-44. 33 " An Appeal of the Slovak League of America to All Political Factors of th e Czecho-S lovak Republic," PF: Bielek, SI. �SLOVAKIA 2019 35 vakia. 34 After reading Masaryk's criticism of Hlinka, the Slovak League then produced a pamphlet that challenged the idea that Masaryk personally had liberated the Slovaks. It reminded readers of the Slovak-American war contribution, and then remarked how the SLA and the Pittsburgh Agreement were certainly valid in Masaryk's eyes when he needed Slovak-American support in 1918. The document then included a text from former Czechoslovak ambassador to Japan, Karel Pergler, arguing that both the Slovaks and Czechs had unequivocally recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement upon its signing. 35 Next to these direct appeals, the Slovak-American autonomists also released many publications geared directly toward an American audience. They designed these works to inform about the Slovaks, expose their continued fight for self-determination and to link the Slovak question to American democratic values. These publications included several biographies of Milan R. Stefanik, a translated history by Slovak historian Joseph Skultety that directly challenged images of Slovak backwardness and other stereotypes, and a short pamphlet on Czechoslovakism by Slovak-American historian Ol'ga Husek warning that the concept meant for the Slovaks "the rejection of their cultural past and the stunting of their future growth." 36 They also attempted to rally America to their cause by showing their valiance in the face of domination. An SLA article distributed to the American Press praised how the Slovak-Americans continued to fight even with "the entire machinery of government set against them, calumnies upon calumnies by a government subsidized press, heaped upon the heads of those who take up their cause, and bug- 34 Friends of Slovak Freedom, " Resolution, November 28, 1923," & " Protest against Censorship and Confiscation of Slovak Publications by the Government in Slovakia" in Pankuch , Slo vaks of Cleveland, l 82-6. 35 Slovenska Liga v Amerike, V Zaujme Pra vdy! (In the Interest of Truth !) (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska, 1930). Found in : SLA Cabinet, F: SLA Presidents, SI. Prague responded to these letters, but it simply reasserted the usual rebutta ls, claiming that 75% of the Slovaks supported centralization and that the Pittsburgh Agreement was simply an American document. "Ohlas Americkeho Memoranda u Nas," 8 : Slovak League of America (SLA) , SI. 36 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastislav Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924). Andrew Slabey, General Milan R. Stefanik (Leisenring, PA: Griglak Printery, 1937). Joseph Skultety, Sketches from Slovak History, O.D. Koreff, trans . (Middletown, PA : First Catholic Slovak Union, I 930) . Ol'ga Husek, The Czechoslovak Fallacy (Middletown, PA : Jednota, 1935). �36 SLOVAK.IA 2019 bears turned loose to scare those who are not acquainted with conditions. " 37 Religion became a major component of Slovak-American advocacy on the Slovak question in the interwar period. Slovak-American journalist Stephen J. Palickar published many articles in general Catholic publications, including a five-month tit-for-tat with Czech diplomat Josef Hane in defense of Slovak religiosity. He also provided some of the first Slovak-American attempts to link Slovak religiosity to anti-Communism. Palickar likewise defended Slovak agency, and appealed for a lifting of Prague centralism to allow the Slovaks an opportunity to prove their abi lity for self-government. 38 While most of these publications were shorter, more direct works, the Slovak-Americans released a couple of longer exposes on the Slovak question. The first, written by then SLA president Peter P. Hletko on behalf of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, looked to inform the American people about the Pittsburgh Agreement as an American product in line with "the principles of democracy and self-determination of small nations." Hletko praised how the Slovak "has an inherent love for liberty and freedom , and enjoys fostering his national spirit," which had spurred his immigration to America in a "quest for a land of true liberty," and he argued that American democracy had allowed the Slovaks in America to assert their national identity as an independent people. He asserted how the Slovaks had only joined the Czechoslovak movement on the premise that they would be treated fairly and as equals and highlighted a reg37 "The conflict between Czechs and Slovaks," NSS Records, B: 168, F: SLA, IHRC. For many examples, see: "The Slovaks- Past and Present," in Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism to Atheistic Czech Communism (Cambridge, MA : Hampshire Press, 1948), 40-3 . Stephen J. Palickar, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Slovak Standpoint," Current History, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-6. "A Dark Spot in Czecho-Slovakia," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 43-45 . "Who is Masaryk?," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 49-51 . "S lovakia-whither bound," in Palickar, Slovakia : From Hungarian Despotism, 76-83. "Slovak Catholicism vs. Czech Communism," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 84-86. "Slovak Grievance," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 70-72 . "President Masaryk and his State," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 61-62. "Scotus Viator Surveys Slovakia," in Palickar, Slo vakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 72-75. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia of Today (A Lecture), December 12, 1933 , Columbi a University (New York: Slovak Library Association, 1933). 38 �SLOVAKIA 2019 37 ular sense of duplicity and condescension the Slovaks felt from the Czechs. Hlekto praised the Pittsburgh Agreement as having resolved these conflicts, before Masaryk ultimately betrayed his promise, and he gave a detailed defense of its validity and of the right of the Slovak-Americans to speak for their nation during the war. 39 The Slovak-American autonomists shortly thereafter produced an even longer book on the topic . Written by Peter P. Hletko under the pseudonym , "An Autonomist," it served as the most exhaustive consideration of the Slovak question in Eng lish in the early 20 th century. Hletko placed blame on Czech intransigence for fueling the issue unnecessarily. The book argued that the Czechos lovak revolution relied on American money and manpower and "should the President (Masaryk) have failed to dispel the fear and dissatisfaction of the Slovaks through the Moscow and Pittsburgh Agreements, there certainly would not be a Czecho-Slovakia today. " The book then deconstructed Prague 's policies toward the Slovaks, to show Czechoslovakism as a means of hegemony. Hletko considered every issue from the Czech obfuscation on autonomy, the complicity of the Slovak centrali sts, the language issue, schools, and the economy, and he explained the claims of Slovak neediness and incompetence, as we ll as the claimed threat of Hungary, as only a fa<;:ade to justify Czech dominance. He likewise gave examples of Slovak intellectuals to dispute the claim that the Slovaks needed the Czechs to serve that role. He then detailed the domination of Slovakia's administration, civi l service, education system, and cultura l institutions by Slovak centralists and Czechs, and the press censorship and smear campaigns. Ultimately, he concluded that Czechoslovakism was undermining the state and mu st be reversed. Hletko concluded: Th e motive that has promoted us to write this work is not one of revenge, nor a desire to arouse bad feeling, but simply to expose falsehood and reveal truth. It is our sincere hope that, the truth being known, it will enable the Czechs and Slovaks to form a more stable union which will promote justice, trust, and good 39 Slovak Catholi c Federation of America, The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact (S lovak Cath olic Federation of America, 1934). Joseph C. Krajsa, " Dr. Peter Hletko, Most Elite of American Slovaks," Slovakia, 22, 45 ( 1972), 57-9. �38 SLOVAKIA 2019 will, and thereby insure national integrity both at home and abroad. 40 A few non-Slovak publications did favor Slovak autonomy . For example, some historians of the First World War, such as Jan Opocensky and C. A. Macartney, attempted to present a balanced consideration of the Slovak question, giving voice to Slovak autonomist concerns.4 1 There were also several publications that utilized the Slovak question to criticize the broader Versailles system . Writer and journalist E. Alexander Powell , for example, highlighted the differences between the Czechs and Slovaks as an example of the precariousness of the region ' s political stability. Although not particularly admiring of the Slovaks, Powell was highly critical of the Czech treatment of them. He commented, "The Czechs, an energetic, ambitious, progressive, and aggressive people, who outnumber the Slovaks three to one, look with condescension, if not contempt, on their less literate, slower thinking, more easy-going partners, whom, if the truth be known , they regard as immensely inferior to themselves." These scholars all argued that the Czechs needed to treat their minorities with more respect and make good on promises for Slovak autonomy for the sake of the survival of the state. 42 A few works were even somewhat favorable to the Slovaks. One such example came from writer Kenneth L. Roberts , who after visiting Czechoslovakia complained, "The Czechs want to socialize everything in sight, and the Slovaks are not poignantly eager to be social- 40 An Autonomist, Slovakia 's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, Pa: Slovak Literary Society, 1935). 41 Jan Opocensky, The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Mon archy and the Rise of the Czechoslovak Stale (Prague: Orbis, 1928), 153-68, I 93-214. C. A. MaCartney, National States and National Min orities (London : Oxford Uni versity Press, 1934), 117, 201 ,208. 42 E. Alexander Powell , The Danger on th e Danube (New York: Century Company, 1928), 56-8, 62-8, 72-4. M. W. Fodor, South of Hiller (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1939). For oth er examples, see : C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences, 1919-193 7 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937/ 1965), 73-148. Frank H. Simonds, Can Europe Keep th e Peace? (New York : Harper, I 93 I), 92-10 I. Isaiah Bowman, The New World: Problems in Political Geography, 4th ed. (Yonkers, NY : World Book, 1928). Harold Temperley, " How the Hungari an Frontiers were Drawn," Foreign Affairs, 6, 3 (April 1928), 432-47 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 39 ized." Comparing the Czechs in Slovakia to U.S. Civil War carpetbaggers, he criticized the Czech administration of Slovakia, their denial of autonomy, and called out Czechoslovakism as a lie. He alternatively praised the Slovaks as "among the most attractive and lovable peasant people of the many I have seen." An article by journalist Robert Sage, after a visit to Slovakia, likewise chided the Czechs for using claims of generosi ty as a mirage for domination over Slovakia. 43 The SLA ultimately made good on its threat to take the issue to the world stage, presenting the Slovak question to the League of Nations in 1932. It produced a long legal brief, which appealed for a cessation of wrongdoing against the Slovaks and the granting of political and cultural autonomy. It then begged the League of Nations to recognize the Slovaks as an independent nation, to demand the implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to investigate ill treatment, and to grant recognition of the Slovaks as a true minority in Czechoslovakia. It pointed out how the Slovak-Americans had made multiple attempts to reach out to Prague to explain their concerns and offer an olive branch towards a solution, but that Prague had ignored their appeals and through censorship had silenced their brothers in Slovakia. The document then went on to detail the history of the founding of the state and the Pittsburgh Agreement, their complaints of ill-treatment against the Slovaks, and their view as to why the 44 Slovaks were an independent people. This appeal was unsuccessful. Slovak-Americans also regularly wrote to U.S. government officials. One such example was an "Open Letter" to Masaryk in 1923 that the Slovak Catholic Federation in America also sent to President Coolidge, members of Congress, all the embassies in Prague, and to the American press. The document started with an image of Masaryk approaching the Slovak-Americans as equals during the war, to 43 Kenneth L. Roberts, Europe's Morning After (New York: Harper Brothers, 1921 ), 121-73. Kenneth L. Roberts, Why Europe l eaves Home (New York: Bobbs-Merrill , 1922), 28-31 . Robert Sage, "There's no such Nationality as Czecho-Slovak," Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan 2, 1930, 6. For other examples, see: Felix John Vondracek, The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia / 918-1935 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), 377-9. Alexander Szana, Die Geschichte der Slowakei (Bratislava: Grenzenbote Verlag, 1930). Robert Nowak, Der Kiinstliche Staal: Ostprobleme der Tschecho-Slowakei (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1938). 44 "To the Supreme Council of the League of Nations at Geneva," SlA Cabinet, F: Supreme Council of the l eague of Na tions at Geneva, 1932, SI. �40 SLOVAKIA 2019 which they responded with loyalty and support. Masaryk then betrayed them, treating the Slovaks "in step-mother fashion, nay, even like slaves," having lured them into "an invisible net of imperialistic aspirations, renounced openly that which is to every nation and to us 'ignorant' Slovaks inviolable, priceless, sacred." It bemoaned that the Slovaks again felt endangered in their national existence, and how the Czechs misled the world on the issue. It appealed for Masaryk "to acknowledge and fulfill that which you had promised us, the American Slovaks," for the sake of Czech-Slovak unity and the secu45 rity of the state. This letter elicited a response from the Slovak-American centralists. The National Slovak Society, the Slovak Sokol, and assorted editors produced a counter response to Masaryk, which they then sent to Coolidge and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. This document asserted open support for the idea that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation. It criticized the SCF letter for having "a spirit of narrow sectarianism," in contrast to "the great majority of the American Slovaks," who supported Masaryk "heart and soul." The document praised Masaryk and the Czechoslovak state for bringing cultural and economic development to Slovakia and it mentioned the centralist Slovaks in the government as a sign of Czech inclusiveness. The text also apologized for the Czech administration of Slovakia, bemoaning that Slovakia lacked enough competent officials. It then claimed that Prague had carried out the Pittsburgh Agreement in full , adding that "during the war neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks demanded self-determination for each separately; they demanded self-determination for the Czechoslovaks." 46 To the frustration of the Slovak autonomists, this campaign barely registered among U.S. officials in Washington. American officials at the U.S. Embassy in Prague paid slightly more attention, although most addressed it only passively and most often from the Czechoslo45 Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-S/ovak Republic (Slovak Catholic Federation of America : 1923). Found in : "Einstein to SoS, No. 611 ," 20 February 1924, F#: 860F.0l / 162, DoS CS 1910-44. The New York Times reported on the letter: " Slovak Protest to All Nations," New York Times, Mar. 12, 1924, 34. 46 National Slovak Society, et al. , An Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia ( I 924), in "Joseph Jan eek to Coolidge," 3 May 1924, F# : 860F.0l / 164, Dos cs 1910-44 �SLOVAKIA 2019 41 vakist perspective. The American Ambassador during the 1920s, Lewis Einstein, for example, reported on the SCF letter, misrepresenting it as "a violent indictment of Czech policy in Slovakia," and praised Prague for "accomplishing there a work of civilization. By introducing education and schools in a population where a high degree of illiteracy existed, by bringing in public hygiene, orderly justice and a better fiscal system, they are laying the foundations for the future. " Accordingly, in his view the Slovaks only needed proper education to unify with the Czechs . Ultimately, "Only one thing can be excluded, which is Slovakian autonomy." 47 In another attempt at outreach, Adam Podkrivacky as President of the FCSU wrote to John Hickerson, acting Chief of Western European Affairs at the U.S . State Department. Podkrivacky complained about the U.S. Consul General in Prague sending out correspondence to Slovakia in the Czech language instead of Slovak. He also requested that the State Department use the hyphen when writing 'Czecho-Slovakia. ' Podkrivacky then supplied Hickerson a copy of an autonomist political pamphlet, to "acquaint better with the political situation just as it exists between the Slovaks and the Czechs in Czecho-Slovakia." Hickerson forwarded the letter to the embassy in Prague and asked for a report on the Slovak question. Charge d' affaires J. Web Benton responded, declaring the letter unacceptable due to the threat posed by Czechoslovakia's neighbors. He also made the usual ethnographic arguments, adding how "Czech culture has contributed measurably to the advancement of Slovakia," and predicted the issue would dissipate. Benton dismissed the pamphlet as simply "anti-government propaganda ... the request for autonomy, in the sense of a separate parliament as mentioned in the Pittsburgh Pact, is something that no truly patriotic and far-seeing Slovak could at present afford to advocate." He added, "I assume that the Department will pay no further attention to his communications, but it seems not inopportune to observe that Czech is the official language of this country."48 While a few U.S. diplomats from the period, notably Lewis Einstein, came to develop a more nuanced view on the topic, this ended each time new embassy staff took over. 47 "Einstein to SoS , No . 611 ," DoS CS 1910-44. "Adam Podkrivac ky to John Hickerson," 29 March 1937, F#: 860F.0l / 18 1, DoS CS 1910-44. " Movement for Slovak Autonomy," 30 April 1937, F#: 860F .01 /184, DoS CS 1910-44. 48 �42 SLOVAKIA 2019 The dismissal of Slovak-American pleas stood in contrast to a disproportionate concern among American officials about the proHungarian Slovaks living abroad. The Rothermere campaign spurred some interest, and while some Americans expressed some sympathy to it, including chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Borah and publisher William Randolph Hearst, the U.S. Embassy in Prague wrote profusely about how the Slovaks remained opposed to a return to Hungary. When the exiled nationalist communist Slovak Vince Mihalus created an exile Slovak government in 1928, the State Department gave him disproportionate consideration, even though he held little popular support in Slovakia. Jehlicka reached out to Washington, calling for support against "Czech tyranny" and requesting support for recognition of the Slovaks as a minority in the League of Nations. The Czechoslovak embassy directed the State Department in its response, simply informing U.S. officials that Jehlicka only organized a "small number of Slovak renegades, mostly of Hungarian origin." 49 This flurry of publishing was very much a product of the widespread transatlantic interaction between Slovakia and the United States, as Slovak leaders on both sides of the Atlantic travelled between Europe and North America as they attempted to coordinate common political action. In the early 1920s, Prague still had hopes of guiding the Slovak-Americans to the centralist cause, despite the sentiment building against it. One major effort was the creation of a Slovak League in Slovakia by centralist Slovaks, designed to serve 49 Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban exchanged several letters with Hearst on the issue, facilitated by the State Department, eventually convincing Hearst to no longer give a voice to Rothermere and his supporters. "Einstein to SoS, No. 1355," 30 July 1927, F#: 860F.4016/4, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Butler Wright to SoS, No. 62," 15 Oct 1927, F#: 860F.4016/9, DoS CS 1910-44. "Vladimir Hurban to William Randolph Hearst," 27 May 1937, & " Hurban to Cordell Hull," 4 June 1937, F#: 860F.00/437 & 438 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Council of State of Slovakia to SoS," 6 Nov 1928, F#: 860F.01 / 171 & 172, DoS CS 1910-44. "Nelson Torsler Johnson to Einstein," 28 Jan 1929, F#: 860F.01 / 171 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1747," 28 Feb 1929, F#: 860F.0l/173, DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1756," 9 Mar 1929, F#: 860F.0l / 174, DoS CS 1910-44. "Washburn to SoS, No. 2153." "Einstein to SoS, No. 516," 20 Sep 1923, F#: 860F.00/2 14, DoS CS 1910-44. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 30 July 1933, F#: 860F.00/345, DoS CS 1910-44. "Prentiss B. Gilbert to SoS, No. 650," 8 Aug 1933 , F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 191044. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 29 Aug 1933, F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 1910-44. �SLOVAKIA 2019 43 as a counterpart to the SLA and to build common action across the Atlantic. This effort failed, however, after the Slovak League of America refused to cooperate with it. 50 With autonomist sentiment among the American Slovaks sharpening, Prague sent Slovak centralist leader Vavro Srobar to the United States in 1923. While Srobar attempted to unify the Slovak-Americans behind centralism, his visit had the opposite effect of galvanizing the Slovak-American autonomists. Srobar received support from sympathetic groups such as the Slovak Sokol, but the SLA and other autonomist organizations boycotted his speeches. Prague sent other figures to agitate for centralism, including the priest Jozef Rudinsky and agrarian politician Fedor Ruppeldt. Seton-Watson also reached out to the SlovakAmericans in several letters and later in a visit in 1935 , during which he appealed to the Slovak-Americans to encourage the Slovaks in . · 51 SI ova k ia against autonomy. The efforts by centralists did not change the status quo, as the Slovak-American autonomists remained firm in their opinions and openly repudiated centralist arguments. Pankuch, for example, felt that the only result of Srobar's visit was to destroy Czech-Slovak 52 unity and the internal unity of the Slovak-Americans. Ruppelt in tum complained how even among the Slovak Lutherans he constantly had to fight against autonomist sentiment. 53 With the dividing lines firmly set, the Slovak-American centralists and autonomists quit mutual involvement in each other's organizations and the centralists began a continuous propaganda campaign against the SLA backed by Prague. For example, after Slovak-American autonomists 50 Ignac Gessay, Kratke Dejiny S/ovenskej Ligy Na S/ovensku: od Zalozenia po 1. 0kt. 1926 (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga na Slovensku, 1926). "Nova ohlavka- stary kon. Pozor na Slovensku ligu!" 27 Oct 1924, Bratislava (No 68), in Jozef Tiso, Prejavy a Clanky (1913-193 8), eds. Miroslav Fabricius & Ladislav Susko (Bratislava: Historicky 'ustav SA V, 2002),), 196-7. 51 "An Appeal ," PF: Bie/ek, SI. Pankuch, Histo ry, 177-86. "Seton-Watson to Vojtech Mastny" (Doc 124), in Seton -Watson, 375-6. "Odkaz Scotus Viatora Americkym Slovakom" (Doc 125), in Seton-Watson, 377-80. "Seton-Watson to Stefan Osusky "' (Doc 128) & "Osusky to Seton-Watson" (Doc 129), in Seton-Watson, 3857. Mikus, "Slovak League," 46-7. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 1864-1926 (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarne Sv. Andreja, 1934), 503-5 . Palickar, "Czech and Slovak." Tomas Capek, Nase Amerika (Prague: Nakladem Narodni Rady Ceskoslovenske, 1926), 113. 52 Pankuch, History, 180. 53 " Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc 149), in Seton-Watson, 441-2 . �44 SLOVAKIA 2019 confronted him, Srobar reportedly lashed out at them as "knownothing drunkards" and traitors against the Republic. 54 While the Slovaks in America had been legitimate Slovaks when Masaryk needed them during the war, once they became a threat, the centralists began to categorize them as United States citizens, whose influence should not extend beyond America. 55 When the Czechoslovak Government offered a special commendation to the SLA on Czechoslovakia's l 0th anniversary in 1928, for its role in the creation of the state, the Slovak League of America rejected it. 56 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia perceived things quite differently. Many Slovak nationalist leaders believed that the nation as an ethnic and cultural foundation transcended the state, and offered regular praise of the Slovak-Americans as fighters for Slovak liberty and autonomy. Figures such as Hlinka and Lutheran autonomist leader Emil Stodola openly praised the Slovak-Americans and their role in the fight for autonomy, and argued that their past actions allowed the American Slovaks an equal right to speak about the fate of the Slovak homeland. 57 SPP leader Jozef Tiso extolled, "In this (Pittsburgh) agreement we see the heritage of our own American brothers, for which we will fight with the honor and the tenacity of the Slovak spirit, which is not intimidated by prison, the malice of the world, nor the cynicism of centralist agents." Tiso praised the "real Slovak patriots," working in the "free air of America," and he even posited that the Slovak-Americans had a better claim to speak for the Slovaks than the Slovak centralists did, because the SlovakAmericans had made the revolution successful with their blood, treasure and propaganda.58 Slovak scholars also published multiple 54 "A. S. Ambrose to Seton-Watson" (Doc 126) in Seton-Watson, 381-2. "Aby uz raz bolo jasno a aby prestaly r6zne narknutia proti Slov. Lige," PF: Bielek, SI. 55 Masaryk, for example, used such logic to dismiss the Pittsburgh Agreement, which he called a "local understanding between American Czechs and Slovaks," whose "signatories were mainly American citizens, only two of them being nonAmericans." Masaryk, Making, 208-11. 56 Stolarik, Where is my Hom e?, 98 . 57 "Hlinka on Scotus Viator" (Doc 109), in Seton-Watson, 345-53. Emil Stodola, Pre/om: Spomienky, Uvahy, Studie (Praha: L. Mazac, 1933), 193-4. 58 "Novy vykrik bratov z Ameriky," 24 Feb 1924, Bratislava (No 43), in Tiso, Prejavy, 157-9. " Pittsburghska dohoda - neplatna?!" 29 May 1924, Bratislava (no 57), in Tiso, Prejavy, 179-80. "Parliamentary Speech," 25 Nov 1931, Prague (No I 64), in Ti so, Preja vy, 347. "Speech to Public Assembly of the Slovak People 's �SLOVAKIA 2019 45 studies of the Slovak-Americans and their role m Slovak national development. 59 Slovak autonomists openly expressed these sentiments through regular trips to the United States. These attempts at direct engagement were nonetheless slow to start. Prague regularly prevented such trips, including the denial of a passport to Bishop Jan Vojtassak out of concern that he would agitate for autonomy and collect money for the SPP while in the United States. The barrier broke in 1926 when Hlinka accepted an invitation to visit America from editor Jozef Husek and the Friends of Slovak Freedom, sponsored by the SLA, the FCSU, and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (FCSLU). Hlinka desired to visit the United States to thank the Slovak-Americans in person for their support for Slovak self-determination, to explain firsthand the political situation in Slovakia, and to encourage them to keep fighting. After stalling on the process, Prague ultimately relented to avoid the resulting outrage had they refused. They issued Hlinka a passport to attend the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Hlinka's visit lasted from June 5 to October 13. Although Hlinka expressed some trepidation that Slovak-American centralists would treat him with hostility, Slovak-American autonomist leaders Josef Husek and Anton Kompanek convinced him the experience would prove the opposite. This claim proved true, as Hlinka received hundreds of invitations to speak to overflowing crowds on each occasion. Demand was so high that, then SLA president Ivan Bielek had to write an article emphasizing Hlinka's time limitations to try to tame expectations. During his visit, Hlinka travelled around the U.S. East and Midwest, visiting local Slovak communities. He regularly attended and celebrated Mass and held meetings with SlovakAmerican organizations, including the SLA from whom he received an honorary membership . Hlinka visited assorted Slovak-American institutions, surveying Slovak-American newsrooms, printeries, Party," 18 August 1937 & 25 August 1937, Bratislava (No 251 & 252), in Tiso, Prejavy, 523-4. "Nase narodnopo liticke palladium," 5 June 1938 (No 260), in Tiso, Prejavy, 543-4. Kon stantin Culen, Po Sviitop/ukovi druha nasa h/ava: Zivot Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947), 182-3. 59 Jozef Rudinsky, V Amerike a doma (Ruzomberok: Rudinsky, 1921 ). Karol Sidor, S/ovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Bratislava: Jednota, 1928). Matica Slovenska, S/ovenskej verejenosti v Amerike (Mati ca slovenska , 1937). Konstantin Culen, Pittsburghska dohoda (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarei'l Andreja, 193 7) . �46 SLOVAK.IA 2019 schools, and churches. Overall, Hlinka held rallies at 80 locations, gave 200 speeches, and visited more than 100 Slovak parishes. Hlinka's visit spurred a level of excitement and activity among the Slovak-Americans that would never recur. 60 Hlinka kept his goal of directly exposing the Slovak question during his visit. He regularly spoke on the issue, and carried a copy of a censored Slovak nationalist newspaper as evidence. During his visit, Hlinka could not help but contrast the image of America with his experience in Czechoslovakia. In one such speech, he made clear that the Slovaks .. . would prefer not to quarrel with the Bohemians, but when they preach democracy and at the same time practice deceptions and aggression, we have no choice but to oppose them ... America is a superior nation and a master democratic republic. It has a splendid constitution which not only guarantees the rights and liberties to the people, but sees that they get them as well. Hlinka likewise extolled the "firm individuality" that the SlovakAmericans had gained, and he highlighted the sense of natural connection between Slovaks and Americans. "A good Slovak who comes to America makes a good American, and all good SlovakAmericans, including the new generations born in America from Slovak extraction will appreciate what they have inherited from their Slovak ancestry. Neither will they forget Slovakia." In his farewell speech, Hlinka expressed how the Slovak-Americans had filled him with national pride. He affirmed, "I saw the large affl uence of Slovaks, these Slovaks who under the Tatras suffered from hardship and physical and spiritual want," and prai sed how they helped sustain the Slovak nation. He finally asked of them, "do not forget that under the Tatras stand your cradle and your old homeland, our hard-tested and suffering Slovakia!" 61 60 Adamec, "Slovak Catholic Federation ," 223-32. Sidor, Hlinka, 503-5, 510-1 I, 543 -52 . Sidor, "The Slovak League," 57-9. Mikus, "S lovak League," 46-7 . Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 65 -74. 61 Palickar, " Monsignor Hlinka- The Man," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 51-6, 55 . Palickar, " My Interview with Msgr. Hlinka," in Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 56-9. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 543-52. �SLOVAKIA 2019 47 In the 1930s, the Slovak-Americans experienced a few more visits from notable figures. One such visit was from the Slovak cultural organization Matica slovenska, in 1935 . The Slovak-Americans had regular contact with the Matica in the 1920s and there remained regular efforts to create an American branch of the organization.62 With the outbreak of the Great Depression, however, interest and funding for Slovak cultural programs in America declined. The Matica decided a visit to America was necessary to reverse thi s process, which they interpreted as the Slovak-Americans becoming too Americanized. The organization ' s director, the writer Jozef C. Hronsky, led the delegation, but it also included historian Konstantin Culen, and the artist Jozef Cincik, among others. These individuals gave many lectures and supplied ample literature and art, including a donation of libraries of Slovak material to the cities of New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago.63 While they found that some second and third generation Slovak-Americans had lost touch with Slovak culture, the delegates gave high praise to the Slovak-Americans for the interest they showed in the lectures, music, art and other cultural information the Matica provided. The experience led Culen to adopt the task of writing a history of Slovak-Americans. The linguist Jozef G. Konus likewise noted how "the Slovak spirit opens up more in free America than the lush fantasie s at home could imagine." When the White House wrote a statement for a Slovak-American information brochure praising the Slovaks as a "healthy minded, freedomloving and determined people," the Matica hailed it as evidence of Slovak democratic bona tides. Ultimately, the delegation praised the trip as very much a success, and took back ample material on the Slovak-Americans for placement in the Slovak National Library. The Matica left satisfied that Slovak culture remained firm in America, although it put pressure on the Slovak-Americans to improve their direct cultural linkages with the homeland. 64 62 To see many examples of this communicati on, see: The Ma tica slovenskti, Martin, Slovakia, re: American Slovaks Papers, IHRC . 63 According to Mark Stol arik, th e Mati ca brought 84 crates of books, totaling 4 I ,000 volumes, while visiting 98 separate Slovak-American communities. Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home?, 96-100. 64 "Vianoce Maticnej delegacie," Slovensko, 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 87-8. Konstantin Culen, "Co m6ze dat' Amerika slovenskej historii ," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 87-8. Jozef C. Hronsky, " Mati ca v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (March 1936), 110-13. Jozef G. Konus, " Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), I I6-18 . �48 SLOVAK.IA 2019 The final major figure to visit America was the Reverend Jozef Tiso in 1937, with the Catholic cultural organization Spolok Sv. Vojtecha. Much like Hlinka, Tiso celebrated mass and heard confessions during his visit, spoke at public assemblies and met with many American priests, journalists, and Slovak-American leaders. He also attended other broader Catholic events, including the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and met with the Papal delegation in Washington, D.C. Tiso made a broad effort to learn about American political life, to determine what Slovak leaders could transfer back to Slovakia. He particularly admired American technical prowess in organization and publishing, which he saw as facilitating a more efficient Catholic organization and action, and conceptualized a plan to send young Slovak leaders to America to learn American methods of organization. Tiso also praised the Slovak-American sense of independence and pride in their Slovak identity. Seeing how the Slovaks had developed on independent terms in the vast American melting pot, Tiso interpreted the Slovak-American experience as proof of Slovak capabilities and their merit for self-determination. Tiso never gave up his sense of solidarity with the Slovak-Americans, and referenced his visit to affirm his desired direction for the Slovaks. 65 The only visit to the United States by a Slovak official to gamer much attention from Washington was Srobar's in 1923. American diplomat Einstein provided notice of the visit, adding that it was "doubtless intended to counteract the seditious anti-Czech propaganda which has been going on for some time both in Slovakia, where it is fomented by Magyar intrigues, and among the Slovak clericals in the United States." Although, he noted that the Slovak autonomy movement remained "noisy and violent in its methods but unaided it can do little and it is not at present causing here any serious conJozef G. Konu s, "Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 116-18. Jozef Hronsky, "Na margo americkeho zapisnika," S/o vensko, 2, IO & I I (June-July 1936), 177-80. Jozef Cincik, "Na margo americkeho zapisnaka," Slo vensko , 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-6. " Maticna vystava v Clevelande," Slo vensko, 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-4. " President Roosevelt pozdravuje slovensky narod," Slovensko , 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 79. "Slovenska Amerika sa hybe," S/ovensko, 4, 3 (Nov 1937), 32-3. "SLA to Sku ltety, I June 1935,".PF: Mamatey, SI. Stolarik, "Slovak League." J.A. Berta, "Slovak America and the Matica Slovenska," Furdek, 23 (1984), 163-71. 65 Culen, Po Sviiloplukovi, 182-9. "Speech about the state account balance from 1926," 23 February 1938, Prague (No 258), in Tiso, Prejavy, 533-6. �SLOVAKIA 2019 49 cem." 66 Several Slovak-American autonomists wrote to the State Department to complain about Srobar's visit, including a letter from a Slovak-American World War I veteran asking the Department to halt Srobar's lectures for sowing discord among the Slovaks in the United States. The most notable letter, however, came from the Reverend John Porubsky on behalf of the Slovak Newspapermen's Association. Porubsky criticized Srobar's claimed "cultural visit" as a ruse to propagandize on behalf of Czechoslovakism. He presented it as part of an effort by Prague, "To inoculate the masses of our people in America as a contracting party with such misconception and ethnographical nonsense," and to discredit the Pittsburgh Agreement. Claiming that Srobar "forgot the scope of his mission, even forgot himself in outbursts against leading Slovak American gentlemen, calling them vile names unworthy of a man of his position," Porubsky asked Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to have him expelled from the country.67 This effort also spurred a response by Prague and its allies in the United States. These letters, in an organized campaign, all repeated versions of the same arguments. They complained that the opposition to Srobar consisted of "Jesuits and Bolsheviks" and other "enemies of the state" that were working for Czechoslovakia's destruction. Srobar was, alternatively, a great statesman fighting against them to bring cultural development to Slovakia. They also personally targeted Porubsky and the Slovak Newspapermen's Association: "The great majority of intelligent American Slovaks are heart and soul in accord with Dr. Srobar's patriotic works; only the ignorant and reactionary masses are ignobly and ignorantly supporting the destructive work of Rev. Porubsky and his few brawling associates." 68 Likewise, the Slovak Sokol, which had arranged Srobar's visit from the American end, took credit for the visit, praising how Srobar had "proved to 66 " Einstein to SoS, No. 502 ," 29 Aug 1923, F#: 860F .0 I/ I 48, DoS CS 1910-44. "John Porubsky to Charles Evans Hughes," 31 Oct 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/149, DoS CS 1910-44. "John J. Nedorostek to Hughes," 13 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01/150, DoS cs 1910-44. 68 "V. Krali cek to Hughes," 12 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 151 , DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Joscak to Hughes," 14 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 154, DoS CS 1910-44. "Henry Russek to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/156, DoS CS 1910-44. "C lement lhrisky & Joscak to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/152, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Kovalovsky to Hughes," 16 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/157, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Olsavicki to Hughes," 19 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/ 155, DoS CS 1910-44. 67 �50 SLOVAKIA 2019 the Slovaks of America that any fears as to the future of their former country are unfounded." 69 The State Department only sent back formulaic verification of receipts to these letters, except for one to John Zeman of the Slovak Sokol, thanking him for "setting forth the real purposes of the visit." William Phillips then requested President Coolidge to meet with Srobar, calling him "one of the five men who founded the Republic of Czechoslovakia," to which Coolidge obliged. 70 In 193 7, the Reverend Francis Dubosh of Lakewood, Ohio, attempted to arrange a meeting between officers of the SCF A, Jozef Tiso, and President Roosevelt, with the help of Monsignor Michael J. Ready at the Catholic University of America. The White House staff supported this meeting, but Roosevelt wanted to first confirm with the State Department so as not "to get mixed up in a Slovak controversy." After consulting with Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban, the State Department reported that the embassy made no official complaint, but that they themselves discouraged the visit with "the opinion that these persons are not of sufficient prominence for the President to receive them." After a back and forth in consideration of the issue, the White House ultimately declined, claiming 71 that the President was simply too busy. The Slovak-Americans also visited Slovakia. The most significant of these occurred in 193 8 in the tense period leading up to the Munich Agreement, when the Slovak League sent a delegation to celebrate the 20 th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Led by its President, Peter P. Hletko, the delegation, as a deliberate gesture, made its first formal visit in Slovakia to Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok. The delegation travelled into Slovakia through Poland, to 69 "J. Zeman to Hughes," 18 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01 / 153 , DoS CS 1910-44. "W. R. Castle to Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America," 6 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l49, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. B. Wright to Kralicek," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/15I, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Joscak," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.01/l54, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Zeman," I Dec 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l53 , DoS CS 191044. "William Phillips to G. B. Slemp, 12 Nov 1923," & "Slemp to Phillips, 12 Nov 1923," Coolidge Papers, Series I, 742. 71 "Roosevelt to M. H. McIntyre, 22 Oct 1937," " McIntyre to George F. Summerlin, 23 Oct 193 7," "Spruks to Summerlin, 27 Oct 193 7," "McIntyre to Roosevelt, 29 Oct 1937," "McIntyre to Summerlin, 3 Nov 1937," President 's Personal File (PPF), F: 639, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDR), Hyde Park, New York. 70 �SLOVAKIA 2019 51 avoid Prague and Bratislava, and the Polish government hosted the delegation on their way through. Both the Slovak autonomists and the Slovak centralists sent representatives to corral them before they entered Slovakia. The centralists were, however, sent back early after Warsaw and Slovak-Americans embraced the SPP delegation as the official one. After arriving in Slovakia, the delegation showed the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement to Hlinka and spent most of the trip associating with the Slovak autonomists. Its activities included several visits to the Matica slovenska in Martin, to which it gifted an authenticated copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement and made clear commitments toward transatlantic cultural programs, including joint publications and a transatlantic cultural council. Prime Minister Milan Hodza also led a continued effort to meet and work with the visiting delegation, believing he could convince them to break their close affiliation with the SPP and align with the Agrarians instead. Out of respect, the delegation did meet with centralist officials, including Hodza and President Eduard Benes, whom they encouraged the granting of autonomy to Slovakia for the sake of unity in those very tense times. In a speech in Prague, Hletko made clear their objectives stating, "Our love for Slovakia and the Czechoslovak Republic has induced us to come here. The object of the Pittsburgh Declaration, the original of which we have brought with us, is not to weaken but to strengthen the Republic ." 72 When describing his meetings, Hletko said that Hodza promised a movement towards autonomy, yet Prague still rejected them. 73 Likewise, Ivan Derer was extremely critical of the SlovakAmericans during their visit, accusing them of having been brainwashed. He also dismissed them as representing a small, vocal minority, and smeared them as deliberate Hungarian, German, or Polish agents, if not otherwise simply duped by the machinations of these neighboring rivals. Derer complained, "This delegation, composed most of autonomists, expressed its separatist convictions during every opportunity, expressed anti-Czech interests, made light of work of 72 "Visit of American Slovak Delegation to Jubilee Congress, Bratislava; Slovak Demands for Autonomy," 6 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/534, DoS CS 1910-44. 73 Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. "Narodna Politika Roku 1938 : Ked Bol P. Hletko na Slovensku," B: Karol Sidor - Diplomat 1901-1958 - Vol 2, SI. Pavel KuklisKunovsky, Ako je na Slovensku ? Z vlastnych skusenosti napisa/ a vydal v mesiaci )uni /940 v Pittsburghu, Pa., U.S.A. (Pittsburgh: Narodne noviny, 1940), 4-7. �52 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the Czechoslovak government successes in Slovakia, ironized Czechoslovak oriented Slovaks." He was extremely derisive of Hletko, accusing him of not being truly Slovak, having been born in the United States, and as being "politically inexperienced, unknowledgeable about the conditions of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Slovakia." 74 The SLA visit culminated in the Jubilee Congress for the anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement on June 4, 1938 in Bratislava. A massive rally was organized where Hlinka, Tiso, and Hletko, among others, gave speeches. A large facsimile of the Pittsburgh Agreement surrounded on each side by the American and Slovak flags served as a backdrop. In his speech, Hletko showed the original copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the crowd, and praised the attention given to the Agreement. A formal proposal by the SPP in the Czechoslovak Parliament to amend the constitution to implement Slovak autonomy then followed. The centralists, led by Hodza, held a counter-rally two days later. They declared the rally more ambiguously as a celebration of the Slovak farmer, although Prague and the centralists promoted the event afterwards as a pro-state rally in opposition to autonomy. The SLA delegation also attended this celebration and Hletko gave a speech, simply affirming that the SLA continued to work for Slovak freedom . Hletko later claimed that the delegation warned the Czech and Slovak leaders they had met about the need to come to an accommodation on the Slovak question, in favor of autonomy, fearing that the issue might become larger with Adolph Hitler rattling his saber. Hletko claimed, however, that no one took this warning seriously. The delegation departed shortly before Hlinka's death in August of 1938, but the SPP sent a piece of earth from Hlinka's graveside to America. 75 74 Ivan Derer, S/ovensky vyvoj a /ud'acka zrada (Prague: K vasnicka a Hamp) , 1946), 183-9 . Derer was convinced the SLA was part of a Polish conspiracy to absorb Slovaki a, led by Karol Sidor. The SLA, however, openly rebuked Polish calls for absorption of Slovakia during its stop th ere. 75 The exact number of participants in each rally is unclear, but most accounts reflected similar participation rates (around one hundred thousand each) and photos of the Slovak Jubilee show a massive crowd. The urn containing the soil is still on display at the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. " Wilbur Carr to SoS, no 122," 9 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/518, DoS CS 1910-44. " Farmers' Day at Bratislava; Demonstration of Slovak Branch of Czechoslovak Agrarian Party," IO June 1938, F#: 860F.00/531 , DoS CS 1910-44. " Po odchode delegatov Slov- �SLOVAKIA 2019 53 The U.S. Embassy took an interest in the SLA visit to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and U.S . Ambassador Wilbur Carr agreed to meet with the delegation. Carr reported that the visit was cordial and that the delegation affirmed to him that its visit was simply to promote good will and it did not desire to interfere in domestic issues in Czechoslovakia. Carr then stated that the SLA's visit to Czechoslovakia annoyed Prague, due to the enflamed minority issues of the time, but that Czechoslovak officials tried to maintain good will with the delegation, although this sentiment "lacked a ring of sincerity." Accordingly, Hletko admitted to Carr that the timing was not the best, but that it was not by design, since they had come simply for the anniversary celebration. Carr expected no harm from the visit. While Carr described the autonomy proposal and reported statements by Hletko and Jozef Rusek complementing the support of the Pittsburgh Agreement among the Slovaks, he countered by providing the text of an anti-autonomy speech by Derer and a section of Masaryk' s memoirs. Carr then misrepresented the Slovak-Americans as having felt embarrassed for having been "utilized by the Hlinka Party for partisan and election purposes." While Carr reported on each of the two rallies, he praised the Farmer's Day as turning into "a spontaneous demonstration of Czechoslovak unity, homage to Benes, and allegiance and confidence in its leader," hostility to autonomy, and featuring a much larger participation.76 While Czech and Slovak centralists worked to keep the SlovakAmericans at a distance after early efforts to court them failed, the Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic worked around Prague to coordinate their activities. Nevertheless, the autonomists had no means of pushing Prague towards changes on the Slovak question. The Slovak autonomists, however, continued their fight and never gave up. The transatlantic Slovak question during the interwar period established the roots for the eventual Slovak-Czech split. The failure to find a compromise between Slovak autonomists and centralists saw an entrenched distrust that contributed to the fall of the First Republic . When the Munich Agreement formally handed the enskej Ligy v Amerike," Slovensko, 5 ( I 939), 16-17. Sidor, "The Slovak League," 59-62. 76 "Carr to SoS , no 112," 31 May 1938, F#: 860F.00/5 l 0, DoS CS 1910-44. "Visit of American Slovak." "Carr to SoS, no 121 ," 8 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/517, DoS CS 1910-44. "Carr to SoS , No 122." "Farmers ' Day. " �54 SLOVAKIA 2019 Sudetenland to Germany in September of 1938, the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia demanded and received autonomy until the new SPP-led government there declared independence on March 14, 1939, following Nazi Germany's invasion of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovak-American autonomists, although distrustful of Nazi Germany, openly embraced the shift toward Slovak autonomy in the shortlived Second Republic, believing they could no longer trust the Czechs. Peter Hletko, for example, cheered how the Slovaks had "fought and won the victory." 77 Although initially hesitant to support complete independence, most Slovak-American autonomists, the moderates excepted, came to support the World War II Slovak State as a symbol of Slovak self-determination, even as they supported Allied victory in the war. While World War II and the subsequent Cold War limited direct linkages between Slovakia and North America, the same rifts on the Slovak question persisted on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1993 Velvet Divorce. 78 77 Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 6574. 78 For more on this topic during World War II and beyond, see: Michael Cude, Transatlantic Perspectives on the Slovak Question, I 9 I 4-/ 948 (PhD Diss., University of Co lorado-Boulder, 20 13 ). M. Mark Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907-1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35. � 18 SLOVAKIA 2019 THE TRANSATLANTIC SLOVAK QUESTION DURING THE INTERW AR YEARS Michael Cude The relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs is an issue that has persisted through the modem hi story of the two peoples. From the 19 th century ' national awakenings ' in Austria-Hungary to the Velvet Divorce between the Slovaks and Czechs in 1993, this 'Slovak question' was at the center of key events, including the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, its breakup and reestablishment after World War II, and the 1968 Prague Spring. 1 While many recent works have addressed the Slovak question, many have underappreciated the extent to which modem Slovak national identity formation was a transatlantic phenomenon. Historians examining this topic from the domestic Slovak perspective rarely delve deeply beyond Slovak borders, while histories of Slovaks abroad have focused predominantly on the Slovaks' place as immigrant communities . In doing so, such histories overlook how interlinked Slovak national politics in Slovakia were to Slovak communities abroad, particularly in North America, and the critical role they played in shaping Slovak national identity formation. Addressed by only a handful of recent works, the transatlantic Slovak question requires more attention.2 1 Reference key for shortened arc hi val ci tations: IHRC : Slovak American Collection, Immi gratio n History Research Center, University of Minneso ta. fil: Slovak Institute, Cleveland, OH. DoS CS 1910-44: Records of th e U.S. Department of Stale Relating to th e Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944, Microfilm (Washin gton D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1982). 2 For some examples of sc holarship considering the Slovak question from a transatlantic perspective, see: M. Mark Sto larik, Where is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( /8 70-2010) (Bern : Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907- 1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35 . Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia, 1914-19 I 8," Slovak Studies, 8, Hi stori ca 5 ( 1968), 7-82. Stefan Kucik, Podiel americkych S!ovakov na aulonomistickom hnuti na Slovensku 191 8-/938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 20 I I). Gregory Curtis Ference, Sixteen Months of Indecision : Slovak American Viewpoints Toward Compatriots and the Homeland from �SLOVAKIA 2019 19 The Slovak efforts abroad during World War I remain the best told component of this story. The foundation of the transatlantic Slovak question was laid in the periods leading up to the First World War, when Slovak-American organizations began to campaign for Slovak political autonomy within the Kingdom of Hungary. The central organization for Slovak national activism became the Slovak League of America (SLA), founded in May 1907 by Slovak-American leaders to unify the disparate Slovak groups in the United States in common political action. The SLA ' s main objectives were to develop the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in America as a means of supporting the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in the homeland and to fight for Slovak national self-determination. 3 World War I and its accompanying 'Wilsonian moment' entrenched important symbols of Slovak national self-determination, as Slovak immigrant communities contributed to the establishment of the new Czechoslovak Republic. The wartime Czechoslovak National Council and its leaders, including Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik, utilized Slovak-American organizations for financial , military, and diplomatic support. Consequently, Slovak-American demands led to the creation of the most important document relating to Slovak nationalism for the following twenty years: the Pittsburgh Agreement. Signed on 31 May 1918, this document declared common action between the Czechs and Slovaks in the formation of a democratic republic. Nevertheless, the agreement made a clear assertion for Slovak autonomy, under the terms that the Slovaks would I 9 I 4 to I 9 I 5 as Viewed by the Slovak Language Press in Pennsylvania (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna Uni versity Press, 1995). Michael Cude, "The Imagined Exiles: Slovak-Americans and the Slovak Question during the First Czechoslovak Republic," in From Exsilium to Exile: Coercion in Migration, Studia Historica Gedanensia, vo l. 5, ed. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Gdansk, Poland: University of Gdansk History Institute, 20 14), 287-305 3 Konstantin Culen, History of Slovaks in America, Daniel C. Necas, trans. (St. Paul, MN : Czechoslovak Genealogical Society, 2007). Jan Pankuch, History of the Slovaks of Cleveland and Lakewood, Rasto Gallo, trans. (Cleveland: Czechoslovak Genealogical Society & Western Reserve Historical Society, 2001), 29-38. Stolarik, " Rol e," 7-82 . Stephanie 0. Husek, "Slovak American Fraternal, Cultural, and Civic Organizations to 19 I 4," in Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study, Joseph C. Krajsa, ed. (Middletown: Slovak League of America, 1978), 23 -38 . Joseph A. Mikus "The Slovak League of America: A Historical Survey," in Slovaks, Krajsa, ed., 3956. R. Vladimir Baumgarten & Joseph Stefka, The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, I 890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990), 17-33. �20 SLOVAKIA 2019 have their "own administration, own parliament, and own courts." In the short term, the Pittsburgh Agreement appeased the Slovak-Americans, who consolidated their support around the budding state, while Masaryk used the agreement to legitimize Czech-Slovak coop4 eration in his diplomatic efforts. This campaign allowed Slovak-American leaders a sense of direct influence on the affairs of their homeland, although the Czechoslovak National Council quickly stymied this hope. While the Slovak-Americans had been able to pressure Masaryk into symbolically accepting their goals for Slovak autonomy, their influence only extended to his need to provide evidence of Slovak participation in his political program as he sought recognition from the Entente powers. As a result, the Slovak-Americans found themselves on the margins during the building of the state . Accordingly, many historians consider the Pittsburgh Agreement as a matter of domestic Slovak politics after its initial signing, with little further consideration for the Slovaks abroad. In doing so, they neglect the fact that transatlantic activities continued through the interwar period.5 With the establishment of Czechoslovakia following the war, Slovak national activists on both sides of the Atlantic, hereto identi- 4 "Pittsburgska Dohoda" in Dok:umenty slovenskej narodnej identity a statnosti, vol. I, eds. Jan Benko, et al (Narodne literame centrum: Dom slovenskej literatury, 1998), 484-7. " Masaryk to Mamatey, 22 September 1918," SLA Cabinet, F:llth Congress, Slovak Institute (S I), Cleveland, OH. Pankuch, History, 145-50. Stolarik, "Role," 32-54. Karo l Sidor, ''The Slovak League of America and the Slovak Nation 's Struggle for Autonomy," Slovakia I 7, 40 ( I 967), 39-46. Peter P. Hletko, "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact," Slovakia l 8, 41 ( 1968), 5-54. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , "The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Documents," in Slovakia 36, 66 & 67 ( 1998), 81-97. lmrich Mazar, A History of the Binghamton Slovaks : Over a Period of Forty Years, 1879-1919, ed. Wilhelmina Mazar Salina, trans. Thomas Janacek (Phoenix: Via Press, 2003), 203-17. Baumgarten & Stefka, National, 81-3. 5 James Ramon Felak, At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, I 994). Peter A. Toma & Dusan Kovac, Slovakia: From Samo to Dzurinda (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 200 I). Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia : The Struggle for Survival, 2nd ed. (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Jan Rychlik, "Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia, I 918-1939," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918- 1948, eds . Mark Cornwall, R.J.W . Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 13-26. Elisabeth Bakke, "Czechoslovakism in Slovak History," in Slovakia in History, eds. Mikulas Teich, et al (Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press, 2011), 247-68. �SLOVAKIA 2019 21 fied as the Slovak 'autonomists,' had full expectations of a federal relationship that would recognize Slovak cultural uniqueness and grant the Slovaks civic equality with autonomy over domestic affairs under the terms of the Pittsburgh Agreement. In contrast, most Czech leaders wanted a strongly centralized state, justified by arguments of the commonality of the Czechs and Slovaks, the threat of Hungarian and German irredentism, and the believed necessity of Czech oversight to modernize Slovakia. They relied on support from Slovak ' centralists,' who identified the Czechs and Slovaks as a common people. Slovak autonomists, who saw the Slovaks as a culturally distinct people from the Czechs, perceived this ' Prague centralism' as a form of cultural and political hegemony. In response, they replanted their fight over the Slovak question against the newly formed government in Prague. Both autonomists and centralists mobilized Slovaks at home and abroad behind their version of the state, with the transatlantic component focused on lobbying foreign governments. As with many other nationality groups, Slovak leaders saw the postwar peace process as a key moment to make their case. With the centralists represented at the Versailles Peace Conference by the formal delegation from Czechoslovakia, the autonomists attempted to present their own view, including a flurry of correspondence from Slovak-Americans to United States President Woodrow Wilson and an unofficial delegation led by Slovak nationalist leader Andrej Hlinka. The autonomists appealed for recognition of an independent Slovak identity and the establishment of a federalist system in Czechoslovakia that granted greater domestic political autonomy to Slovakia. Wilson and other western leaders, however, prioritized economic and political modernity as a necessary quality for selfgovernrnent. Czechoslovakia's centralist leaders appealed to the Wilsonian prioritization of modernism to gain American acceptance of their vision, and used a proposed uplift of the Slovaks into modernity to advance this cause. They nonetheless pursued this objective in a way that often cast the Slovaks in a disparaging light and sowed further discord. The Conference in turn legitimated this organization of the Czechoslovak state and ignored Slovak autonomist appeals. 6 6 For more, see : Michael Cude, "Wilsonian National Self-determination and the Slovak Question during th e Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918-192 1," Diplomatic Histo,y (2016) 40, I: 155-80 �22 SLOVAKIA 2019 This failure at Versailles did not dissuade transatlantic Slovak activities. From the conclusion of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, the Slovak question persisted in the First Czechoslovak Republic. The interwar period saw the Slovak autonomist movement survive with the Czechoslovak state arrayed against them . Slovak autonomists regularly looked across the Atlantic for support in pressuring Prague to change its stance. The Slovak autonomists continued to reference the spirit and goals of Wilsonianism to justify their claims for autonomy, and the Pittsburgh Agreement became their primary symbol. SlovakAmerican autonomists accepted their leading role of defending the Slovaks internationally, and they remained hopeful of convincing world leaders, particularly those in the United States, to embrace their view. This task remained an uphill battle, given the autonomists' inability to match the resources or international connections maintained by Prague, as centralists worked to discredit the idea of domestic autonomy for Slovakia. The Czech and Slovak centralists polarized the issue as a support for state unity through centralism or support for the destruction of the state through autonomy. In international appeals, the centralists disparaged Slovak capabilities for selfgovernment, and presented the Slovak autonomists as a parochial fringe, ignorant of world affairs. Accordingly, this transatlantic debate heavily contributed to the failure of the Czechoslovak concept in the interwar period by helping sow the entrenched distrust that culminated in the splintering of the Czechoslovak Republic in March of 1939. The question of Slovak autonomy remained a principal component of Slovak politics during the First Czechoslovak Republic. The Slovaks split into three general categories on the Slovak question. The smallest of these groups were the Czechoslovakists, who wanted a close, non-differential linkage with the Czechs. Vavro Srobar, the first appointed Minister for Slovakia in 1918, exemplified this faction. Another group consisted of moderate nationalists who pursued cooperation with the Czechs, but wanted recognition of separate Slovak identity and political autonomy. Milan Hodza, Prime Minister of the republic in the late 1930s and leader of the Agrarian Party, best exemplified this faction. Hodza and others supported a federalist model to address national minority questions. Most of the former two groups came from Slovakia's Lutheran minority. The Slovak auton- �SLOVAKIA 2019 23 omists, who were predominantly Catholics, were the most controversial. The Reverend Andrej Hlinka represented them as leader of the Slovak People 's Party. Hlinka and his supporters pushed for complete autonomy within Czechoslovakia, although the radical end of the party increasingly sought greater independence while a smaller minority even promoted a return to Hungary under a promise of autonomy. The Slovak People's Party (SPP) remained the most popular party in Slovakia and mixed cooperation with opposition to push for Slovak autonomy. The Agrarian Party followed in popular support, and it gradually pushed for more autonomy, albeit in a more deliberate fashion than the SPP. The Slovak National Party, the Slovak Communists, and the Hungarian Parties joined them in support of autonomy.7 Politically, some Slovaks took prominent positions in the central government, most notably Hodza. Prague allowed Slovak autonomists to organize and hold seats in Parliament, but it continued to censor nationali st viewpoints and it regularly pursued smear campaigns against Slovak autonomist leaders. The SPP joined the government in 1927, arranged by Hodza after promises of Slovak autonomy, but Hodza's plan proceeded in a watered-down fashion. The SPP participation lasted only two years before accusations of treason against radical politician Vojtech Tuka led to the SPP's withdrawal from the government. The SPP later exploited the Munich Agreement to force Prague's hand to achieve autonomy during the short-lived Second Republic, and then seceded from the state in March of 1939.8 7 Prague regularly promoted the idea that most of the Slovak people opposed autonomy, because the SPP only maintained 30-35% of the electorate in Slovakia. Although it is difficult to determine the true popular support of autonomy based strictly on the electoral support of each party, the support in Slovakia for Prague's version of centralism was probably we ll in the minority when one considers that the three largest parties-SPP, Agrarian, and Communists- all embraced some level of Slovak autonomy. 8 For more on this period in Slovak hi story, see: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism, Slovakia, and the Communists 1918- 1948 (New York: Columbia University, 1983). Susan Mikula, "The Politics of Frustration : The Slovak Politica l Experience, 191 8-1938," in Reflections on Slovak Histo ry, eds. Stanislav Kirschbaum & Anne C. Rom an (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1987), 73 -88. James Felak, "Slovak Considerations of the Slovak Question: The Ludak, Agrarian, Socialist, and Communi st views in lnterwar Czechoslovakia" in The Czech and Slovak Experience, ed . John Morison (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 136-62. Felak, At the �24 SLOVAKIA 2019 The Slovak-A mericans also consolidated their positions on the issue in a similar fas hi on. After an early divide, the leaders of the Slovak League of America gave up on Prague and embraced the autonomist position, as did the large Catholic fraternal organization the First Catholic Slovak Union, and other, smaller organizations, such as the Friends of Slovak Freedom (FSF), an organization formed in the 1920s w ith the singul ar goal of addressing the Slovak question . The large, secular and large ly Protestant, fraternal organizations, the National Slovak Society and the Slovak Evangeli cal Un ion, at first embraced the centralist Slovaks, but nationalist pressure ultimatel y led them to try to moderate between the centrali st and autonomist positions. They ultim ate ly embraced the gradualist position of Hodza. In response, the Czechoslovaki sts established the Slovak National A lliance to serve as the arm of Prague among the SlovakAmericans, along with the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol. Consisting mostl y of secularists and some Lutherans, these organizations regularly attacked the SLA for its Catholic and autonomist leanings and promoted the strict uni ty of the Czechs and Slovaks. 9 As the Slovak question became entrenched in Czechoslovak politics, each competing side pursued a voluminous international lobby ing campaign to build western support for its respective position. This included a fact ion demanding a revision of the Trianon Treaty to return Slovakia to Hungary. The primary international Slovak advocate of this position was the Reverend Francis Jehlicka and hi s organization, the Slovak Council , founded in 1933 . Jehlicka had attended the Paris Peace Conference wi th Hlinka, but decided afterwards that the Slovaks could not trust the Czechs. Jehlicka remained abroad, where he lobbied fo r a Slovak reunion with Hungary based on Hun ga ri an promises of Slovak autonomy. He attempted to build Price of th e Republic. Toma & Kovac, Slovakia, 78-1 06. Kirsc hbaum, History of Slovakia , 155-84. Ryc hlik, "Czec h-Sl ovak Relations," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, 13-2 6. R.J.W. Evans, " Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks : Some Mutual Perceptions," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, I 09-22 . Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia : The State that Failed (New Haven: Yale Uni vers ity Press, 2009), 48-86. Nata lia Kraj covicova, " Slovakia in Czechoslovakia," in Slovakia in History, 137-56. 9 Joseph Pauco, "Slovaks Abroad and Their Relati onship with Slovakia," in Slo vakia in the 19th & 20th Centuries, ed. Joseph M. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1973), 333-42. Josep h V. Adamec, "The Slovak Cath olic Federation," in Slovaks in America, 223-32 . Baumgarten & Stetl<a, National, 85-7. Pankuch, History, 177-86 . Stolarik, " Slovak League," 7-35 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 25 support from the Slovak-Americans by appealing to Slovakia's historical and economic roots in Hungary and exposing claimed mistreatment of the Slovaks by Prague. ' 0 Jehlicka could express his voice abroad because of support from Budapest and later Nazi Germany, and he convinced a few figures in the West, most notably the British publi sher Lord Rothermere, who campaigned on behalf of Hungary internationally. Jehlicka ' s arguments nevertheless carried little weight in other circles . Scottish historian R. W. Seton-Watson, a prominent supporter of the Czechoslovak Republic , pursued a constant back and forth against Jehlicka, and, on both sides of the Atlantic, Slovaks and Czechs of different politica l views unified against Slovakia ' s return to Hungary. The Slovak autonomi sts and centralists , for example, collaborated in an open letter denouncing Jehlicka . 11 Slovak-Americans likewise continued to lobby against Hungarian claims, reminding readers about the old magyarization policy to eliminate Slovak national identity. Slovak-American publisher Jan Pankuch claimed that this was the sole occas ion when the Slovak-American autonomi sts, Czech-Americans, and Slovak10 Anthony Pessenl ehner, "Czechoslovakia' s Ri ght to Statehood Assa iled," Current History, 14, 5 (Aug. I 92 1), 845-8. Dr. F. Jehlicka: Kto on je a co chce (C leveland: 1920). Francis Jehlicka, Reply to Mr. R. W. Seton-Watson 's Book 'Slovakia Th en and Now ' (Vienn a, 1932). The Slovak Co uncil , Th e Unsolved Slovak Problem (Vienna: Slovak Council, 1933). The Slovak Co un cil , Bolsevizmus a slovenska otazka (Geneva: Slovak Council , 193 6), in : 8 : Resolutions, Memoranda, Proclamations, SI. The Slovak Council , Sh ould Great Britain go to Wa r- fo r Czechoslovakia: An Appeal to British Common Sense for th e Sake of Wo rld Peace (London: Haze l, Watson, & Viney, 1937) . Francis Jehli cka, Fa1her Hlinka 's Struggle fo r Slovak Freedom (London: Slova k Council , 1938), 34-5. "The German Minister in Czechoslovaki a (Eisenlohr) to the German Foreign Ministry (Doc 57)," Documen1s on German Foreign Policy, Seri es D, V2 (Was hington, D.C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 132-3 . 11 R.W. Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers ( London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1934). " Seton-Watson to Alois Ka lisek" (Doc I 32) in R. W. SetonWa tson and His Relations with the Czechs and Slovaks: Documents, / 906- 195 1, vol. I, eds. Jan Ryc hlik, et al (Prague: Ustav T. G. Masaryka, I 995), 393-6. "The Situati on in Slova ki a and the Magyar Minori ty" (Doc 139) in Seton-Watson, 409-25. "Seton-Watson to Martin Razus" (Doc 155 ) in Seton- Watson, 454-5 . "Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc I 60) in Seton-Watson, 465-9. C. L Orbach, "Czechoslovakia ' s Place in the Sun," Current Histo1y, 14, 6 (Sept I 92 1), 944-5. Anonymous, "Another Defense of Czechoslovaki a" Curren/ History, 14, 6 (Sept 192 1), 945-6. Adam Poliak, "Czechos lova ki a's Right to Statehood," Current History, I 5, 3 (Dec I 92 1), 499. " Slovaki a' s Pro test" (Doc 156) in Seton-Watson, 456-9. �26 SLOVAKIA 2019 American centralists came together in common cause, although the resolution almost failed when the two sides sparred over whether the text should declare the Slovaks and Czechs as one nation. The proHungarian autonomists, thus, remained on the periphery of the Sio• 12 va k question. The unified opposition against Hungarian irredentism otherwise did little to ease the conflict between the centralists and autonomists. The Czech and Slovak centralists made the Slovak question a primary component of their international propaganda, and they often perpetuated negative stereotypes of the Slovaks to promote the Czechoslovak vision. The official press in Prague released ample publications by Czech nationali st leaders in the English language on the topic. President Masaryk, for example, made clear his disappointment with the "po litical immaturity" of the Slovak autonomist movement. Masaryk, who continued to highlight his own partial Slovak heritage, likewise claimed to have proven his great love for Slovakia by having liberated it from Hungary and he asserted that Slovak nationalists could prove their own love by embracing Prague 's authority. 13 Edvard Benes, who served as Foreign Minister until succeeding Masaryk to the presidency in 1935, in tum argued that the Czechs and Slovaks remained unified, except for a "fringe minority," working for a return to the pre-war order, and the "dictates of local , provin12 "Rezolucie Vznesene Ustrednym Vyborom Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike na schodzi , vzdrziavanej IO novembra 1920," Person File (PF): Bielek, SI. Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America, Count Albert Apponyi or Revival of Magyar Propaganda in America (Scranton, Pa: Bosak Press, 1923), in: B: Resolutions, SI. American Citizens of Slovak Origin, The Refutation to the Arguments of the Hungarian Kossuth Delegation ( 1928), in: The Podkrivacky, Adam Papers, B: 17, Slovak American Collection, Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), Uni versity of Minnesota. "What the Magyars Forget," The National Slovak Society (NSS) of the US.A . Records, B: 168, F: Slovak League of America (SLA), lHRC. "The Cleveland District Assembly of the SLA to Hoover," 4 December 1929, F#: 860F.00/306, Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944 (DoS CS 1910-44), Microfilm (Washington D.C .: National Archi ves and Records Service, 1982). Pankuch, History, 186-90. 13 Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 1914-1918, trans. Henry Wickham Steed (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1927), 2 1, 41 , 208-11 , 338, 361. Thomas G. Masaryk, Masa,yk on Thought and Life: Conversations with Karel Capek, reprint ed., trans. M. & R. Weatherall (New York: Arno Press, 1971 ). "T.G. Masaryk on the Pittsburgh Agreement" (Doc 30) in Slovakia : Political, 209- 10. �SLOVAKIA 2019 27 cial, factional and individualist interests ." 14 Czech scholars, journalists and officials also contributed to this campaign, mostly through studies of the Czechs that glossed over the Slovaks except to praise 15 how the Czechs had liberated them. For example, Czech historian Albert Prazak praised the Czech ro le in uplifting the Slovaks, and condemned Hlinka and the SPP as tools of Hungary and as part of a Catholic conspiracy to take over Central Europe. Prazak then dismissed the Pittsburgh Agreement as "merely a flight of fancy ," rooted in "immaturity of political judgment and lack of understanding." 16 Czech journalist Ales Broz likewise condemned the Slovaks as " retarded in their development" versus the " well educated, practical, realistic" Czechs, and praised the direction of Slovakia under the Czechs for allowing the two peoples to become "one stock, one cul. ,, I 7 ture, one nat10n . Centralist Slovaks also contributed to this campaign, including articles by Interior Minister Juraj Slavik and Minister to France Stefan Osusky on the nationality questions in Czec hoslovakia, as well as one by Education Minister Anton Stefanek praising Prague ' s 14 Eduard Benes, My War Memoirs, trans. Paul Seiver (London : George Allen & Unwin, 1928), 348, 448, 469, 472-8 1. Edvard Benes, Christmas Message (Prague: Orb is, 193 7), 17. Edvard Benes, "Of Czechoslovak Unity" in We Were and We Shall Be: Th e Czechoslovak Spirit th rough th e Centuries , eds. Zdenk a & Jan Mun zer (New York : Un gar, 1941), 164-6. 15 Kami I Krofta & Jiri Hoetzel, A Short Histo,y of Czechoslovakia ( ew York: Robert McBride & Co, 1934), 137-8, 142, 149-52. Kami! Krofta, "Czechs and Slovaks (I)" The Slavonic and East European Review, 13, 38 (January 1935), 363-7 1. Kami I Kroft a, "Czechs and Slovaks ( II )" The Slavonic and East European Review, I 3, 39 (April 1935), 6 11-26. Josef Borovicka, Ten Years of Czechoslovak Politics (Prague: Orbis, 1929), 7-8, 13 , 20-1 , 44, 111-1 2, I I 9-20, I 24-6. Emanuel Capek, "The Background of Political Parti es in Czechoslovaki a" The Sla vonic and East European Review, I 0, 28 (June 193 1), 90- 104. Ales Broz, " Minori ty Ri ghts in th e Czechoslova k State," Foreign Affairs, 6, I (October 1927), 158-60. Ales Broz, " President Masaryk, Creator of the Czechos lovak Republic," Current Histo,y , 24, I (April I 926), 48-53. 16 Prague appointed Prazak, a Czech, to erve at Comenius Uni versity in Brati slava as its primary hi stori an of the Slova ks. The Slavonic Review labeled Prazak the "foremost li ving authority on Slovak History." Albert Prazak, " Review : The ew Slovaki a by R. W. Seton-W atso n" The Slavonic Review, 3, 9 (March 1925), 71 3-20. 17 Ales Broz, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Czech Standpoint," Curren/ Histo,y, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-8 . �28 SLOVAKIA 2019 development of Slovak education. 18 Slovak Social Democrat, and rigid Czechoslovakist, [van Derer's short book on the Pittsburgh Agreement provided the most thorough effort in English to discredit the Slovak autonomists . Derer claimed that most Slovaks embraced the state as constructed, and that only a " pro-Magyar" minority supported autonomy. He likewise dismissed the Slovak-American signers of the Pittsburgh Agreement as not " true" Slovak nationals, because they lived in America. Derer argued that the document had meant simply local administrative autonomy, which he claimed Prague had granted. He then portrayed the Czechs as the Slovaks' saviors and condemned Slovak autonomy: In return for their having helped Slovakia when things were at th eir worst, in return for their having saved our liberty and an independent state apparatus, railway and postal communications, and a Slovak system of education at the tim e when the Slovaks th emselves were weak, unprepared, often distrustful and inclined rather to continue to live under their thousand-year yoke than to live in freedom, in return for having shed their blood for our country on the battlefronts in the Great War, and in the fights against Bolshevist Hungary in I 9 I 9 and thus saving Slovakia from a new occupation by the Magyars -in return for all this are we to remove the Czechs from Slovakia ? 19 Prague also maintained support from American and Eng lish academics and journalists in perpetuating Czechoslovakism. SetonWatson remained a staunch supporter of the idea, boasting how he regularly discredited "cantankerous Slovaks who accused Masaryk and hi s friend s of 'Czec hi sation."' He publicly condemned Hlinka and the SPP and repudiated their criticisms of Prague. Seton-Watson a lso actively denied Slovak agency in Slovak national development. 18 Juraj Slavik, "The Nationality Question in Slovakia," Central European Observer, 11 , 26 (Dec 18, 1933), 463-5 . Stefan Osusky, " Wh y Czechoslovakia?" Foreign Affairs, 15 , 3 (Apri l 1937), 455-71. Anton Stefanek, " Education in Slovakia," Th e Slavonic Review, 2, 5 (Dec 1923), 308-27. 19 Ivan Derer, The Unity of th e Czechs and Slovaks: Has th e Pittsburgh Declaration Been Carried Out? (Prague: Orbis, 193 8). �SLOVAKIA 2019 29 The Slovaks should therefore be thankful that fate has made them dependent upon a race so efficient, so well-educated and well-disciplined as the Czechs ... .At the critical moment, the Slovaks made the impression of a helpless animal fascinated by the approach of the boa-constrictor, and Prague was literally the sole hope.-'0 On the Slovak question, Seton-Watson blamed the " hypersensitive" Slovaks as simply being too parochial, religiously backward and ill developed, and he dismissed autonomist arguments as the "wild talk of extremists." Even in a work of collected essays designed to "show that the Slovaks themselves have had a much greater share in the reconstruction of their country than is often supposed," Seton-Watson turned predominantly to centralist Slovaks whose contributions consisted mostly of self-promotion and praise for the merits of centralism.21 The American philanthropist and writer Kenneth D. Miller was another avid promoter of Czechoslovakism. "Everything points to the wisdom of a cultural as well as political union between the two nationalities. No matter what the cultural development may be, neither nationality can well maintain its political independence without the other." He likewise felt that the Slovak question would disappear with the development of the "slow, passive Slovak," who yet lacked initiative, and who was prone to immorality and drunkenness, and to "religious vagary or fanaticism." 22 Other presentations ranged from industrialist and diplomat John Crane, who attacked the "backward ignorance" of the Slovaks for resisting secularization, to YMCA secretary Fred Rindge who criticized a claimed lack of Slovak interest 20 R.W. Seton-Watson , Th e New Slovakia (Prague: Fr. Borovy, 1924), 3, 23-4. R.W. Seton-Watson, Masaryk in England (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 61. "Seton-Watson Open Letter to Hlinka" (Doc 108), in Seton-Watson, 343-4. "SetonWatson to Alois Kolisek" (Doc 135), in Seton-Watson, 401-2. R.W. Seton-Watson, ed. Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1931). When planning the book, Seton-Watson expressed his desire to have an article from a SPP leader, so that Slovak autonomists could not accuse him of onesidedness. He considered an article on the issue of autonomy, but decided only to allow an article on Slovak religion by Hlinka. "Seton-Watson to Milan Hodza" (Docs 144 & 145), in Seton-Watson, 431-2 . 22 Kenneth D. Mill er, The Czecho-Slovaks in America (New York: Doran Company, 1922), 14-25, 121-122, 158-160. 21 �30 SLOVAK.IA 2019 in the arts. Journalist C.J.C. Street claimed, "The Slovak dream was always to regain their lost unity with the Czechs and as a united nation to secure the tolerable conditions of existence. " 23 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia pursued a few efforts during the interwar period to counter this campaign, although they lacked equivalent resources and connections to those held by Prague. The SPP' s most notable attempt was the Zilina Memorandum of 1922. Released to the western press and governments, the document sought to expose the Slovak question to the world, beginning with its sensationalist title, "a country doomed to death, a nation in her last agonies implores the civilized world for help." It decried the failures of Wilsonianism, which had allowed Prague to "bamboozle" the Slovaks "out of the freedom promised to them ." The text went on to explain their issues with the Czechs, discussing concerns from the treatment of religion, to economic exploitation, and the denial of autonomy. The memorandum also condemned Czechoslovakism as simply a tool for domination. The Czechs and Slovaks have been always forming two separate little worlds with a very different character due to their different geographical and economic conditions, their different way of thinking, of feeling and of mind. We have a different view of life, other morals and other traditions; we have a different social structure, different legal rules and different ideas about political economy and culture. The document ultimately claimed the world could still save the Slovaks if it acted quickly. The key of the iron cage in which the Slo vak Nation is being mercilessly incarcerated lays in the hands of the Great Powers. This memorial is our last expedient and our last weap23 John 0. Crane, "Church and State in Czechoslovakia" The Slavonic Review, 6, 17 (Dec. 1927), 364-78. Fred H. Rindge, Jr. "The Charm of Czechoslovakia" Current History, 22, 3 (June 1925), 447-50. C. J. C. Street, Slovakia Past and Present (Westm inster, UK: P.S. King & Son, 1928). For more examples, see: Robert Machray, "Czechoslova ki a a Pioneer in Central European Politics" Current Hislo ry, 25, 6 (Mar. 1927), 839-43 . J. H. Wallis, "The Upbuilding of Czechoslovakia," Curren/ Histo1y, 14, 5 (Aug. 192 1), 835-45 . �SLOVAK.IA 2019 31 on ... Though only clad in the rags of our torn freedom we nevertheless appear as accusers before the world, charging the rulers of Prague who are still deluding the powers, and the powers themselves for having out of sheer ignorance become their accomplices. To ignore the Slovak case, thus, would be to support the trampling of liberty. 24 After the Zilina Memorandum bore no fruit, the Slovak autonomists pursued fewer efforts to court the west. They made a few sporadic attempts, such as a translation of the SPP •program in 1930, written by Jozef Tiso, which outlined the SPPs vision of a Slovak national Christian democracy, and appealed for autonomy as a protection of the Slovak cultural tradition. It argued that the Slovak nation's religious roots encouraged it toward a peaceful selfpreservation, unlike other nations that turned toward national chauvinism. 25 Slovak priest and publicist Anton Kompanek also produced an article that emphasized Slovak Christianity as a symbol of Slovak worthiness for self-government. Kompanek believed Slovakia served as an example of how the Church and state could find balance in the modem world. 26 These publications, however, remained exceptions, as the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia maintained little faith in western governments, recognizing Prague's stranglehold over their image internationally. They instead relied on the Slovak-Americans to lead the way in their defense internationally. Slovak nationalist politician Karol Sidor claimed that despite a continued interest in the homeland, the Slovak-Americans began to lose their "onetime vitality and ardor" during the interwar period. He linked this outcome to greater assimilation and a decreasing knowledge of the Slovak language.27 This claim is somewhat true. The energy of the war years certainly diminished, particularly in the 24 "Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 02) & "Covering Letter for the Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 03), in Seton-Watson, pp. 319-33 . 25 Jozef Tiso, The Ideology of th e Slovak Populist Party (Prague: 1930). 26 Anton Kompanek, "The Catholic Church in Slovakia" Th e Sla vonic and East European Review, 12, 36 (April 1934), 611-21. 27 Sidor, "Slovak League," 59-62. �32 SLOVAKIA 2019 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression.28 Sidor, however, understated how much the Slovak-Americans remained at the forefront of the international efforts to gain recognition of the Slovak question. Historian Jozef Pauco 's interpretation is much more accurate: "For twenty years the Slovak League of America defended the spirit and letter of the Pittsburgh Pact and by using the freedom of the press and the freedom of assembly on American soil, they did so more freely and energetically than the two political parties in their homeland." 29 Based on the volume of publications and direct communications with government officials on both side of the Atlantic, it is clear that the Slovak question continued to dominate the transatlantic interests of the Slovak Americans, as they bolstered their compatriots' activities within Czechoslovakia by applying external pressure on Prague. The Slovak fraternal organizations made constant efforts to keep their members linked to their Slovak cultural identity, and to aid in the fight for autonomy in the homeland. They pursued these efforts through education programs such as national lectures, art and photography tours, but also symbolic actions such as erecting a statue of General Milan R. Stefanik in Cleveland in 1924 and the planting of a Linden Tree on Capitol Hill in honor of Stefanik in 1934. 30 The Slovak question remained high on the list of Slovak-American concerns, and the various Slovak organizations produced a flurry of pamphlets and informative documents on the issue. The Pittsburgh Agreement remained at the center of this debate, with Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic continuing to affirm its legality against the centralist dismissals that it was simply a non-binding text designed to placate the Slovak-Americans during the war. Autonomist publica28 June Alexander, for example, shows how assimilation became an internal issue for Slovak-Americans, as the older generations struggled to assure that their American born children maintained links to their ethnic heritage. June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Jn terwar Era (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004), 93-19 I. 29 Pauco, "S lovaks Abroad," 333-42. 30 "Ot. Svec to Podkrivacky," 3 Oct. 1938," PF: Adam Podkrivacky, SI. "S LA to Jakub Vitostak, 30 Nov 1923 ," The First Catholic Slovak Union of America (FCSU) Records, F: 1303, IHRC. "Jan Kocur to Michael Senko, 30 Nov 1926," FCSU, F: 1304, IHRC. 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastisla v Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924), 82-3 . "SLA to Arthur Colegrove," NSS, 8 : 168, F: SLA, IHRC. �SLOVAKIA 2019 33 tions looked to inform about the Slovaks, to expose the failed promises of Prague on autonomy, and to defend against the accusations of Prague centralists. The Slovak League remained at the forefront, hoping that exposure of the situation to the American press and pub1ic would spur sympathy and support? In many cases, the Slovak-Americans directed these publications at Prague, with the hope of convincing a change in policy . They, nevertheless, would consecutively produce English versions, which they then sent to the American President, members of Congress, the Department of State, and assorted press outlets. For example, in 1921 the SLA wrote to Masaryk calling for the immediate implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement. When Prague did not respond, the League followed up with a more detailed Memorandum on November 9, 1922. This document called on Prague to make good on the Pittsburgh Agreement in the name of natural rights and to reward the sacrifices made by Slovak-Americans during World War I. It highlighted Masaryk's role in the formation of the Agreement, and then provided a photograph of the original text as well as a series of letters between the SLA and various Czechoslovak officials that had promised its implementation to show how promises made to the Slovak-Americans never lived up to reality. The text then defended the legitimacy of Slovak autonomy. We are convinced that the honest and upright materialization of the Pittsburgh Pact in no way will harm the unity of the State; on the contrary it will mean a considerable reinforcement within and without and make possible united co-operation of all patriotic forces against the elements of disintegration, depriving them of a dangerous weapon, which they cannot effectively employ against the Republic, fanning discontent, mistrust and spreading hatred between both nations comprising the state. The League made clear, however, that this good will rested "solely upon a sincere Czecho-Slovak reciprocity." It then gave an alternative: 31 "Telegram to Ivan Bielek on 29 Nov 1934," NSS, B: 168, F: SLA , IHRC. �34 SLOVAKIA 2019 We feel it is our duty to emphasize that if our sincere and friendly attempt, which has at its heart the welfare, interest and future of the Republic, should fail to meet with success, the Slovak l eague of America would not be able to prevent the American Slovaks and their factors from turning to the Court of Public Opinion of the civilized world. While the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia acknowledged the letter, Prague neglected to respond. 32 The SLA then passed a follow-up resolution. Asserting that it "fights with fire and sword with everyone who is in favor of autonomy of the Slovak nation," it admonished Prague for manipulating the world into believing the Czechoslovakist image and for leading a smear campaign against the SLA. It then provided a list of examples of hostility, including efforts to undermine its finances , blackmail, the bullying of Slovak-American leaders and press, and attempts to send government officials to propagandize against them . It once again emphasized how the League had made every effort to resolve the Slovak question within the confines of the Czechoslovak Republic , but it would soon submit the issue "to the judgment of public opinion of the civilized world," if Prague continued to treat them with disdain.33 Many more publications followed. The Friends of Slovak Freedom , for example, released two protests in 1923. These texts defended the va lidi ty of the Slovak-Americans as representatives of the Slovak people, and condemned Prague's actions against Slovak autonomists, including such accusations as "false signatures or resolutions, false numbers of people attending their lectures, insulting the Slovak journalists, insulting the Slovak League as anti-state, and many other lies," as well as criticisms about press censorship in Slo- 32 SLA , Memorandum S/ovenskej Ligy v Amerike upra vene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Slo venskej Republiky v zaujme vtelenia Pittsburgskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, 1922). Both the full Slovak and English versions of this Document are avai lab le at: SLA Cab, F: Memorandum /922 v Zaum e Pitts. Dohody, SI. Also avai lable in: " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Arnerike" in Dokumenty, Vol 2, 138-44. 33 " An Appeal of the Slovak League of America to All Political Factors of th e Czecho-S lovak Republic," PF: Bielek, SI. �SLOVAKIA 2019 35 vakia. 34 After reading Masaryk's criticism of Hlinka, the Slovak League then produced a pamphlet that challenged the idea that Masaryk personally had liberated the Slovaks. It reminded readers of the Slovak-American war contribution, and then remarked how the SLA and the Pittsburgh Agreement were certainly valid in Masaryk's eyes when he needed Slovak-American support in 1918. The document then included a text from former Czechoslovak ambassador to Japan, Karel Pergler, arguing that both the Slovaks and Czechs had unequivocally recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement upon its signing. 35 Next to these direct appeals, the Slovak-American autonomists also released many publications geared directly toward an American audience. They designed these works to inform about the Slovaks, expose their continued fight for self-determination and to link the Slovak question to American democratic values. These publications included several biographies of Milan R. Stefanik, a translated history by Slovak historian Joseph Skultety that directly challenged images of Slovak backwardness and other stereotypes, and a short pamphlet on Czechoslovakism by Slovak-American historian Ol'ga Husek warning that the concept meant for the Slovaks "the rejection of their cultural past and the stunting of their future growth." 36 They also attempted to rally America to their cause by showing their valiance in the face of domination. An SLA article distributed to the American Press praised how the Slovak-Americans continued to fight even with "the entire machinery of government set against them, calumnies upon calumnies by a government subsidized press, heaped upon the heads of those who take up their cause, and bug- 34 Friends of Slovak Freedom, " Resolution, November 28, 1923," & " Protest against Censorship and Confiscation of Slovak Publications by the Government in Slovakia" in Pankuch , Slo vaks of Cleveland, l 82-6. 35 Slovenska Liga v Amerike, V Zaujme Pra vdy! (In the Interest of Truth !) (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska, 1930). Found in : SLA Cabinet, F: SLA Presidents, SI. Prague responded to these letters, but it simply reasserted the usual rebutta ls, claiming that 75% of the Slovaks supported centralization and that the Pittsburgh Agreement was simply an American document. "Ohlas Americkeho Memoranda u Nas," 8 : Slovak League of America (SLA) , SI. 36 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastislav Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924). Andrew Slabey, General Milan R. Stefanik (Leisenring, PA: Griglak Printery, 1937). Joseph Skultety, Sketches from Slovak History, O.D. Koreff, trans . (Middletown, PA : First Catholic Slovak Union, I 930) . Ol'ga Husek, The Czechoslovak Fallacy (Middletown, PA : Jednota, 1935). �36 SLOVAK.IA 2019 bears turned loose to scare those who are not acquainted with conditions. " 37 Religion became a major component of Slovak-American advocacy on the Slovak question in the interwar period. Slovak-American journalist Stephen J. Palickar published many articles in general Catholic publications, including a five-month tit-for-tat with Czech diplomat Josef Hane in defense of Slovak religiosity. He also provided some of the first Slovak-American attempts to link Slovak religiosity to anti-Communism. Palickar likewise defended Slovak agency, and appealed for a lifting of Prague centralism to allow the Slovaks an opportunity to prove their abi lity for self-government. 38 While most of these publications were shorter, more direct works, the Slovak-Americans released a couple of longer exposes on the Slovak question. The first, written by then SLA president Peter P. Hletko on behalf of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, looked to inform the American people about the Pittsburgh Agreement as an American product in line with "the principles of democracy and self-determination of small nations." Hletko praised how the Slovak "has an inherent love for liberty and freedom , and enjoys fostering his national spirit," which had spurred his immigration to America in a "quest for a land of true liberty," and he argued that American democracy had allowed the Slovaks in America to assert their national identity as an independent people. He asserted how the Slovaks had only joined the Czechoslovak movement on the premise that they would be treated fairly and as equals and highlighted a reg37 "The conflict between Czechs and Slovaks," NSS Records, B: 168, F: SLA, IHRC. For many examples, see: "The Slovaks- Past and Present," in Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism to Atheistic Czech Communism (Cambridge, MA : Hampshire Press, 1948), 40-3 . Stephen J. Palickar, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Slovak Standpoint," Current History, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-6. "A Dark Spot in Czecho-Slovakia," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 43-45 . "Who is Masaryk?," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 49-51 . "S lovakia-whither bound," in Palickar, Slovakia : From Hungarian Despotism, 76-83. "Slovak Catholicism vs. Czech Communism," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 84-86. "Slovak Grievance," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 70-72 . "President Masaryk and his State," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 61-62. "Scotus Viator Surveys Slovakia," in Palickar, Slo vakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 72-75. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia of Today (A Lecture), December 12, 1933 , Columbi a University (New York: Slovak Library Association, 1933). 38 �SLOVAKIA 2019 37 ular sense of duplicity and condescension the Slovaks felt from the Czechs. Hlekto praised the Pittsburgh Agreement as having resolved these conflicts, before Masaryk ultimately betrayed his promise, and he gave a detailed defense of its validity and of the right of the Slovak-Americans to speak for their nation during the war. 39 The Slovak-American autonomists shortly thereafter produced an even longer book on the topic . Written by Peter P. Hletko under the pseudonym , "An Autonomist," it served as the most exhaustive consideration of the Slovak question in Eng lish in the early 20 th century. Hletko placed blame on Czech intransigence for fueling the issue unnecessarily. The book argued that the Czechos lovak revolution relied on American money and manpower and "should the President (Masaryk) have failed to dispel the fear and dissatisfaction of the Slovaks through the Moscow and Pittsburgh Agreements, there certainly would not be a Czecho-Slovakia today. " The book then deconstructed Prague 's policies toward the Slovaks, to show Czechoslovakism as a means of hegemony. Hletko considered every issue from the Czech obfuscation on autonomy, the complicity of the Slovak centrali sts, the language issue, schools, and the economy, and he explained the claims of Slovak neediness and incompetence, as we ll as the claimed threat of Hungary, as only a fa<;:ade to justify Czech dominance. He likewise gave examples of Slovak intellectuals to dispute the claim that the Slovaks needed the Czechs to serve that role. He then detailed the domination of Slovakia's administration, civi l service, education system, and cultura l institutions by Slovak centralists and Czechs, and the press censorship and smear campaigns. Ultimately, he concluded that Czechoslovakism was undermining the state and mu st be reversed. Hletko concluded: Th e motive that has promoted us to write this work is not one of revenge, nor a desire to arouse bad feeling, but simply to expose falsehood and reveal truth. It is our sincere hope that, the truth being known, it will enable the Czechs and Slovaks to form a more stable union which will promote justice, trust, and good 39 Slovak Catholi c Federation of America, The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact (S lovak Cath olic Federation of America, 1934). Joseph C. Krajsa, " Dr. Peter Hletko, Most Elite of American Slovaks," Slovakia, 22, 45 ( 1972), 57-9. �38 SLOVAKIA 2019 will, and thereby insure national integrity both at home and abroad. 40 A few non-Slovak publications did favor Slovak autonomy . For example, some historians of the First World War, such as Jan Opocensky and C. A. Macartney, attempted to present a balanced consideration of the Slovak question, giving voice to Slovak autonomist concerns.4 1 There were also several publications that utilized the Slovak question to criticize the broader Versailles system . Writer and journalist E. Alexander Powell , for example, highlighted the differences between the Czechs and Slovaks as an example of the precariousness of the region ' s political stability. Although not particularly admiring of the Slovaks, Powell was highly critical of the Czech treatment of them. He commented, "The Czechs, an energetic, ambitious, progressive, and aggressive people, who outnumber the Slovaks three to one, look with condescension, if not contempt, on their less literate, slower thinking, more easy-going partners, whom, if the truth be known , they regard as immensely inferior to themselves." These scholars all argued that the Czechs needed to treat their minorities with more respect and make good on promises for Slovak autonomy for the sake of the survival of the state. 42 A few works were even somewhat favorable to the Slovaks. One such example came from writer Kenneth L. Roberts , who after visiting Czechoslovakia complained, "The Czechs want to socialize everything in sight, and the Slovaks are not poignantly eager to be social- 40 An Autonomist, Slovakia 's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, Pa: Slovak Literary Society, 1935). 41 Jan Opocensky, The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Mon archy and the Rise of the Czechoslovak Stale (Prague: Orbis, 1928), 153-68, I 93-214. C. A. MaCartney, National States and National Min orities (London : Oxford Uni versity Press, 1934), 117, 201 ,208. 42 E. Alexander Powell , The Danger on th e Danube (New York: Century Company, 1928), 56-8, 62-8, 72-4. M. W. Fodor, South of Hiller (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1939). For oth er examples, see : C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences, 1919-193 7 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937/ 1965), 73-148. Frank H. Simonds, Can Europe Keep th e Peace? (New York : Harper, I 93 I), 92-10 I. Isaiah Bowman, The New World: Problems in Political Geography, 4th ed. (Yonkers, NY : World Book, 1928). Harold Temperley, " How the Hungari an Frontiers were Drawn," Foreign Affairs, 6, 3 (April 1928), 432-47 . �SLOVAKIA 2019 39 ized." Comparing the Czechs in Slovakia to U.S. Civil War carpetbaggers, he criticized the Czech administration of Slovakia, their denial of autonomy, and called out Czechoslovakism as a lie. He alternatively praised the Slovaks as "among the most attractive and lovable peasant people of the many I have seen." An article by journalist Robert Sage, after a visit to Slovakia, likewise chided the Czechs for using claims of generosi ty as a mirage for domination over Slovakia. 43 The SLA ultimately made good on its threat to take the issue to the world stage, presenting the Slovak question to the League of Nations in 1932. It produced a long legal brief, which appealed for a cessation of wrongdoing against the Slovaks and the granting of political and cultural autonomy. It then begged the League of Nations to recognize the Slovaks as an independent nation, to demand the implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to investigate ill treatment, and to grant recognition of the Slovaks as a true minority in Czechoslovakia. It pointed out how the Slovak-Americans had made multiple attempts to reach out to Prague to explain their concerns and offer an olive branch towards a solution, but that Prague had ignored their appeals and through censorship had silenced their brothers in Slovakia. The document then went on to detail the history of the founding of the state and the Pittsburgh Agreement, their complaints of ill-treatment against the Slovaks, and their view as to why the 44 Slovaks were an independent people. This appeal was unsuccessful. Slovak-Americans also regularly wrote to U.S. government officials. One such example was an "Open Letter" to Masaryk in 1923 that the Slovak Catholic Federation in America also sent to President Coolidge, members of Congress, all the embassies in Prague, and to the American press. The document started with an image of Masaryk approaching the Slovak-Americans as equals during the war, to 43 Kenneth L. Roberts, Europe's Morning After (New York: Harper Brothers, 1921 ), 121-73. Kenneth L. Roberts, Why Europe l eaves Home (New York: Bobbs-Merrill , 1922), 28-31 . Robert Sage, "There's no such Nationality as Czecho-Slovak," Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan 2, 1930, 6. For other examples, see: Felix John Vondracek, The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia / 918-1935 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), 377-9. Alexander Szana, Die Geschichte der Slowakei (Bratislava: Grenzenbote Verlag, 1930). Robert Nowak, Der Kiinstliche Staal: Ostprobleme der Tschecho-Slowakei (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1938). 44 "To the Supreme Council of the League of Nations at Geneva," SlA Cabinet, F: Supreme Council of the l eague of Na tions at Geneva, 1932, SI. �40 SLOVAKIA 2019 which they responded with loyalty and support. Masaryk then betrayed them, treating the Slovaks "in step-mother fashion, nay, even like slaves," having lured them into "an invisible net of imperialistic aspirations, renounced openly that which is to every nation and to us 'ignorant' Slovaks inviolable, priceless, sacred." It bemoaned that the Slovaks again felt endangered in their national existence, and how the Czechs misled the world on the issue. It appealed for Masaryk "to acknowledge and fulfill that which you had promised us, the American Slovaks," for the sake of Czech-Slovak unity and the secu45 rity of the state. This letter elicited a response from the Slovak-American centralists. The National Slovak Society, the Slovak Sokol, and assorted editors produced a counter response to Masaryk, which they then sent to Coolidge and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. This document asserted open support for the idea that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation. It criticized the SCF letter for having "a spirit of narrow sectarianism," in contrast to "the great majority of the American Slovaks," who supported Masaryk "heart and soul." The document praised Masaryk and the Czechoslovak state for bringing cultural and economic development to Slovakia and it mentioned the centralist Slovaks in the government as a sign of Czech inclusiveness. The text also apologized for the Czech administration of Slovakia, bemoaning that Slovakia lacked enough competent officials. It then claimed that Prague had carried out the Pittsburgh Agreement in full , adding that "during the war neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks demanded self-determination for each separately; they demanded self-determination for the Czechoslovaks." 46 To the frustration of the Slovak autonomists, this campaign barely registered among U.S. officials in Washington. American officials at the U.S. Embassy in Prague paid slightly more attention, although most addressed it only passively and most often from the Czechoslo45 Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-S/ovak Republic (Slovak Catholic Federation of America : 1923). Found in : "Einstein to SoS, No. 611 ," 20 February 1924, F#: 860F.0l / 162, DoS CS 1910-44. The New York Times reported on the letter: " Slovak Protest to All Nations," New York Times, Mar. 12, 1924, 34. 46 National Slovak Society, et al. , An Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia ( I 924), in "Joseph Jan eek to Coolidge," 3 May 1924, F# : 860F.0l / 164, Dos cs 1910-44 �SLOVAKIA 2019 41 vakist perspective. The American Ambassador during the 1920s, Lewis Einstein, for example, reported on the SCF letter, misrepresenting it as "a violent indictment of Czech policy in Slovakia," and praised Prague for "accomplishing there a work of civilization. By introducing education and schools in a population where a high degree of illiteracy existed, by bringing in public hygiene, orderly justice and a better fiscal system, they are laying the foundations for the future. " Accordingly, in his view the Slovaks only needed proper education to unify with the Czechs . Ultimately, "Only one thing can be excluded, which is Slovakian autonomy." 47 In another attempt at outreach, Adam Podkrivacky as President of the FCSU wrote to John Hickerson, acting Chief of Western European Affairs at the U.S . State Department. Podkrivacky complained about the U.S. Consul General in Prague sending out correspondence to Slovakia in the Czech language instead of Slovak. He also requested that the State Department use the hyphen when writing 'Czecho-Slovakia. ' Podkrivacky then supplied Hickerson a copy of an autonomist political pamphlet, to "acquaint better with the political situation just as it exists between the Slovaks and the Czechs in Czecho-Slovakia." Hickerson forwarded the letter to the embassy in Prague and asked for a report on the Slovak question. Charge d' affaires J. Web Benton responded, declaring the letter unacceptable due to the threat posed by Czechoslovakia's neighbors. He also made the usual ethnographic arguments, adding how "Czech culture has contributed measurably to the advancement of Slovakia," and predicted the issue would dissipate. Benton dismissed the pamphlet as simply "anti-government propaganda ... the request for autonomy, in the sense of a separate parliament as mentioned in the Pittsburgh Pact, is something that no truly patriotic and far-seeing Slovak could at present afford to advocate." He added, "I assume that the Department will pay no further attention to his communications, but it seems not inopportune to observe that Czech is the official language of this country."48 While a few U.S. diplomats from the period, notably Lewis Einstein, came to develop a more nuanced view on the topic, this ended each time new embassy staff took over. 47 "Einstein to SoS , No . 611 ," DoS CS 1910-44. "Adam Podkrivac ky to John Hickerson," 29 March 1937, F#: 860F.0l / 18 1, DoS CS 1910-44. " Movement for Slovak Autonomy," 30 April 1937, F#: 860F .01 /184, DoS CS 1910-44. 48 �42 SLOVAKIA 2019 The dismissal of Slovak-American pleas stood in contrast to a disproportionate concern among American officials about the proHungarian Slovaks living abroad. The Rothermere campaign spurred some interest, and while some Americans expressed some sympathy to it, including chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Borah and publisher William Randolph Hearst, the U.S. Embassy in Prague wrote profusely about how the Slovaks remained opposed to a return to Hungary. When the exiled nationalist communist Slovak Vince Mihalus created an exile Slovak government in 1928, the State Department gave him disproportionate consideration, even though he held little popular support in Slovakia. Jehlicka reached out to Washington, calling for support against "Czech tyranny" and requesting support for recognition of the Slovaks as a minority in the League of Nations. The Czechoslovak embassy directed the State Department in its response, simply informing U.S. officials that Jehlicka only organized a "small number of Slovak renegades, mostly of Hungarian origin." 49 This flurry of publishing was very much a product of the widespread transatlantic interaction between Slovakia and the United States, as Slovak leaders on both sides of the Atlantic travelled between Europe and North America as they attempted to coordinate common political action. In the early 1920s, Prague still had hopes of guiding the Slovak-Americans to the centralist cause, despite the sentiment building against it. One major effort was the creation of a Slovak League in Slovakia by centralist Slovaks, designed to serve 49 Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban exchanged several letters with Hearst on the issue, facilitated by the State Department, eventually convincing Hearst to no longer give a voice to Rothermere and his supporters. "Einstein to SoS, No. 1355," 30 July 1927, F#: 860F.4016/4, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Butler Wright to SoS, No. 62," 15 Oct 1927, F#: 860F.4016/9, DoS CS 1910-44. "Vladimir Hurban to William Randolph Hearst," 27 May 1937, & " Hurban to Cordell Hull," 4 June 1937, F#: 860F.00/437 & 438 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Council of State of Slovakia to SoS," 6 Nov 1928, F#: 860F.01 / 171 & 172, DoS CS 1910-44. "Nelson Torsler Johnson to Einstein," 28 Jan 1929, F#: 860F.01 / 171 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1747," 28 Feb 1929, F#: 860F.0l/173, DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1756," 9 Mar 1929, F#: 860F.0l / 174, DoS CS 1910-44. "Washburn to SoS, No. 2153." "Einstein to SoS, No. 516," 20 Sep 1923, F#: 860F.00/2 14, DoS CS 1910-44. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 30 July 1933, F#: 860F.00/345, DoS CS 1910-44. "Prentiss B. Gilbert to SoS, No. 650," 8 Aug 1933 , F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 191044. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 29 Aug 1933, F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 1910-44. �SLOVAKIA 2019 43 as a counterpart to the SLA and to build common action across the Atlantic. This effort failed, however, after the Slovak League of America refused to cooperate with it. 50 With autonomist sentiment among the American Slovaks sharpening, Prague sent Slovak centralist leader Vavro Srobar to the United States in 1923. While Srobar attempted to unify the Slovak-Americans behind centralism, his visit had the opposite effect of galvanizing the Slovak-American autonomists. Srobar received support from sympathetic groups such as the Slovak Sokol, but the SLA and other autonomist organizations boycotted his speeches. Prague sent other figures to agitate for centralism, including the priest Jozef Rudinsky and agrarian politician Fedor Ruppeldt. Seton-Watson also reached out to the SlovakAmericans in several letters and later in a visit in 1935 , during which he appealed to the Slovak-Americans to encourage the Slovaks in . · 51 SI ova k ia against autonomy. The efforts by centralists did not change the status quo, as the Slovak-American autonomists remained firm in their opinions and openly repudiated centralist arguments. Pankuch, for example, felt that the only result of Srobar's visit was to destroy Czech-Slovak 52 unity and the internal unity of the Slovak-Americans. Ruppelt in tum complained how even among the Slovak Lutherans he constantly had to fight against autonomist sentiment. 53 With the dividing lines firmly set, the Slovak-American centralists and autonomists quit mutual involvement in each other's organizations and the centralists began a continuous propaganda campaign against the SLA backed by Prague. For example, after Slovak-American autonomists 50 Ignac Gessay, Kratke Dejiny S/ovenskej Ligy Na S/ovensku: od Zalozenia po 1. 0kt. 1926 (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga na Slovensku, 1926). "Nova ohlavka- stary kon. Pozor na Slovensku ligu!" 27 Oct 1924, Bratislava (No 68), in Jozef Tiso, Prejavy a Clanky (1913-193 8), eds. Miroslav Fabricius & Ladislav Susko (Bratislava: Historicky 'ustav SA V, 2002),), 196-7. 51 "An Appeal ," PF: Bie/ek, SI. Pankuch, Histo ry, 177-86. "Seton-Watson to Vojtech Mastny" (Doc 124), in Seton -Watson, 375-6. "Odkaz Scotus Viatora Americkym Slovakom" (Doc 125), in Seton-Watson, 377-80. "Seton-Watson to Stefan Osusky "' (Doc 128) & "Osusky to Seton-Watson" (Doc 129), in Seton-Watson, 3857. Mikus, "Slovak League," 46-7. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 1864-1926 (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarne Sv. Andreja, 1934), 503-5 . Palickar, "Czech and Slovak." Tomas Capek, Nase Amerika (Prague: Nakladem Narodni Rady Ceskoslovenske, 1926), 113. 52 Pankuch, History, 180. 53 " Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc 149), in Seton-Watson, 441-2 . �44 SLOVAKIA 2019 confronted him, Srobar reportedly lashed out at them as "knownothing drunkards" and traitors against the Republic. 54 While the Slovaks in America had been legitimate Slovaks when Masaryk needed them during the war, once they became a threat, the centralists began to categorize them as United States citizens, whose influence should not extend beyond America. 55 When the Czechoslovak Government offered a special commendation to the SLA on Czechoslovakia's l 0th anniversary in 1928, for its role in the creation of the state, the Slovak League of America rejected it. 56 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia perceived things quite differently. Many Slovak nationalist leaders believed that the nation as an ethnic and cultural foundation transcended the state, and offered regular praise of the Slovak-Americans as fighters for Slovak liberty and autonomy. Figures such as Hlinka and Lutheran autonomist leader Emil Stodola openly praised the Slovak-Americans and their role in the fight for autonomy, and argued that their past actions allowed the American Slovaks an equal right to speak about the fate of the Slovak homeland. 57 SPP leader Jozef Tiso extolled, "In this (Pittsburgh) agreement we see the heritage of our own American brothers, for which we will fight with the honor and the tenacity of the Slovak spirit, which is not intimidated by prison, the malice of the world, nor the cynicism of centralist agents." Tiso praised the "real Slovak patriots," working in the "free air of America," and he even posited that the Slovak-Americans had a better claim to speak for the Slovaks than the Slovak centralists did, because the SlovakAmericans had made the revolution successful with their blood, treasure and propaganda.58 Slovak scholars also published multiple 54 "A. S. Ambrose to Seton-Watson" (Doc 126) in Seton-Watson, 381-2. "Aby uz raz bolo jasno a aby prestaly r6zne narknutia proti Slov. Lige," PF: Bielek, SI. 55 Masaryk, for example, used such logic to dismiss the Pittsburgh Agreement, which he called a "local understanding between American Czechs and Slovaks," whose "signatories were mainly American citizens, only two of them being nonAmericans." Masaryk, Making, 208-11. 56 Stolarik, Where is my Hom e?, 98 . 57 "Hlinka on Scotus Viator" (Doc 109), in Seton-Watson, 345-53. Emil Stodola, Pre/om: Spomienky, Uvahy, Studie (Praha: L. Mazac, 1933), 193-4. 58 "Novy vykrik bratov z Ameriky," 24 Feb 1924, Bratislava (No 43), in Tiso, Prejavy, 157-9. " Pittsburghska dohoda - neplatna?!" 29 May 1924, Bratislava (no 57), in Tiso, Prejavy, 179-80. "Parliamentary Speech," 25 Nov 1931, Prague (No I 64), in Ti so, Preja vy, 347. "Speech to Public Assembly of the Slovak People 's �SLOVAKIA 2019 45 studies of the Slovak-Americans and their role m Slovak national development. 59 Slovak autonomists openly expressed these sentiments through regular trips to the United States. These attempts at direct engagement were nonetheless slow to start. Prague regularly prevented such trips, including the denial of a passport to Bishop Jan Vojtassak out of concern that he would agitate for autonomy and collect money for the SPP while in the United States. The barrier broke in 1926 when Hlinka accepted an invitation to visit America from editor Jozef Husek and the Friends of Slovak Freedom, sponsored by the SLA, the FCSU, and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (FCSLU). Hlinka desired to visit the United States to thank the Slovak-Americans in person for their support for Slovak self-determination, to explain firsthand the political situation in Slovakia, and to encourage them to keep fighting. After stalling on the process, Prague ultimately relented to avoid the resulting outrage had they refused. They issued Hlinka a passport to attend the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Hlinka's visit lasted from June 5 to October 13. Although Hlinka expressed some trepidation that Slovak-American centralists would treat him with hostility, Slovak-American autonomist leaders Josef Husek and Anton Kompanek convinced him the experience would prove the opposite. This claim proved true, as Hlinka received hundreds of invitations to speak to overflowing crowds on each occasion. Demand was so high that, then SLA president Ivan Bielek had to write an article emphasizing Hlinka's time limitations to try to tame expectations. During his visit, Hlinka travelled around the U.S. East and Midwest, visiting local Slovak communities. He regularly attended and celebrated Mass and held meetings with SlovakAmerican organizations, including the SLA from whom he received an honorary membership . Hlinka visited assorted Slovak-American institutions, surveying Slovak-American newsrooms, printeries, Party," 18 August 1937 & 25 August 1937, Bratislava (No 251 & 252), in Tiso, Prejavy, 523-4. "Nase narodnopo liticke palladium," 5 June 1938 (No 260), in Tiso, Prejavy, 543-4. Kon stantin Culen, Po Sviitop/ukovi druha nasa h/ava: Zivot Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947), 182-3. 59 Jozef Rudinsky, V Amerike a doma (Ruzomberok: Rudinsky, 1921 ). Karol Sidor, S/ovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Bratislava: Jednota, 1928). Matica Slovenska, S/ovenskej verejenosti v Amerike (Mati ca slovenska , 1937). Konstantin Culen, Pittsburghska dohoda (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarei'l Andreja, 193 7) . �46 SLOVAK.IA 2019 schools, and churches. Overall, Hlinka held rallies at 80 locations, gave 200 speeches, and visited more than 100 Slovak parishes. Hlinka's visit spurred a level of excitement and activity among the Slovak-Americans that would never recur. 60 Hlinka kept his goal of directly exposing the Slovak question during his visit. He regularly spoke on the issue, and carried a copy of a censored Slovak nationalist newspaper as evidence. During his visit, Hlinka could not help but contrast the image of America with his experience in Czechoslovakia. In one such speech, he made clear that the Slovaks .. . would prefer not to quarrel with the Bohemians, but when they preach democracy and at the same time practice deceptions and aggression, we have no choice but to oppose them ... America is a superior nation and a master democratic republic. It has a splendid constitution which not only guarantees the rights and liberties to the people, but sees that they get them as well. Hlinka likewise extolled the "firm individuality" that the SlovakAmericans had gained, and he highlighted the sense of natural connection between Slovaks and Americans. "A good Slovak who comes to America makes a good American, and all good SlovakAmericans, including the new generations born in America from Slovak extraction will appreciate what they have inherited from their Slovak ancestry. Neither will they forget Slovakia." In his farewell speech, Hlinka expressed how the Slovak-Americans had filled him with national pride. He affirmed, "I saw the large affl uence of Slovaks, these Slovaks who under the Tatras suffered from hardship and physical and spiritual want," and prai sed how they helped sustain the Slovak nation. He finally asked of them, "do not forget that under the Tatras stand your cradle and your old homeland, our hard-tested and suffering Slovakia!" 61 60 Adamec, "Slovak Catholic Federation ," 223-32. Sidor, Hlinka, 503-5, 510-1 I, 543 -52 . Sidor, "The Slovak League," 57-9. Mikus, "S lovak League," 46-7 . Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 65 -74. 61 Palickar, " Monsignor Hlinka- The Man," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 51-6, 55 . Palickar, " My Interview with Msgr. Hlinka," in Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 56-9. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 543-52. �SLOVAKIA 2019 47 In the 1930s, the Slovak-Americans experienced a few more visits from notable figures. One such visit was from the Slovak cultural organization Matica slovenska, in 1935 . The Slovak-Americans had regular contact with the Matica in the 1920s and there remained regular efforts to create an American branch of the organization.62 With the outbreak of the Great Depression, however, interest and funding for Slovak cultural programs in America declined. The Matica decided a visit to America was necessary to reverse thi s process, which they interpreted as the Slovak-Americans becoming too Americanized. The organization ' s director, the writer Jozef C. Hronsky, led the delegation, but it also included historian Konstantin Culen, and the artist Jozef Cincik, among others. These individuals gave many lectures and supplied ample literature and art, including a donation of libraries of Slovak material to the cities of New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago.63 While they found that some second and third generation Slovak-Americans had lost touch with Slovak culture, the delegates gave high praise to the Slovak-Americans for the interest they showed in the lectures, music, art and other cultural information the Matica provided. The experience led Culen to adopt the task of writing a history of Slovak-Americans. The linguist Jozef G. Konus likewise noted how "the Slovak spirit opens up more in free America than the lush fantasie s at home could imagine." When the White House wrote a statement for a Slovak-American information brochure praising the Slovaks as a "healthy minded, freedomloving and determined people," the Matica hailed it as evidence of Slovak democratic bona tides. Ultimately, the delegation praised the trip as very much a success, and took back ample material on the Slovak-Americans for placement in the Slovak National Library. The Matica left satisfied that Slovak culture remained firm in America, although it put pressure on the Slovak-Americans to improve their direct cultural linkages with the homeland. 64 62 To see many examples of this communicati on, see: The Ma tica slovenskti, Martin, Slovakia, re: American Slovaks Papers, IHRC . 63 According to Mark Stol arik, th e Mati ca brought 84 crates of books, totaling 4 I ,000 volumes, while visiting 98 separate Slovak-American communities. Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home?, 96-100. 64 "Vianoce Maticnej delegacie," Slovensko, 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 87-8. Konstantin Culen, "Co m6ze dat' Amerika slovenskej historii ," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 87-8. Jozef C. Hronsky, " Mati ca v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (March 1936), 110-13. Jozef G. Konus, " Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), I I6-18 . �48 SLOVAK.IA 2019 The final major figure to visit America was the Reverend Jozef Tiso in 1937, with the Catholic cultural organization Spolok Sv. Vojtecha. Much like Hlinka, Tiso celebrated mass and heard confessions during his visit, spoke at public assemblies and met with many American priests, journalists, and Slovak-American leaders. He also attended other broader Catholic events, including the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and met with the Papal delegation in Washington, D.C. Tiso made a broad effort to learn about American political life, to determine what Slovak leaders could transfer back to Slovakia. He particularly admired American technical prowess in organization and publishing, which he saw as facilitating a more efficient Catholic organization and action, and conceptualized a plan to send young Slovak leaders to America to learn American methods of organization. Tiso also praised the Slovak-American sense of independence and pride in their Slovak identity. Seeing how the Slovaks had developed on independent terms in the vast American melting pot, Tiso interpreted the Slovak-American experience as proof of Slovak capabilities and their merit for self-determination. Tiso never gave up his sense of solidarity with the Slovak-Americans, and referenced his visit to affirm his desired direction for the Slovaks. 65 The only visit to the United States by a Slovak official to gamer much attention from Washington was Srobar's in 1923. American diplomat Einstein provided notice of the visit, adding that it was "doubtless intended to counteract the seditious anti-Czech propaganda which has been going on for some time both in Slovakia, where it is fomented by Magyar intrigues, and among the Slovak clericals in the United States." Although, he noted that the Slovak autonomy movement remained "noisy and violent in its methods but unaided it can do little and it is not at present causing here any serious conJozef G. Konu s, "Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 116-18. Jozef Hronsky, "Na margo americkeho zapisnika," S/o vensko, 2, IO & I I (June-July 1936), 177-80. Jozef Cincik, "Na margo americkeho zapisnaka," Slo vensko , 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-6. " Maticna vystava v Clevelande," Slo vensko, 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-4. " President Roosevelt pozdravuje slovensky narod," Slovensko , 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 79. "Slovenska Amerika sa hybe," S/ovensko, 4, 3 (Nov 1937), 32-3. "SLA to Sku ltety, I June 1935,".PF: Mamatey, SI. Stolarik, "Slovak League." J.A. Berta, "Slovak America and the Matica Slovenska," Furdek, 23 (1984), 163-71. 65 Culen, Po Sviiloplukovi, 182-9. "Speech about the state account balance from 1926," 23 February 1938, Prague (No 258), in Tiso, Prejavy, 533-6. �SLOVAKIA 2019 49 cem." 66 Several Slovak-American autonomists wrote to the State Department to complain about Srobar's visit, including a letter from a Slovak-American World War I veteran asking the Department to halt Srobar's lectures for sowing discord among the Slovaks in the United States. The most notable letter, however, came from the Reverend John Porubsky on behalf of the Slovak Newspapermen's Association. Porubsky criticized Srobar's claimed "cultural visit" as a ruse to propagandize on behalf of Czechoslovakism. He presented it as part of an effort by Prague, "To inoculate the masses of our people in America as a contracting party with such misconception and ethnographical nonsense," and to discredit the Pittsburgh Agreement. Claiming that Srobar "forgot the scope of his mission, even forgot himself in outbursts against leading Slovak American gentlemen, calling them vile names unworthy of a man of his position," Porubsky asked Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to have him expelled from the country.67 This effort also spurred a response by Prague and its allies in the United States. These letters, in an organized campaign, all repeated versions of the same arguments. They complained that the opposition to Srobar consisted of "Jesuits and Bolsheviks" and other "enemies of the state" that were working for Czechoslovakia's destruction. Srobar was, alternatively, a great statesman fighting against them to bring cultural development to Slovakia. They also personally targeted Porubsky and the Slovak Newspapermen's Association: "The great majority of intelligent American Slovaks are heart and soul in accord with Dr. Srobar's patriotic works; only the ignorant and reactionary masses are ignobly and ignorantly supporting the destructive work of Rev. Porubsky and his few brawling associates." 68 Likewise, the Slovak Sokol, which had arranged Srobar's visit from the American end, took credit for the visit, praising how Srobar had "proved to 66 " Einstein to SoS, No. 502 ," 29 Aug 1923, F#: 860F .0 I/ I 48, DoS CS 1910-44. "John Porubsky to Charles Evans Hughes," 31 Oct 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/149, DoS CS 1910-44. "John J. Nedorostek to Hughes," 13 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01/150, DoS cs 1910-44. 68 "V. Krali cek to Hughes," 12 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 151 , DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Joscak to Hughes," 14 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 154, DoS CS 1910-44. "Henry Russek to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/156, DoS CS 1910-44. "C lement lhrisky & Joscak to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/152, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Kovalovsky to Hughes," 16 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/157, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Olsavicki to Hughes," 19 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/ 155, DoS CS 1910-44. 67 �50 SLOVAKIA 2019 the Slovaks of America that any fears as to the future of their former country are unfounded." 69 The State Department only sent back formulaic verification of receipts to these letters, except for one to John Zeman of the Slovak Sokol, thanking him for "setting forth the real purposes of the visit." William Phillips then requested President Coolidge to meet with Srobar, calling him "one of the five men who founded the Republic of Czechoslovakia," to which Coolidge obliged. 70 In 193 7, the Reverend Francis Dubosh of Lakewood, Ohio, attempted to arrange a meeting between officers of the SCF A, Jozef Tiso, and President Roosevelt, with the help of Monsignor Michael J. Ready at the Catholic University of America. The White House staff supported this meeting, but Roosevelt wanted to first confirm with the State Department so as not "to get mixed up in a Slovak controversy." After consulting with Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban, the State Department reported that the embassy made no official complaint, but that they themselves discouraged the visit with "the opinion that these persons are not of sufficient prominence for the President to receive them." After a back and forth in consideration of the issue, the White House ultimately declined, claiming 71 that the President was simply too busy. The Slovak-Americans also visited Slovakia. The most significant of these occurred in 193 8 in the tense period leading up to the Munich Agreement, when the Slovak League sent a delegation to celebrate the 20 th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Led by its President, Peter P. Hletko, the delegation, as a deliberate gesture, made its first formal visit in Slovakia to Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok. The delegation travelled into Slovakia through Poland, to 69 "J. Zeman to Hughes," 18 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01 / 153 , DoS CS 1910-44. "W. R. Castle to Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America," 6 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l49, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. B. Wright to Kralicek," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/15I, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Joscak," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.01/l54, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Zeman," I Dec 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l53 , DoS CS 191044. "William Phillips to G. B. Slemp, 12 Nov 1923," & "Slemp to Phillips, 12 Nov 1923," Coolidge Papers, Series I, 742. 71 "Roosevelt to M. H. McIntyre, 22 Oct 1937," " McIntyre to George F. Summerlin, 23 Oct 193 7," "Spruks to Summerlin, 27 Oct 193 7," "McIntyre to Roosevelt, 29 Oct 1937," "McIntyre to Summerlin, 3 Nov 1937," President 's Personal File (PPF), F: 639, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDR), Hyde Park, New York. 70 �SLOVAKIA 2019 51 avoid Prague and Bratislava, and the Polish government hosted the delegation on their way through. Both the Slovak autonomists and the Slovak centralists sent representatives to corral them before they entered Slovakia. The centralists were, however, sent back early after Warsaw and Slovak-Americans embraced the SPP delegation as the official one. After arriving in Slovakia, the delegation showed the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement to Hlinka and spent most of the trip associating with the Slovak autonomists. Its activities included several visits to the Matica slovenska in Martin, to which it gifted an authenticated copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement and made clear commitments toward transatlantic cultural programs, including joint publications and a transatlantic cultural council. Prime Minister Milan Hodza also led a continued effort to meet and work with the visiting delegation, believing he could convince them to break their close affiliation with the SPP and align with the Agrarians instead. Out of respect, the delegation did meet with centralist officials, including Hodza and President Eduard Benes, whom they encouraged the granting of autonomy to Slovakia for the sake of unity in those very tense times. In a speech in Prague, Hletko made clear their objectives stating, "Our love for Slovakia and the Czechoslovak Republic has induced us to come here. The object of the Pittsburgh Declaration, the original of which we have brought with us, is not to weaken but to strengthen the Republic ." 72 When describing his meetings, Hletko said that Hodza promised a movement towards autonomy, yet Prague still rejected them. 73 Likewise, Ivan Derer was extremely critical of the SlovakAmericans during their visit, accusing them of having been brainwashed. He also dismissed them as representing a small, vocal minority, and smeared them as deliberate Hungarian, German, or Polish agents, if not otherwise simply duped by the machinations of these neighboring rivals. Derer complained, "This delegation, composed most of autonomists, expressed its separatist convictions during every opportunity, expressed anti-Czech interests, made light of work of 72 "Visit of American Slovak Delegation to Jubilee Congress, Bratislava; Slovak Demands for Autonomy," 6 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/534, DoS CS 1910-44. 73 Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. "Narodna Politika Roku 1938 : Ked Bol P. Hletko na Slovensku," B: Karol Sidor - Diplomat 1901-1958 - Vol 2, SI. Pavel KuklisKunovsky, Ako je na Slovensku ? Z vlastnych skusenosti napisa/ a vydal v mesiaci )uni /940 v Pittsburghu, Pa., U.S.A. (Pittsburgh: Narodne noviny, 1940), 4-7. �52 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the Czechoslovak government successes in Slovakia, ironized Czechoslovak oriented Slovaks." He was extremely derisive of Hletko, accusing him of not being truly Slovak, having been born in the United States, and as being "politically inexperienced, unknowledgeable about the conditions of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Slovakia." 74 The SLA visit culminated in the Jubilee Congress for the anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement on June 4, 1938 in Bratislava. A massive rally was organized where Hlinka, Tiso, and Hletko, among others, gave speeches. A large facsimile of the Pittsburgh Agreement surrounded on each side by the American and Slovak flags served as a backdrop. In his speech, Hletko showed the original copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the crowd, and praised the attention given to the Agreement. A formal proposal by the SPP in the Czechoslovak Parliament to amend the constitution to implement Slovak autonomy then followed. The centralists, led by Hodza, held a counter-rally two days later. They declared the rally more ambiguously as a celebration of the Slovak farmer, although Prague and the centralists promoted the event afterwards as a pro-state rally in opposition to autonomy. The SLA delegation also attended this celebration and Hletko gave a speech, simply affirming that the SLA continued to work for Slovak freedom . Hletko later claimed that the delegation warned the Czech and Slovak leaders they had met about the need to come to an accommodation on the Slovak question, in favor of autonomy, fearing that the issue might become larger with Adolph Hitler rattling his saber. Hletko claimed, however, that no one took this warning seriously. The delegation departed shortly before Hlinka's death in August of 1938, but the SPP sent a piece of earth from Hlinka's graveside to America. 75 74 Ivan Derer, S/ovensky vyvoj a /ud'acka zrada (Prague: K vasnicka a Hamp) , 1946), 183-9 . Derer was convinced the SLA was part of a Polish conspiracy to absorb Slovaki a, led by Karol Sidor. The SLA, however, openly rebuked Polish calls for absorption of Slovakia during its stop th ere. 75 The exact number of participants in each rally is unclear, but most accounts reflected similar participation rates (around one hundred thousand each) and photos of the Slovak Jubilee show a massive crowd. The urn containing the soil is still on display at the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. " Wilbur Carr to SoS, no 122," 9 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/518, DoS CS 1910-44. " Farmers' Day at Bratislava; Demonstration of Slovak Branch of Czechoslovak Agrarian Party," IO June 1938, F#: 860F.00/531 , DoS CS 1910-44. " Po odchode delegatov Slov- �SLOVAKIA 2019 53 The U.S. Embassy took an interest in the SLA visit to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and U.S . Ambassador Wilbur Carr agreed to meet with the delegation. Carr reported that the visit was cordial and that the delegation affirmed to him that its visit was simply to promote good will and it did not desire to interfere in domestic issues in Czechoslovakia. Carr then stated that the SLA's visit to Czechoslovakia annoyed Prague, due to the enflamed minority issues of the time, but that Czechoslovak officials tried to maintain good will with the delegation, although this sentiment "lacked a ring of sincerity." Accordingly, Hletko admitted to Carr that the timing was not the best, but that it was not by design, since they had come simply for the anniversary celebration. Carr expected no harm from the visit. While Carr described the autonomy proposal and reported statements by Hletko and Jozef Rusek complementing the support of the Pittsburgh Agreement among the Slovaks, he countered by providing the text of an anti-autonomy speech by Derer and a section of Masaryk' s memoirs. Carr then misrepresented the Slovak-Americans as having felt embarrassed for having been "utilized by the Hlinka Party for partisan and election purposes." While Carr reported on each of the two rallies, he praised the Farmer's Day as turning into "a spontaneous demonstration of Czechoslovak unity, homage to Benes, and allegiance and confidence in its leader," hostility to autonomy, and featuring a much larger participation.76 While Czech and Slovak centralists worked to keep the SlovakAmericans at a distance after early efforts to court them failed, the Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic worked around Prague to coordinate their activities. Nevertheless, the autonomists had no means of pushing Prague towards changes on the Slovak question. The Slovak autonomists, however, continued their fight and never gave up. The transatlantic Slovak question during the interwar period established the roots for the eventual Slovak-Czech split. The failure to find a compromise between Slovak autonomists and centralists saw an entrenched distrust that contributed to the fall of the First Republic . When the Munich Agreement formally handed the enskej Ligy v Amerike," Slovensko, 5 ( I 939), 16-17. Sidor, "The Slovak League," 59-62. 76 "Carr to SoS , no 112," 31 May 1938, F#: 860F.00/5 l 0, DoS CS 1910-44. "Visit of American Slovak." "Carr to SoS, no 121 ," 8 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/517, DoS CS 1910-44. "Carr to SoS , No 122." "Farmers ' Day. " �54 SLOVAKIA 2019 Sudetenland to Germany in September of 1938, the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia demanded and received autonomy until the new SPP-led government there declared independence on March 14, 1939, following Nazi Germany's invasion of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovak-American autonomists, although distrustful of Nazi Germany, openly embraced the shift toward Slovak autonomy in the shortlived Second Republic, believing they could no longer trust the Czechs. Peter Hletko, for example, cheered how the Slovaks had "fought and won the victory." 77 Although initially hesitant to support complete independence, most Slovak-American autonomists, the moderates excepted, came to support the World War II Slovak State as a symbol of Slovak self-determination, even as they supported Allied victory in the war. While World War II and the subsequent Cold War limited direct linkages between Slovakia and North America, the same rifts on the Slovak question persisted on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1993 Velvet Divorce. 78 77 Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 6574. 78 For more on this topic during World War II and beyond, see: Michael Cude, Transatlantic Perspectives on the Slovak Question, I 9 I 4-/ 948 (PhD Diss., University of Co lorado-Boulder, 20 13 ). M. Mark Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907-1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 18 SLOVAKIA 2019 THE TRANSATLANTIC SLOVAK QUESTION DURING THE INTERW AR YEARS Michael Cude The relationship of the Slovaks to the Czechs is an issue that has persisted through the modem hi story of the two peoples. From the 19 th century ' national awakenings ' in Austria-Hungary to the Velvet Divorce between the Slovaks and Czechs in 1993, this 'Slovak question' was at the center of key events, including the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, its breakup and reestablishment after World War II, and the 1968 Prague Spring. 1 While many recent works have addressed the Slovak question, many have underappreciated the extent to which modem Slovak national identity formation was a transatlantic phenomenon. Historians examining this topic from the domestic Slovak perspective rarely delve deeply beyond Slovak borders, while histories of Slovaks abroad have focused predominantly on the Slovaks' place as immigrant communities . In doing so, such histories overlook how interlinked Slovak national politics in Slovakia were to Slovak communities abroad, particularly in North America, and the critical role they played in shaping Slovak national identity formation. Addressed by only a handful of recent works, the transatlantic Slovak question requires more attention.2 1 Reference key for shortened arc hi val ci tations: IHRC : Slovak American Collection, Immi gratio n History Research Center, University of Minneso ta. fil: Slovak Institute, Cleveland, OH. DoS CS 1910-44: Records of th e U.S. Department of Stale Relating to th e Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944, Microfilm (Washin gton D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1982). 2 For some examples of sc holarship considering the Slovak question from a transatlantic perspective, see: M. Mark Sto larik, Where is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America ( /8 70-2010) (Bern : Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907- 1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35 . Marian Mark Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia, 1914-19 I 8," Slovak Studies, 8, Hi stori ca 5 ( 1968), 7-82. Stefan Kucik, Podiel americkych S!ovakov na aulonomistickom hnuti na Slovensku 191 8-/938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 20 I I). Gregory Curtis Ference, Sixteen Months of Indecision : Slovak American Viewpoints Toward Compatriots and the Homeland from SLOVAKIA 2019 19 The Slovak efforts abroad during World War I remain the best told component of this story. The foundation of the transatlantic Slovak question was laid in the periods leading up to the First World War, when Slovak-American organizations began to campaign for Slovak political autonomy within the Kingdom of Hungary. The central organization for Slovak national activism became the Slovak League of America (SLA), founded in May 1907 by Slovak-American leaders to unify the disparate Slovak groups in the United States in common political action. The SLA ' s main objectives were to develop the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in America as a means of supporting the cultural and political life of the Slovaks in the homeland and to fight for Slovak national self-determination. 3 World War I and its accompanying 'Wilsonian moment' entrenched important symbols of Slovak national self-determination, as Slovak immigrant communities contributed to the establishment of the new Czechoslovak Republic. The wartime Czechoslovak National Council and its leaders, including Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik, utilized Slovak-American organizations for financial , military, and diplomatic support. Consequently, Slovak-American demands led to the creation of the most important document relating to Slovak nationalism for the following twenty years: the Pittsburgh Agreement. Signed on 31 May 1918, this document declared common action between the Czechs and Slovaks in the formation of a democratic republic. Nevertheless, the agreement made a clear assertion for Slovak autonomy, under the terms that the Slovaks would I 9 I 4 to I 9 I 5 as Viewed by the Slovak Language Press in Pennsylvania (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna Uni versity Press, 1995). Michael Cude, "The Imagined Exiles: Slovak-Americans and the Slovak Question during the First Czechoslovak Republic," in From Exsilium to Exile: Coercion in Migration, Studia Historica Gedanensia, vo l. 5, ed. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Gdansk, Poland: University of Gdansk History Institute, 20 14), 287-305 3 Konstantin Culen, History of Slovaks in America, Daniel C. Necas, trans. (St. Paul, MN : Czechoslovak Genealogical Society, 2007). Jan Pankuch, History of the Slovaks of Cleveland and Lakewood, Rasto Gallo, trans. (Cleveland: Czechoslovak Genealogical Society & Western Reserve Historical Society, 2001), 29-38. Stolarik, " Rol e," 7-82 . Stephanie 0. Husek, "Slovak American Fraternal, Cultural, and Civic Organizations to 19 I 4," in Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study, Joseph C. Krajsa, ed. (Middletown: Slovak League of America, 1978), 23 -38 . Joseph A. Mikus "The Slovak League of America: A Historical Survey," in Slovaks, Krajsa, ed., 3956. R. Vladimir Baumgarten & Joseph Stefka, The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, I 890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990), 17-33. 20 SLOVAKIA 2019 have their "own administration, own parliament, and own courts." In the short term, the Pittsburgh Agreement appeased the Slovak-Americans, who consolidated their support around the budding state, while Masaryk used the agreement to legitimize Czech-Slovak coop4 eration in his diplomatic efforts. This campaign allowed Slovak-American leaders a sense of direct influence on the affairs of their homeland, although the Czechoslovak National Council quickly stymied this hope. While the Slovak-Americans had been able to pressure Masaryk into symbolically accepting their goals for Slovak autonomy, their influence only extended to his need to provide evidence of Slovak participation in his political program as he sought recognition from the Entente powers. As a result, the Slovak-Americans found themselves on the margins during the building of the state . Accordingly, many historians consider the Pittsburgh Agreement as a matter of domestic Slovak politics after its initial signing, with little further consideration for the Slovaks abroad. In doing so, they neglect the fact that transatlantic activities continued through the interwar period.5 With the establishment of Czechoslovakia following the war, Slovak national activists on both sides of the Atlantic, hereto identi- 4 "Pittsburgska Dohoda" in Dok:umenty slovenskej narodnej identity a statnosti, vol. I, eds. Jan Benko, et al (Narodne literame centrum: Dom slovenskej literatury, 1998), 484-7. " Masaryk to Mamatey, 22 September 1918," SLA Cabinet, F:llth Congress, Slovak Institute (S I), Cleveland, OH. Pankuch, History, 145-50. Stolarik, "Role," 32-54. Karo l Sidor, ''The Slovak League of America and the Slovak Nation 's Struggle for Autonomy," Slovakia I 7, 40 ( I 967), 39-46. Peter P. Hletko, "The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact," Slovakia l 8, 41 ( 1968), 5-54. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , "The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Documents," in Slovakia 36, 66 & 67 ( 1998), 81-97. lmrich Mazar, A History of the Binghamton Slovaks : Over a Period of Forty Years, 1879-1919, ed. Wilhelmina Mazar Salina, trans. Thomas Janacek (Phoenix: Via Press, 2003), 203-17. Baumgarten & Stefka, National, 81-3. 5 James Ramon Felak, At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, I 994). Peter A. Toma & Dusan Kovac, Slovakia: From Samo to Dzurinda (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 200 I). Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia : The Struggle for Survival, 2nd ed. (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Jan Rychlik, "Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia, I 918-1939," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918- 1948, eds . Mark Cornwall, R.J.W . Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 13-26. Elisabeth Bakke, "Czechoslovakism in Slovak History," in Slovakia in History, eds. Mikulas Teich, et al (Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press, 2011), 247-68. SLOVAKIA 2019 21 fied as the Slovak 'autonomists,' had full expectations of a federal relationship that would recognize Slovak cultural uniqueness and grant the Slovaks civic equality with autonomy over domestic affairs under the terms of the Pittsburgh Agreement. In contrast, most Czech leaders wanted a strongly centralized state, justified by arguments of the commonality of the Czechs and Slovaks, the threat of Hungarian and German irredentism, and the believed necessity of Czech oversight to modernize Slovakia. They relied on support from Slovak ' centralists,' who identified the Czechs and Slovaks as a common people. Slovak autonomists, who saw the Slovaks as a culturally distinct people from the Czechs, perceived this ' Prague centralism' as a form of cultural and political hegemony. In response, they replanted their fight over the Slovak question against the newly formed government in Prague. Both autonomists and centralists mobilized Slovaks at home and abroad behind their version of the state, with the transatlantic component focused on lobbying foreign governments. As with many other nationality groups, Slovak leaders saw the postwar peace process as a key moment to make their case. With the centralists represented at the Versailles Peace Conference by the formal delegation from Czechoslovakia, the autonomists attempted to present their own view, including a flurry of correspondence from Slovak-Americans to United States President Woodrow Wilson and an unofficial delegation led by Slovak nationalist leader Andrej Hlinka. The autonomists appealed for recognition of an independent Slovak identity and the establishment of a federalist system in Czechoslovakia that granted greater domestic political autonomy to Slovakia. Wilson and other western leaders, however, prioritized economic and political modernity as a necessary quality for selfgovernrnent. Czechoslovakia's centralist leaders appealed to the Wilsonian prioritization of modernism to gain American acceptance of their vision, and used a proposed uplift of the Slovaks into modernity to advance this cause. They nonetheless pursued this objective in a way that often cast the Slovaks in a disparaging light and sowed further discord. The Conference in turn legitimated this organization of the Czechoslovak state and ignored Slovak autonomist appeals. 6 6 For more, see : Michael Cude, "Wilsonian National Self-determination and the Slovak Question during th e Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918-192 1," Diplomatic Histo,y (2016) 40, I: 155-80 22 SLOVAKIA 2019 This failure at Versailles did not dissuade transatlantic Slovak activities. From the conclusion of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, the Slovak question persisted in the First Czechoslovak Republic. The interwar period saw the Slovak autonomist movement survive with the Czechoslovak state arrayed against them . Slovak autonomists regularly looked across the Atlantic for support in pressuring Prague to change its stance. The Slovak autonomists continued to reference the spirit and goals of Wilsonianism to justify their claims for autonomy, and the Pittsburgh Agreement became their primary symbol. SlovakAmerican autonomists accepted their leading role of defending the Slovaks internationally, and they remained hopeful of convincing world leaders, particularly those in the United States, to embrace their view. This task remained an uphill battle, given the autonomists' inability to match the resources or international connections maintained by Prague, as centralists worked to discredit the idea of domestic autonomy for Slovakia. The Czech and Slovak centralists polarized the issue as a support for state unity through centralism or support for the destruction of the state through autonomy. In international appeals, the centralists disparaged Slovak capabilities for selfgovernment, and presented the Slovak autonomists as a parochial fringe, ignorant of world affairs. Accordingly, this transatlantic debate heavily contributed to the failure of the Czechoslovak concept in the interwar period by helping sow the entrenched distrust that culminated in the splintering of the Czechoslovak Republic in March of 1939. The question of Slovak autonomy remained a principal component of Slovak politics during the First Czechoslovak Republic. The Slovaks split into three general categories on the Slovak question. The smallest of these groups were the Czechoslovakists, who wanted a close, non-differential linkage with the Czechs. Vavro Srobar, the first appointed Minister for Slovakia in 1918, exemplified this faction. Another group consisted of moderate nationalists who pursued cooperation with the Czechs, but wanted recognition of separate Slovak identity and political autonomy. Milan Hodza, Prime Minister of the republic in the late 1930s and leader of the Agrarian Party, best exemplified this faction. Hodza and others supported a federalist model to address national minority questions. Most of the former two groups came from Slovakia's Lutheran minority. The Slovak auton- SLOVAKIA 2019 23 omists, who were predominantly Catholics, were the most controversial. The Reverend Andrej Hlinka represented them as leader of the Slovak People 's Party. Hlinka and his supporters pushed for complete autonomy within Czechoslovakia, although the radical end of the party increasingly sought greater independence while a smaller minority even promoted a return to Hungary under a promise of autonomy. The Slovak People's Party (SPP) remained the most popular party in Slovakia and mixed cooperation with opposition to push for Slovak autonomy. The Agrarian Party followed in popular support, and it gradually pushed for more autonomy, albeit in a more deliberate fashion than the SPP. The Slovak National Party, the Slovak Communists, and the Hungarian Parties joined them in support of autonomy.7 Politically, some Slovaks took prominent positions in the central government, most notably Hodza. Prague allowed Slovak autonomists to organize and hold seats in Parliament, but it continued to censor nationali st viewpoints and it regularly pursued smear campaigns against Slovak autonomist leaders. The SPP joined the government in 1927, arranged by Hodza after promises of Slovak autonomy, but Hodza's plan proceeded in a watered-down fashion. The SPP participation lasted only two years before accusations of treason against radical politician Vojtech Tuka led to the SPP's withdrawal from the government. The SPP later exploited the Munich Agreement to force Prague's hand to achieve autonomy during the short-lived Second Republic, and then seceded from the state in March of 1939.8 7 Prague regularly promoted the idea that most of the Slovak people opposed autonomy, because the SPP only maintained 30-35% of the electorate in Slovakia. Although it is difficult to determine the true popular support of autonomy based strictly on the electoral support of each party, the support in Slovakia for Prague's version of centralism was probably we ll in the minority when one considers that the three largest parties-SPP, Agrarian, and Communists- all embraced some level of Slovak autonomy. 8 For more on this period in Slovak hi story, see: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power: Nationalism, Slovakia, and the Communists 1918- 1948 (New York: Columbia University, 1983). Susan Mikula, "The Politics of Frustration : The Slovak Politica l Experience, 191 8-1938," in Reflections on Slovak Histo ry, eds. Stanislav Kirschbaum & Anne C. Rom an (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1987), 73 -88. James Felak, "Slovak Considerations of the Slovak Question: The Ludak, Agrarian, Socialist, and Communi st views in lnterwar Czechoslovakia" in The Czech and Slovak Experience, ed . John Morison (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 136-62. Felak, At the 24 SLOVAKIA 2019 The Slovak-A mericans also consolidated their positions on the issue in a similar fas hi on. After an early divide, the leaders of the Slovak League of America gave up on Prague and embraced the autonomist position, as did the large Catholic fraternal organization the First Catholic Slovak Union, and other, smaller organizations, such as the Friends of Slovak Freedom (FSF), an organization formed in the 1920s w ith the singul ar goal of addressing the Slovak question . The large, secular and large ly Protestant, fraternal organizations, the National Slovak Society and the Slovak Evangeli cal Un ion, at first embraced the centralist Slovaks, but nationalist pressure ultimatel y led them to try to moderate between the centrali st and autonomist positions. They ultim ate ly embraced the gradualist position of Hodza. In response, the Czechoslovaki sts established the Slovak National A lliance to serve as the arm of Prague among the SlovakAmericans, along with the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol. Consisting mostl y of secularists and some Lutherans, these organizations regularly attacked the SLA for its Catholic and autonomist leanings and promoted the strict uni ty of the Czechs and Slovaks. 9 As the Slovak question became entrenched in Czechoslovak politics, each competing side pursued a voluminous international lobby ing campaign to build western support for its respective position. This included a fact ion demanding a revision of the Trianon Treaty to return Slovakia to Hungary. The primary international Slovak advocate of this position was the Reverend Francis Jehlicka and hi s organization, the Slovak Council , founded in 1933 . Jehlicka had attended the Paris Peace Conference wi th Hlinka, but decided afterwards that the Slovaks could not trust the Czechs. Jehlicka remained abroad, where he lobbied fo r a Slovak reunion with Hungary based on Hun ga ri an promises of Slovak autonomy. He attempted to build Price of th e Republic. Toma & Kovac, Slovakia, 78-1 06. Kirsc hbaum, History of Slovakia , 155-84. Ryc hlik, "Czec h-Sl ovak Relations," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, 13-2 6. R.J.W. Evans, " Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks : Some Mutual Perceptions," in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist, I 09-22 . Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia : The State that Failed (New Haven: Yale Uni vers ity Press, 2009), 48-86. Nata lia Kraj covicova, " Slovakia in Czechoslovakia," in Slovakia in History, 137-56. 9 Joseph Pauco, "Slovaks Abroad and Their Relati onship with Slovakia," in Slo vakia in the 19th & 20th Centuries, ed. Joseph M. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1973), 333-42. Josep h V. Adamec, "The Slovak Cath olic Federation," in Slovaks in America, 223-32 . Baumgarten & Stetl<a, National, 85-7. Pankuch, History, 177-86 . Stolarik, " Slovak League," 7-35 . SLOVAKIA 2019 25 support from the Slovak-Americans by appealing to Slovakia's historical and economic roots in Hungary and exposing claimed mistreatment of the Slovaks by Prague. ' 0 Jehlicka could express his voice abroad because of support from Budapest and later Nazi Germany, and he convinced a few figures in the West, most notably the British publi sher Lord Rothermere, who campaigned on behalf of Hungary internationally. Jehlicka ' s arguments nevertheless carried little weight in other circles . Scottish historian R. W. Seton-Watson, a prominent supporter of the Czechoslovak Republic , pursued a constant back and forth against Jehlicka, and, on both sides of the Atlantic, Slovaks and Czechs of different politica l views unified against Slovakia ' s return to Hungary. The Slovak autonomi sts and centralists , for example, collaborated in an open letter denouncing Jehlicka . 11 Slovak-Americans likewise continued to lobby against Hungarian claims, reminding readers about the old magyarization policy to eliminate Slovak national identity. Slovak-American publisher Jan Pankuch claimed that this was the sole occas ion when the Slovak-American autonomi sts, Czech-Americans, and Slovak10 Anthony Pessenl ehner, "Czechoslovakia' s Ri ght to Statehood Assa iled," Current History, 14, 5 (Aug. I 92 1), 845-8. Dr. F. Jehlicka: Kto on je a co chce (C leveland: 1920). Francis Jehlicka, Reply to Mr. R. W. Seton-Watson 's Book 'Slovakia Th en and Now ' (Vienn a, 1932). The Slovak Co uncil , Th e Unsolved Slovak Problem (Vienna: Slovak Council, 1933). The Slovak Co un cil , Bolsevizmus a slovenska otazka (Geneva: Slovak Council , 193 6), in : 8 : Resolutions, Memoranda, Proclamations, SI. The Slovak Council , Sh ould Great Britain go to Wa r- fo r Czechoslovakia: An Appeal to British Common Sense for th e Sake of Wo rld Peace (London: Haze l, Watson, & Viney, 1937) . Francis Jehli cka, Fa1her Hlinka 's Struggle fo r Slovak Freedom (London: Slova k Council , 1938), 34-5. "The German Minister in Czechoslovaki a (Eisenlohr) to the German Foreign Ministry (Doc 57)," Documen1s on German Foreign Policy, Seri es D, V2 (Was hington, D.C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 132-3 . 11 R.W. Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers ( London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1934). " Seton-Watson to Alois Ka lisek" (Doc I 32) in R. W. SetonWa tson and His Relations with the Czechs and Slovaks: Documents, / 906- 195 1, vol. I, eds. Jan Ryc hlik, et al (Prague: Ustav T. G. Masaryka, I 995), 393-6. "The Situati on in Slova ki a and the Magyar Minori ty" (Doc 139) in Seton-Watson, 409-25. "Seton-Watson to Martin Razus" (Doc 155 ) in Seton- Watson, 454-5 . "Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc I 60) in Seton-Watson, 465-9. C. L Orbach, "Czechoslovakia ' s Place in the Sun," Current Histo1y, 14, 6 (Sept I 92 1), 944-5. Anonymous, "Another Defense of Czechoslovaki a" Curren/ History, 14, 6 (Sept 192 1), 945-6. Adam Poliak, "Czechos lova ki a's Right to Statehood," Current History, I 5, 3 (Dec I 92 1), 499. " Slovaki a' s Pro test" (Doc 156) in Seton-Watson, 456-9. 26 SLOVAKIA 2019 American centralists came together in common cause, although the resolution almost failed when the two sides sparred over whether the text should declare the Slovaks and Czechs as one nation. The proHungarian autonomists, thus, remained on the periphery of the Sio• 12 va k question. The unified opposition against Hungarian irredentism otherwise did little to ease the conflict between the centralists and autonomists. The Czech and Slovak centralists made the Slovak question a primary component of their international propaganda, and they often perpetuated negative stereotypes of the Slovaks to promote the Czechoslovak vision. The official press in Prague released ample publications by Czech nationali st leaders in the English language on the topic. President Masaryk, for example, made clear his disappointment with the "po litical immaturity" of the Slovak autonomist movement. Masaryk, who continued to highlight his own partial Slovak heritage, likewise claimed to have proven his great love for Slovakia by having liberated it from Hungary and he asserted that Slovak nationalists could prove their own love by embracing Prague 's authority. 13 Edvard Benes, who served as Foreign Minister until succeeding Masaryk to the presidency in 1935, in tum argued that the Czechs and Slovaks remained unified, except for a "fringe minority," working for a return to the pre-war order, and the "dictates of local , provin12 "Rezolucie Vznesene Ustrednym Vyborom Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike na schodzi , vzdrziavanej IO novembra 1920," Person File (PF): Bielek, SI. Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America, Count Albert Apponyi or Revival of Magyar Propaganda in America (Scranton, Pa: Bosak Press, 1923), in: B: Resolutions, SI. American Citizens of Slovak Origin, The Refutation to the Arguments of the Hungarian Kossuth Delegation ( 1928), in: The Podkrivacky, Adam Papers, B: 17, Slovak American Collection, Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), Uni versity of Minnesota. "What the Magyars Forget," The National Slovak Society (NSS) of the US.A . Records, B: 168, F: Slovak League of America (SLA), lHRC. "The Cleveland District Assembly of the SLA to Hoover," 4 December 1929, F#: 860F.00/306, Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Czechoslovakia 1910-1944 (DoS CS 1910-44), Microfilm (Washington D.C .: National Archi ves and Records Service, 1982). Pankuch, History, 186-90. 13 Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 1914-1918, trans. Henry Wickham Steed (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1927), 2 1, 41 , 208-11 , 338, 361. Thomas G. Masaryk, Masa,yk on Thought and Life: Conversations with Karel Capek, reprint ed., trans. M. & R. Weatherall (New York: Arno Press, 1971 ). "T.G. Masaryk on the Pittsburgh Agreement" (Doc 30) in Slovakia : Political, 209- 10. SLOVAKIA 2019 27 cial, factional and individualist interests ." 14 Czech scholars, journalists and officials also contributed to this campaign, mostly through studies of the Czechs that glossed over the Slovaks except to praise 15 how the Czechs had liberated them. For example, Czech historian Albert Prazak praised the Czech ro le in uplifting the Slovaks, and condemned Hlinka and the SPP as tools of Hungary and as part of a Catholic conspiracy to take over Central Europe. Prazak then dismissed the Pittsburgh Agreement as "merely a flight of fancy ," rooted in "immaturity of political judgment and lack of understanding." 16 Czech journalist Ales Broz likewise condemned the Slovaks as " retarded in their development" versus the " well educated, practical, realistic" Czechs, and praised the direction of Slovakia under the Czechs for allowing the two peoples to become "one stock, one cul. ,, I 7 ture, one nat10n . Centralist Slovaks also contributed to this campaign, including articles by Interior Minister Juraj Slavik and Minister to France Stefan Osusky on the nationality questions in Czec hoslovakia, as well as one by Education Minister Anton Stefanek praising Prague ' s 14 Eduard Benes, My War Memoirs, trans. Paul Seiver (London : George Allen & Unwin, 1928), 348, 448, 469, 472-8 1. Edvard Benes, Christmas Message (Prague: Orb is, 193 7), 17. Edvard Benes, "Of Czechoslovak Unity" in We Were and We Shall Be: Th e Czechoslovak Spirit th rough th e Centuries , eds. Zdenk a & Jan Mun zer (New York : Un gar, 1941), 164-6. 15 Kami I Krofta & Jiri Hoetzel, A Short Histo,y of Czechoslovakia ( ew York: Robert McBride & Co, 1934), 137-8, 142, 149-52. Kami! Krofta, "Czechs and Slovaks (I)" The Slavonic and East European Review, 13, 38 (January 1935), 363-7 1. Kami I Kroft a, "Czechs and Slovaks ( II )" The Slavonic and East European Review, I 3, 39 (April 1935), 6 11-26. Josef Borovicka, Ten Years of Czechoslovak Politics (Prague: Orbis, 1929), 7-8, 13 , 20-1 , 44, 111-1 2, I I 9-20, I 24-6. Emanuel Capek, "The Background of Political Parti es in Czechoslovaki a" The Sla vonic and East European Review, I 0, 28 (June 193 1), 90- 104. Ales Broz, " Minori ty Ri ghts in th e Czechoslova k State," Foreign Affairs, 6, I (October 1927), 158-60. Ales Broz, " President Masaryk, Creator of the Czechos lovak Republic," Current Histo,y , 24, I (April I 926), 48-53. 16 Prague appointed Prazak, a Czech, to erve at Comenius Uni versity in Brati slava as its primary hi stori an of the Slova ks. The Slavonic Review labeled Prazak the "foremost li ving authority on Slovak History." Albert Prazak, " Review : The ew Slovaki a by R. W. Seton-W atso n" The Slavonic Review, 3, 9 (March 1925), 71 3-20. 17 Ales Broz, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Czech Standpoint," Curren/ Histo,y, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-8 . 28 SLOVAKIA 2019 development of Slovak education. 18 Slovak Social Democrat, and rigid Czechoslovakist, [van Derer's short book on the Pittsburgh Agreement provided the most thorough effort in English to discredit the Slovak autonomists . Derer claimed that most Slovaks embraced the state as constructed, and that only a " pro-Magyar" minority supported autonomy. He likewise dismissed the Slovak-American signers of the Pittsburgh Agreement as not " true" Slovak nationals, because they lived in America. Derer argued that the document had meant simply local administrative autonomy, which he claimed Prague had granted. He then portrayed the Czechs as the Slovaks' saviors and condemned Slovak autonomy: In return for their having helped Slovakia when things were at th eir worst, in return for their having saved our liberty and an independent state apparatus, railway and postal communications, and a Slovak system of education at the tim e when the Slovaks th emselves were weak, unprepared, often distrustful and inclined rather to continue to live under their thousand-year yoke than to live in freedom, in return for having shed their blood for our country on the battlefronts in the Great War, and in the fights against Bolshevist Hungary in I 9 I 9 and thus saving Slovakia from a new occupation by the Magyars -in return for all this are we to remove the Czechs from Slovakia ? 19 Prague also maintained support from American and Eng lish academics and journalists in perpetuating Czechoslovakism. SetonWatson remained a staunch supporter of the idea, boasting how he regularly discredited "cantankerous Slovaks who accused Masaryk and hi s friend s of 'Czec hi sation."' He publicly condemned Hlinka and the SPP and repudiated their criticisms of Prague. Seton-Watson a lso actively denied Slovak agency in Slovak national development. 18 Juraj Slavik, "The Nationality Question in Slovakia," Central European Observer, 11 , 26 (Dec 18, 1933), 463-5 . Stefan Osusky, " Wh y Czechoslovakia?" Foreign Affairs, 15 , 3 (Apri l 1937), 455-71. Anton Stefanek, " Education in Slovakia," Th e Slavonic Review, 2, 5 (Dec 1923), 308-27. 19 Ivan Derer, The Unity of th e Czechs and Slovaks: Has th e Pittsburgh Declaration Been Carried Out? (Prague: Orbis, 193 8). SLOVAKIA 2019 29 The Slovaks should therefore be thankful that fate has made them dependent upon a race so efficient, so well-educated and well-disciplined as the Czechs ... .At the critical moment, the Slovaks made the impression of a helpless animal fascinated by the approach of the boa-constrictor, and Prague was literally the sole hope.-'0 On the Slovak question, Seton-Watson blamed the " hypersensitive" Slovaks as simply being too parochial, religiously backward and ill developed, and he dismissed autonomist arguments as the "wild talk of extremists." Even in a work of collected essays designed to "show that the Slovaks themselves have had a much greater share in the reconstruction of their country than is often supposed," Seton-Watson turned predominantly to centralist Slovaks whose contributions consisted mostly of self-promotion and praise for the merits of centralism.21 The American philanthropist and writer Kenneth D. Miller was another avid promoter of Czechoslovakism. "Everything points to the wisdom of a cultural as well as political union between the two nationalities. No matter what the cultural development may be, neither nationality can well maintain its political independence without the other." He likewise felt that the Slovak question would disappear with the development of the "slow, passive Slovak," who yet lacked initiative, and who was prone to immorality and drunkenness, and to "religious vagary or fanaticism." 22 Other presentations ranged from industrialist and diplomat John Crane, who attacked the "backward ignorance" of the Slovaks for resisting secularization, to YMCA secretary Fred Rindge who criticized a claimed lack of Slovak interest 20 R.W. Seton-Watson , Th e New Slovakia (Prague: Fr. Borovy, 1924), 3, 23-4. R.W. Seton-Watson, Masaryk in England (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 61. "Seton-Watson Open Letter to Hlinka" (Doc 108), in Seton-Watson, 343-4. "SetonWatson to Alois Kolisek" (Doc 135), in Seton-Watson, 401-2. R.W. Seton-Watson, ed. Slovakia Then and Now: A Political Survey (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1931). When planning the book, Seton-Watson expressed his desire to have an article from a SPP leader, so that Slovak autonomists could not accuse him of onesidedness. He considered an article on the issue of autonomy, but decided only to allow an article on Slovak religion by Hlinka. "Seton-Watson to Milan Hodza" (Docs 144 & 145), in Seton-Watson, 431-2 . 22 Kenneth D. Mill er, The Czecho-Slovaks in America (New York: Doran Company, 1922), 14-25, 121-122, 158-160. 21 30 SLOVAK.IA 2019 in the arts. Journalist C.J.C. Street claimed, "The Slovak dream was always to regain their lost unity with the Czechs and as a united nation to secure the tolerable conditions of existence. " 23 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia pursued a few efforts during the interwar period to counter this campaign, although they lacked equivalent resources and connections to those held by Prague. The SPP' s most notable attempt was the Zilina Memorandum of 1922. Released to the western press and governments, the document sought to expose the Slovak question to the world, beginning with its sensationalist title, "a country doomed to death, a nation in her last agonies implores the civilized world for help." It decried the failures of Wilsonianism, which had allowed Prague to "bamboozle" the Slovaks "out of the freedom promised to them ." The text went on to explain their issues with the Czechs, discussing concerns from the treatment of religion, to economic exploitation, and the denial of autonomy. The memorandum also condemned Czechoslovakism as simply a tool for domination. The Czechs and Slovaks have been always forming two separate little worlds with a very different character due to their different geographical and economic conditions, their different way of thinking, of feeling and of mind. We have a different view of life, other morals and other traditions; we have a different social structure, different legal rules and different ideas about political economy and culture. The document ultimately claimed the world could still save the Slovaks if it acted quickly. The key of the iron cage in which the Slo vak Nation is being mercilessly incarcerated lays in the hands of the Great Powers. This memorial is our last expedient and our last weap23 John 0. Crane, "Church and State in Czechoslovakia" The Slavonic Review, 6, 17 (Dec. 1927), 364-78. Fred H. Rindge, Jr. "The Charm of Czechoslovakia" Current History, 22, 3 (June 1925), 447-50. C. J. C. Street, Slovakia Past and Present (Westm inster, UK: P.S. King & Son, 1928). For more examples, see: Robert Machray, "Czechoslova ki a a Pioneer in Central European Politics" Current Hislo ry, 25, 6 (Mar. 1927), 839-43 . J. H. Wallis, "The Upbuilding of Czechoslovakia," Curren/ Histo1y, 14, 5 (Aug. 192 1), 835-45 . SLOVAK.IA 2019 31 on ... Though only clad in the rags of our torn freedom we nevertheless appear as accusers before the world, charging the rulers of Prague who are still deluding the powers, and the powers themselves for having out of sheer ignorance become their accomplices. To ignore the Slovak case, thus, would be to support the trampling of liberty. 24 After the Zilina Memorandum bore no fruit, the Slovak autonomists pursued fewer efforts to court the west. They made a few sporadic attempts, such as a translation of the SPP •program in 1930, written by Jozef Tiso, which outlined the SPPs vision of a Slovak national Christian democracy, and appealed for autonomy as a protection of the Slovak cultural tradition. It argued that the Slovak nation's religious roots encouraged it toward a peaceful selfpreservation, unlike other nations that turned toward national chauvinism. 25 Slovak priest and publicist Anton Kompanek also produced an article that emphasized Slovak Christianity as a symbol of Slovak worthiness for self-government. Kompanek believed Slovakia served as an example of how the Church and state could find balance in the modem world. 26 These publications, however, remained exceptions, as the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia maintained little faith in western governments, recognizing Prague's stranglehold over their image internationally. They instead relied on the Slovak-Americans to lead the way in their defense internationally. Slovak nationalist politician Karol Sidor claimed that despite a continued interest in the homeland, the Slovak-Americans began to lose their "onetime vitality and ardor" during the interwar period. He linked this outcome to greater assimilation and a decreasing knowledge of the Slovak language.27 This claim is somewhat true. The energy of the war years certainly diminished, particularly in the 24 "Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 02) & "Covering Letter for the Zilina Memorandum" (Doc I 03), in Seton-Watson, pp. 319-33 . 25 Jozef Tiso, The Ideology of th e Slovak Populist Party (Prague: 1930). 26 Anton Kompanek, "The Catholic Church in Slovakia" Th e Sla vonic and East European Review, 12, 36 (April 1934), 611-21. 27 Sidor, "Slovak League," 59-62. 32 SLOVAKIA 2019 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression.28 Sidor, however, understated how much the Slovak-Americans remained at the forefront of the international efforts to gain recognition of the Slovak question. Historian Jozef Pauco 's interpretation is much more accurate: "For twenty years the Slovak League of America defended the spirit and letter of the Pittsburgh Pact and by using the freedom of the press and the freedom of assembly on American soil, they did so more freely and energetically than the two political parties in their homeland." 29 Based on the volume of publications and direct communications with government officials on both side of the Atlantic, it is clear that the Slovak question continued to dominate the transatlantic interests of the Slovak Americans, as they bolstered their compatriots' activities within Czechoslovakia by applying external pressure on Prague. The Slovak fraternal organizations made constant efforts to keep their members linked to their Slovak cultural identity, and to aid in the fight for autonomy in the homeland. They pursued these efforts through education programs such as national lectures, art and photography tours, but also symbolic actions such as erecting a statue of General Milan R. Stefanik in Cleveland in 1924 and the planting of a Linden Tree on Capitol Hill in honor of Stefanik in 1934. 30 The Slovak question remained high on the list of Slovak-American concerns, and the various Slovak organizations produced a flurry of pamphlets and informative documents on the issue. The Pittsburgh Agreement remained at the center of this debate, with Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic continuing to affirm its legality against the centralist dismissals that it was simply a non-binding text designed to placate the Slovak-Americans during the war. Autonomist publica28 June Alexander, for example, shows how assimilation became an internal issue for Slovak-Americans, as the older generations struggled to assure that their American born children maintained links to their ethnic heritage. June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Jn terwar Era (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004), 93-19 I. 29 Pauco, "S lovaks Abroad," 333-42. 30 "Ot. Svec to Podkrivacky," 3 Oct. 1938," PF: Adam Podkrivacky, SI. "S LA to Jakub Vitostak, 30 Nov 1923 ," The First Catholic Slovak Union of America (FCSU) Records, F: 1303, IHRC. "Jan Kocur to Michael Senko, 30 Nov 1926," FCSU, F: 1304, IHRC. 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastisla v Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924), 82-3 . "SLA to Arthur Colegrove," NSS, 8 : 168, F: SLA, IHRC. SLOVAKIA 2019 33 tions looked to inform about the Slovaks, to expose the failed promises of Prague on autonomy, and to defend against the accusations of Prague centralists. The Slovak League remained at the forefront, hoping that exposure of the situation to the American press and pub1ic would spur sympathy and support? In many cases, the Slovak-Americans directed these publications at Prague, with the hope of convincing a change in policy . They, nevertheless, would consecutively produce English versions, which they then sent to the American President, members of Congress, the Department of State, and assorted press outlets. For example, in 1921 the SLA wrote to Masaryk calling for the immediate implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement. When Prague did not respond, the League followed up with a more detailed Memorandum on November 9, 1922. This document called on Prague to make good on the Pittsburgh Agreement in the name of natural rights and to reward the sacrifices made by Slovak-Americans during World War I. It highlighted Masaryk's role in the formation of the Agreement, and then provided a photograph of the original text as well as a series of letters between the SLA and various Czechoslovak officials that had promised its implementation to show how promises made to the Slovak-Americans never lived up to reality. The text then defended the legitimacy of Slovak autonomy. We are convinced that the honest and upright materialization of the Pittsburgh Pact in no way will harm the unity of the State; on the contrary it will mean a considerable reinforcement within and without and make possible united co-operation of all patriotic forces against the elements of disintegration, depriving them of a dangerous weapon, which they cannot effectively employ against the Republic, fanning discontent, mistrust and spreading hatred between both nations comprising the state. The League made clear, however, that this good will rested "solely upon a sincere Czecho-Slovak reciprocity." It then gave an alternative: 31 "Telegram to Ivan Bielek on 29 Nov 1934," NSS, B: 168, F: SLA , IHRC. 34 SLOVAKIA 2019 We feel it is our duty to emphasize that if our sincere and friendly attempt, which has at its heart the welfare, interest and future of the Republic, should fail to meet with success, the Slovak l eague of America would not be able to prevent the American Slovaks and their factors from turning to the Court of Public Opinion of the civilized world. While the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia acknowledged the letter, Prague neglected to respond. 32 The SLA then passed a follow-up resolution. Asserting that it "fights with fire and sword with everyone who is in favor of autonomy of the Slovak nation," it admonished Prague for manipulating the world into believing the Czechoslovakist image and for leading a smear campaign against the SLA. It then provided a list of examples of hostility, including efforts to undermine its finances , blackmail, the bullying of Slovak-American leaders and press, and attempts to send government officials to propagandize against them . It once again emphasized how the League had made every effort to resolve the Slovak question within the confines of the Czechoslovak Republic , but it would soon submit the issue "to the judgment of public opinion of the civilized world," if Prague continued to treat them with disdain.33 Many more publications followed. The Friends of Slovak Freedom , for example, released two protests in 1923. These texts defended the va lidi ty of the Slovak-Americans as representatives of the Slovak people, and condemned Prague's actions against Slovak autonomists, including such accusations as "false signatures or resolutions, false numbers of people attending their lectures, insulting the Slovak journalists, insulting the Slovak League as anti-state, and many other lies," as well as criticisms about press censorship in Slo- 32 SLA , Memorandum S/ovenskej Ligy v Amerike upra vene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Slo venskej Republiky v zaujme vtelenia Pittsburgskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, 1922). Both the full Slovak and English versions of this Document are avai lab le at: SLA Cab, F: Memorandum /922 v Zaum e Pitts. Dohody, SI. Also avai lable in: " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Arnerike" in Dokumenty, Vol 2, 138-44. 33 " An Appeal of the Slovak League of America to All Political Factors of th e Czecho-S lovak Republic," PF: Bielek, SI. SLOVAKIA 2019 35 vakia. 34 After reading Masaryk's criticism of Hlinka, the Slovak League then produced a pamphlet that challenged the idea that Masaryk personally had liberated the Slovaks. It reminded readers of the Slovak-American war contribution, and then remarked how the SLA and the Pittsburgh Agreement were certainly valid in Masaryk's eyes when he needed Slovak-American support in 1918. The document then included a text from former Czechoslovak ambassador to Japan, Karel Pergler, arguing that both the Slovaks and Czechs had unequivocally recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement upon its signing. 35 Next to these direct appeals, the Slovak-American autonomists also released many publications geared directly toward an American audience. They designed these works to inform about the Slovaks, expose their continued fight for self-determination and to link the Slovak question to American democratic values. These publications included several biographies of Milan R. Stefanik, a translated history by Slovak historian Joseph Skultety that directly challenged images of Slovak backwardness and other stereotypes, and a short pamphlet on Czechoslovakism by Slovak-American historian Ol'ga Husek warning that the concept meant for the Slovaks "the rejection of their cultural past and the stunting of their future growth." 36 They also attempted to rally America to their cause by showing their valiance in the face of domination. An SLA article distributed to the American Press praised how the Slovak-Americans continued to fight even with "the entire machinery of government set against them, calumnies upon calumnies by a government subsidized press, heaped upon the heads of those who take up their cause, and bug- 34 Friends of Slovak Freedom, " Resolution, November 28, 1923," & " Protest against Censorship and Confiscation of Slovak Publications by the Government in Slovakia" in Pankuch , Slo vaks of Cleveland, l 82-6. 35 Slovenska Liga v Amerike, V Zaujme Pra vdy! (In the Interest of Truth !) (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska, 1930). Found in : SLA Cabinet, F: SLA Presidents, SI. Prague responded to these letters, but it simply reasserted the usual rebutta ls, claiming that 75% of the Slovaks supported centralization and that the Pittsburgh Agreement was simply an American document. "Ohlas Americkeho Memoranda u Nas," 8 : Slovak League of America (SLA) , SI. 36 0. D. Koreff, Milan Rastislav Stefanik: A Short Biography (Cleveland: Slovak League of America, 1924). Andrew Slabey, General Milan R. Stefanik (Leisenring, PA: Griglak Printery, 1937). Joseph Skultety, Sketches from Slovak History, O.D. Koreff, trans . (Middletown, PA : First Catholic Slovak Union, I 930) . Ol'ga Husek, The Czechoslovak Fallacy (Middletown, PA : Jednota, 1935). 36 SLOVAK.IA 2019 bears turned loose to scare those who are not acquainted with conditions. " 37 Religion became a major component of Slovak-American advocacy on the Slovak question in the interwar period. Slovak-American journalist Stephen J. Palickar published many articles in general Catholic publications, including a five-month tit-for-tat with Czech diplomat Josef Hane in defense of Slovak religiosity. He also provided some of the first Slovak-American attempts to link Slovak religiosity to anti-Communism. Palickar likewise defended Slovak agency, and appealed for a lifting of Prague centralism to allow the Slovaks an opportunity to prove their abi lity for self-government. 38 While most of these publications were shorter, more direct works, the Slovak-Americans released a couple of longer exposes on the Slovak question. The first, written by then SLA president Peter P. Hletko on behalf of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, looked to inform the American people about the Pittsburgh Agreement as an American product in line with "the principles of democracy and self-determination of small nations." Hletko praised how the Slovak "has an inherent love for liberty and freedom , and enjoys fostering his national spirit," which had spurred his immigration to America in a "quest for a land of true liberty," and he argued that American democracy had allowed the Slovaks in America to assert their national identity as an independent people. He asserted how the Slovaks had only joined the Czechoslovak movement on the premise that they would be treated fairly and as equals and highlighted a reg37 "The conflict between Czechs and Slovaks," NSS Records, B: 168, F: SLA, IHRC. For many examples, see: "The Slovaks- Past and Present," in Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism to Atheistic Czech Communism (Cambridge, MA : Hampshire Press, 1948), 40-3 . Stephen J. Palickar, "Czech and Slovak at Odds: Both Sides of the Controversy - From the Slovak Standpoint," Current History, 22 , 5 (Aug 1925), 784-6. "A Dark Spot in Czecho-Slovakia," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 43-45 . "Who is Masaryk?," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 49-51 . "S lovakia-whither bound," in Palickar, Slovakia : From Hungarian Despotism, 76-83. "Slovak Catholicism vs. Czech Communism," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 84-86. "Slovak Grievance," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 70-72 . "President Masaryk and his State," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 61-62. "Scotus Viator Surveys Slovakia," in Palickar, Slo vakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 72-75. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakia of Today (A Lecture), December 12, 1933 , Columbi a University (New York: Slovak Library Association, 1933). 38 SLOVAKIA 2019 37 ular sense of duplicity and condescension the Slovaks felt from the Czechs. Hlekto praised the Pittsburgh Agreement as having resolved these conflicts, before Masaryk ultimately betrayed his promise, and he gave a detailed defense of its validity and of the right of the Slovak-Americans to speak for their nation during the war. 39 The Slovak-American autonomists shortly thereafter produced an even longer book on the topic . Written by Peter P. Hletko under the pseudonym , "An Autonomist," it served as the most exhaustive consideration of the Slovak question in Eng lish in the early 20 th century. Hletko placed blame on Czech intransigence for fueling the issue unnecessarily. The book argued that the Czechos lovak revolution relied on American money and manpower and "should the President (Masaryk) have failed to dispel the fear and dissatisfaction of the Slovaks through the Moscow and Pittsburgh Agreements, there certainly would not be a Czecho-Slovakia today. " The book then deconstructed Prague 's policies toward the Slovaks, to show Czechoslovakism as a means of hegemony. Hletko considered every issue from the Czech obfuscation on autonomy, the complicity of the Slovak centrali sts, the language issue, schools, and the economy, and he explained the claims of Slovak neediness and incompetence, as we ll as the claimed threat of Hungary, as only a fa<;:ade to justify Czech dominance. He likewise gave examples of Slovak intellectuals to dispute the claim that the Slovaks needed the Czechs to serve that role. He then detailed the domination of Slovakia's administration, civi l service, education system, and cultura l institutions by Slovak centralists and Czechs, and the press censorship and smear campaigns. Ultimately, he concluded that Czechoslovakism was undermining the state and mu st be reversed. Hletko concluded: Th e motive that has promoted us to write this work is not one of revenge, nor a desire to arouse bad feeling, but simply to expose falsehood and reveal truth. It is our sincere hope that, the truth being known, it will enable the Czechs and Slovaks to form a more stable union which will promote justice, trust, and good 39 Slovak Catholi c Federation of America, The Slovaks and the Pittsburgh Pact (S lovak Cath olic Federation of America, 1934). Joseph C. Krajsa, " Dr. Peter Hletko, Most Elite of American Slovaks," Slovakia, 22, 45 ( 1972), 57-9. 38 SLOVAKIA 2019 will, and thereby insure national integrity both at home and abroad. 40 A few non-Slovak publications did favor Slovak autonomy . For example, some historians of the First World War, such as Jan Opocensky and C. A. Macartney, attempted to present a balanced consideration of the Slovak question, giving voice to Slovak autonomist concerns.4 1 There were also several publications that utilized the Slovak question to criticize the broader Versailles system . Writer and journalist E. Alexander Powell , for example, highlighted the differences between the Czechs and Slovaks as an example of the precariousness of the region ' s political stability. Although not particularly admiring of the Slovaks, Powell was highly critical of the Czech treatment of them. He commented, "The Czechs, an energetic, ambitious, progressive, and aggressive people, who outnumber the Slovaks three to one, look with condescension, if not contempt, on their less literate, slower thinking, more easy-going partners, whom, if the truth be known , they regard as immensely inferior to themselves." These scholars all argued that the Czechs needed to treat their minorities with more respect and make good on promises for Slovak autonomy for the sake of the survival of the state. 42 A few works were even somewhat favorable to the Slovaks. One such example came from writer Kenneth L. Roberts , who after visiting Czechoslovakia complained, "The Czechs want to socialize everything in sight, and the Slovaks are not poignantly eager to be social- 40 An Autonomist, Slovakia 's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, Pa: Slovak Literary Society, 1935). 41 Jan Opocensky, The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Mon archy and the Rise of the Czechoslovak Stale (Prague: Orbis, 1928), 153-68, I 93-214. C. A. MaCartney, National States and National Min orities (London : Oxford Uni versity Press, 1934), 117, 201 ,208. 42 E. Alexander Powell , The Danger on th e Danube (New York: Century Company, 1928), 56-8, 62-8, 72-4. M. W. Fodor, South of Hiller (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1939). For oth er examples, see : C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences, 1919-193 7 (London : Oxford University Press, 1937/ 1965), 73-148. Frank H. Simonds, Can Europe Keep th e Peace? (New York : Harper, I 93 I), 92-10 I. Isaiah Bowman, The New World: Problems in Political Geography, 4th ed. (Yonkers, NY : World Book, 1928). Harold Temperley, " How the Hungari an Frontiers were Drawn," Foreign Affairs, 6, 3 (April 1928), 432-47 . SLOVAKIA 2019 39 ized." Comparing the Czechs in Slovakia to U.S. Civil War carpetbaggers, he criticized the Czech administration of Slovakia, their denial of autonomy, and called out Czechoslovakism as a lie. He alternatively praised the Slovaks as "among the most attractive and lovable peasant people of the many I have seen." An article by journalist Robert Sage, after a visit to Slovakia, likewise chided the Czechs for using claims of generosi ty as a mirage for domination over Slovakia. 43 The SLA ultimately made good on its threat to take the issue to the world stage, presenting the Slovak question to the League of Nations in 1932. It produced a long legal brief, which appealed for a cessation of wrongdoing against the Slovaks and the granting of political and cultural autonomy. It then begged the League of Nations to recognize the Slovaks as an independent nation, to demand the implementation of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to investigate ill treatment, and to grant recognition of the Slovaks as a true minority in Czechoslovakia. It pointed out how the Slovak-Americans had made multiple attempts to reach out to Prague to explain their concerns and offer an olive branch towards a solution, but that Prague had ignored their appeals and through censorship had silenced their brothers in Slovakia. The document then went on to detail the history of the founding of the state and the Pittsburgh Agreement, their complaints of ill-treatment against the Slovaks, and their view as to why the 44 Slovaks were an independent people. This appeal was unsuccessful. Slovak-Americans also regularly wrote to U.S. government officials. One such example was an "Open Letter" to Masaryk in 1923 that the Slovak Catholic Federation in America also sent to President Coolidge, members of Congress, all the embassies in Prague, and to the American press. The document started with an image of Masaryk approaching the Slovak-Americans as equals during the war, to 43 Kenneth L. Roberts, Europe's Morning After (New York: Harper Brothers, 1921 ), 121-73. Kenneth L. Roberts, Why Europe l eaves Home (New York: Bobbs-Merrill , 1922), 28-31 . Robert Sage, "There's no such Nationality as Czecho-Slovak," Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan 2, 1930, 6. For other examples, see: Felix John Vondracek, The Foreign Policy of Czechoslovakia / 918-1935 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), 377-9. Alexander Szana, Die Geschichte der Slowakei (Bratislava: Grenzenbote Verlag, 1930). Robert Nowak, Der Kiinstliche Staal: Ostprobleme der Tschecho-Slowakei (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1938). 44 "To the Supreme Council of the League of Nations at Geneva," SlA Cabinet, F: Supreme Council of the l eague of Na tions at Geneva, 1932, SI. 40 SLOVAKIA 2019 which they responded with loyalty and support. Masaryk then betrayed them, treating the Slovaks "in step-mother fashion, nay, even like slaves," having lured them into "an invisible net of imperialistic aspirations, renounced openly that which is to every nation and to us 'ignorant' Slovaks inviolable, priceless, sacred." It bemoaned that the Slovaks again felt endangered in their national existence, and how the Czechs misled the world on the issue. It appealed for Masaryk "to acknowledge and fulfill that which you had promised us, the American Slovaks," for the sake of Czech-Slovak unity and the secu45 rity of the state. This letter elicited a response from the Slovak-American centralists. The National Slovak Society, the Slovak Sokol, and assorted editors produced a counter response to Masaryk, which they then sent to Coolidge and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. This document asserted open support for the idea that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation. It criticized the SCF letter for having "a spirit of narrow sectarianism," in contrast to "the great majority of the American Slovaks," who supported Masaryk "heart and soul." The document praised Masaryk and the Czechoslovak state for bringing cultural and economic development to Slovakia and it mentioned the centralist Slovaks in the government as a sign of Czech inclusiveness. The text also apologized for the Czech administration of Slovakia, bemoaning that Slovakia lacked enough competent officials. It then claimed that Prague had carried out the Pittsburgh Agreement in full , adding that "during the war neither the Czechs nor the Slovaks demanded self-determination for each separately; they demanded self-determination for the Czechoslovaks." 46 To the frustration of the Slovak autonomists, this campaign barely registered among U.S. officials in Washington. American officials at the U.S. Embassy in Prague paid slightly more attention, although most addressed it only passively and most often from the Czechoslo45 Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czecho-S/ovak Republic (Slovak Catholic Federation of America : 1923). Found in : "Einstein to SoS, No. 611 ," 20 February 1924, F#: 860F.0l / 162, DoS CS 1910-44. The New York Times reported on the letter: " Slovak Protest to All Nations," New York Times, Mar. 12, 1924, 34. 46 National Slovak Society, et al. , An Open Letter to Thomas G. Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia ( I 924), in "Joseph Jan eek to Coolidge," 3 May 1924, F# : 860F.0l / 164, Dos cs 1910-44 SLOVAKIA 2019 41 vakist perspective. The American Ambassador during the 1920s, Lewis Einstein, for example, reported on the SCF letter, misrepresenting it as "a violent indictment of Czech policy in Slovakia," and praised Prague for "accomplishing there a work of civilization. By introducing education and schools in a population where a high degree of illiteracy existed, by bringing in public hygiene, orderly justice and a better fiscal system, they are laying the foundations for the future. " Accordingly, in his view the Slovaks only needed proper education to unify with the Czechs . Ultimately, "Only one thing can be excluded, which is Slovakian autonomy." 47 In another attempt at outreach, Adam Podkrivacky as President of the FCSU wrote to John Hickerson, acting Chief of Western European Affairs at the U.S . State Department. Podkrivacky complained about the U.S. Consul General in Prague sending out correspondence to Slovakia in the Czech language instead of Slovak. He also requested that the State Department use the hyphen when writing 'Czecho-Slovakia. ' Podkrivacky then supplied Hickerson a copy of an autonomist political pamphlet, to "acquaint better with the political situation just as it exists between the Slovaks and the Czechs in Czecho-Slovakia." Hickerson forwarded the letter to the embassy in Prague and asked for a report on the Slovak question. Charge d' affaires J. Web Benton responded, declaring the letter unacceptable due to the threat posed by Czechoslovakia's neighbors. He also made the usual ethnographic arguments, adding how "Czech culture has contributed measurably to the advancement of Slovakia," and predicted the issue would dissipate. Benton dismissed the pamphlet as simply "anti-government propaganda ... the request for autonomy, in the sense of a separate parliament as mentioned in the Pittsburgh Pact, is something that no truly patriotic and far-seeing Slovak could at present afford to advocate." He added, "I assume that the Department will pay no further attention to his communications, but it seems not inopportune to observe that Czech is the official language of this country."48 While a few U.S. diplomats from the period, notably Lewis Einstein, came to develop a more nuanced view on the topic, this ended each time new embassy staff took over. 47 "Einstein to SoS , No . 611 ," DoS CS 1910-44. "Adam Podkrivac ky to John Hickerson," 29 March 1937, F#: 860F.0l / 18 1, DoS CS 1910-44. " Movement for Slovak Autonomy," 30 April 1937, F#: 860F .01 /184, DoS CS 1910-44. 48 42 SLOVAKIA 2019 The dismissal of Slovak-American pleas stood in contrast to a disproportionate concern among American officials about the proHungarian Slovaks living abroad. The Rothermere campaign spurred some interest, and while some Americans expressed some sympathy to it, including chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Borah and publisher William Randolph Hearst, the U.S. Embassy in Prague wrote profusely about how the Slovaks remained opposed to a return to Hungary. When the exiled nationalist communist Slovak Vince Mihalus created an exile Slovak government in 1928, the State Department gave him disproportionate consideration, even though he held little popular support in Slovakia. Jehlicka reached out to Washington, calling for support against "Czech tyranny" and requesting support for recognition of the Slovaks as a minority in the League of Nations. The Czechoslovak embassy directed the State Department in its response, simply informing U.S. officials that Jehlicka only organized a "small number of Slovak renegades, mostly of Hungarian origin." 49 This flurry of publishing was very much a product of the widespread transatlantic interaction between Slovakia and the United States, as Slovak leaders on both sides of the Atlantic travelled between Europe and North America as they attempted to coordinate common political action. In the early 1920s, Prague still had hopes of guiding the Slovak-Americans to the centralist cause, despite the sentiment building against it. One major effort was the creation of a Slovak League in Slovakia by centralist Slovaks, designed to serve 49 Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban exchanged several letters with Hearst on the issue, facilitated by the State Department, eventually convincing Hearst to no longer give a voice to Rothermere and his supporters. "Einstein to SoS, No. 1355," 30 July 1927, F#: 860F.4016/4, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Butler Wright to SoS, No. 62," 15 Oct 1927, F#: 860F.4016/9, DoS CS 1910-44. "Vladimir Hurban to William Randolph Hearst," 27 May 1937, & " Hurban to Cordell Hull," 4 June 1937, F#: 860F.00/437 & 438 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Council of State of Slovakia to SoS," 6 Nov 1928, F#: 860F.01 / 171 & 172, DoS CS 1910-44. "Nelson Torsler Johnson to Einstein," 28 Jan 1929, F#: 860F.01 / 171 , DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1747," 28 Feb 1929, F#: 860F.0l/173, DoS CS 1910-44. "Gittings to SoS, No. 1756," 9 Mar 1929, F#: 860F.0l / 174, DoS CS 1910-44. "Washburn to SoS, No. 2153." "Einstein to SoS, No. 516," 20 Sep 1923, F#: 860F.00/2 14, DoS CS 1910-44. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 30 July 1933, F#: 860F.00/345, DoS CS 1910-44. "Prentiss B. Gilbert to SoS, No. 650," 8 Aug 1933 , F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 191044. "SoS to Geneva and Prague," 29 Aug 1933, F#: 860F.00/346, DoS CS 1910-44. SLOVAKIA 2019 43 as a counterpart to the SLA and to build common action across the Atlantic. This effort failed, however, after the Slovak League of America refused to cooperate with it. 50 With autonomist sentiment among the American Slovaks sharpening, Prague sent Slovak centralist leader Vavro Srobar to the United States in 1923. While Srobar attempted to unify the Slovak-Americans behind centralism, his visit had the opposite effect of galvanizing the Slovak-American autonomists. Srobar received support from sympathetic groups such as the Slovak Sokol, but the SLA and other autonomist organizations boycotted his speeches. Prague sent other figures to agitate for centralism, including the priest Jozef Rudinsky and agrarian politician Fedor Ruppeldt. Seton-Watson also reached out to the SlovakAmericans in several letters and later in a visit in 1935 , during which he appealed to the Slovak-Americans to encourage the Slovaks in . · 51 SI ova k ia against autonomy. The efforts by centralists did not change the status quo, as the Slovak-American autonomists remained firm in their opinions and openly repudiated centralist arguments. Pankuch, for example, felt that the only result of Srobar's visit was to destroy Czech-Slovak 52 unity and the internal unity of the Slovak-Americans. Ruppelt in tum complained how even among the Slovak Lutherans he constantly had to fight against autonomist sentiment. 53 With the dividing lines firmly set, the Slovak-American centralists and autonomists quit mutual involvement in each other's organizations and the centralists began a continuous propaganda campaign against the SLA backed by Prague. For example, after Slovak-American autonomists 50 Ignac Gessay, Kratke Dejiny S/ovenskej Ligy Na S/ovensku: od Zalozenia po 1. 0kt. 1926 (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga na Slovensku, 1926). "Nova ohlavka- stary kon. Pozor na Slovensku ligu!" 27 Oct 1924, Bratislava (No 68), in Jozef Tiso, Prejavy a Clanky (1913-193 8), eds. Miroslav Fabricius & Ladislav Susko (Bratislava: Historicky 'ustav SA V, 2002),), 196-7. 51 "An Appeal ," PF: Bie/ek, SI. Pankuch, Histo ry, 177-86. "Seton-Watson to Vojtech Mastny" (Doc 124), in Seton -Watson, 375-6. "Odkaz Scotus Viatora Americkym Slovakom" (Doc 125), in Seton-Watson, 377-80. "Seton-Watson to Stefan Osusky "' (Doc 128) & "Osusky to Seton-Watson" (Doc 129), in Seton-Watson, 3857. Mikus, "Slovak League," 46-7. Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 1864-1926 (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarne Sv. Andreja, 1934), 503-5 . Palickar, "Czech and Slovak." Tomas Capek, Nase Amerika (Prague: Nakladem Narodni Rady Ceskoslovenske, 1926), 113. 52 Pankuch, History, 180. 53 " Fedor Ruppeldt to Seton-Watson" (Doc 149), in Seton-Watson, 441-2 . 44 SLOVAKIA 2019 confronted him, Srobar reportedly lashed out at them as "knownothing drunkards" and traitors against the Republic. 54 While the Slovaks in America had been legitimate Slovaks when Masaryk needed them during the war, once they became a threat, the centralists began to categorize them as United States citizens, whose influence should not extend beyond America. 55 When the Czechoslovak Government offered a special commendation to the SLA on Czechoslovakia's l 0th anniversary in 1928, for its role in the creation of the state, the Slovak League of America rejected it. 56 The Slovak autonomists in Slovakia perceived things quite differently. Many Slovak nationalist leaders believed that the nation as an ethnic and cultural foundation transcended the state, and offered regular praise of the Slovak-Americans as fighters for Slovak liberty and autonomy. Figures such as Hlinka and Lutheran autonomist leader Emil Stodola openly praised the Slovak-Americans and their role in the fight for autonomy, and argued that their past actions allowed the American Slovaks an equal right to speak about the fate of the Slovak homeland. 57 SPP leader Jozef Tiso extolled, "In this (Pittsburgh) agreement we see the heritage of our own American brothers, for which we will fight with the honor and the tenacity of the Slovak spirit, which is not intimidated by prison, the malice of the world, nor the cynicism of centralist agents." Tiso praised the "real Slovak patriots," working in the "free air of America," and he even posited that the Slovak-Americans had a better claim to speak for the Slovaks than the Slovak centralists did, because the SlovakAmericans had made the revolution successful with their blood, treasure and propaganda.58 Slovak scholars also published multiple 54 "A. S. Ambrose to Seton-Watson" (Doc 126) in Seton-Watson, 381-2. "Aby uz raz bolo jasno a aby prestaly r6zne narknutia proti Slov. Lige," PF: Bielek, SI. 55 Masaryk, for example, used such logic to dismiss the Pittsburgh Agreement, which he called a "local understanding between American Czechs and Slovaks," whose "signatories were mainly American citizens, only two of them being nonAmericans." Masaryk, Making, 208-11. 56 Stolarik, Where is my Hom e?, 98 . 57 "Hlinka on Scotus Viator" (Doc 109), in Seton-Watson, 345-53. Emil Stodola, Pre/om: Spomienky, Uvahy, Studie (Praha: L. Mazac, 1933), 193-4. 58 "Novy vykrik bratov z Ameriky," 24 Feb 1924, Bratislava (No 43), in Tiso, Prejavy, 157-9. " Pittsburghska dohoda - neplatna?!" 29 May 1924, Bratislava (no 57), in Tiso, Prejavy, 179-80. "Parliamentary Speech," 25 Nov 1931, Prague (No I 64), in Ti so, Preja vy, 347. "Speech to Public Assembly of the Slovak People 's SLOVAKIA 2019 45 studies of the Slovak-Americans and their role m Slovak national development. 59 Slovak autonomists openly expressed these sentiments through regular trips to the United States. These attempts at direct engagement were nonetheless slow to start. Prague regularly prevented such trips, including the denial of a passport to Bishop Jan Vojtassak out of concern that he would agitate for autonomy and collect money for the SPP while in the United States. The barrier broke in 1926 when Hlinka accepted an invitation to visit America from editor Jozef Husek and the Friends of Slovak Freedom, sponsored by the SLA, the FCSU, and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (FCSLU). Hlinka desired to visit the United States to thank the Slovak-Americans in person for their support for Slovak self-determination, to explain firsthand the political situation in Slovakia, and to encourage them to keep fighting. After stalling on the process, Prague ultimately relented to avoid the resulting outrage had they refused. They issued Hlinka a passport to attend the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Hlinka's visit lasted from June 5 to October 13. Although Hlinka expressed some trepidation that Slovak-American centralists would treat him with hostility, Slovak-American autonomist leaders Josef Husek and Anton Kompanek convinced him the experience would prove the opposite. This claim proved true, as Hlinka received hundreds of invitations to speak to overflowing crowds on each occasion. Demand was so high that, then SLA president Ivan Bielek had to write an article emphasizing Hlinka's time limitations to try to tame expectations. During his visit, Hlinka travelled around the U.S. East and Midwest, visiting local Slovak communities. He regularly attended and celebrated Mass and held meetings with SlovakAmerican organizations, including the SLA from whom he received an honorary membership . Hlinka visited assorted Slovak-American institutions, surveying Slovak-American newsrooms, printeries, Party," 18 August 1937 & 25 August 1937, Bratislava (No 251 & 252), in Tiso, Prejavy, 523-4. "Nase narodnopo liticke palladium," 5 June 1938 (No 260), in Tiso, Prejavy, 543-4. Kon stantin Culen, Po Sviitop/ukovi druha nasa h/ava: Zivot Dr. Jozefa Tisu (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1947), 182-3. 59 Jozef Rudinsky, V Amerike a doma (Ruzomberok: Rudinsky, 1921 ). Karol Sidor, S/ovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Bratislava: Jednota, 1928). Matica Slovenska, S/ovenskej verejenosti v Amerike (Mati ca slovenska , 1937). Konstantin Culen, Pittsburghska dohoda (Bratislava: Knihtlaciarei'l Andreja, 193 7) . 46 SLOVAK.IA 2019 schools, and churches. Overall, Hlinka held rallies at 80 locations, gave 200 speeches, and visited more than 100 Slovak parishes. Hlinka's visit spurred a level of excitement and activity among the Slovak-Americans that would never recur. 60 Hlinka kept his goal of directly exposing the Slovak question during his visit. He regularly spoke on the issue, and carried a copy of a censored Slovak nationalist newspaper as evidence. During his visit, Hlinka could not help but contrast the image of America with his experience in Czechoslovakia. In one such speech, he made clear that the Slovaks .. . would prefer not to quarrel with the Bohemians, but when they preach democracy and at the same time practice deceptions and aggression, we have no choice but to oppose them ... America is a superior nation and a master democratic republic. It has a splendid constitution which not only guarantees the rights and liberties to the people, but sees that they get them as well. Hlinka likewise extolled the "firm individuality" that the SlovakAmericans had gained, and he highlighted the sense of natural connection between Slovaks and Americans. "A good Slovak who comes to America makes a good American, and all good SlovakAmericans, including the new generations born in America from Slovak extraction will appreciate what they have inherited from their Slovak ancestry. Neither will they forget Slovakia." In his farewell speech, Hlinka expressed how the Slovak-Americans had filled him with national pride. He affirmed, "I saw the large affl uence of Slovaks, these Slovaks who under the Tatras suffered from hardship and physical and spiritual want," and prai sed how they helped sustain the Slovak nation. He finally asked of them, "do not forget that under the Tatras stand your cradle and your old homeland, our hard-tested and suffering Slovakia!" 61 60 Adamec, "Slovak Catholic Federation ," 223-32. Sidor, Hlinka, 503-5, 510-1 I, 543 -52 . Sidor, "The Slovak League," 57-9. Mikus, "S lovak League," 46-7 . Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 65 -74. 61 Palickar, " Monsignor Hlinka- The Man," in Palickar, Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism , 51-6, 55 . Palickar, " My Interview with Msgr. Hlinka," in Slovakia: From Hungarian Despotism, 56-9. Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, 543-52. SLOVAKIA 2019 47 In the 1930s, the Slovak-Americans experienced a few more visits from notable figures. One such visit was from the Slovak cultural organization Matica slovenska, in 1935 . The Slovak-Americans had regular contact with the Matica in the 1920s and there remained regular efforts to create an American branch of the organization.62 With the outbreak of the Great Depression, however, interest and funding for Slovak cultural programs in America declined. The Matica decided a visit to America was necessary to reverse thi s process, which they interpreted as the Slovak-Americans becoming too Americanized. The organization ' s director, the writer Jozef C. Hronsky, led the delegation, but it also included historian Konstantin Culen, and the artist Jozef Cincik, among others. These individuals gave many lectures and supplied ample literature and art, including a donation of libraries of Slovak material to the cities of New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago.63 While they found that some second and third generation Slovak-Americans had lost touch with Slovak culture, the delegates gave high praise to the Slovak-Americans for the interest they showed in the lectures, music, art and other cultural information the Matica provided. The experience led Culen to adopt the task of writing a history of Slovak-Americans. The linguist Jozef G. Konus likewise noted how "the Slovak spirit opens up more in free America than the lush fantasie s at home could imagine." When the White House wrote a statement for a Slovak-American information brochure praising the Slovaks as a "healthy minded, freedomloving and determined people," the Matica hailed it as evidence of Slovak democratic bona tides. Ultimately, the delegation praised the trip as very much a success, and took back ample material on the Slovak-Americans for placement in the Slovak National Library. The Matica left satisfied that Slovak culture remained firm in America, although it put pressure on the Slovak-Americans to improve their direct cultural linkages with the homeland. 64 62 To see many examples of this communicati on, see: The Ma tica slovenskti, Martin, Slovakia, re: American Slovaks Papers, IHRC . 63 According to Mark Stol arik, th e Mati ca brought 84 crates of books, totaling 4 I ,000 volumes, while visiting 98 separate Slovak-American communities. Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home?, 96-100. 64 "Vianoce Maticnej delegacie," Slovensko, 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 87-8. Konstantin Culen, "Co m6ze dat' Amerika slovenskej historii ," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 87-8. Jozef C. Hronsky, " Mati ca v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (March 1936), 110-13. Jozef G. Konus, " Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), I I6-18 . 48 SLOVAK.IA 2019 The final major figure to visit America was the Reverend Jozef Tiso in 1937, with the Catholic cultural organization Spolok Sv. Vojtecha. Much like Hlinka, Tiso celebrated mass and heard confessions during his visit, spoke at public assemblies and met with many American priests, journalists, and Slovak-American leaders. He also attended other broader Catholic events, including the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and met with the Papal delegation in Washington, D.C. Tiso made a broad effort to learn about American political life, to determine what Slovak leaders could transfer back to Slovakia. He particularly admired American technical prowess in organization and publishing, which he saw as facilitating a more efficient Catholic organization and action, and conceptualized a plan to send young Slovak leaders to America to learn American methods of organization. Tiso also praised the Slovak-American sense of independence and pride in their Slovak identity. Seeing how the Slovaks had developed on independent terms in the vast American melting pot, Tiso interpreted the Slovak-American experience as proof of Slovak capabilities and their merit for self-determination. Tiso never gave up his sense of solidarity with the Slovak-Americans, and referenced his visit to affirm his desired direction for the Slovaks. 65 The only visit to the United States by a Slovak official to gamer much attention from Washington was Srobar's in 1923. American diplomat Einstein provided notice of the visit, adding that it was "doubtless intended to counteract the seditious anti-Czech propaganda which has been going on for some time both in Slovakia, where it is fomented by Magyar intrigues, and among the Slovak clericals in the United States." Although, he noted that the Slovak autonomy movement remained "noisy and violent in its methods but unaided it can do little and it is not at present causing here any serious conJozef G. Konu s, "Matica v Amerike," Slovensko, 2, 7 (Mar 1936), 116-18. Jozef Hronsky, "Na margo americkeho zapisnika," S/o vensko, 2, IO & I I (June-July 1936), 177-80. Jozef Cincik, "Na margo americkeho zapisnaka," Slo vensko , 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-6. " Maticna vystava v Clevelande," Slo vensko, 2, IO & 11 (June-July 1936), 181-4. " President Roosevelt pozdravuje slovensky narod," Slovensko , 2, 5 & 6 (Jan-Feb 1936), 79. "Slovenska Amerika sa hybe," S/ovensko, 4, 3 (Nov 1937), 32-3. "SLA to Sku ltety, I June 1935,".PF: Mamatey, SI. Stolarik, "Slovak League." J.A. Berta, "Slovak America and the Matica Slovenska," Furdek, 23 (1984), 163-71. 65 Culen, Po Sviiloplukovi, 182-9. "Speech about the state account balance from 1926," 23 February 1938, Prague (No 258), in Tiso, Prejavy, 533-6. SLOVAKIA 2019 49 cem." 66 Several Slovak-American autonomists wrote to the State Department to complain about Srobar's visit, including a letter from a Slovak-American World War I veteran asking the Department to halt Srobar's lectures for sowing discord among the Slovaks in the United States. The most notable letter, however, came from the Reverend John Porubsky on behalf of the Slovak Newspapermen's Association. Porubsky criticized Srobar's claimed "cultural visit" as a ruse to propagandize on behalf of Czechoslovakism. He presented it as part of an effort by Prague, "To inoculate the masses of our people in America as a contracting party with such misconception and ethnographical nonsense," and to discredit the Pittsburgh Agreement. Claiming that Srobar "forgot the scope of his mission, even forgot himself in outbursts against leading Slovak American gentlemen, calling them vile names unworthy of a man of his position," Porubsky asked Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to have him expelled from the country.67 This effort also spurred a response by Prague and its allies in the United States. These letters, in an organized campaign, all repeated versions of the same arguments. They complained that the opposition to Srobar consisted of "Jesuits and Bolsheviks" and other "enemies of the state" that were working for Czechoslovakia's destruction. Srobar was, alternatively, a great statesman fighting against them to bring cultural development to Slovakia. They also personally targeted Porubsky and the Slovak Newspapermen's Association: "The great majority of intelligent American Slovaks are heart and soul in accord with Dr. Srobar's patriotic works; only the ignorant and reactionary masses are ignobly and ignorantly supporting the destructive work of Rev. Porubsky and his few brawling associates." 68 Likewise, the Slovak Sokol, which had arranged Srobar's visit from the American end, took credit for the visit, praising how Srobar had "proved to 66 " Einstein to SoS, No. 502 ," 29 Aug 1923, F#: 860F .0 I/ I 48, DoS CS 1910-44. "John Porubsky to Charles Evans Hughes," 31 Oct 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/149, DoS CS 1910-44. "John J. Nedorostek to Hughes," 13 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01/150, DoS cs 1910-44. 68 "V. Krali cek to Hughes," 12 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 151 , DoS CS 1910-44. "J. Joscak to Hughes," 14 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / 154, DoS CS 1910-44. "Henry Russek to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/156, DoS CS 1910-44. "C lement lhrisky & Joscak to Hughes," 15 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.0 l/152, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Kovalovsky to Hughes," 16 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/157, DoS CS 1910-44. " Michael Olsavicki to Hughes," 19 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0 1/ 155, DoS CS 1910-44. 67 50 SLOVAKIA 2019 the Slovaks of America that any fears as to the future of their former country are unfounded." 69 The State Department only sent back formulaic verification of receipts to these letters, except for one to John Zeman of the Slovak Sokol, thanking him for "setting forth the real purposes of the visit." William Phillips then requested President Coolidge to meet with Srobar, calling him "one of the five men who founded the Republic of Czechoslovakia," to which Coolidge obliged. 70 In 193 7, the Reverend Francis Dubosh of Lakewood, Ohio, attempted to arrange a meeting between officers of the SCF A, Jozef Tiso, and President Roosevelt, with the help of Monsignor Michael J. Ready at the Catholic University of America. The White House staff supported this meeting, but Roosevelt wanted to first confirm with the State Department so as not "to get mixed up in a Slovak controversy." After consulting with Czechoslovak Ambassador Vladimir Hurban, the State Department reported that the embassy made no official complaint, but that they themselves discouraged the visit with "the opinion that these persons are not of sufficient prominence for the President to receive them." After a back and forth in consideration of the issue, the White House ultimately declined, claiming 71 that the President was simply too busy. The Slovak-Americans also visited Slovakia. The most significant of these occurred in 193 8 in the tense period leading up to the Munich Agreement, when the Slovak League sent a delegation to celebrate the 20 th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Led by its President, Peter P. Hletko, the delegation, as a deliberate gesture, made its first formal visit in Slovakia to Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok. The delegation travelled into Slovakia through Poland, to 69 "J. Zeman to Hughes," 18 Nov 1923 , F#: 860F.01 / 153 , DoS CS 1910-44. "W. R. Castle to Association of Slovak Newspapermen of America," 6 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l49, DoS CS 1910-44. "J. B. Wright to Kralicek," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.0l/15I, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Joscak," 20 Nov 1923, F#: 860F.01/l54, DoS CS 1910-44. "Castle to Zeman," I Dec 1923, F#: 860F.0l / l53 , DoS CS 191044. "William Phillips to G. B. Slemp, 12 Nov 1923," & "Slemp to Phillips, 12 Nov 1923," Coolidge Papers, Series I, 742. 71 "Roosevelt to M. H. McIntyre, 22 Oct 1937," " McIntyre to George F. Summerlin, 23 Oct 193 7," "Spruks to Summerlin, 27 Oct 193 7," "McIntyre to Roosevelt, 29 Oct 1937," "McIntyre to Summerlin, 3 Nov 1937," President 's Personal File (PPF), F: 639, Slovak Catholic Federation of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDR), Hyde Park, New York. 70 SLOVAKIA 2019 51 avoid Prague and Bratislava, and the Polish government hosted the delegation on their way through. Both the Slovak autonomists and the Slovak centralists sent representatives to corral them before they entered Slovakia. The centralists were, however, sent back early after Warsaw and Slovak-Americans embraced the SPP delegation as the official one. After arriving in Slovakia, the delegation showed the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement to Hlinka and spent most of the trip associating with the Slovak autonomists. Its activities included several visits to the Matica slovenska in Martin, to which it gifted an authenticated copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement and made clear commitments toward transatlantic cultural programs, including joint publications and a transatlantic cultural council. Prime Minister Milan Hodza also led a continued effort to meet and work with the visiting delegation, believing he could convince them to break their close affiliation with the SPP and align with the Agrarians instead. Out of respect, the delegation did meet with centralist officials, including Hodza and President Eduard Benes, whom they encouraged the granting of autonomy to Slovakia for the sake of unity in those very tense times. In a speech in Prague, Hletko made clear their objectives stating, "Our love for Slovakia and the Czechoslovak Republic has induced us to come here. The object of the Pittsburgh Declaration, the original of which we have brought with us, is not to weaken but to strengthen the Republic ." 72 When describing his meetings, Hletko said that Hodza promised a movement towards autonomy, yet Prague still rejected them. 73 Likewise, Ivan Derer was extremely critical of the SlovakAmericans during their visit, accusing them of having been brainwashed. He also dismissed them as representing a small, vocal minority, and smeared them as deliberate Hungarian, German, or Polish agents, if not otherwise simply duped by the machinations of these neighboring rivals. Derer complained, "This delegation, composed most of autonomists, expressed its separatist convictions during every opportunity, expressed anti-Czech interests, made light of work of 72 "Visit of American Slovak Delegation to Jubilee Congress, Bratislava; Slovak Demands for Autonomy," 6 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/534, DoS CS 1910-44. 73 Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. "Narodna Politika Roku 1938 : Ked Bol P. Hletko na Slovensku," B: Karol Sidor - Diplomat 1901-1958 - Vol 2, SI. Pavel KuklisKunovsky, Ako je na Slovensku ? Z vlastnych skusenosti napisa/ a vydal v mesiaci )uni /940 v Pittsburghu, Pa., U.S.A. (Pittsburgh: Narodne noviny, 1940), 4-7. 52 SLOVAK.IA 2019 the Czechoslovak government successes in Slovakia, ironized Czechoslovak oriented Slovaks." He was extremely derisive of Hletko, accusing him of not being truly Slovak, having been born in the United States, and as being "politically inexperienced, unknowledgeable about the conditions of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Slovakia." 74 The SLA visit culminated in the Jubilee Congress for the anniversary of the Pittsburgh Agreement on June 4, 1938 in Bratislava. A massive rally was organized where Hlinka, Tiso, and Hletko, among others, gave speeches. A large facsimile of the Pittsburgh Agreement surrounded on each side by the American and Slovak flags served as a backdrop. In his speech, Hletko showed the original copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the crowd, and praised the attention given to the Agreement. A formal proposal by the SPP in the Czechoslovak Parliament to amend the constitution to implement Slovak autonomy then followed. The centralists, led by Hodza, held a counter-rally two days later. They declared the rally more ambiguously as a celebration of the Slovak farmer, although Prague and the centralists promoted the event afterwards as a pro-state rally in opposition to autonomy. The SLA delegation also attended this celebration and Hletko gave a speech, simply affirming that the SLA continued to work for Slovak freedom . Hletko later claimed that the delegation warned the Czech and Slovak leaders they had met about the need to come to an accommodation on the Slovak question, in favor of autonomy, fearing that the issue might become larger with Adolph Hitler rattling his saber. Hletko claimed, however, that no one took this warning seriously. The delegation departed shortly before Hlinka's death in August of 1938, but the SPP sent a piece of earth from Hlinka's graveside to America. 75 74 Ivan Derer, S/ovensky vyvoj a /ud'acka zrada (Prague: K vasnicka a Hamp) , 1946), 183-9 . Derer was convinced the SLA was part of a Polish conspiracy to absorb Slovaki a, led by Karol Sidor. The SLA, however, openly rebuked Polish calls for absorption of Slovakia during its stop th ere. 75 The exact number of participants in each rally is unclear, but most accounts reflected similar participation rates (around one hundred thousand each) and photos of the Slovak Jubilee show a massive crowd. The urn containing the soil is still on display at the Slovak Institute in Cleveland. Hletko, "The Slovaks," 5-54. " Wilbur Carr to SoS, no 122," 9 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/518, DoS CS 1910-44. " Farmers' Day at Bratislava; Demonstration of Slovak Branch of Czechoslovak Agrarian Party," IO June 1938, F#: 860F.00/531 , DoS CS 1910-44. " Po odchode delegatov Slov- SLOVAKIA 2019 53 The U.S. Embassy took an interest in the SLA visit to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and U.S . Ambassador Wilbur Carr agreed to meet with the delegation. Carr reported that the visit was cordial and that the delegation affirmed to him that its visit was simply to promote good will and it did not desire to interfere in domestic issues in Czechoslovakia. Carr then stated that the SLA's visit to Czechoslovakia annoyed Prague, due to the enflamed minority issues of the time, but that Czechoslovak officials tried to maintain good will with the delegation, although this sentiment "lacked a ring of sincerity." Accordingly, Hletko admitted to Carr that the timing was not the best, but that it was not by design, since they had come simply for the anniversary celebration. Carr expected no harm from the visit. While Carr described the autonomy proposal and reported statements by Hletko and Jozef Rusek complementing the support of the Pittsburgh Agreement among the Slovaks, he countered by providing the text of an anti-autonomy speech by Derer and a section of Masaryk' s memoirs. Carr then misrepresented the Slovak-Americans as having felt embarrassed for having been "utilized by the Hlinka Party for partisan and election purposes." While Carr reported on each of the two rallies, he praised the Farmer's Day as turning into "a spontaneous demonstration of Czechoslovak unity, homage to Benes, and allegiance and confidence in its leader," hostility to autonomy, and featuring a much larger participation.76 While Czech and Slovak centralists worked to keep the SlovakAmericans at a distance after early efforts to court them failed, the Slovak autonomists on both sides of the Atlantic worked around Prague to coordinate their activities. Nevertheless, the autonomists had no means of pushing Prague towards changes on the Slovak question. The Slovak autonomists, however, continued their fight and never gave up. The transatlantic Slovak question during the interwar period established the roots for the eventual Slovak-Czech split. The failure to find a compromise between Slovak autonomists and centralists saw an entrenched distrust that contributed to the fall of the First Republic . When the Munich Agreement formally handed the enskej Ligy v Amerike," Slovensko, 5 ( I 939), 16-17. Sidor, "The Slovak League," 59-62. 76 "Carr to SoS , no 112," 31 May 1938, F#: 860F.00/5 l 0, DoS CS 1910-44. "Visit of American Slovak." "Carr to SoS, no 121 ," 8 June 1938, F#: 860F.00/517, DoS CS 1910-44. "Carr to SoS , No 122." "Farmers ' Day. " 54 SLOVAKIA 2019 Sudetenland to Germany in September of 1938, the Slovak autonomists in Slovakia demanded and received autonomy until the new SPP-led government there declared independence on March 14, 1939, following Nazi Germany's invasion of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovak-American autonomists, although distrustful of Nazi Germany, openly embraced the shift toward Slovak autonomy in the shortlived Second Republic, believing they could no longer trust the Czechs. Peter Hletko, for example, cheered how the Slovaks had "fought and won the victory." 77 Although initially hesitant to support complete independence, most Slovak-American autonomists, the moderates excepted, came to support the World War II Slovak State as a symbol of Slovak self-determination, even as they supported Allied victory in the war. While World War II and the subsequent Cold War limited direct linkages between Slovakia and North America, the same rifts on the Slovak question persisted on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1993 Velvet Divorce. 78 77 Jozef Pauco, "75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union," Furdek, 5 ( 1966), 6574. 78 For more on this topic during World War II and beyond, see: Michael Cude, Transatlantic Perspectives on the Slovak Question, I 9 I 4-/ 948 (PhD Diss., University of Co lorado-Boulder, 20 13 ). M. Mark Stolarik, Wh ere is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (/870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak League of America and the Canadian League in the Struggle for the Self-determination of the Nation, 1907-1992," Slovakia, 39, 72 & 73 (2007), 7-35.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Transatlantic Slovak Question during the Interwar Years Description An account of the resource Michael Cude Slovakia, Vol. 44 (No. 82-83), 2019 pp. 18-54 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cude, Michael 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/cae39c6465594f6f4a0f788fb7fc510c.pdf 6fd3e7fee758d0c6d5ec88cc21a37386 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA THE TRAGIC CASE OF DUSAN SLAVIK Constantine Culen No generation of the Slovak nation sinned so grievously against its own people as did the generation of so-called "pre-revolutionary " Slovaks, who rendered service to Prague and so betrayed their Slovak birthright for a mess of Czech pottage. To this group -b elong Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former chairman of the Slovak National Front and communist collaborator, and Dr. George Slavik, former ambassador of Dr. Benes to the USA - today both are leading members of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia." They were the socalled "Czechoslovaks," the "ruling class" of Slovakia, who believed that political leaders of the overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation were not fit for any government office either in Slovakia or in the ill-fated Czecho-Slovak Republic of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes. This story is about the son of Dr. George Slavik, Dusan Slavik, who was executed several years ago along with an i.n dustrialist named Tvarozka for espionage and acts inimical fo the "people's democracy." The court which tried Slavik and others was the court set up by Dr. Edward Benes, for whom the elder Slavik worked - the court approved by Dr. Lettrich, who today roams freely about America telling people how great a democrat and anti-Communist he is! The irony of the whole affair is that Dr. Lettrich had decorated both of the executed men for services rendered to restore Czecho-Slovakia. The boys did everything in 1945 to annihilate the independent state of Slovakia and re-estab:. lish the Czecho-Slovak state of Benes which was unwanted by 90 per cent of the Slovak people. For that they were decorated by Lettrich and the Reds. Again they became members of the "ruling" class. Then in 1949: death by the 6rder of the "People's Court!" : ' .. It should be noted for 'h istory that the Slovak Republic thtotighout its six-year: existence had protected Dusan Slavik. And all the while his father, ambassador George Slavik, �iO SLOVAKIA villified and smeared the Slovak State and threatened Tiso and other Slovak leaders with terrible reprisals. What was young Dusan doing during that time? Attending Bratislava University and taking advantage of everything the Slova'k State had to offer to Slovak students. And the Tvarozkas waxed rich, just as had so many other "select" families of Brezova. When waves of the bolshevik armies inundated Slovakia in 1945, the unfinished lawyer Dusan Slavik became the "leader" of a group of Slovak students. At 23 he was a Deputy of parliament. Dr. Lettrich and the Reds knew whom to place in high positions. They could not trust the hated Catholic "separatists" and followers of IIlinka and Tiso. But they knew that they could depend on the Slaviks, Ursinys, Stefaniks, Boors, Cobrdas and others - who professed to be Christian followers of Martin Luther - to make it really tough for the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slovak population. And tough they made it, too! The youngsters of this so-called "ruling" class in Slovakia followed closely in their fathers' footsteps. As their fathers had divided positions and functions in 1918, so also did their sons in 1945. They shared lucrative governmental positions in Slovakia with nobody but the Communists. The youthful leaders of Slovak students ,o utlawed all existing student organizations and established a new one: "The Club of Fighting Youth." Only a partisan and non-Catholic could be an officer of the Club. Rudas and Ba.zany represented the Communists in the office of the Club, and Slavik, Stefanik and Boor represented the families of the "pre-revolutionary" super-patriots. The very first thing that Dusan's Club did was to set up a screening commission to put the finger on all students "who had sinned against the Slovak nation." As a result thousands of students were expelled from universities. Their crime: they belonged to the Hlinka Youth Organization! Young Slavik further proposed that no diplomas or degrees given or acquired during the years of the Slovak Republic be recognized as valid. But that proposition fell through be- �SLOVAKIA 61 cause even the Communists thought it was going too far at that time. Young Slavik had begun his political career as a Deputy of Lettrich's Democratic Party. But when Benes saw that Lettrich was getting a bit coc'ky in Slovakia - claiming that his party represented at least 62 per cent of the voting population - he gave money to Dr. Srobar to start the Liberty Party. Young Slavik was in on the deal. He soon became a leading member of the new party and a private secretary to Srobar; he was told the party had the blessing of Benes and soon would be the largest ,p olitical party in Slovakia. But even then he was not satisfied. A year later Dusan Slavik became a member of the Socialist Democratic Party, which promised him more than Srobar's party. After the Stalinists were firmly entrenched in the government of Czecho-Slovakia, they staged their so-called "putsch" in February, 1948. · Everything went overboard. All Red opposition was outlawed, jailad, exiled to Siberia, put into labor camps or executed. Benes, Sramek and many other "democratic" greats who collaborated fully with the Gottwaldists were thrown out. Lettrich, Ursiny, Slavik, and all the other "select" leaders, who had set out with the Reds to smash the Catholics of Slovakia, shared a similar fate. And young Dusan Slavik, who had screened so many of his classmates and labeled them "anti-state," made out worse than most of the bigwigs who had counseled him. Lettrich and many of the leading "pre-revolutionary" Slovaks are enjoying the freedom of America and London, but Dusan was executed. Dusan Slavik was executed by order of the "people's court." His murderers were the enemies of the Slovak nation. But his father and he had thought they were friends. Dusan walked in his father's footsteps, hoping that he too, as ;a faithful follower of the anti-democratic, anti-Christian and anti-Slova.k -policies of Benes, might have an eternal claim to some ministerial job, just like his father seemed to have. Dusan, however, was just as terribly mistaken as was Benes, who had found out too late that you cannot do business with Stalin and win. �52 SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes knew how the Slovak Lutherans felt a,,bout the Slovak Catholics. So did Stalin and his man Friday in Czecho-Slovakia - the late Gottwald. Benes and Stalin used that hatred of the Lutherans against the Catholics to attain their own ends. It is high time that all Slovak Christians realize what has happened to their Slovakia, put away their hatred and work together to liberate their country from Godless, Red rule and to establish a democratic, independent Slovakia, the safe guarantee of their national existence . • • • WHO SAID IT? "lt would be a new tragedy not merely for .Elurope but for the whole world if the Soviet Union were again driven into is olation and deprived of an Influence ON THE COURSE OF EUROPEAN EVENTS. That 1s why what I hi.ve called the MIDDLE WAY has been chosen - the natural way which does not abandon the principle of federa,tlon ' or the ruture and meanwhile permits friendly agreements !or mumat assistance and post-war collaboration such as the CzechoslovakSoviet Pact. This agreement is not merely defensive, merely regional, merely based on self-Interest. It leaves room for collaboration with all the Allied nations and in essence serves WORLD PEACE and helps lay the foundations of the NEW WORLD. whicb is to be FREE from the fear of War. FREE from the curse of Naziism and Fascism IN ALL THE!h ~'ORMS, a world based on the principles of INDIVIDUAL AND NATION AL LIBERTY. It does not mean tha,t we shall be an instrument of SOVIET policy, but it CERTAINLY means that we shall not be an instrument of ANTI-SOVIET policy. Internally we shall be COMPLETELY FREE, with quite different cultural, economic and soci al conditions than exist in SOVIET RUSSIA. And 1n our external affairs we shall not abandon our efforts to reach the same relations we have established with Russia and to malnt.ain with Poland · as our traditional relations with wes tern Europe. This path FULLY accords with Czechoslovakia's national tradition of HUMANITARIAN ( Dr. Benes, Foreign Affairs, New York, October OEMOCRACY." 1944). • • • "Our relations with Germany are good and correct and they s.hall remain so In the future In every instance. Between ourselves and Germany there never were, are not, and shall not be any border d~bates and difficulties." (Dr. Ben es, Speecb to the Slovaks, 1933) . • • • "We must get rid of all those Germans in _Czechoslovakia who plunged a dagger in the back of the Czechoslovak state in 1938. Similar treatment· will be meted out to ALL collaborationists in the Czech lands and In . Slovakia and to ALL those whq _lost faith .i.n, the State, in democracy, freedom and In glorious tradition." - (Dr. Benes Brol!,d· · cast from London, October 28. 1944). � SLOVAKIA THE TRAGIC CASE OF DUSAN SLAVIK Constantine Culen No generation of the Slovak nation sinned so grievously against its own people as did the generation of so-called "pre-revolutionary " Slovaks, who rendered service to Prague and so betrayed their Slovak birthright for a mess of Czech pottage. To this group -b elong Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former chairman of the Slovak National Front and communist collaborator, and Dr. George Slavik, former ambassador of Dr. Benes to the USA - today both are leading members of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia." They were the socalled "Czechoslovaks," the "ruling class" of Slovakia, who believed that political leaders of the overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation were not fit for any government office either in Slovakia or in the ill-fated Czecho-Slovak Republic of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes. This story is about the son of Dr. George Slavik, Dusan Slavik, who was executed several years ago along with an i.n dustrialist named Tvarozka for espionage and acts inimical fo the "people's democracy." The court which tried Slavik and others was the court set up by Dr. Edward Benes, for whom the elder Slavik worked - the court approved by Dr. Lettrich, who today roams freely about America telling people how great a democrat and anti-Communist he is! The irony of the whole affair is that Dr. Lettrich had decorated both of the executed men for services rendered to restore Czecho-Slovakia. The boys did everything in 1945 to annihilate the independent state of Slovakia and re-estab:. lish the Czecho-Slovak state of Benes which was unwanted by 90 per cent of the Slovak people. For that they were decorated by Lettrich and the Reds. Again they became members of the "ruling" class. Then in 1949: death by the 6rder of the "People's Court!" : ' .. It should be noted for 'h istory that the Slovak Republic thtotighout its six-year: existence had protected Dusan Slavik. And all the while his father, ambassador George Slavik, �iO SLOVAKIA villified and smeared the Slovak State and threatened Tiso and other Slovak leaders with terrible reprisals. What was young Dusan doing during that time? Attending Bratislava University and taking advantage of everything the Slova'k State had to offer to Slovak students. And the Tvarozkas waxed rich, just as had so many other "select" families of Brezova. When waves of the bolshevik armies inundated Slovakia in 1945, the unfinished lawyer Dusan Slavik became the "leader" of a group of Slovak students. At 23 he was a Deputy of parliament. Dr. Lettrich and the Reds knew whom to place in high positions. They could not trust the hated Catholic "separatists" and followers of IIlinka and Tiso. But they knew that they could depend on the Slaviks, Ursinys, Stefaniks, Boors, Cobrdas and others - who professed to be Christian followers of Martin Luther - to make it really tough for the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slovak population. And tough they made it, too! The youngsters of this so-called "ruling" class in Slovakia followed closely in their fathers' footsteps. As their fathers had divided positions and functions in 1918, so also did their sons in 1945. They shared lucrative governmental positions in Slovakia with nobody but the Communists. The youthful leaders of Slovak students ,o utlawed all existing student organizations and established a new one: "The Club of Fighting Youth." Only a partisan and non-Catholic could be an officer of the Club. Rudas and Ba.zany represented the Communists in the office of the Club, and Slavik, Stefanik and Boor represented the families of the "pre-revolutionary" super-patriots. The very first thing that Dusan's Club did was to set up a screening commission to put the finger on all students "who had sinned against the Slovak nation." As a result thousands of students were expelled from universities. Their crime: they belonged to the Hlinka Youth Organization! Young Slavik further proposed that no diplomas or degrees given or acquired during the years of the Slovak Republic be recognized as valid. But that proposition fell through be- �SLOVAKIA 61 cause even the Communists thought it was going too far at that time. Young Slavik had begun his political career as a Deputy of Lettrich's Democratic Party. But when Benes saw that Lettrich was getting a bit coc'ky in Slovakia - claiming that his party represented at least 62 per cent of the voting population - he gave money to Dr. Srobar to start the Liberty Party. Young Slavik was in on the deal. He soon became a leading member of the new party and a private secretary to Srobar; he was told the party had the blessing of Benes and soon would be the largest ,p olitical party in Slovakia. But even then he was not satisfied. A year later Dusan Slavik became a member of the Socialist Democratic Party, which promised him more than Srobar's party. After the Stalinists were firmly entrenched in the government of Czecho-Slovakia, they staged their so-called "putsch" in February, 1948. · Everything went overboard. All Red opposition was outlawed, jailad, exiled to Siberia, put into labor camps or executed. Benes, Sramek and many other "democratic" greats who collaborated fully with the Gottwaldists were thrown out. Lettrich, Ursiny, Slavik, and all the other "select" leaders, who had set out with the Reds to smash the Catholics of Slovakia, shared a similar fate. And young Dusan Slavik, who had screened so many of his classmates and labeled them "anti-state," made out worse than most of the bigwigs who had counseled him. Lettrich and many of the leading "pre-revolutionary" Slovaks are enjoying the freedom of America and London, but Dusan was executed. Dusan Slavik was executed by order of the "people's court." His murderers were the enemies of the Slovak nation. But his father and he had thought they were friends. Dusan walked in his father's footsteps, hoping that he too, as ;a faithful follower of the anti-democratic, anti-Christian and anti-Slova.k -policies of Benes, might have an eternal claim to some ministerial job, just like his father seemed to have. Dusan, however, was just as terribly mistaken as was Benes, who had found out too late that you cannot do business with Stalin and win. �52 SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes knew how the Slovak Lutherans felt a,,bout the Slovak Catholics. So did Stalin and his man Friday in Czecho-Slovakia - the late Gottwald. Benes and Stalin used that hatred of the Lutherans against the Catholics to attain their own ends. It is high time that all Slovak Christians realize what has happened to their Slovakia, put away their hatred and work together to liberate their country from Godless, Red rule and to establish a democratic, independent Slovakia, the safe guarantee of their national existence . • • • WHO SAID IT? "lt would be a new tragedy not merely for .Elurope but for the whole world if the Soviet Union were again driven into is olation and deprived of an Influence ON THE COURSE OF EUROPEAN EVENTS. That 1s why what I hi.ve called the MIDDLE WAY has been chosen - the natural way which does not abandon the principle of federa,tlon ' or the ruture and meanwhile permits friendly agreements !or mumat assistance and post-war collaboration such as the CzechoslovakSoviet Pact. This agreement is not merely defensive, merely regional, merely based on self-Interest. It leaves room for collaboration with all the Allied nations and in essence serves WORLD PEACE and helps lay the foundations of the NEW WORLD. whicb is to be FREE from the fear of War. FREE from the curse of Naziism and Fascism IN ALL THE!h ~'ORMS, a world based on the principles of INDIVIDUAL AND NATION AL LIBERTY. It does not mean tha,t we shall be an instrument of SOVIET policy, but it CERTAINLY means that we shall not be an instrument of ANTI-SOVIET policy. Internally we shall be COMPLETELY FREE, with quite different cultural, economic and soci al conditions than exist in SOVIET RUSSIA. And 1n our external affairs we shall not abandon our efforts to reach the same relations we have established with Russia and to malnt.ain with Poland · as our traditional relations with wes tern Europe. This path FULLY accords with Czechoslovakia's national tradition of HUMANITARIAN ( Dr. Benes, Foreign Affairs, New York, October OEMOCRACY." 1944). • • • "Our relations with Germany are good and correct and they s.hall remain so In the future In every instance. Between ourselves and Germany there never were, are not, and shall not be any border d~bates and difficulties." (Dr. Ben es, Speecb to the Slovaks, 1933) . • • • "We must get rid of all those Germans in _Czechoslovakia who plunged a dagger in the back of the Czechoslovak state in 1938. Similar treatment· will be meted out to ALL collaborationists in the Czech lands and In . Slovakia and to ALL those whq _lost faith .i.n, the State, in democracy, freedom and In glorious tradition." - (Dr. Benes Brol!,d· · cast from London, October 28. 1944). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 THE TRAGIC CASE OF DUSAN SLAVIK Constantine Culen No generation of the Slovak nation sinned so grievously against its own people as did the generation of so-called "pre-revolutionary " Slovaks, who rendered service to Prague and so betrayed their Slovak birthright for a mess of Czech pottage. To this group -b elong Dr. Joseph Lettrich, former chairman of the Slovak National Front and communist collaborator, and Dr. George Slavik, former ambassador of Dr. Benes to the USA - today both are leading members of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia." They were the socalled "Czechoslovaks," the "ruling class" of Slovakia, who believed that political leaders of the overwhelming majority of the Slovak nation were not fit for any government office either in Slovakia or in the ill-fated Czecho-Slovak Republic of T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Edward Benes. This story is about the son of Dr. George Slavik, Dusan Slavik, who was executed several years ago along with an i.n dustrialist named Tvarozka for espionage and acts inimical fo the "people's democracy." The court which tried Slavik and others was the court set up by Dr. Edward Benes, for whom the elder Slavik worked - the court approved by Dr. Lettrich, who today roams freely about America telling people how great a democrat and anti-Communist he is! The irony of the whole affair is that Dr. Lettrich had decorated both of the executed men for services rendered to restore Czecho-Slovakia. The boys did everything in 1945 to annihilate the independent state of Slovakia and re-estab:. lish the Czecho-Slovak state of Benes which was unwanted by 90 per cent of the Slovak people. For that they were decorated by Lettrich and the Reds. Again they became members of the "ruling" class. Then in 1949: death by the 6rder of the "People's Court!" : ' .. It should be noted for 'h istory that the Slovak Republic thtotighout its six-year: existence had protected Dusan Slavik. And all the while his father, ambassador George Slavik, iO SLOVAKIA villified and smeared the Slovak State and threatened Tiso and other Slovak leaders with terrible reprisals. What was young Dusan doing during that time? Attending Bratislava University and taking advantage of everything the Slova'k State had to offer to Slovak students. And the Tvarozkas waxed rich, just as had so many other "select" families of Brezova. When waves of the bolshevik armies inundated Slovakia in 1945, the unfinished lawyer Dusan Slavik became the "leader" of a group of Slovak students. At 23 he was a Deputy of parliament. Dr. Lettrich and the Reds knew whom to place in high positions. They could not trust the hated Catholic "separatists" and followers of IIlinka and Tiso. But they knew that they could depend on the Slaviks, Ursinys, Stefaniks, Boors, Cobrdas and others - who professed to be Christian followers of Martin Luther - to make it really tough for the overwhelming Catholic majority of the Slovak population. And tough they made it, too! The youngsters of this so-called "ruling" class in Slovakia followed closely in their fathers' footsteps. As their fathers had divided positions and functions in 1918, so also did their sons in 1945. They shared lucrative governmental positions in Slovakia with nobody but the Communists. The youthful leaders of Slovak students ,o utlawed all existing student organizations and established a new one: "The Club of Fighting Youth." Only a partisan and non-Catholic could be an officer of the Club. Rudas and Ba.zany represented the Communists in the office of the Club, and Slavik, Stefanik and Boor represented the families of the "pre-revolutionary" super-patriots. The very first thing that Dusan's Club did was to set up a screening commission to put the finger on all students "who had sinned against the Slovak nation." As a result thousands of students were expelled from universities. Their crime: they belonged to the Hlinka Youth Organization! Young Slavik further proposed that no diplomas or degrees given or acquired during the years of the Slovak Republic be recognized as valid. But that proposition fell through be- SLOVAKIA 61 cause even the Communists thought it was going too far at that time. Young Slavik had begun his political career as a Deputy of Lettrich's Democratic Party. But when Benes saw that Lettrich was getting a bit coc'ky in Slovakia - claiming that his party represented at least 62 per cent of the voting population - he gave money to Dr. Srobar to start the Liberty Party. Young Slavik was in on the deal. He soon became a leading member of the new party and a private secretary to Srobar; he was told the party had the blessing of Benes and soon would be the largest ,p olitical party in Slovakia. But even then he was not satisfied. A year later Dusan Slavik became a member of the Socialist Democratic Party, which promised him more than Srobar's party. After the Stalinists were firmly entrenched in the government of Czecho-Slovakia, they staged their so-called "putsch" in February, 1948. · Everything went overboard. All Red opposition was outlawed, jailad, exiled to Siberia, put into labor camps or executed. Benes, Sramek and many other "democratic" greats who collaborated fully with the Gottwaldists were thrown out. Lettrich, Ursiny, Slavik, and all the other "select" leaders, who had set out with the Reds to smash the Catholics of Slovakia, shared a similar fate. And young Dusan Slavik, who had screened so many of his classmates and labeled them "anti-state," made out worse than most of the bigwigs who had counseled him. Lettrich and many of the leading "pre-revolutionary" Slovaks are enjoying the freedom of America and London, but Dusan was executed. Dusan Slavik was executed by order of the "people's court." His murderers were the enemies of the Slovak nation. But his father and he had thought they were friends. Dusan walked in his father's footsteps, hoping that he too, as ;a faithful follower of the anti-democratic, anti-Christian and anti-Slova.k -policies of Benes, might have an eternal claim to some ministerial job, just like his father seemed to have. Dusan, however, was just as terribly mistaken as was Benes, who had found out too late that you cannot do business with Stalin and win. 52 SLOVAKIA Dr. Benes knew how the Slovak Lutherans felt a,,bout the Slovak Catholics. So did Stalin and his man Friday in Czecho-Slovakia - the late Gottwald. Benes and Stalin used that hatred of the Lutherans against the Catholics to attain their own ends. It is high time that all Slovak Christians realize what has happened to their Slovakia, put away their hatred and work together to liberate their country from Godless, Red rule and to establish a democratic, independent Slovakia, the safe guarantee of their national existence . • • • WHO SAID IT? "lt would be a new tragedy not merely for .Elurope but for the whole world if the Soviet Union were again driven into is olation and deprived of an Influence ON THE COURSE OF EUROPEAN EVENTS. That 1s why what I hi.ve called the MIDDLE WAY has been chosen - the natural way which does not abandon the principle of federa,tlon ' or the ruture and meanwhile permits friendly agreements !or mumat assistance and post-war collaboration such as the CzechoslovakSoviet Pact. This agreement is not merely defensive, merely regional, merely based on self-Interest. It leaves room for collaboration with all the Allied nations and in essence serves WORLD PEACE and helps lay the foundations of the NEW WORLD. whicb is to be FREE from the fear of War. FREE from the curse of Naziism and Fascism IN ALL THE!h ~'ORMS, a world based on the principles of INDIVIDUAL AND NATION AL LIBERTY. It does not mean tha,t we shall be an instrument of SOVIET policy, but it CERTAINLY means that we shall not be an instrument of ANTI-SOVIET policy. Internally we shall be COMPLETELY FREE, with quite different cultural, economic and soci al conditions than exist in SOVIET RUSSIA. And 1n our external affairs we shall not abandon our efforts to reach the same relations we have established with Russia and to malnt.ain with Poland · as our traditional relations with wes tern Europe. This path FULLY accords with Czechoslovakia's national tradition of HUMANITARIAN ( Dr. Benes, Foreign Affairs, New York, October OEMOCRACY." 1944). • • • "Our relations with Germany are good and correct and they s.hall remain so In the future In every instance. Between ourselves and Germany there never were, are not, and shall not be any border d~bates and difficulties." (Dr. Ben es, Speecb to the Slovaks, 1933) . • • • "We must get rid of all those Germans in _Czechoslovakia who plunged a dagger in the back of the Czechoslovak state in 1938. Similar treatment· will be meted out to ALL collaborationists in the Czech lands and In . Slovakia and to ALL those whq _lost faith .i.n, the State, in democracy, freedom and In glorious tradition." - (Dr. Benes Brol!,d· · cast from London, October 28. 1944).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Tragic Case of Dušan Slávik Description An account of the resource Constantine Čulen Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 1 (6), April 1953 pp. 49-52 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 April 1953 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a83255c1c53af815564410caaea602e8.pdf d36d283cbe9e54d89f9c0fd782c87040 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA CAPRONI: NUMBER 11,495 THE TRAGEDY OF GENERAL STEFANIK May 4, 1919, was a beautiful day. The Slov3Jks of BTatislaJVa and vi~i.Jni,ty were uip bright and ear.1y polis'hiing their boots and dressing in their best clothes. And there was a good reason for it. Genera:l Millan R- Stefam&, wa,r id01l cxf the Slwak nation, was returniil!g home to Slova:kia - the Slo'Vl8Jkia that was beginning to /breathe a new ilife, the life of a free nation wiit:h.in the foamework of the newly born Czecho slovak Repulblic. He wa:s coming home to taike up his duties as minister of Defense in ,t he sta;te he helped create with T. G. Masaryk and Dr. fildward' Benes. A Httle ai,ter 11 A. M., the Italian plane - Oaproni No. 11,495 - cire1ed the field near BratisJ!ava (Vajnocy) and prepared for a landing. Then something terrible happened. The Ca:pI1001ii rocked, bUII"st into flames and crashed to the .grolliild, oaim-ymg General Stefanik and his Italian friends to their death. The plane was shot down by the Ozecho-S1ova:k mililtairy ga,rrison staJtioned near Vajnory ai'I'pOrt. lit was shot down oo. orders from the commanding officem at the garirison. Masruryik's government explained that it was a;Il a tiraig,iic mistake. T,he oomrrnandring officer thought it was an enemy plane - the men did not know Stefani!k was arriving in an Italian plane - they did not know he was in that particular pliane. And more. There were eye witnesses. Some of the men in that garrison, still alive today, insisted thait Stefanik was murdered. The fi:rst volley, they saiy, missed the ipliane, /but the second hit its target. stefaniik the sold!ie:r, statesman a:nd astronomer was dead. The SloV13Jks demanded that an inrvestigatiron ·b e made by the government. Masaryk ·a nd his government wouM not aillow it. IDvertihing wa,s done to hush up the affair. The world got to kn'()IW little rubout the tragedy cxf Stefanik. But the Slova:ks kept ga,thering evidence. It pointed to one thlng: Stefanik, co-creator of the Ozecho~Slovak Repufblic, �SLOVAKIA 27 wa,s not wamted rby the men orf Prague; he wouid be in their way and appose every act of the Ozechs to mruke a cdlooy of SlO'Vak,i a; he would msist on a free Slo:vaki1a within the framework of Czec'ho-Slovaki!a as Masaryk haJd promised the :SlovaJks it wow1d be. Today - thirty-fowr years af.ter Stefanik's tr.agic death - the Slovak,s still beliieve thiat General Milan R. Stefanilk was murdered - murdered by the men who had plotted against the hfe of the S1ovaik nation. By the men who promised the Slovalks a free life, their own state government, thei,r own legdslaltive assembly, Slovak schools and institutions to get them into a common state with the Ozechs and then failled to keep their promises- The ,anti-demooratic, anti-!Slovak and anti-Ohrat1an polilcy of those men wias responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia since 191'8. Czecho-Slova'kiia wa;s a fallacy from the start. It was bud!l.t on sand. It coll.aipsed when the fimt hurri'crune struck, because there was no one to defend it. Even the OLechs would not fire a shot at the NaJzis or Communists in its defense. Stefarak's wor,k of liberating his nation from tyranny is not done. The Slovaks at home and in emigration are determined more than ever to complete the joib that he had begun. Slovrukia shaH. ibe free and the Slova:ks s!ha.ll · again Liive a life of firee men in their 01W11 independent Slovak Repuiblic. • WHO SAID IT? - • • "In a more general way, the Czechs have <lone much to arouse the resentment even of Slovak naturally favorable towards them, and have grievously damaged their own cause by overstressing the "Czechoslovak" idea and by certain measures regarded by the Slovaks as attempts to deprive them of their own nationality. It is paradoxical, but natural, that the weakness of the foundations on whi ch the "Czechoslovak" Idea rested became most apparent the moment tliat the idea received official recognition. Such phrases as "Czechoslovak nationallty" and "Czechoslovak Ian• guage" might be used for the benefit of the out.side world and in constitutional and other State documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one." - (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS; 1937, London). � SLOVAKIA CAPRONI: NUMBER 11,495 THE TRAGEDY OF GENERAL STEFANIK May 4, 1919, was a beautiful day. The Slov3Jks of BTatislaJVa and vi~i.Jni,ty were uip bright and ear.1y polis'hiing their boots and dressing in their best clothes. And there was a good reason for it. Genera:l Millan R- Stefam&, wa,r id01l cxf the Slwak nation, was returniil!g home to Slova:kia - the Slo'Vl8Jkia that was beginning to /breathe a new ilife, the life of a free nation wiit:h.in the foamework of the newly born Czecho slovak Repulblic. He wa:s coming home to taike up his duties as minister of Defense in ,t he sta;te he helped create with T. G. Masaryk and Dr. fildward' Benes. A Httle ai,ter 11 A. M., the Italian plane - Oaproni No. 11,495 - cire1ed the field near BratisJ!ava (Vajnocy) and prepared for a landing. Then something terrible happened. The Ca:pI1001ii rocked, bUII"st into flames and crashed to the .grolliild, oaim-ymg General Stefanik and his Italian friends to their death. The plane was shot down by the Ozecho-S1ova:k mililtairy ga,rrison staJtioned near Vajnory ai'I'pOrt. lit was shot down oo. orders from the commanding officem at the garirison. Masruryik's government explained that it was a;Il a tiraig,iic mistake. T,he oomrrnandring officer thought it was an enemy plane - the men did not know Stefani!k was arriving in an Italian plane - they did not know he was in that particular pliane. And more. There were eye witnesses. Some of the men in that garrison, still alive today, insisted thait Stefanik was murdered. The fi:rst volley, they saiy, missed the ipliane, /but the second hit its target. stefaniik the sold!ie:r, statesman a:nd astronomer was dead. The SloV13Jks demanded that an inrvestigatiron ·b e made by the government. Masaryk ·a nd his government wouM not aillow it. IDvertihing wa,s done to hush up the affair. The world got to kn'()IW little rubout the tragedy cxf Stefanik. But the Slova:ks kept ga,thering evidence. It pointed to one thlng: Stefanik, co-creator of the Ozecho~Slovak Repufblic, �SLOVAKIA 27 wa,s not wamted rby the men orf Prague; he wouid be in their way and appose every act of the Ozechs to mruke a cdlooy of SlO'Vak,i a; he would msist on a free Slo:vaki1a within the framework of Czec'ho-Slovaki!a as Masaryk haJd promised the :SlovaJks it wow1d be. Today - thirty-fowr years af.ter Stefanik's tr.agic death - the Slovak,s still beliieve thiat General Milan R. Stefanilk was murdered - murdered by the men who had plotted against the hfe of the S1ovaik nation. By the men who promised the Slovalks a free life, their own state government, thei,r own legdslaltive assembly, Slovak schools and institutions to get them into a common state with the Ozechs and then failled to keep their promises- The ,anti-demooratic, anti-!Slovak and anti-Ohrat1an polilcy of those men wias responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia since 191'8. Czecho-Slova'kiia wa;s a fallacy from the start. It was bud!l.t on sand. It coll.aipsed when the fimt hurri'crune struck, because there was no one to defend it. Even the OLechs would not fire a shot at the NaJzis or Communists in its defense. Stefarak's wor,k of liberating his nation from tyranny is not done. The Slovaks at home and in emigration are determined more than ever to complete the joib that he had begun. Slovrukia shaH. ibe free and the Slova:ks s!ha.ll · again Liive a life of firee men in their 01W11 independent Slovak Repuiblic. • WHO SAID IT? - • • "In a more general way, the Czechs have <lone much to arouse the resentment even of Slovak naturally favorable towards them, and have grievously damaged their own cause by overstressing the "Czechoslovak" idea and by certain measures regarded by the Slovaks as attempts to deprive them of their own nationality. It is paradoxical, but natural, that the weakness of the foundations on whi ch the "Czechoslovak" Idea rested became most apparent the moment tliat the idea received official recognition. Such phrases as "Czechoslovak nationallty" and "Czechoslovak Ian• guage" might be used for the benefit of the out.side world and in constitutional and other State documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one." - (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS; 1937, London). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 CAPRONI: NUMBER 11,495 THE TRAGEDY OF GENERAL STEFANIK May 4, 1919, was a beautiful day. The Slov3Jks of BTatislaJVa and vi~i.Jni,ty were uip bright and ear.1y polis'hiing their boots and dressing in their best clothes. And there was a good reason for it. Genera:l Millan R- Stefam&, wa,r id01l cxf the Slwak nation, was returniil!g home to Slova:kia - the Slo'Vl8Jkia that was beginning to /breathe a new ilife, the life of a free nation wiit:h.in the foamework of the newly born Czecho slovak Repulblic. He wa:s coming home to taike up his duties as minister of Defense in ,t he sta;te he helped create with T. G. Masaryk and Dr. fildward' Benes. A Httle ai,ter 11 A. M., the Italian plane - Oaproni No. 11,495 - cire1ed the field near BratisJ!ava (Vajnocy) and prepared for a landing. Then something terrible happened. The Ca:pI1001ii rocked, bUII"st into flames and crashed to the .grolliild, oaim-ymg General Stefanik and his Italian friends to their death. The plane was shot down by the Ozecho-S1ova:k mililtairy ga,rrison staJtioned near Vajnory ai'I'pOrt. lit was shot down oo. orders from the commanding officem at the garirison. Masruryik's government explained that it was a;Il a tiraig,iic mistake. T,he oomrrnandring officer thought it was an enemy plane - the men did not know Stefani!k was arriving in an Italian plane - they did not know he was in that particular pliane. And more. There were eye witnesses. Some of the men in that garrison, still alive today, insisted thait Stefanik was murdered. The fi:rst volley, they saiy, missed the ipliane, /but the second hit its target. stefaniik the sold!ie:r, statesman a:nd astronomer was dead. The SloV13Jks demanded that an inrvestigatiron ·b e made by the government. Masaryk ·a nd his government wouM not aillow it. IDvertihing wa,s done to hush up the affair. The world got to kn'()IW little rubout the tragedy cxf Stefanik. But the Slova:ks kept ga,thering evidence. It pointed to one thlng: Stefanik, co-creator of the Ozecho~Slovak Repufblic, SLOVAKIA 27 wa,s not wamted rby the men orf Prague; he wouid be in their way and appose every act of the Ozechs to mruke a cdlooy of SlO'Vak,i a; he would msist on a free Slo:vaki1a within the framework of Czec'ho-Slovaki!a as Masaryk haJd promised the :SlovaJks it wow1d be. Today - thirty-fowr years af.ter Stefanik's tr.agic death - the Slovak,s still beliieve thiat General Milan R. Stefanilk was murdered - murdered by the men who had plotted against the hfe of the S1ovaik nation. By the men who promised the Slovalks a free life, their own state government, thei,r own legdslaltive assembly, Slovak schools and institutions to get them into a common state with the Ozechs and then failled to keep their promises- The ,anti-demooratic, anti-!Slovak and anti-Ohrat1an polilcy of those men wias responsible for what happened in and to Czecho-Slovakia since 191'8. Czecho-Slova'kiia wa;s a fallacy from the start. It was bud!l.t on sand. It coll.aipsed when the fimt hurri'crune struck, because there was no one to defend it. Even the OLechs would not fire a shot at the NaJzis or Communists in its defense. Stefarak's wor,k of liberating his nation from tyranny is not done. The Slovaks at home and in emigration are determined more than ever to complete the joib that he had begun. Slovrukia shaH. ibe free and the Slova:ks s!ha.ll · again Liive a life of firee men in their 01W11 independent Slovak Repuiblic. • WHO SAID IT? - • • "In a more general way, the Czechs have <lone much to arouse the resentment even of Slovak naturally favorable towards them, and have grievously damaged their own cause by overstressing the "Czechoslovak" idea and by certain measures regarded by the Slovaks as attempts to deprive them of their own nationality. It is paradoxical, but natural, that the weakness of the foundations on whi ch the "Czechoslovak" Idea rested became most apparent the moment tliat the idea received official recognition. Such phrases as "Czechoslovak nationallty" and "Czechoslovak Ian• guage" might be used for the benefit of the out.side world and in constitutional and other State documents, but the fact remains that to the vast majority of both peoples the idea remained a pure fiction, and the languages, like the peoples, were, in solid fact, two and not one." - (C. A. Macartney: HUNGARY AND HER SUCCESSORS; 1937, London).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Tragedy of General Štefánik Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 1 (6), April 1953 pp. 26-27 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1953 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a26e78cce5aaaba26b6aa159393a855a.pdf 51bfe3ef9f258946af07a9a1b0deebc0 PDF Text Text 10 SLOVAKIA THE TRADITION OF SLOVAK STATEHOOD Marian Žiar In the contemporary great conflict of the free world agairuit thé ideology and forceful aggression of Commun!sm, we look upon the tradition of Slovak statehood trom two view·points. It 1s from these two viewpoints that our f!ght against Communism and for the renewal of Slovak statehood is waged. The Slovak nation at horne and the great majority of Slovak ex!les in the free world reject not only the Communist regime in Czecho-SJovakia, installed by and serving Moscow, but also the anti• Slovak ideology of ethnical and pollt!cal "Czechoslovaklsm," the standard•bearers of which are the very Czecho-Slovak politicians in exile, wbo installe<i the violent "people's democratlcal" regime in Slovakia after 194'5 and In 1948 cowardly surrendered power to the Communists. Just as the Slovak nat!on at horne is valiantly resist!ng the forceful pressure of Moscow and Prague Communism, so the great majority of Slovak ex.iles is supl)Ort!ng, in every way possi'ble, tbe effort of the free world against Communist aggression and totality and, in accord with tbe tradition of the Slovak nation, is flghtlng for the restorat!on of its statehood within the framework of a future federated Europe. Th!s fight of the Slovak ex!les is based not only on historical, but politlcal and practlcal consideratlons as well. Already at the beglnning of the n!nth century, the Slovaks had the!r own State, which the Byzant!ne Chronicler called Great Moravia, because it extended beyond both b anks of the Morava River. The nucleus of this State was the territory of western Slovak!a, and lts bullders were the Slovak rulers Mojmír, Rastislav, Svätopluk and Mojmír II. Already Jn the eightb century, the Slovaks were among the first in Centra! Europe to accept Christlan!ty and thereby also western Christian culture and civ!l!zat!on. Thls Slovak State Jasted untll 907, when it succumbed to the joint onslaugbt of the Magyars, Germans and ~ecbs. In old Hungary, Slovakia formed a separate pol!t!cal unit witb its own administrat!ve, military and financial autborlties. It was separated from the rest of Hungary by a customs boundary. In the fourteentb century, Slovak!a was an independent territory under the rule of Matúš Čák of Trenčín, wbo had bis own army, colned bis own money, and concluded agreements '\vlth allles independently. And in the fifteenth century, Slovakia was an Independent administratlve unit under Jobn Jiskra of Brandýs. After the terrlble Turks invaded Centra] Europe, Slovakia was completely separated !rom Magyar lands and was a klnd of independent State unit under the rule of tbe Haibsburgs. It remained so unt!l the end of the seventeenth century. At tbe beginning of tbe eighteenth century, when the Slovaks b e,. came increaslngly consclous natlonally, thelr desires agaln tended to thelr own lndependence. George Fándly cried out to the Slovaks at that t!me: "Slovaks, recall the times when our nation lived under �SLOVAKIA 11 kings of its own people." And the great Slovak poet, John Hollý, wrote beautiful epochs about Svätopluk ·'who founded the great kingdom or tbe Slovaks and became an lndepenrlent sovereigu." In the nineteenth century, the Slovaks were organizing their fight for the polltical rights of thelr nation. Louls Štúr, leader or that movement, Qrganized a milltary rebellion In 1848 to sever Slovak.ia from the Magyars and proclaimed the independence of Slovakia in Myjava on September 19, 1848. Even though thls mllitary revolution failed, the Slovaks kept on flghtlng politlcally against Magyarizat!on and the political pressure of Pešť. The Slovaks wanted to be an independent country under the H a bsburg rule.~ Vlenna, howevet; rejected the efforts of the Slovaks for a federat!on, even though 1:Cr-aus, Finance Minister of Austria, backed tbem. The result was that the solution or the important natlonality problems In Centra! Europe were side-tracked for over a half century, whlch was to the detriment not only of Vienna, but also the whole of Europe and the Central European nations. On June 7, 1861, Slovaks from all parts of t he country assembled at Turčiansky Svätý Martin and demanded that Slovakia be constituted as the Slovak area o f Upper Hungary. This was followed by the Spiš petition of 1868, the massacre Jn Černová in 1907, and the heroic struggle of Svetozar Hur:ban Vajanský, great Slovak patriot, publlsher and writer, wbo wrote in the NÁRODN:l!: NOVINY (The l'fatlonal News) in 1910: "To have one's own State is the supreme deslre of every nation." But the demands of the Slovaks went unheeded; the Magyars were stubborn and determined to keep the Slova,ks under their rule. When the first World War broke out in 1914, the Slovaks at ltome and rubroad p repared the ground .for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Es-pecially tbe Amerlcan Slovaks of wbom there was close to a n1illion. The latter clamored for Slovak independence in the SLOVENSK'{° DJDNNÍK (The Slovak Daily), published in Pltts,burgh, . on January 21, 1910. Tbelr action, carried on dnring World War I under the motto "For An Independent S lovakia," was expressed in th e Cleveland Agreement of October 22, 1915, wblch stated that the Slovaks and the Czecbs will live In a federated union of States with complete autonomy of Slovakia, that Slovakla would bave lts own parliaroent and its own State adminlstration. In a slmllar manner, th e Slovaks were guaranteed autonomy also by the Pittsburgb Pact, of l\lay 30, 1918, wbich was signed by T. G. Masaryk. It was on th e basis ot these suppositions that the Slovaks entered the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918. However, Czech politicians under the leadershlp of Edward Beneš created the fictitious ideotogy of an ethnical and polltlcal union of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon," which meant in practlce the polltlcal hegemony of the Czechs over the Slovaks. Just as the Slovaks had to flght for their natural rlghts in Hungary, so they had to fight again for their politlcal rights in the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. The Slovak nation was denled the right to call ltself the Slovak nation in a State which was created by the joint efforts of the Czechs and Slovaks. American Slovaks alone had g!ven Masaryk almost a milllon dollars during the first World War for the Jfberat!on movement. Under the circumstances, therefore, the Slovak nation had only �12 SLOVAKIA one choice: to fight with all legal means for autonomy as a basis for the complete political independence of the Slovaks. By sens!ble and logical arguments it was not possible to convince the Czechs that the Slovaks, too, had a right to full political sovereignty on Slovak territory. It was not untll 1938, when the Re• public was threatened from the outs!de, that Beneš finally concurred with the idea that the Slovaks be granted autonomy. The development, however, was going forward speedily at that time. And under the given s!tuation, the Slovak parliamentar!ans on March 14, 1939, took the historicalJy s!gnlficant step, when they accepted the responsibility for the fate of t heir own natlon and proclaimed the independence o! Slovakia. From the democratic standpoint, formally it would be possible to censure almost anything about March 14, 1939, but historicalJy it meant and stlll means the day of renewal of Slovak lndependence, whlch is the desire and the goal of the Slovak nation. Even though at the present time national viewpoints are giving way to the broader perspective of a political federation ot the whole of Europe, or at least of Central Europe, nevertheless the real bas!s for every federation still remain the nations, whether large or small, wlth which and on whicb a new form of political society of Europe can be built. That ls why the tradition of Slovak statehood is for us a fundamental issue for every form of European political organizatlon. And with Chrlstlanity, deeply rooted in the soul of our people since the eighth century, thls is the only real basis for liberating Slovakla from the hegemony of Communlsm. • • • WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT TISO "Monsignor Tiso's execution was a travesty o[ justice. The fact that he could have remained president of the Slovak nation if he had only bent bis knee to the communist tyrant makes bim a martyr to the cause of freedom and rellgion. Although the Slovaks have suffered much from their political appressors for centuries, thls is the greatest crime against them in their h!storic struggle for national freedom. His tragic deatb cannot help but inspire Slovaks for centurles to come to defend their God-given politlcal and religious rights." - Abbot Theodore Kojiš, O.S.B., Cleveland, Ohio. • • • • • • "Condemnation of Tiso to death was taken as an indication tbat the Beneš government has surrendered completely to Moscow. Also indicative of thls ls the fact that the Beneš regime, after piously professing friendllness to tbe Cathollc Church. has begun an effort to seize Catholic schools and establish a state monopoly." - CathoJic Universe BulJetin, Cleveland, Ohlo. "Edward Beneš, murderer of the freedom of tbe Slovak nation, killed a good man, a zealous priest of Christ, a loyal Slovak patriot. the flrst president of the Slovak Republic' elected by the Slovak nation. The crlme of murderer Bene!i ls worsll, uglier and more wicked than the crime of Cain." - Peter Prídavok, Presldent Slovak National Council, London, England, April 1947. � 10 SLOVAKIA THE TRADITION OF SLOVAK STATEHOOD Marian Žiar In the contemporary great conflict of the free world agairuit thé ideology and forceful aggression of Commun!sm, we look upon the tradition of Slovak statehood trom two view·points. It 1s from these two viewpoints that our f!ght against Communism and for the renewal of Slovak statehood is waged. The Slovak nation at horne and the great majority of Slovak ex!les in the free world reject not only the Communist regime in Czecho-SJovakia, installed by and serving Moscow, but also the anti• Slovak ideology of ethnical and pollt!cal "Czechoslovaklsm," the standard•bearers of which are the very Czecho-Slovak politicians in exile, wbo installe<i the violent "people's democratlcal" regime in Slovakia after 194'5 and In 1948 cowardly surrendered power to the Communists. Just as the Slovak nat!on at horne is valiantly resist!ng the forceful pressure of Moscow and Prague Communism, so the great majority of Slovak ex.iles is supl)Ort!ng, in every way possi'ble, tbe effort of the free world against Communist aggression and totality and, in accord with tbe tradition of the Slovak nation, is flghtlng for the restorat!on of its statehood within the framework of a future federated Europe. Th!s fight of the Slovak ex!les is based not only on historical, but politlcal and practlcal consideratlons as well. Already at the beglnning of the n!nth century, the Slovaks had the!r own State, which the Byzant!ne Chronicler called Great Moravia, because it extended beyond both b anks of the Morava River. The nucleus of this State was the territory of western Slovak!a, and lts bullders were the Slovak rulers Mojmír, Rastislav, Svätopluk and Mojmír II. Already Jn the eightb century, the Slovaks were among the first in Centra! Europe to accept Christlan!ty and thereby also western Christian culture and civ!l!zat!on. Thls Slovak State Jasted untll 907, when it succumbed to the joint onslaugbt of the Magyars, Germans and ~ecbs. In old Hungary, Slovakia formed a separate pol!t!cal unit witb its own administrat!ve, military and financial autborlties. It was separated from the rest of Hungary by a customs boundary. In the fourteentb century, Slovak!a was an independent territory under the rule of Matúš Čák of Trenčín, wbo had bis own army, colned bis own money, and concluded agreements '\vlth allles independently. And in the fifteenth century, Slovakia was an Independent administratlve unit under Jobn Jiskra of Brandýs. After the terrlble Turks invaded Centra] Europe, Slovakia was completely separated !rom Magyar lands and was a klnd of independent State unit under the rule of tbe Haibsburgs. It remained so unt!l the end of the seventeenth century. At tbe beginning of tbe eighteenth century, when the Slovaks b e,. came increaslngly consclous natlonally, thelr desires agaln tended to thelr own lndependence. George Fándly cried out to the Slovaks at that t!me: "Slovaks, recall the times when our nation lived under �SLOVAKIA 11 kings of its own people." And the great Slovak poet, John Hollý, wrote beautiful epochs about Svätopluk ·'who founded the great kingdom or tbe Slovaks and became an lndepenrlent sovereigu." In the nineteenth century, the Slovaks were organizing their fight for the polltical rights of thelr nation. Louls Štúr, leader or that movement, Qrganized a milltary rebellion In 1848 to sever Slovak.ia from the Magyars and proclaimed the independence of Slovakia in Myjava on September 19, 1848. Even though thls mllitary revolution failed, the Slovaks kept on flghtlng politlcally against Magyarizat!on and the political pressure of Pešť. The Slovaks wanted to be an independent country under the H a bsburg rule.~ Vlenna, howevet; rejected the efforts of the Slovaks for a federat!on, even though 1:Cr-aus, Finance Minister of Austria, backed tbem. The result was that the solution or the important natlonality problems In Centra! Europe were side-tracked for over a half century, whlch was to the detriment not only of Vienna, but also the whole of Europe and the Central European nations. On June 7, 1861, Slovaks from all parts of t he country assembled at Turčiansky Svätý Martin and demanded that Slovakia be constituted as the Slovak area o f Upper Hungary. This was followed by the Spiš petition of 1868, the massacre Jn Černová in 1907, and the heroic struggle of Svetozar Hur:ban Vajanský, great Slovak patriot, publlsher and writer, wbo wrote in the NÁRODN:l!: NOVINY (The l'fatlonal News) in 1910: "To have one's own State is the supreme deslre of every nation." But the demands of the Slovaks went unheeded; the Magyars were stubborn and determined to keep the Slova,ks under their rule. When the first World War broke out in 1914, the Slovaks at ltome and rubroad p repared the ground .for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Es-pecially tbe Amerlcan Slovaks of wbom there was close to a n1illion. The latter clamored for Slovak independence in the SLOVENSK'{° DJDNNÍK (The Slovak Daily), published in Pltts,burgh, . on January 21, 1910. Tbelr action, carried on dnring World War I under the motto "For An Independent S lovakia," was expressed in th e Cleveland Agreement of October 22, 1915, wblch stated that the Slovaks and the Czecbs will live In a federated union of States with complete autonomy of Slovakia, that Slovakla would bave lts own parliaroent and its own State adminlstration. In a slmllar manner, th e Slovaks were guaranteed autonomy also by the Pittsburgb Pact, of l\lay 30, 1918, wbich was signed by T. G. Masaryk. It was on th e basis ot these suppositions that the Slovaks entered the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918. However, Czech politicians under the leadershlp of Edward Beneš created the fictitious ideotogy of an ethnical and polltlcal union of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon," which meant in practlce the polltlcal hegemony of the Czechs over the Slovaks. Just as the Slovaks had to flght for their natural rlghts in Hungary, so they had to fight again for their politlcal rights in the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. The Slovak nation was denled the right to call ltself the Slovak nation in a State which was created by the joint efforts of the Czechs and Slovaks. American Slovaks alone had g!ven Masaryk almost a milllon dollars during the first World War for the Jfberat!on movement. Under the circumstances, therefore, the Slovak nation had only �12 SLOVAKIA one choice: to fight with all legal means for autonomy as a basis for the complete political independence of the Slovaks. By sens!ble and logical arguments it was not possible to convince the Czechs that the Slovaks, too, had a right to full political sovereignty on Slovak territory. It was not untll 1938, when the Re• public was threatened from the outs!de, that Beneš finally concurred with the idea that the Slovaks be granted autonomy. The development, however, was going forward speedily at that time. And under the given s!tuation, the Slovak parliamentar!ans on March 14, 1939, took the historicalJy s!gnlficant step, when they accepted the responsibility for the fate of t heir own natlon and proclaimed the independence o! Slovakia. From the democratic standpoint, formally it would be possible to censure almost anything about March 14, 1939, but historicalJy it meant and stlll means the day of renewal of Slovak lndependence, whlch is the desire and the goal of the Slovak nation. Even though at the present time national viewpoints are giving way to the broader perspective of a political federation ot the whole of Europe, or at least of Central Europe, nevertheless the real bas!s for every federation still remain the nations, whether large or small, wlth which and on whicb a new form of political society of Europe can be built. That ls why the tradition of Slovak statehood is for us a fundamental issue for every form of European political organizatlon. And with Chrlstlanity, deeply rooted in the soul of our people since the eighth century, thls is the only real basis for liberating Slovakla from the hegemony of Communlsm. • • • WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT TISO "Monsignor Tiso's execution was a travesty o[ justice. The fact that he could have remained president of the Slovak nation if he had only bent bis knee to the communist tyrant makes bim a martyr to the cause of freedom and rellgion. Although the Slovaks have suffered much from their political appressors for centuries, thls is the greatest crime against them in their h!storic struggle for national freedom. His tragic deatb cannot help but inspire Slovaks for centurles to come to defend their God-given politlcal and religious rights." - Abbot Theodore Kojiš, O.S.B., Cleveland, Ohio. • • • • • • "Condemnation of Tiso to death was taken as an indication tbat the Beneš government has surrendered completely to Moscow. Also indicative of thls ls the fact that the Beneš regime, after piously professing friendllness to tbe Cathollc Church. has begun an effort to seize Catholic schools and establish a state monopoly." - CathoJic Universe BulJetin, Cleveland, Ohlo. "Edward Beneš, murderer of the freedom of tbe Slovak nation, killed a good man, a zealous priest of Christ, a loyal Slovak patriot. the flrst president of the Slovak Republic' elected by the Slovak nation. The crlme of murderer Bene!i ls worsll, uglier and more wicked than the crime of Cain." - Peter Prídavok, Presldent Slovak National Council, London, England, April 1947. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1952, Vol. 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 10 SLOVAKIA THE TRADITION OF SLOVAK STATEHOOD Marian Žiar In the contemporary great conflict of the free world agairuit thé ideology and forceful aggression of Commun!sm, we look upon the tradition of Slovak statehood trom two view·points. It 1s from these two viewpoints that our f!ght against Communism and for the renewal of Slovak statehood is waged. The Slovak nation at horne and the great majority of Slovak ex!les in the free world reject not only the Communist regime in Czecho-SJovakia, installed by and serving Moscow, but also the anti• Slovak ideology of ethnical and pollt!cal "Czechoslovaklsm," the standard•bearers of which are the very Czecho-Slovak politicians in exile, wbo installe<i the violent "people's democratlcal" regime in Slovakia after 194'5 and In 1948 cowardly surrendered power to the Communists. Just as the Slovak nat!on at horne is valiantly resist!ng the forceful pressure of Moscow and Prague Communism, so the great majority of Slovak ex.iles is supl)Ort!ng, in every way possi'ble, tbe effort of the free world against Communist aggression and totality and, in accord with tbe tradition of the Slovak nation, is flghtlng for the restorat!on of its statehood within the framework of a future federated Europe. Th!s fight of the Slovak ex!les is based not only on historical, but politlcal and practlcal consideratlons as well. Already at the beglnning of the n!nth century, the Slovaks had the!r own State, which the Byzant!ne Chronicler called Great Moravia, because it extended beyond both b anks of the Morava River. The nucleus of this State was the territory of western Slovak!a, and lts bullders were the Slovak rulers Mojmír, Rastislav, Svätopluk and Mojmír II. Already Jn the eightb century, the Slovaks were among the first in Centra! Europe to accept Christlan!ty and thereby also western Christian culture and civ!l!zat!on. Thls Slovak State Jasted untll 907, when it succumbed to the joint onslaugbt of the Magyars, Germans and ~ecbs. In old Hungary, Slovakia formed a separate pol!t!cal unit witb its own administrat!ve, military and financial autborlties. It was separated from the rest of Hungary by a customs boundary. In the fourteentb century, Slovak!a was an independent territory under the rule of Matúš Čák of Trenčín, wbo had bis own army, colned bis own money, and concluded agreements '\vlth allles independently. And in the fifteenth century, Slovakia was an Independent administratlve unit under Jobn Jiskra of Brandýs. After the terrlble Turks invaded Centra] Europe, Slovakia was completely separated !rom Magyar lands and was a klnd of independent State unit under the rule of tbe Haibsburgs. It remained so unt!l the end of the seventeenth century. At tbe beginning of tbe eighteenth century, when the Slovaks b e,. came increaslngly consclous natlonally, thelr desires agaln tended to thelr own lndependence. George Fándly cried out to the Slovaks at that t!me: "Slovaks, recall the times when our nation lived under SLOVAKIA 11 kings of its own people." And the great Slovak poet, John Hollý, wrote beautiful epochs about Svätopluk ·'who founded the great kingdom or tbe Slovaks and became an lndepenrlent sovereigu." In the nineteenth century, the Slovaks were organizing their fight for the polltical rights of thelr nation. Louls Štúr, leader or that movement, Qrganized a milltary rebellion In 1848 to sever Slovak.ia from the Magyars and proclaimed the independence of Slovakia in Myjava on September 19, 1848. Even though thls mllitary revolution failed, the Slovaks kept on flghtlng politlcally against Magyarizat!on and the political pressure of Pešť. The Slovaks wanted to be an independent country under the H a bsburg rule.~ Vlenna, howevet; rejected the efforts of the Slovaks for a federat!on, even though 1:Cr-aus, Finance Minister of Austria, backed tbem. The result was that the solution or the important natlonality problems In Centra! Europe were side-tracked for over a half century, whlch was to the detriment not only of Vienna, but also the whole of Europe and the Central European nations. On June 7, 1861, Slovaks from all parts of t he country assembled at Turčiansky Svätý Martin and demanded that Slovakia be constituted as the Slovak area o f Upper Hungary. This was followed by the Spiš petition of 1868, the massacre Jn Černová in 1907, and the heroic struggle of Svetozar Hur:ban Vajanský, great Slovak patriot, publlsher and writer, wbo wrote in the NÁRODN:l!: NOVINY (The l'fatlonal News) in 1910: "To have one's own State is the supreme deslre of every nation." But the demands of the Slovaks went unheeded; the Magyars were stubborn and determined to keep the Slova,ks under their rule. When the first World War broke out in 1914, the Slovaks at ltome and rubroad p repared the ground .for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Es-pecially tbe Amerlcan Slovaks of wbom there was close to a n1illion. The latter clamored for Slovak independence in the SLOVENSK'{° DJDNNÍK (The Slovak Daily), published in Pltts,burgh, . on January 21, 1910. Tbelr action, carried on dnring World War I under the motto "For An Independent S lovakia," was expressed in th e Cleveland Agreement of October 22, 1915, wblch stated that the Slovaks and the Czecbs will live In a federated union of States with complete autonomy of Slovakia, that Slovakla would bave lts own parliaroent and its own State adminlstration. In a slmllar manner, th e Slovaks were guaranteed autonomy also by the Pittsburgb Pact, of l\lay 30, 1918, wbich was signed by T. G. Masaryk. It was on th e basis ot these suppositions that the Slovaks entered the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918. However, Czech politicians under the leadershlp of Edward Beneš created the fictitious ideotogy of an ethnical and polltlcal union of the so-called "Czechoslovak natlon," which meant in practlce the polltlcal hegemony of the Czechs over the Slovaks. Just as the Slovaks had to flght for their natural rlghts in Hungary, so they had to fight again for their politlcal rights in the Czecho-Slovak Republlc. The Slovak nation was denled the right to call ltself the Slovak nation in a State which was created by the joint efforts of the Czechs and Slovaks. American Slovaks alone had g!ven Masaryk almost a milllon dollars during the first World War for the Jfberat!on movement. Under the circumstances, therefore, the Slovak nation had only 12 SLOVAKIA one choice: to fight with all legal means for autonomy as a basis for the complete political independence of the Slovaks. By sens!ble and logical arguments it was not possible to convince the Czechs that the Slovaks, too, had a right to full political sovereignty on Slovak territory. It was not untll 1938, when the Re• public was threatened from the outs!de, that Beneš finally concurred with the idea that the Slovaks be granted autonomy. The development, however, was going forward speedily at that time. And under the given s!tuation, the Slovak parliamentar!ans on March 14, 1939, took the historicalJy s!gnlficant step, when they accepted the responsibility for the fate of t heir own natlon and proclaimed the independence o! Slovakia. From the democratic standpoint, formally it would be possible to censure almost anything about March 14, 1939, but historicalJy it meant and stlll means the day of renewal of Slovak lndependence, whlch is the desire and the goal of the Slovak nation. Even though at the present time national viewpoints are giving way to the broader perspective of a political federation ot the whole of Europe, or at least of Central Europe, nevertheless the real bas!s for every federation still remain the nations, whether large or small, wlth which and on whicb a new form of political society of Europe can be built. That ls why the tradition of Slovak statehood is for us a fundamental issue for every form of European political organizatlon. And with Chrlstlanity, deeply rooted in the soul of our people since the eighth century, thls is the only real basis for liberating Slovakla from the hegemony of Communlsm. • • • WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT TISO "Monsignor Tiso's execution was a travesty o[ justice. The fact that he could have remained president of the Slovak nation if he had only bent bis knee to the communist tyrant makes bim a martyr to the cause of freedom and rellgion. Although the Slovaks have suffered much from their political appressors for centuries, thls is the greatest crime against them in their h!storic struggle for national freedom. His tragic deatb cannot help but inspire Slovaks for centurles to come to defend their God-given politlcal and religious rights." - Abbot Theodore Kojiš, O.S.B., Cleveland, Ohio. • • • • • • "Condemnation of Tiso to death was taken as an indication tbat the Beneš government has surrendered completely to Moscow. Also indicative of thls ls the fact that the Beneš regime, after piously professing friendllness to tbe Cathollc Church. has begun an effort to seize Catholic schools and establish a state monopoly." - CathoJic Universe BulJetin, Cleveland, Ohlo. "Edward Beneš, murderer of the freedom of tbe Slovak nation, killed a good man, a zealous priest of Christ, a loyal Slovak patriot. the flrst president of the Slovak Republic' elected by the Slovak nation. The crlme of murderer Bene!i ls worsll, uglier and more wicked than the crime of Cain." - Peter Prídavok, Presldent Slovak National Council, London, England, April 1947.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Tradition of Slovak Statehood Description An account of the resource Marian Žiar Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3), March 1952 pp. 10-12 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Žiar, Marian Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1952 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/3b06eafbb103932906c0f41ea6435c28.pdf a73b5b1ffcc7add9063381196649c47c PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland, �26 SLOVAKIA but it appears that this happened before the sixth, and not later than the beginning of the sixth, century. The question what territory the ancestors of the Slovaks occupied or settled, and whether 1918 or 1938 Slova'k~a was smaller or larger than that territory, intrigued many scholars of history, archeology, and philosophy. Their studies definitely proved that the ancestors of the Slovaks had occupied a territory vastly greater than the area of present-day Slovakia; they proved that the Slovaks settled even beyond the Danube and occupied the northern area between the Tisa and Danube rivers. Paul J. Safarik, in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti" (Slovanic Antiquities), dealt with the question whether the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled also on the territory beyond the Danube. He replied in the affirmative, stating that if we are willing to consider ancient testimonies about the Slovanic inhabitants of that area with an open mind, we shall come to the conviction that they belong nowhere more properly than to the Moravians and the Slovaks. Safarik pla.ced the Slovak boundary in the center of Moravia. About the boundary between the Tisa and the Danube rivers, he said: "At Pest\ Vacov, and beneath Mt. Matra there was at that time a boundary between the Bulgarians and inhabitants of Moravia, and the salt mines in Marmaros were in possession of the former." Saifarik's views were accepted by several excellent scholars, among them: Joseph Skultety (0 byvalom Hornom Uhorsku, 1929, 1932; 0 Slovakoch, 1928; Zo slovenskej minulosti, 1936); Roessler (Zeitpunct, 93); K. J. Grot (Moravija i Mad'jary s poloviny IX. do nacala X. veka Petrograd, 1881) ; Maretic (Slaveni u davnini). :r..ubor Niederle, however, let the question of Pannonia to the philologists. After Safarik, various historians and philologists devoted their time to this question. And the Magyars, who inhabited the territory in question at the present time, did also. Professor John Melich, eminent Magyar historian and philologist, supports Safarik's deduction in his book "A honfoglalaskori Magyarorszag" (Budapest, 1925-29); Ele- �SLOVAKIA 27 mer Moor did also in his excellent, objective work "Westungarn im Mittelalter im Spiegel der Orstnamen (Segedin, 1936; and Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1929); likewise, Stephen Kniezsa, in several articles published in 1:Jhe "Archivum Europae Centro-orientalis" and in the "Ungarische Jahrblicher" (1937-38). Moor's work practically exhausted all sources about western Hungary (Transdanubia); Melich's did not go quite as far, nor did the studies of Kniezsa. These studies, however, even of themselves are sufficient to convince us that the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled on a muc:1 greater territory than present Slovakia. We know that Prince Pribina and his son Kocer fled from Nitra to Pannonia; they resided in Blatnohrad. The source, which describes their activity, comes to us from 871 A.D. and is called: "Libellum de Conversone Bagoariorum et Caranthanorum." This document, recording the events of 850, mentions the names of the magnates in Pribina's escort: 15 are Slovanic, while 17 are German. A careful scrutiny of the Slovanic names will convince us that these names were common with western Slovans, particularly with the dwellers of ancient Nitra. Old Latin documents from Nitra record the names of magnates which have the same linguistic foundation as the names of Pribina's magnates. But so do many personal names of southern and eastern Slovakia, as well as eastern Moravia! Taking all the given data and connecting them with the fact that Pribina and Kocer were Slovaks, we must conclude that the majority of the 15 names are Slovak. Melich, stating that the Magyars found Slovaks in Pannonia when they came there (p. 397), said that the namt':s existing on the territory of the Pribina-Kocer principality make it apparently certain that the 'Slovaks, the western Slovans (Slavs), also inhabited the land from Balaton Lake to the north, probobly to the northern line of Tet-SokoroBakon (p. 395). "It seems to me," said Melidh, "that the proofs presented confirm the testimony of geographical names. Pribina-Kocel"s Slovans (Slavs) were Slovaks. However, in- �28 SLOVAKIA asmuch as even from Balaton Lake to the south the S'lovans live here and there, they were Slovaks for the most part" (p. 396). Names of rivers and places also prove that the Slovaks settled in northern Pannonia. According to Dr. Melich, the name 'B alaton is Slovak, because if it were of southern Slav (Yugoslav) origin, the Magyar equivalent would have to be written "Balaton" (long "a"). Near the Bakon Forest is a stream which the Magyars today call "Cuha;" this is derived from the Slovak "Sucha" (dry); if it were of Yugoslav origin, according to Melich again, it would have t o be written "Cuha" (long "u"). There are many such names in Pannonia. The city of Veszprem (Vesprim) is orf western-Slav origin; it comes from Bezprem. A person named Bezprem is mentioned in the history of Brevnov, Bohemia, in the twelfth century; we also find the name in old Slovak documents. Furthermore, the name orf the town of Tihany is derived from tlte Slovak name Tichoii and is so written in documents of the 11th century. The name of the town Noszlop somes from the Slovak noun "Neostup," just like the Moravian "Ostopovice, Vostopovice" are derived from the noun "Ostup." According to these and similar appellations, Professor Melich concludes (p. 395) the Slovaks lived from the Balaton Lake to the north. His researches, convincing as they are, reveal much more. On the right bank of the Danube we find towns and cities with apparently Slovak names: Ostrihom, Budin, Tetin, Vesprim, Vysegrad-Vysehrad, and opposite P,a rkaii we find Neszmely (from the Slovak Nesmily), which are mentioned as a harbor and a river crossing in 1237-1240. In the west, Slovak settlements extended proba;bly to the river Raab. These names demonstrate that northern Pannonia was occupied by the Slovaks, and partly by the Germans, before the advent of the Magyars. There are not many Slovaks there today. But there is an appreciable number Jf them south of Ostrihom and above the Bako:n Forest. Some chronicles, that of "Anonymous" among them, say that the �SLOVAKIA 29 Magyars annihilated the Slovaks there, but the fact is that even in the 12th and succeeding centuries. many persons with Slovak names are mentioned in the documents of Veszprem, Tihany, and other places. Melich placed the southern Slovans between the Tisa and Danube rivers, because he was particularly influenced by the name of the "Zagy,a" river (p. 101). Of course, he did not know from what southern Slovanic tongue it might be derived. To a 'Slovanic philologist, towever, it is quite obvious that the name of the river which flows through that particul·a r territory cannot be deduced from any other than the Slovak language. The Magyar name "Zagyva," like the Czech "Sazava," comes from the Slovak "Sadzava," the Magyars using "-gy-" in place of the Slovak "-dz-" (Palugya-Paludza; Privigye-Prievidza; Pomogy-Pomedzi; etc.). Moor was correct in this regard, adding that, in the meantime, it appeared that Professor Melich had corrected his earlier views on the subject. Moor showed that names of this type could not be ascribed to any Slovanic language other than Slovak. The city of Miskolc, much in the news during the recent Hungarian revolt, is also of Slovak origin (Miskovec). Amd there are many such names close to and far from the area a:bove the Matra ond the Beech Forest. For example, north of Jager is the community of Balatony; the latter is as much a Slovak name as is Balaton, as well as: Topol'cany, Sucha, Novaky, Trstene, Kl'acany, Vysnova, Vfbove, Hradisfany, Domoslav, Dubie.any, Hlohovec, Suchof, and many others. Today's Ferto-Szent-Miklos was mentioned in the thirteenth century as "Neweg , Neueg;" but in northeastern Vesprem a group of seven communities is also recalled under the common name of "Nywig, Nywog, Neueg." We have the same proofs from that same time (13th century) for N evidzany (Tekov County) , that is, all these settlements were called by one and the same name: Nevidza. These names are especially important in the determination of the tribal adherance of the Slovans beyond the Danube and beneath Mt. Matra. They tell us that these Slovans (Slavs) were the ancestors of the Slovaks. �30 SLOVAKIA Moor literally fought against Kniezsa over the name "Pomogy" (Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1937, p. 278; and 1938. p. 36). A name of this type is also in Zelezna (Vas) County, near Kormend: it is "Geregye (from the Slovak "Gradza," which today would sound "Hradza"). Anotrer such important name is "Bogyoszlo" (from the Slovak "Budislav); if it were derived from a south Slorvanic language, it would have to be written "Bodoszlo" in Magyar. We find this appellation in several counties (Bihar Pese - to the south on the Danube--Sopron, and Zelezna. Names from the area of Balaton Lake, even south of it, are proofs that the ancestors of the Slov8!ks once occupied that territory. They are typical western-Slovanic. One even need not be a philologist to arrive at the fact that they are of Slov.anic origin; for example, Kustany (Kosfany); Nagy-Szokoly (Sokol); Nyedam puszta, Rosztopan puszta, etc. Some of the names may appear a bit "mixed" up, but a knowledge of documentary material and the evolution of the Magyar language always help one to find the original Slovanic or, respectively, Slovak form. The counties of Vesprem, Zalan, Komarno (also the transdanubian paret), Zelezna, Sopron, Moson, Rab, and others up to the Drava river, are swarmed with Slovanic names. Documents of the eleventh century contain a multitude of Slovanic p e r s o n a I names (Budivoj; Kazimir; Vojtech; Dobron; Vranis; Milose; Gnevku (Hnevek) ; Zlauku (Slavek) ; Radoan (Radovan); Vaclav; etc.). On the Danube, in most ancient times, the boundary between the Slovak and the Bulgarian nations was between Vacov (derived from "Vaclav") and Pese. According to what has been uncovered by archeologists, philologists, and historians, we ,a re quite certain that the territory of the ancient Slovaks extended in the west from beyond the Nezider Lake, through Zelezna County probably up to Kormend (from the Slovak "kremen"), below Balaton Lake; of course, we know that north of Balaton Lake there were large Slov·a k settlements in olden times; between the Danube and Tisa rivers the boundary went below the southern slope of Mt. Matra. �SLOVAKIA 31 Today there still may be doubt about the origm of several of these cities and villages, but their names tell us clearly that they were founded by Slovaks. According to Anonymou s, the Slovaks were there before the 12th century; and it is more than probable that the "Slovene" Slovaks were there when the Magyars came to Hungary. According to an ethnograph ic map of 1773, there were not many Slovaks in some places, but a large number in others. A solid Slovak territory extends here deeply to Pese, and even farther south. Beautiful central Slovak is still spoken in the vicinities of Pest', Vacov, and other cities and towns. According to names mentioned in ancient documents, the eastern boundary extended to the Tisa river and most probably went northeast as far as Zemplin. In an ancient Hungaro-P olish chronicle the river Topl'a: is recalled by its old Slova,k name "Cepla" (Tepla). This clearly proves that the Slovaks must have inhabited the area. From the philologica l standpoint, the question of the Slovaks in Moravia is altogether clear. The Slovaks there in the 8-lOth centuries occupied a greater space to the west and south than they do now. To, the south they had fortificatio ns on the river Dyja and reached as far as the Danube. Philologica l studies also show that Slovak influence also extended to southern Poland: the dialects used there indicate that probably from the 13th century there was a common developmen t with the Slovak and not the Polish language. Furthermo re, together with archeologic al studies, they tell us that the Slovaks today occupy only about a third of the territory which was settled by their ancestors before the Magyars came into the Danube area. With the passaga of time, Paul J. Safarik's determinat ion of ancient Slovak frontiers has been confirmed by scientific studies of historians, ethnograph ers, philologists , and archeologis ts. RIDFERENCE S: Risa Verkomoravs ka, 1933, compiled by Dr. Jan Stanislav. Slovensky zivotny priestor v minulosti a dnes, Dr. Frantisek Bokes, 1943. Slovensko v praveku, Dr. Jan Eisner, 1933. Knieza Pribina, Dr. Frantisek Hrus ovsky, 1933; also Slovenske dejiny, �SLOVAKIA 32 1939; Vefka Morava a Pofsko, rn33. Ungarns Volkerschaften im XI. Jahrhundert, Dr. I. Kn iesza, 1938. Zur Geschichte der ungarisch-slowakischen ethnischen Grenze, Dr. I. K niezsa, 19 41. Slovanske starozitnosti, P avel J . Safa rik, Vol. II, 2nd ed., 1863. Slovenske starozitnosti, Dr. I'..ubor Niederle, 1906, 1910. Narodopisni mapa Uher podle ured. lexikonu osad z r. 1n3, A . P e trov , 1924. Pribinovi Vermozi , Dr. J an Stanislav, 1939-40. Nehai'ite l'ud moj, Dr. Jo zef Skult ety, 1928 . • • • MICKIEWICZ IN SLOVAK POETRY AND TRANSLATIONS JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM Ph.D. The University of California recently published an excellent symposium on the great Polish poet and patriot, Adam Mickiewicz, whose centenary has been commemorated throughout the world since 1955. Altogether 30 scholars and experts in Slavistics, representing over 20 nations and universities, contributed to this remarkable volume, edited by the eminent Polish scholar, professor Waclaw Lednicki. The volume has been published under the impressive title "Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature," and the editor actually succeeded in presenting Mickiewicz's influence on World literatures. Slovakia is represented by two contributions and is also mentioned in an article of a Czech scholar, who quite sincerely tried not to make the usual mistake of confusing Slovak and Czech poets and writers. The main article on Slovak literature in connection with Mickiekicz was written by the known expert in Slavic studies, professor Dimitry Cizevsky from Harvard, who in his scholarly study deals mainly with the poetry of two outstanding Slovak romantics: r..udovit Stur and Janka KraP. Cizevsky admits "that Mickiewicz's influence on Slovak literature was undoubtedly significant," but he warns at the same time against the "parallels" which are not parallels at all. This remark refers mainly to a Polish expert on Slovak poetry, Wladyslaw Bobek, whose work twenty-five years ago aimed to demonstrate the part which the poetry of Mickiewicz played in the works of - out of the theo- � SLOVAKIA 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland, �26 SLOVAKIA but it appears that this happened before the sixth, and not later than the beginning of the sixth, century. The question what territory the ancestors of the Slovaks occupied or settled, and whether 1918 or 1938 Slova'k~a was smaller or larger than that territory, intrigued many scholars of history, archeology, and philosophy. Their studies definitely proved that the ancestors of the Slovaks had occupied a territory vastly greater than the area of present-day Slovakia; they proved that the Slovaks settled even beyond the Danube and occupied the northern area between the Tisa and Danube rivers. Paul J. Safarik, in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti" (Slovanic Antiquities), dealt with the question whether the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled also on the territory beyond the Danube. He replied in the affirmative, stating that if we are willing to consider ancient testimonies about the Slovanic inhabitants of that area with an open mind, we shall come to the conviction that they belong nowhere more properly than to the Moravians and the Slovaks. Safarik pla.ced the Slovak boundary in the center of Moravia. About the boundary between the Tisa and the Danube rivers, he said: "At Pest\ Vacov, and beneath Mt. Matra there was at that time a boundary between the Bulgarians and inhabitants of Moravia, and the salt mines in Marmaros were in possession of the former." Saifarik's views were accepted by several excellent scholars, among them: Joseph Skultety (0 byvalom Hornom Uhorsku, 1929, 1932; 0 Slovakoch, 1928; Zo slovenskej minulosti, 1936); Roessler (Zeitpunct, 93); K. J. Grot (Moravija i Mad'jary s poloviny IX. do nacala X. veka Petrograd, 1881) ; Maretic (Slaveni u davnini). :r..ubor Niederle, however, let the question of Pannonia to the philologists. After Safarik, various historians and philologists devoted their time to this question. And the Magyars, who inhabited the territory in question at the present time, did also. Professor John Melich, eminent Magyar historian and philologist, supports Safarik's deduction in his book "A honfoglalaskori Magyarorszag" (Budapest, 1925-29); Ele- �SLOVAKIA 27 mer Moor did also in his excellent, objective work "Westungarn im Mittelalter im Spiegel der Orstnamen (Segedin, 1936; and Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1929); likewise, Stephen Kniezsa, in several articles published in 1:Jhe "Archivum Europae Centro-orientalis" and in the "Ungarische Jahrblicher" (1937-38). Moor's work practically exhausted all sources about western Hungary (Transdanubia); Melich's did not go quite as far, nor did the studies of Kniezsa. These studies, however, even of themselves are sufficient to convince us that the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled on a muc:1 greater territory than present Slovakia. We know that Prince Pribina and his son Kocer fled from Nitra to Pannonia; they resided in Blatnohrad. The source, which describes their activity, comes to us from 871 A.D. and is called: "Libellum de Conversone Bagoariorum et Caranthanorum." This document, recording the events of 850, mentions the names of the magnates in Pribina's escort: 15 are Slovanic, while 17 are German. A careful scrutiny of the Slovanic names will convince us that these names were common with western Slovans, particularly with the dwellers of ancient Nitra. Old Latin documents from Nitra record the names of magnates which have the same linguistic foundation as the names of Pribina's magnates. But so do many personal names of southern and eastern Slovakia, as well as eastern Moravia! Taking all the given data and connecting them with the fact that Pribina and Kocer were Slovaks, we must conclude that the majority of the 15 names are Slovak. Melich, stating that the Magyars found Slovaks in Pannonia when they came there (p. 397), said that the namt':s existing on the territory of the Pribina-Kocer principality make it apparently certain that the 'Slovaks, the western Slovans (Slavs), also inhabited the land from Balaton Lake to the north, probobly to the northern line of Tet-SokoroBakon (p. 395). "It seems to me," said Melidh, "that the proofs presented confirm the testimony of geographical names. Pribina-Kocel"s Slovans (Slavs) were Slovaks. However, in- �28 SLOVAKIA asmuch as even from Balaton Lake to the south the S'lovans live here and there, they were Slovaks for the most part" (p. 396). Names of rivers and places also prove that the Slovaks settled in northern Pannonia. According to Dr. Melich, the name 'B alaton is Slovak, because if it were of southern Slav (Yugoslav) origin, the Magyar equivalent would have to be written "Balaton" (long "a"). Near the Bakon Forest is a stream which the Magyars today call "Cuha;" this is derived from the Slovak "Sucha" (dry); if it were of Yugoslav origin, according to Melich again, it would have t o be written "Cuha" (long "u"). There are many such names in Pannonia. The city of Veszprem (Vesprim) is orf western-Slav origin; it comes from Bezprem. A person named Bezprem is mentioned in the history of Brevnov, Bohemia, in the twelfth century; we also find the name in old Slovak documents. Furthermore, the name orf the town of Tihany is derived from tlte Slovak name Tichoii and is so written in documents of the 11th century. The name of the town Noszlop somes from the Slovak noun "Neostup," just like the Moravian "Ostopovice, Vostopovice" are derived from the noun "Ostup." According to these and similar appellations, Professor Melich concludes (p. 395) the Slovaks lived from the Balaton Lake to the north. His researches, convincing as they are, reveal much more. On the right bank of the Danube we find towns and cities with apparently Slovak names: Ostrihom, Budin, Tetin, Vesprim, Vysegrad-Vysehrad, and opposite P,a rkaii we find Neszmely (from the Slovak Nesmily), which are mentioned as a harbor and a river crossing in 1237-1240. In the west, Slovak settlements extended proba;bly to the river Raab. These names demonstrate that northern Pannonia was occupied by the Slovaks, and partly by the Germans, before the advent of the Magyars. There are not many Slovaks there today. But there is an appreciable number Jf them south of Ostrihom and above the Bako:n Forest. Some chronicles, that of "Anonymous" among them, say that the �SLOVAKIA 29 Magyars annihilated the Slovaks there, but the fact is that even in the 12th and succeeding centuries. many persons with Slovak names are mentioned in the documents of Veszprem, Tihany, and other places. Melich placed the southern Slovans between the Tisa and Danube rivers, because he was particularly influenced by the name of the "Zagy,a" river (p. 101). Of course, he did not know from what southern Slovanic tongue it might be derived. To a 'Slovanic philologist, towever, it is quite obvious that the name of the river which flows through that particul·a r territory cannot be deduced from any other than the Slovak language. The Magyar name "Zagyva," like the Czech "Sazava," comes from the Slovak "Sadzava," the Magyars using "-gy-" in place of the Slovak "-dz-" (Palugya-Paludza; Privigye-Prievidza; Pomogy-Pomedzi; etc.). Moor was correct in this regard, adding that, in the meantime, it appeared that Professor Melich had corrected his earlier views on the subject. Moor showed that names of this type could not be ascribed to any Slovanic language other than Slovak. The city of Miskolc, much in the news during the recent Hungarian revolt, is also of Slovak origin (Miskovec). Amd there are many such names close to and far from the area a:bove the Matra ond the Beech Forest. For example, north of Jager is the community of Balatony; the latter is as much a Slovak name as is Balaton, as well as: Topol'cany, Sucha, Novaky, Trstene, Kl'acany, Vysnova, Vfbove, Hradisfany, Domoslav, Dubie.any, Hlohovec, Suchof, and many others. Today's Ferto-Szent-Miklos was mentioned in the thirteenth century as "Neweg , Neueg;" but in northeastern Vesprem a group of seven communities is also recalled under the common name of "Nywig, Nywog, Neueg." We have the same proofs from that same time (13th century) for N evidzany (Tekov County) , that is, all these settlements were called by one and the same name: Nevidza. These names are especially important in the determination of the tribal adherance of the Slovans beyond the Danube and beneath Mt. Matra. They tell us that these Slovans (Slavs) were the ancestors of the Slovaks. �30 SLOVAKIA Moor literally fought against Kniezsa over the name "Pomogy" (Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1937, p. 278; and 1938. p. 36). A name of this type is also in Zelezna (Vas) County, near Kormend: it is "Geregye (from the Slovak "Gradza," which today would sound "Hradza"). Anotrer such important name is "Bogyoszlo" (from the Slovak "Budislav); if it were derived from a south Slorvanic language, it would have to be written "Bodoszlo" in Magyar. We find this appellation in several counties (Bihar Pese - to the south on the Danube--Sopron, and Zelezna. Names from the area of Balaton Lake, even south of it, are proofs that the ancestors of the Slov8!ks once occupied that territory. They are typical western-Slovanic. One even need not be a philologist to arrive at the fact that they are of Slov.anic origin; for example, Kustany (Kosfany); Nagy-Szokoly (Sokol); Nyedam puszta, Rosztopan puszta, etc. Some of the names may appear a bit "mixed" up, but a knowledge of documentary material and the evolution of the Magyar language always help one to find the original Slovanic or, respectively, Slovak form. The counties of Vesprem, Zalan, Komarno (also the transdanubian paret), Zelezna, Sopron, Moson, Rab, and others up to the Drava river, are swarmed with Slovanic names. Documents of the eleventh century contain a multitude of Slovanic p e r s o n a I names (Budivoj; Kazimir; Vojtech; Dobron; Vranis; Milose; Gnevku (Hnevek) ; Zlauku (Slavek) ; Radoan (Radovan); Vaclav; etc.). On the Danube, in most ancient times, the boundary between the Slovak and the Bulgarian nations was between Vacov (derived from "Vaclav") and Pese. According to what has been uncovered by archeologists, philologists, and historians, we ,a re quite certain that the territory of the ancient Slovaks extended in the west from beyond the Nezider Lake, through Zelezna County probably up to Kormend (from the Slovak "kremen"), below Balaton Lake; of course, we know that north of Balaton Lake there were large Slov·a k settlements in olden times; between the Danube and Tisa rivers the boundary went below the southern slope of Mt. Matra. �SLOVAKIA 31 Today there still may be doubt about the origm of several of these cities and villages, but their names tell us clearly that they were founded by Slovaks. According to Anonymou s, the Slovaks were there before the 12th century; and it is more than probable that the "Slovene" Slovaks were there when the Magyars came to Hungary. According to an ethnograph ic map of 1773, there were not many Slovaks in some places, but a large number in others. A solid Slovak territory extends here deeply to Pese, and even farther south. Beautiful central Slovak is still spoken in the vicinities of Pest', Vacov, and other cities and towns. According to names mentioned in ancient documents, the eastern boundary extended to the Tisa river and most probably went northeast as far as Zemplin. In an ancient Hungaro-P olish chronicle the river Topl'a: is recalled by its old Slova,k name "Cepla" (Tepla). This clearly proves that the Slovaks must have inhabited the area. From the philologica l standpoint, the question of the Slovaks in Moravia is altogether clear. The Slovaks there in the 8-lOth centuries occupied a greater space to the west and south than they do now. To, the south they had fortificatio ns on the river Dyja and reached as far as the Danube. Philologica l studies also show that Slovak influence also extended to southern Poland: the dialects used there indicate that probably from the 13th century there was a common developmen t with the Slovak and not the Polish language. Furthermo re, together with archeologic al studies, they tell us that the Slovaks today occupy only about a third of the territory which was settled by their ancestors before the Magyars came into the Danube area. With the passaga of time, Paul J. Safarik's determinat ion of ancient Slovak frontiers has been confirmed by scientific studies of historians, ethnograph ers, philologists , and archeologis ts. RIDFERENCE S: Risa Verkomoravs ka, 1933, compiled by Dr. Jan Stanislav. Slovensky zivotny priestor v minulosti a dnes, Dr. Frantisek Bokes, 1943. Slovensko v praveku, Dr. Jan Eisner, 1933. Knieza Pribina, Dr. Frantisek Hrus ovsky, 1933; also Slovenske dejiny, �SLOVAKIA 32 1939; Vefka Morava a Pofsko, rn33. Ungarns Volkerschaften im XI. Jahrhundert, Dr. I. Kn iesza, 1938. Zur Geschichte der ungarisch-slowakischen ethnischen Grenze, Dr. I. K niezsa, 19 41. Slovanske starozitnosti, P avel J . Safa rik, Vol. II, 2nd ed., 1863. Slovenske starozitnosti, Dr. I'..ubor Niederle, 1906, 1910. Narodopisni mapa Uher podle ured. lexikonu osad z r. 1n3, A . P e trov , 1924. Pribinovi Vermozi , Dr. J an Stanislav, 1939-40. Nehai'ite l'ud moj, Dr. Jo zef Skult ety, 1928 . • • • MICKIEWICZ IN SLOVAK POETRY AND TRANSLATIONS JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM Ph.D. The University of California recently published an excellent symposium on the great Polish poet and patriot, Adam Mickiewicz, whose centenary has been commemorated throughout the world since 1955. Altogether 30 scholars and experts in Slavistics, representing over 20 nations and universities, contributed to this remarkable volume, edited by the eminent Polish scholar, professor Waclaw Lednicki. The volume has been published under the impressive title "Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature," and the editor actually succeeded in presenting Mickiewicz's influence on World literatures. Slovakia is represented by two contributions and is also mentioned in an article of a Czech scholar, who quite sincerely tried not to make the usual mistake of confusing Slovak and Czech poets and writers. The main article on Slovak literature in connection with Mickiekicz was written by the known expert in Slavic studies, professor Dimitry Cizevsky from Harvard, who in his scholarly study deals mainly with the poetry of two outstanding Slovak romantics: r..udovit Stur and Janka KraP. Cizevsky admits "that Mickiewicz's influence on Slovak literature was undoubtedly significant," but he warns at the same time against the "parallels" which are not parallels at all. This remark refers mainly to a Polish expert on Slovak poetry, Wladyslaw Bobek, whose work twenty-five years ago aimed to demonstrate the part which the poetry of Mickiewicz played in the works of - out of the theo- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland, 26 SLOVAKIA but it appears that this happened before the sixth, and not later than the beginning of the sixth, century. The question what territory the ancestors of the Slovaks occupied or settled, and whether 1918 or 1938 Slova'k~a was smaller or larger than that territory, intrigued many scholars of history, archeology, and philosophy. Their studies definitely proved that the ancestors of the Slovaks had occupied a territory vastly greater than the area of present-day Slovakia; they proved that the Slovaks settled even beyond the Danube and occupied the northern area between the Tisa and Danube rivers. Paul J. Safarik, in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti" (Slovanic Antiquities), dealt with the question whether the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled also on the territory beyond the Danube. He replied in the affirmative, stating that if we are willing to consider ancient testimonies about the Slovanic inhabitants of that area with an open mind, we shall come to the conviction that they belong nowhere more properly than to the Moravians and the Slovaks. Safarik pla.ced the Slovak boundary in the center of Moravia. About the boundary between the Tisa and the Danube rivers, he said: "At Pest\ Vacov, and beneath Mt. Matra there was at that time a boundary between the Bulgarians and inhabitants of Moravia, and the salt mines in Marmaros were in possession of the former." Saifarik's views were accepted by several excellent scholars, among them: Joseph Skultety (0 byvalom Hornom Uhorsku, 1929, 1932; 0 Slovakoch, 1928; Zo slovenskej minulosti, 1936); Roessler (Zeitpunct, 93); K. J. Grot (Moravija i Mad'jary s poloviny IX. do nacala X. veka Petrograd, 1881) ; Maretic (Slaveni u davnini). :r..ubor Niederle, however, let the question of Pannonia to the philologists. After Safarik, various historians and philologists devoted their time to this question. And the Magyars, who inhabited the territory in question at the present time, did also. Professor John Melich, eminent Magyar historian and philologist, supports Safarik's deduction in his book "A honfoglalaskori Magyarorszag" (Budapest, 1925-29); Ele- SLOVAKIA 27 mer Moor did also in his excellent, objective work "Westungarn im Mittelalter im Spiegel der Orstnamen (Segedin, 1936; and Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1929); likewise, Stephen Kniezsa, in several articles published in 1:Jhe "Archivum Europae Centro-orientalis" and in the "Ungarische Jahrblicher" (1937-38). Moor's work practically exhausted all sources about western Hungary (Transdanubia); Melich's did not go quite as far, nor did the studies of Kniezsa. These studies, however, even of themselves are sufficient to convince us that the ancestors of the Slovak nation had settled on a muc:1 greater territory than present Slovakia. We know that Prince Pribina and his son Kocer fled from Nitra to Pannonia; they resided in Blatnohrad. The source, which describes their activity, comes to us from 871 A.D. and is called: "Libellum de Conversone Bagoariorum et Caranthanorum." This document, recording the events of 850, mentions the names of the magnates in Pribina's escort: 15 are Slovanic, while 17 are German. A careful scrutiny of the Slovanic names will convince us that these names were common with western Slovans, particularly with the dwellers of ancient Nitra. Old Latin documents from Nitra record the names of magnates which have the same linguistic foundation as the names of Pribina's magnates. But so do many personal names of southern and eastern Slovakia, as well as eastern Moravia! Taking all the given data and connecting them with the fact that Pribina and Kocer were Slovaks, we must conclude that the majority of the 15 names are Slovak. Melich, stating that the Magyars found Slovaks in Pannonia when they came there (p. 397), said that the namt':s existing on the territory of the Pribina-Kocer principality make it apparently certain that the 'Slovaks, the western Slovans (Slavs), also inhabited the land from Balaton Lake to the north, probobly to the northern line of Tet-SokoroBakon (p. 395). "It seems to me," said Melidh, "that the proofs presented confirm the testimony of geographical names. Pribina-Kocel"s Slovans (Slavs) were Slovaks. However, in- 28 SLOVAKIA asmuch as even from Balaton Lake to the south the S'lovans live here and there, they were Slovaks for the most part" (p. 396). Names of rivers and places also prove that the Slovaks settled in northern Pannonia. According to Dr. Melich, the name 'B alaton is Slovak, because if it were of southern Slav (Yugoslav) origin, the Magyar equivalent would have to be written "Balaton" (long "a"). Near the Bakon Forest is a stream which the Magyars today call "Cuha;" this is derived from the Slovak "Sucha" (dry); if it were of Yugoslav origin, according to Melich again, it would have t o be written "Cuha" (long "u"). There are many such names in Pannonia. The city of Veszprem (Vesprim) is orf western-Slav origin; it comes from Bezprem. A person named Bezprem is mentioned in the history of Brevnov, Bohemia, in the twelfth century; we also find the name in old Slovak documents. Furthermore, the name orf the town of Tihany is derived from tlte Slovak name Tichoii and is so written in documents of the 11th century. The name of the town Noszlop somes from the Slovak noun "Neostup," just like the Moravian "Ostopovice, Vostopovice" are derived from the noun "Ostup." According to these and similar appellations, Professor Melich concludes (p. 395) the Slovaks lived from the Balaton Lake to the north. His researches, convincing as they are, reveal much more. On the right bank of the Danube we find towns and cities with apparently Slovak names: Ostrihom, Budin, Tetin, Vesprim, Vysegrad-Vysehrad, and opposite P,a rkaii we find Neszmely (from the Slovak Nesmily), which are mentioned as a harbor and a river crossing in 1237-1240. In the west, Slovak settlements extended proba;bly to the river Raab. These names demonstrate that northern Pannonia was occupied by the Slovaks, and partly by the Germans, before the advent of the Magyars. There are not many Slovaks there today. But there is an appreciable number Jf them south of Ostrihom and above the Bako:n Forest. Some chronicles, that of "Anonymous" among them, say that the SLOVAKIA 29 Magyars annihilated the Slovaks there, but the fact is that even in the 12th and succeeding centuries. many persons with Slovak names are mentioned in the documents of Veszprem, Tihany, and other places. Melich placed the southern Slovans between the Tisa and Danube rivers, because he was particularly influenced by the name of the "Zagy,a" river (p. 101). Of course, he did not know from what southern Slovanic tongue it might be derived. To a 'Slovanic philologist, towever, it is quite obvious that the name of the river which flows through that particul·a r territory cannot be deduced from any other than the Slovak language. The Magyar name "Zagyva," like the Czech "Sazava," comes from the Slovak "Sadzava," the Magyars using "-gy-" in place of the Slovak "-dz-" (Palugya-Paludza; Privigye-Prievidza; Pomogy-Pomedzi; etc.). Moor was correct in this regard, adding that, in the meantime, it appeared that Professor Melich had corrected his earlier views on the subject. Moor showed that names of this type could not be ascribed to any Slovanic language other than Slovak. The city of Miskolc, much in the news during the recent Hungarian revolt, is also of Slovak origin (Miskovec). Amd there are many such names close to and far from the area a:bove the Matra ond the Beech Forest. For example, north of Jager is the community of Balatony; the latter is as much a Slovak name as is Balaton, as well as: Topol'cany, Sucha, Novaky, Trstene, Kl'acany, Vysnova, Vfbove, Hradisfany, Domoslav, Dubie.any, Hlohovec, Suchof, and many others. Today's Ferto-Szent-Miklos was mentioned in the thirteenth century as "Neweg , Neueg;" but in northeastern Vesprem a group of seven communities is also recalled under the common name of "Nywig, Nywog, Neueg." We have the same proofs from that same time (13th century) for N evidzany (Tekov County) , that is, all these settlements were called by one and the same name: Nevidza. These names are especially important in the determination of the tribal adherance of the Slovans beyond the Danube and beneath Mt. Matra. They tell us that these Slovans (Slavs) were the ancestors of the Slovaks. 30 SLOVAKIA Moor literally fought against Kniezsa over the name "Pomogy" (Ungarische Jahrblicher, 1937, p. 278; and 1938. p. 36). A name of this type is also in Zelezna (Vas) County, near Kormend: it is "Geregye (from the Slovak "Gradza," which today would sound "Hradza"). Anotrer such important name is "Bogyoszlo" (from the Slovak "Budislav); if it were derived from a south Slorvanic language, it would have to be written "Bodoszlo" in Magyar. We find this appellation in several counties (Bihar Pese - to the south on the Danube--Sopron, and Zelezna. Names from the area of Balaton Lake, even south of it, are proofs that the ancestors of the Slov8!ks once occupied that territory. They are typical western-Slovanic. One even need not be a philologist to arrive at the fact that they are of Slov.anic origin; for example, Kustany (Kosfany); Nagy-Szokoly (Sokol); Nyedam puszta, Rosztopan puszta, etc. Some of the names may appear a bit "mixed" up, but a knowledge of documentary material and the evolution of the Magyar language always help one to find the original Slovanic or, respectively, Slovak form. The counties of Vesprem, Zalan, Komarno (also the transdanubian paret), Zelezna, Sopron, Moson, Rab, and others up to the Drava river, are swarmed with Slovanic names. Documents of the eleventh century contain a multitude of Slovanic p e r s o n a I names (Budivoj; Kazimir; Vojtech; Dobron; Vranis; Milose; Gnevku (Hnevek) ; Zlauku (Slavek) ; Radoan (Radovan); Vaclav; etc.). On the Danube, in most ancient times, the boundary between the Slovak and the Bulgarian nations was between Vacov (derived from "Vaclav") and Pese. According to what has been uncovered by archeologists, philologists, and historians, we ,a re quite certain that the territory of the ancient Slovaks extended in the west from beyond the Nezider Lake, through Zelezna County probably up to Kormend (from the Slovak "kremen"), below Balaton Lake; of course, we know that north of Balaton Lake there were large Slov·a k settlements in olden times; between the Danube and Tisa rivers the boundary went below the southern slope of Mt. Matra. SLOVAKIA 31 Today there still may be doubt about the origm of several of these cities and villages, but their names tell us clearly that they were founded by Slovaks. According to Anonymou s, the Slovaks were there before the 12th century; and it is more than probable that the "Slovene" Slovaks were there when the Magyars came to Hungary. According to an ethnograph ic map of 1773, there were not many Slovaks in some places, but a large number in others. A solid Slovak territory extends here deeply to Pese, and even farther south. Beautiful central Slovak is still spoken in the vicinities of Pest', Vacov, and other cities and towns. According to names mentioned in ancient documents, the eastern boundary extended to the Tisa river and most probably went northeast as far as Zemplin. In an ancient Hungaro-P olish chronicle the river Topl'a: is recalled by its old Slova,k name "Cepla" (Tepla). This clearly proves that the Slovaks must have inhabited the area. From the philologica l standpoint, the question of the Slovaks in Moravia is altogether clear. The Slovaks there in the 8-lOth centuries occupied a greater space to the west and south than they do now. To, the south they had fortificatio ns on the river Dyja and reached as far as the Danube. Philologica l studies also show that Slovak influence also extended to southern Poland: the dialects used there indicate that probably from the 13th century there was a common developmen t with the Slovak and not the Polish language. Furthermo re, together with archeologic al studies, they tell us that the Slovaks today occupy only about a third of the territory which was settled by their ancestors before the Magyars came into the Danube area. With the passaga of time, Paul J. Safarik's determinat ion of ancient Slovak frontiers has been confirmed by scientific studies of historians, ethnograph ers, philologists , and archeologis ts. RIDFERENCE S: Risa Verkomoravs ka, 1933, compiled by Dr. Jan Stanislav. Slovensky zivotny priestor v minulosti a dnes, Dr. Frantisek Bokes, 1943. Slovensko v praveku, Dr. Jan Eisner, 1933. Knieza Pribina, Dr. Frantisek Hrus ovsky, 1933; also Slovenske dejiny, SLOVAKIA 32 1939; Vefka Morava a Pofsko, rn33. Ungarns Volkerschaften im XI. Jahrhundert, Dr. I. Kn iesza, 1938. Zur Geschichte der ungarisch-slowakischen ethnischen Grenze, Dr. I. K niezsa, 19 41. Slovanske starozitnosti, P avel J . Safa rik, Vol. II, 2nd ed., 1863. Slovenske starozitnosti, Dr. I'..ubor Niederle, 1906, 1910. Narodopisni mapa Uher podle ured. lexikonu osad z r. 1n3, A . P e trov , 1924. Pribinovi Vermozi , Dr. J an Stanislav, 1939-40. Nehai'ite l'ud moj, Dr. Jo zef Skult ety, 1928 . • • • MICKIEWICZ IN SLOVAK POETRY AND TRANSLATIONS JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM Ph.D. The University of California recently published an excellent symposium on the great Polish poet and patriot, Adam Mickiewicz, whose centenary has been commemorated throughout the world since 1955. Altogether 30 scholars and experts in Slavistics, representing over 20 nations and universities, contributed to this remarkable volume, edited by the eminent Polish scholar, professor Waclaw Lednicki. The volume has been published under the impressive title "Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature," and the editor actually succeeded in presenting Mickiewicz's influence on World literatures. Slovakia is represented by two contributions and is also mentioned in an article of a Czech scholar, who quite sincerely tried not to make the usual mistake of confusing Slovak and Czech poets and writers. The main article on Slovak literature in connection with Mickiekicz was written by the known expert in Slavic studies, professor Dimitry Cizevsky from Harvard, who in his scholarly study deals mainly with the poetry of two outstanding Slovak romantics: r..udovit Stur and Janka KraP. Cizevsky admits "that Mickiewicz's influence on Slovak literature was undoubtedly significant," but he warns at the same time against the "parallels" which are not parallels at all. This remark refers mainly to a Polish expert on Slovak poetry, Wladyslaw Bobek, whose work twenty-five years ago aimed to demonstrate the part which the poetry of Mickiewicz played in the works of - out of the theo-  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Territory of Ancient Slovakia Description An account of the resource P. A. Hrobak Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), March 1957 pp. 25-32 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 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/218e2241811501c4c8784e87b1cac2aa.pdf f7d9d2582542081c8057ab064b2c2cf5 PDF Text Text SLOV AKIA PubHshed VOL. VII quarterly by the Slovak League of America MARCH, 1957 NO. 1 (22) THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF DR. JOSEPH TISO'S EXECUTION JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM When Monsignor Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of thewartime Slovak Republic, was executed on the gallows on April 18, 1947, a victim of Communist and Czech vengeance, with the assistance of the adherents of Czecho-Communist collaboration most of whom are today living in exile, the Vatican broadcast, commenting on the reaction of the world press to Tiso's murder, said: "As a martyr of his love for his country, Dr. Tiso-who finally died in a very nice manner and as a priest internally very dignified, even though the manner of putting him to death was not befitting a priest-shall continue to live in the Catholic Slovak nation. Tendencious articles in the world press cannot change this fact." Ten years later, it is not necessary to prove the truthfulness of that forecast. Shortly after the first President of the Slovak Republic was surrendered to his vengeful political opponents, there resounded in the American and world press so many manifestations of sympathy, admiration, and respect for Dr. Joseph Tiso, as had been tendered no Slovak in the thousand-year-old stirring history of the Slovak people. Verily, Dr. Tiso outgrew the Slovak framework and "continues to live today" not only in the hearts of his Slovak people, but in the hearts of millions of people who love truth and freedom. Slovakia and the Slovak nation still belongs to the world which did not succumb to Communism, to the world which, so to speak, is personified in Dr. Tiso and his fate. And many people even here on the American continent today see in Tiso the first great victim of Communism in the attack on the civilized world. With decent and intelligent people, the name of Tiso has �2 SLOVAKIA become the key to sympathy for and frequently also to the knowledge of Slovakia and our fight and destiny. In this unusual turn of world public opinion, it is interesting to recall what Dr. Joseph Tiso said when he was asked by the so-called National Court in Bratislava why he had left Slovakia. Tiso at that time had replied: "I left Slovakia, because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak nation to its own way of life better known and more understandable to the Western powers." Of course, we know that the Western powers did not allow the living Tiso to do this, but we also have knowledge that they did not know, and still do not know, how to prevent the dead Tiso from fulfilling his mission. 'Dhe political murder, of which Dr. Tiso was the victim, did not bring about a change of heart only in alien circles, in circles frequently unfavorable to Slovakia and disinterested in the fate of Slovak nation. The crime committed against Dr. Tiso has stirred the conscience and awakened from national lethargy and indifference the Slovaks themselves, and especially the Slovaks beyond the borders of Slovakia who could not partake of the blessings of Slovak independence. If at the present time, outside the borders of Slovakia, the absolute majority of informed Slovaks is again in the fight for the sacred Slovak cause of freedom and independence, without any reservations whatsoever, this is due in a large measure to the death of Tiso, the hevo and martyr of the 'Slovak nation. Today there is not a single country in the free world, where the Slovaks do not annually commemorate March 14, 1939, Slovak Independence Day, and the Slovak Day of Infamy, April 18, 1947-the day that the Benes Czechs-Czech Socialists and Communists- shamefully put Dr. Tiso to death on the gallows. And in all these manifestations and celebrations, the personality, heroic fight and martyr's death of President Dr. Joseph Tiso stand out pre-eminently as a symbol, as a permanent light of Slovak history. On this tenth anniversary of the Bratislava murder, it is appropriate, I believe, to point out the fundamental principles, which led Dr. Joseph Tiso in his work for his �SLOVAKIA 3 people all the way up to the gallows and which characterized one historical period of the Slovak nation. Tiso on Politics, Nation and State Like Andrew Hlinka, Dr. Joseph Tiso left to Slovak generations no compact work about his views on Slovak national life, on their mission and on the ideological foundations of Slovak politics. Always in the middle of obstinate struggles for the preservation of his people and Slovak national existence, in which he played the foremost role since 1918, Dr. Tiso had little time to write books, so he probably postponed the task for a time when he would depart from the political arena. But this was denied hilli by the executioner. Although ideologically he formulate<l the Slovak struggles for national life, and systematically in his countless manifestations and reflections placed the foundations of and consciously developed the fundamental principles of Slovak national ideology in a manner as no one else had in his century, or in previous centuries, a systematic explanation of Tiso's views still awaits the efforts of an expert. The first step in this direction was made by Prof. Dr. Stephen Polakovic during the lifetime of Dr. Tiso, when he expertly and systematically collected in the work "Tiso's Doctrine"l the fundamental concept of Dr. Tiso relating to nation, nationalism, state, religion, and social questions. Even though the volume bears the seal of war conditions in Slovakia, it remains for us thusJar, along with the final speech of Dr. Tiso before the Bratislava Court, which was edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco2, a priceless source of knowledge of the fundamental ideas, aims and efforts of Slovak political life in the first half of this century. These two literary works are not only a source of knowing the past, but also a sum total of the fundamental directives for national and political work, about which Dr. Joseph Tiso, as if following the example of the Old Testamnt prophets, said: "In profound humility we are paying tribute to our good God for the lig}:tt of principles of the natural law, according to which we conducted ourselves in the fight for �4 SLOVAKIA independence, as well as in our work of construction. A return to the natural law can be the only foundation upon which a new world can be built, a world of contentment, order, and permanent peace"3. Placing the foundation of Slovak politics on the Natural Law, Dr. Tiso also defined the aims and the ways of Slovak politics. "Our Slovak State was not born out of hatred, but out of our great love for our homeland," proclaimed Dr. Tiso on March 16, 1939. "Let us above all else be led by this thought: no hatred toward anyone, but love, an ardent love for our State, which inspires us to work and sacrifice ... " "A practical manifestation of the Natural Law is an~ shall remain our old goal: Slovakia for the Slovaks. Slovakia in its entirety and indivisible and without reservations in the legal, cultural, economical, and social departments, so that the independent Slovak nation might be the living carrier of all power and the consumer of all that the Slovak country contains and represents." Regarding politics as a service to the nation, Dr. Tiso during his many years of political activity pleaded tha.t political factors learn to depersonalize themselves. His understanding of politics was that "the interest of the nation is the highest directive of political work;" politics is not supposed to be "medium for several individuals, who with it would conceal their own materialistic interests. Politics serves the nation." As Tiso saw it, even "the State should serve the nation, therefore, it has the right to existence only insofar as it does not threaten the interests of the nation." As far as State order is concerned, this must "be subordinated to the law of morality and law; the State must respect the rigihts of the individual, the family, society, and hold sacred the right ,o f parents to educate their children, the right of free confession; it guarantees the right of private ownership and sefeguards the peaceful coexistence of labor and capital, of employer and employee." "Not force, but law which is founded on truth," was the thesis of Dr. Joseph Tiso, and he followed it in the full �SLOVAKIA 5 sense of the word throughout his life, because he preached and believed that "no one will be mistaken who builds on the nation and always has only the interests of his nation in mind. We have ta:ken over this thesis from stirring times for the future so that we might strengthen ourselves in the old convictions that individuals retire but the nation remains, and the person, who, separated completely from his own person, stands unconditionally in the service of the nation, knows how to hold his ground and is the only one fit to lead and to speak in the name of the nation." "The politician, more than any one else, must be the guardian of the traditional values of the nation and must be the ever ready interpreter of the Natural Law in any given situation. Should any one lack the one or the other, he is not fit to be the representative of the nation, because he will either become a figure tossed about by contemporary political or social currents which has no connection with the living corpus of the nation, or else he will be a museum guardian of the nation who stands afar from contemporary routes along which life flows and on which the fate of the future of the nation is determined." "Whoever boasts that he is a loyal son of the nation, he must also ponder what he is giving to his nation. Whether an infection which causes a fever, or bacilli which cause decay and can bring the nation to the grave; or whether he contributes labor which shall forever remain in the nation as a cell of healthy social and cultural development." "A nation whose sons do not know how to bear a blow and personal sacrifices, such a nation will not get far. The nation lives, the whole lives, only by the fight and work of individuals." "Love for the nation is a religious precept, and a person sins against the Fourth Commandment who does not love his nation. He bears a stigma not only as an earthly t raitor, but also as a transgressor who does not keep the Divine Commandmants." Every loyal son of the Slovak nation, acording to Tiso, "sanctifies his nationalism with a Christian spirit, so that �ti SLOVAKIA nationalism be not a slogan or a mantle of dubious aims, but an internal motivating force to create values for the benefit of the national whole." In the Spirit of Tiso for a New Independence From the above quotations it is quite evident that the main principles of Dr. Joseph Tiso's ideology were: 1. Natural Law; 2. Love in place of hatred; 3. Right instead of violence; 4. Respect for morality; 5. Nation above the State. 6. Loyalty to traditions; 7. Personal selflessness and sacrifice of political factors; 8. Nationalism sanctified by Ohristianity; 9. Social justice; and 10. Religious tolerance. During the decades of his successful political activity, Dr. Tiso developed these ideas not only in his manifestations to the people, but also in his classically and stately styled reflections, parliamentary speeches, and presidential messages, so that the expert schooled in statecraft and sociology will have little difficulty in systematically elaborating his ideology. nr. Tiso himself indicated Christianity as the outlet of his ideas, especially the philosophy of St. Thomas4, and in the social sphere the Papal Encyclicals. On the question of nationalism Tiso said that "the symbol of Slovak nationalism is Stur"5, because "Stur's nationalism was the dynamic force in individuals whom he prompted to work and socrifice for the nation; it was the connecting link of individuals into a rock-firm whole with a united aim and a united will ... "6 A study of Dr. Tiso's manifestations reveals that he frequently tied in his talks with the spiritual-political heritage of the followers of Louis Stur, the great Slovak patriot and "father of modern Slovak nationalsm." And Tiso did this consciously to preserve the continuity of Slovak ideological-politica l development and so that the Slovaks could build on traditions. If we compare the basic ideas of Stur's political and philosophical manifestations - which are dealt with in several published works7 - with Tiso's, then the ideological structure, as well as the entire political activity of Dr. Tiso, of course, shows an entire series of preferences and varied outlines. �SLOVAKIA 7 Objectively it may already be said today that tying in with Stur and the idelogical continuity of former Slovak generations, Dr. Tiso anchors more deeply in Christian world outlook on the individual and his relation to the state, nation, family, and society. His ideology is firmly founded on the principles of modern sociology and statecraft; it has solid philosophical foundations and a strictly logical system; it emanates from an idea and stresses the primacy of spirituality, but it depends on the reality of life and respects actuality; it is the result of long years of study and political experience, drawn from daily contact with the nation and into unceasing struggle with its enemies, so that it is, as it were, forged in the fire of battles and tested in confrontation with the actual life of the nation in the phase of its political formation, but also in the phase .of struggles for its natural rights and, finally, also in the period of building up its own state. In comparison to the ideology of the Sturites, we are concerned, therefore, with an ideology whose foundations are not only broader by far, but one which was more thought out, mature and tested ·b y life. Divine Providence had allowed Dr. Joseph Tiso a life of political activity almost as long as Stur's entire life (1815-1856) and, hence, he <!ould see the ideas, which he promulgated and foT which he labored and fought, validated in national life. If we should compare Dr. Tiso as a politician and ideologue with other factors of Slovak life, then objectively it can be said that during the last 100 years there was no political factor in Slovakia who could compare with Dr. Joseph Tiso as far as preparation for political activity, working out of ideology and the concert of expressed principles with their validation unto self-immolation are concerned. If any of them did shine in theoretical expressions and plans, either fate did not grant them to measure up with reality, or they were only gleaners of grain where Dr. Joseph Tiso was the owner of fruitful fields of ideological and character wealth. Living Slovak generations will therefore hardly find a better example than Dr. Tiso, or a better ideology than �8 SLOVAKIA the one he sanctified with his blood. Anchored in eternal principles and designed for the future of the Slovak nation, it can be the most certain course for winning a new and full independence for the Slovaks. Czech chauvinism and Communist hatred did not kill the idea of Slovak indepedence by murdering Dr. Tiso. Conversely, they gave the nation more martyrs and, therefore, the idea shall win out sooner or later. REFERIDNCIDS: 1. "Tisova nauka," Dr. Stefan Polakovic, Bratislava, 1941. ~- "Dr . Joz.e f Tiso o sebe," edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Passaic, N. J., 1952. 3. This and other quotations are taken from either one of the previous two references. 4. "All who recall our thesis that 'the nation is the substance and the state only the form' should know that is state-political formula is the practical consequence of the state•.p olitical theory Wihich is built on the foundations O'f Thomistic philosophy." SOOVAK, 1935. 5. See "Prve posolstvo" (The First Message), Ruizomberok, August 16, 1939. Already in 1936 Dr. Tiso had proclaimed: "It is this monument of Louis Stur, built in the Banovce country, that shall be the visible proof of the fact that we have progressed so far that only we, Slovak Catholics, have not forgotten our Slovak past and we pay our respects to the memory of our national awakeners even when they are Evangelicals (Lutherans), as was Stur." - SLOVAK, 1936. 6. Dr. Tiso also characterized Stiir's nationalism in this manner: "Stiir's nationalism - built on the foundation of the independent Slovak nation and the genuine Slovak language, because it acknowledges the law of God and the law nature - was the natural foundation of the life of the Slovak nation." - SLOVAK, 1936. 7. Among the most significant works are those of Professor Cfzevsky, Dr. Stephen Polakovic, Dr. Samuel S. Osusky, Profesor Rap ant, and Dr. Joseph Pauco. • • • WHO SAID IT? "The right of se1f-<leteiimination in:cluded in the .AJtlantic Charter does not carpry wliith it the right O!f any government to commit wholesale muTder or the right to make slaJVes of its own people, or of any other peoples in the world." - F. D. Roosevelt, Feb. 12, 1943. �SLOVAKIA 9 I WAS EDITOR OF PRESIDENT TISO'S NEWSPAPER JOSEPH PAUCO ( Msgr. Joseph Tiso, prelate of the Catholic Church, was president of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. The proCommunist regime of Dr. Edward Benes executed him on the gallows, April 18, 1947, after a lengthy mock trial, before which the presiding judge had declared, echoing the words of Benes, that "Tiso must hang." Dr. Pauco's article is a brief recollection of the years he spent in free Bratislava as "Tiso's" editor.) Shortly after I was appointed editor of the "SLOVAK," the official organ of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party, my secretary entered my office to announce that President. Dr. Joseph Tiso wished to see me. "Where is he?" I asked excitedly. "In my office," replied the secretary. At that time I had a visitor, whom I requested to be excused because President Tiso had arrived, but the latter was already coming through the door of my office. Overhearing my request of the visitor, the President, greeting me and shaking my hand, said: "Now, Joe, you just finish your business with your visitor. I am a citizen like anyone else." That was characteristic of Dr. Joseph Tiso, the President of the Slovak Republic, who always considered himself only "one of the people." When my predecessor, Dr. Aladar Kocis, handed over the editoTShip of the "SLOVAK," he reminded me that, among other things, I should visit President Tiso regularly. Dr. Joseph Tiso, he told me, wanted to be informed about what was going on in the editorial office of the largest Slovak daily, which was otherwise regarded as the official newspaper of Dr. Tiso, since he was the chairman of the entire enterprise. But Dr. Tiso did not feel the necessity of personal contacts with the editorial office because of commercial considerations. He was mainly concerned with the spirit of the enterprise. It was necessary to defend Slovak interests. He �10 was aware of the great influence of the press and, hence, fully appreciated it. As a youthful journalist I naturally welcomed the support of the President. I visited Dr. Tiso regularly once a week, and when circumstances called for it even more frequently. Of course, besides personal visi½S, there were also many phone calls between the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" and the president's palace. The editor-in-chief always had the doors to t~e president's office open to him; there was no specified time for his visits. Whenever I phoned Tiso's personal secretary, Dr. Karol Murin, that I would like to see the president, in every instance he replied that I should come over at once. If my memory does not fail me, I believe I had to wait a half-hour or a bit more only twice in three years to see Dr. Tiso; and this happened because Tiso was in conference with foreign diplomatic representatives. Entering the president's office, I usually found Dr. Tiso at his desk, going through his mail or studying various state papers, proposed legislative acts, and activities of the various branches of government or the Hlinka Party, of which he was chairman. When I greeted him, he would raise his head, remove his spectacles and reply: "Welcome, young man, welcome!" Whenever I missed a meeting with the President, for some reason other, at the very next meeting he would ask where I had been, whether I had been i_ll. During these visits there were various matters that interested me. Of these not the least interesting was to observe the effects of the visitor before me. Once it would •b e a prime minister, other times a worker from the countryside; then again some deputy, economic expert, high officer, a foreign correspondent, or a member of the Cabinet. Once in a while some one would come up with an alarming report or rumor. President Tiso excluded no one from visiting him; he listened attentively to all and in every instance did whatever he could to satisfy all comers. Whenever I met him, �SLOVAKIA 11 President Tiso usually was either in a pensive or a smiling mood. Even at times when he appeared in a serious mood, and during our convers,a tion it would seem to me that in his mind he is returning to the fresh impressions of previous visitors, yet in a short while his face would brighten up and his melodious voice would ring out in healthy laughter. President Tiso had a real sense of humor. Dr. Joseph Tiso never acted in an affected or artificial manner. Once in 1939, when he was being welcomed in Nitra, an event which I witnessed, the district official addressed Tiso as "Your Excellency." At that Time Dr. Tiso smilingly reminded him: "Without the excellency, Mr. official!" From that time on, I never heard anyone address Dr. Tiso as "His Excellency." In his study Tiso was happy to be addressed simply as "Mr. President" (Pan prezident), as he was when his parishioners called him "Reverend Deacon." Conversations with Tiso usually began with his asking about one's health, his family, and his work. He was always very much interested in the work of our editorial office. President Tiso was not often curious about details, unless it was a matter of immediate interest, like, for example, the political side of our editorial work. Furthermore there was not a single visit during which we would not touch upon the most serious objective and personal moments which influenced Slovak politics. Dr. Tiso spoke openly about individual resolutions of the Parliament, the deputies, ministers, the Germans, and in general about everything that had any influence on Slovak life and the presidential office. On occasions Dr. Tiso recalled many innovations especially of his political opponents. He criticized them unsparingly and talked about them with feelings of bitterness; his criticism was sincere at all times, whether it concerned Slovaks or foreigners. I always felt refreshed in the President's study. Usu.ally Dr. Tiso gave no directives how any article was to be written. On the other hand, however, he willingly read the �12 SLOVAKIA more delicate articles before they went to print. Even when I asked him what from the ideological standpoint we should deal with most on the pages of the "SLOVAK," he would usually reply: "Hold the line. Don't let yourself be broken. Don't be discouraged-persevere!" Nothing more and nothing less. Otherwise, however, the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" had an exemplary coworker in the person of President Tiso. His speeches, articles and messages were care-fully prepared. Dr. Tiso prepared and wrote them himself. On occasions, especially for Christmas and March 14th, the President gave us articles written in his own hand so that we might have them on time; these were usually accompanied by the remark: "Correct as you see fit." On his visits to us, he would always compliment all the workers connected with the paper, saying: "Fine work, men; keep up the good work; give the best that's in you!" I'll conclude with what I had mentioned at the beginning: the visits of President Tiso to the editorial office of the "SLOVAK." He came among us regularly. When he visited us the first time, all of us were very surprised that he was accompanied only by his personal secretary. No secret, no public police came with him; none in or outside the building; and none in his auto. On occasions he visited us coming on foot alone, without a bodyguard. That was Tiso: his people did not fear him, and he did not fear his people. No man in Slovakia was more revered and loved than was Tiso. I attended many gatherings which Dr. Tiso addressed; I traveled with him. Not once did he have more than one person accompany him. Not to guard him, but simply to accompany him. President Tiso moved about freely and without fear in Bratislava and everywhere in Slovakia, just as he did at the altar where he daily said the Holy Mass to his Divine Master. • • • REOOMMENDED $3.00; SLOVAK FOR (the set); "!Ih-obailr's "SLOVAK DE)SSONS" BOOKS: "The Slovaks" (Juircha.k BEGINNERS" (Books I-III) $1.50 English-Sl01Va:k Dictionary" $4.00 ; (iHroba.k) $3.50. �SLOVAKIA 13 EIGHT FATAL DAYS IN THE LIFE OF DR. JOSEPH TISO KAROL MURiN (The author of this article was the personal secretary of President Dr. Joseph Tiso from 1938 until Tiso's tragic end in 1947. At the present time Dr. Karol Murin is on the profes• sorial staff of Montreal University.) On April 8, 1945, just a month before the conclusion of World War II in the West, at President Tiso's request, I went to Munich to ask for an audience with His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber. The reason was that I was to inform the Cardinal of Monsignor Tiso's arrivel in Kremsmlinster and petition him to graciously do what he could to protect the President of Slovakia. Munich at that time was a shambles. The Cardinal received me in the afternoon; his residence was damaged extensively by bombs and shells. After waiting for a moment in a small, poorly furnished room, Cardinal Faulhaber made his appearance, the burdens of the war clearly apparent on his features. After the customary Slovak greeting "Laudetur ... ," I went on one knee before him, kissed his ring, and then presented myself. The Cardinal replied to the greeting and asked me to be seated. After a few introductory words, I told him the purpose of my visit. I must admit that I did expect several questions. During the war years it had become the custom to classify people only into two categories: the democrats on the one side, and the nazis and fascists on the other. No one asked why or how a person got to be on the one or the other side, or even what one did. According to that attitude, which excluded all colors between black and white, Stalin and the bolsheviks were regarded as democrats, while Dr. Tiso was supposed to be a nazi; Benes, despite his pro-Soviet and evident bolshevizing tendencies and the fact that he was responsible for the death of thousands of people, was regarded as a "moral" democrat, while Dr. Tiso, despite his prayers and many acts of kindness and his great love for �14 SLOV.AlKIA his Slovak people, or . just because of this, was regarded as a criminal. Cardinal Faulhaber, however, never did belong among the people who measured morality according to their own interest and evaluated their neighbor and acknowledged his right to life only according to the benefit they might reap from him. He was accustomed to judge and measure 9,ccording to the eternal and unchangeable principles of 8hrist. That is why he had become the symbol of the fight against nazi blunders, and the world regarded him highly for it. "I know about your President," began Cardinal Faulhaber, "and I know that he defended the Christian Faith in Slovakia." From what he further said, it was evident that he was well-informed about Slovakia and especially about the activity of President Tiso. He immediately set himself to the task of doing what he could to secure the safety of Tiso in the face of the surge of passions resulting for the most part from the false information propagated by Dr. Edward Benes. The three alternatives mentioned by the Cardinal are proof of his love for President Tiso : 1. He invited the President to his residence; 2. he offered as a temporary abode for President Tiso the Capuchin monastery at Alt Otting; or, 3. the Scheyrn monastery. Both monasteries were in the Freising-Munich Archdiocese which Cardinal Faulhaber administered. According to circumstances, as they might develop in regard to Tiso, the Slovak President was free to resort to the alternative most favorable to him. My audience with Cardinal Faulhaber lasted two hours. He told me about what especially worried him and made him fearful about the future: about the plans formulated by fanatics for the last days of the war, about the night of the long knives ("Nacht der langen Messer"), during which they intended to liquidate revered and respected Catholic priests and laity. The last half hour of my visit I spent with the Cardinal in his study. Looking over a map of Bavaria, His Eminence compared the advantages and disadvantages uf �SLOVAKIA 15 the two monasteries; the Scheyrn Monastery was more advantageous, except, of course, if the "night of the long knives" should be realized. At the end of my visit I thanked Cardinal Faulhaber sincerely for the time he gave me, asked for his blessing, and departed after His Eminence bade me Godspeed. President Tiso was happy to hear my report about my visit to Cardinal Faulhaber after I returned to Kremsmtiunster. In no time at all, President Tiso decided to accept the hospitality of the Archbishop's palace only as a last resort; he did not wish to burden one of the outstanding Princes of the Church with the cares and troubles of his Slovak people and his own person, because he was aware of the fact that the saintly Cardinal was greatly burdened by the troubles of his own German people. At the beginning of May, 1945, when Dr. Joseph Tiso left Kremsmtinster for the West, he was not definitely certain whether he would seek refuge at Alt Otting or Scheyrn. In any event, however, he decided to first stop at Alt Otting. On the first leg of his journey, President Tiso was supposed to leave a written or oral message for me at the rectory of the Bavarian community of Stammham. I set out after President Tiso about two weeks later, stopping first at Stammham, where the pastor told mf': that I would find the person I was seeking at the first place we had talked about. That same afternoon I met with President Tiso in the monastery at Alt Otting. My first task was to again make contact with Cardinal Faulhaber. Since the war had just ended in the West, everything was chaos and confusion; outside the military, there was no public transportation to speak of; and no one was permitted to travel even short distances without a permit. After about a week in Alt Otting, which, by the way, is one of the most famous of pilgrimage cities, I was quite fortunate in getting to Munich. The Cardinal received me shortly after I was nounced. He was in ·b etter spirits than he had been April 8th: the "night of the long knives," thank God, not come about! In due time the Cardinal told me of anon did his �16 SLOV.A.I{JA plan to help President Tiso: he wanted to secure a plane to take Tiso to the Vatican. However, before he could begin working out his plan, the Cardinal said, he wanted to get the assent of the Papal Nuncio. During the entire war, the Nuncio for Germany was Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo. Cardinal Faulhaber asked me to look him up as soon as possible and present his desire to help Dr. Joseph Tiso to him, reckoning also with help to transport Tiso to the Vatican. In the Cardinal's name I was to ask His Excellency whether he agreed with his step. At that time the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Cesare Orsenigo, resided in Eichstatt in northern Bavaria. To get to him by auto I needed gasoline and to get gasoline I had to see the American authorities. Aware of this, Cardinal Faulhaber wrote a letter telling whoever it may concern that I was his courier, carrying mail and reports from the Cardinal to the Papal Nuncio. For a longer time the Cardinal could not send mail to the Nuncio, so he really appreciated this opportunity to do so. Besides that Cardinal Faulhaber gave me a general recommendat ion which I could use as I thought best. The next day I travelled by auto to Eichstatt. Below the portals to the Archbishop's palace, by sheer accident, I met with a group of four Slovaks, who had come by auto. After hearty handshakes and embraces, all gratefully accompanied me on my journey. Archbishop Orsenigo received me warmly. After I gave him the mail from Cardinal Faulhaber, he listened with great interest to my report about the fate of Preside,1t Tiso. To the Cardinal's question he replied thusly: "Tell His Eminence that I not only agree that he do everything possible in his power to save Dr. Tiso, but that I most ardently beg him to do so." Then the Archbishop said that he was completely out of contact with the world, adding that a certain member of the Swiss diplomatic corps in Berlin is supposed to visit him this same afternoon and take his first mail in a long time to the Vatican. He graciously offered to be of service if I had anything to send outside the borders of Germany. �SLOVAKIA 17 As soon as Cardinal Faulhaber had the Nuncio's reply, he immediately wrote a letter to the Vatican in which he told of his intention to transport Dr. Tiso by plane to the Vatican. His greatest worry was how to send the letter. Besides American planes only an accidental diplomat, who saved his petrol well, could be considered. In about a week I was supposed to return for further reports and advice. After eight days, I visited Cardinal Faulhaber again, who greeted me and then told me of the unfortunate thing tkat had happened. He was almost in tears. The Cardinal told me that the day after he had written the letter to the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he had secured a way of getting the letter to the Vatican. According to a promise made to the Cardinal by a person unknown to me, this person was supposed to take the letter before his departure from Munich. But the day before my last visit to Cardinal Faulhaber, when he asked his chancery whether there was any reply from the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he learned to his utter sorrow that the letter was still in his palace, the person who promised to deliver it to the Vatican evidently forgetting to pick it up. This unexpected delay worried the Cardinal and his concern was great, as if he had a foreboding that so very much depended on those eight days. After giving vent to his great disappointment, Cardinal Faulhaber again gave me his blessing and asked me to return in a week. I did return, but only after over two years. After my last visit to the Cardinal, we learned about the arrest of the members of the Slovak Government in Kremsmlinster. President Tiso asked for reports about what had happened there. My request for a travel permit into Upper Austria lay on the desk of the CIC in Alt btting for several days. Fate came into play. With the CIC in Alt btting there collaborated a man by the name of Spigler who was originally from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. When he came upon my name, Spigler immediately came to the monastery and forbade me to leave the building. After two days he took me to jail. During my confinement in the monastery, it became �18 SLOVAKIA quite evident that this Bratislava agent, full of personal resentment, found out that President Tiso was in the monastery. After my arrest President Tiso wrote to Cardinal Faulhaber, respectfully requesting His Eminence to notify the American authorities that he was staying in the monastery and that he use his influence to set me free, as well as that he c-o ntinue to give consideration to his own case. The Capuchin Provincial delivered the President's letter to Cardinal Faulhaber. In the meantime, I was transferred to a concentration camp where frightful conditions prevailed. One hot and sultry afternoon, at the beginning of June, 1945, a jeep pulled up before the barbed-wire camp. I became numb when I sighted President Tiso in it. It was at this point that my pilgrimage to various concentrati0!1 camps with President Tiso began, the tour which finally ended in the Bratislava jail. We felt the benefiscence of good Cardinal Faulhaber once again in the concentration camp at Garmisch Partenkirchen. It was on his initiative that the events, which had taken place during the reception of our group in this camp, were investigated. The Cardinal's effort to help Dr. Joseph Tiso did not result in success. Nevertheless, the Slovaks will never forget that Cardinal Faulhaber, now deceased, really did try to save Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of the Slovak Republic . • • • WHO SAID IT? "W:t"th eq'll!al enlthusfasm we are today manifesting for the ideaJls of our, and onliy our, Owchoslovruk Democracy, which is on its way of development ,t o a new poople's fomn . . . . T.he unreseJ:1ved alliance with Oll!r Eastern ncighbor, witlh the mighty USSR, bUft also our friend!ly coot'acts wirtih the rest ,of tlhe world, especiaUy with our western democracies, gives us the feeUng of oerlainty that no mrutter what might h!appen a!broad, O'Ur ,inJternatiiona1 positt'ion is £i:nm rund we need not fea1r that we can come uipon new d'aingera aind dlnifiou[ties." ([)r. Joseph Lettrich, Vice,Ohairm.an of the Exem.rt.ive Oommittee of the "Coundl of Free Czechoslov.aJkia,'' CAIS, November 18, 1947). �SLOVAKIA 19 SLOVAKIA: TRIAL OF DR. JOSEPH TISO (Under previous order of the House, the Hon. Ray J . Madden from Indiana, was recognized for 20 minutes to make the following address on the floor of the House of Representatives, March 31, 1947): Mr. Speaker, America and all liberty-loving nations should at this time concentrate against international situations which might bring about war in the future. I have, on several occasions, stated on the floor of Congress that the application of the principles of the Atlantic Charter is our greatest antidote for future peace. Self-government, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion is essential for smaller countries as it is for th~ large nations. Our Nation, during World War II, spent billions of dollars and sacrificed in lives and casualties to preserve the above principles in order to insure liberty and fnture peace. Since VJ-day, aggression and tyranny has again launched in certain areas of Europe. The latest example of persecution, unfair trial, and threatened execution for political belief is that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, former President of the Interim Republic of Slovakia. Dr. Tiso has been acclaimed a hero in the eyes of nearly all the people of Slovakia and the prevailing majority of Americans of Slovak ancestry. My attention has been called to the fact that over 80 percent of the Slovak American fraternal organizations have forthrightly declared themselves to be of the opinion that Tiso was a hero in the defense of the best interests of the Slovak people. During his presidency, Slovakia thrived, progressed, and developed internally more than it had during any five years of the existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The communistic control now over the country of Slovakia will execute Dr. Tiso, a political prisoner, unless our Government intervenes. This communistic control is inflicted upon the people of Slovakia in spite of the fact that the election of May 26, 1946, gave over 64 percent of the total vote cast against the present government. The press is likewise controlled, at least to the extent that the newspaper cannot publish what they think. This is evidenced in the fact that four American newspapers have �20 SLOVAKIA been barred in Slovakia. The present communistic government will brook no freedom of political thought; though the people voted for Christian democracy, they received totalitarian communism. The archbishop of Slovakia testified at the trial of Dr. Tiso. He is and has been a respected member not only of the hierarchy of Czecho-Slovakia, but of the official family of Czecho-Slovakia, including its President Edward Benes. Appearing as a witness for Dr. Tiso, the archbishop testified that: Tiso acted and worked in the interest of Slovakia and was never a traitor, and that his electeion as President of Slovakia was the will of 90 percent of the Slovaks at that time and was acclaimed by the bishops, priests, and ministers of both the Catholic and Protestant churches. It is apparent that Czecho-Slovakia has been re-created with the aid of Moscow and that Moscow will undoubtedly demand the extinction of Slovak national leaders of ability and high intelelct. The ways of the Communists are devious and it behooves us to understand more of the Slovak situation. In the meantime, the least that freedom loving nations can ask is that the so-called peoples courts in the Communist-dominated countries in eastern Europe, refrain from any further political executions or from liquidating political opposition by long-term imprisonment as in the case of Archbishop Stepinac. All of this adds up to the price we will have to pay to aid in the establishing of true democracy in the countries of eastern Europe to insure world peace. In supporting President Truman's international program, we cannot be unmindful of what is happening throughout this region in Europe, comprising over 100,000,000 Christians who have nothing in common with communism. We have heard of political executions, imprisonment, and banishment of outstanding citizens in Poland, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and other small countries. Thousands of brave Polish soldiers who fought to stamp out fascism are now prohibited from returning to their native Poland by a communistic controlled government. Americans are asking the question "do we not have at least a moral obli- �SLOVAKIA 21 gation to veice our protest against such trials and executions?" The judge who presided at the trial of Dr. Tiso, previous to the trial, vowed personal vengeance on Tiso and was provided this opportunity by being placed in charge ef the case. These facts, though not appearing in the American press releases, are not disputed. Almost uninimously, the people of Slovak descent in America, are rising in protest to the impending execution of Dr. Tiso. I ask the Members of Congress to join with me in protesting this unjust conviction by interceding with President Truman and Secretary Marshall to use their good offices to prevent this injustice. We might as well apply the words of the Honorable Judge Robert H. Jackson: All experience teaches that there are certain things you cannot do under guise of judicial trial. * * * You must put no man on trial before anything that is called a court, if you are not prepared to establish his personal guilt * * * If you are determined to execute a man in any case, there is no occasion for trial. The world yields no respect to courts that are merely organized to convict. - Congressional Record. • ON TISO'S BEHALF: • • PLEA OF THE COUNCIL OF SLOVAK BISHOPS To the Presidium of the Slovak National Council in Bratislava: The Catholic Episcopal Council of Slovakia, in past years, has more frequently turned to appropriate governmental offices in the interest of those who were suffering, were imprisoned or persecuted - without regard to whetlier Catholics or non-Catholics were concerned. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command prompted and encouraged us to raise our protective voice in the interests of the people who were suffering on account of political or racial reasons and we did that at a time when we could expect various humiliations in return. �22 SLOVAKIA This noblest Model in all history and His commandment, expressed in the Gospel, we bear in mind even now, when we respectfully commend to Your graciousness the fate of the former President Dr. Joseph Tiso. We do this not only because a Catholic priest is concerned, but also because the solution of his personal problem shall have a far-reaching influence on the thinking and behavior of a part of the Slovak nation in respect to the renovated Czecho- Slovak Republic and its representatives. Furthermore, we are prompted to take this step also by the generally known actuality, which is conceded by all objective critics, that Dr. Joseph Tiso always was a zealous priest, of a virtuous life. In his extensive activity he tried to work for the good of the whole, and personally did not enrich himself. The administration of justice belongs among the most difficult tasks of state power. Experience proves that this delicate task is aggravated when the judgment of political transgressions is concerned. History tells us how many fatal mistakes were made during political trials - and this results from the delicate task of impartially judging the activities of a political opponent. So, it is no rarity that after rendering severe verdicts in political trials, sooner or later a call for their revision was made. In judging the activity especially of a political factor his intentions also should be given · consideration. The majority of the Slovak nation is convinced with us that the intentions of Dr. Joseph Tiso while performing public functions were the best. Certainly some mistakes were made and the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not fail to bring these to his attention. However, here we must mention the generally known reality that even the most clever political factors frequently made serious mistakes. Nevertheless an unbiased observer - whether a contemporary or historian - can deduce an over-all judgment only when he evaluates also the good and positive things they did. And this thesis often outweighs the mistakes which they made in their weakness. �S LOVAKIA 23 It will be pertinent to the matter at hand to shed some light also from another viewpoint on the mistakes which are ascribed to Dr. Joseph Tiso. We respectfully point out at least some of the circumstances. After the most recent announcements of the present governmental factors even the 2ilina events of October, 1938, are presented in a different light than that shed by the one-sided propaganda to persuade the public; nay, even in the press it was demonstrated that in these political changes practically all Slovak political parties had participated. Here it is necessary to recall also the very important document which has just now been made public during the Nuremberg trials; we mean the letter of the ruler of the Hungarian realm sent to Berlin in March 13, 1939. This weighty circumstance gives an altogether different significance to the March 14, 1939, decision of Dr. Joseph Tiso and the other political factors of that time. One should think about what would have happened with the Slovak nation if the plan of Horthy had succeeded? We also know that after the issuance of anti-Jewish regulations, Dr. Joseph Tiso did want to resign from the presidency. That he did not do so happened because he tried to hamper and ameliorate the effects of those provisions, as well as to prevent a greater evil. It is worthy of consideration that what the ruler of the larger and more independent Hungary could not prevent in his country Dr. Joseph Tiso could not prevent in Slovakia. After considering all the circumstances after the passage of time, even other pilloried political mistakes - such as the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944 can be judged otherwise than the manner in which it is done by a one-sided propaganda. The entire Slovak public is following the developments of events around Dr. Joseph Tiso with attention and in its majority is taking a negative stand towards those efforts which would incite hatred against his person. Thereby the unfortunate splintering of the nation is increased when unity of all forces is so greatly desired for the important �24 SLOVAKIA work of construction. It will be to the credit of the farsightedness of the State and will serve the peace of the nation, if the case of Dr. Joseph Tiso is solved in a cautious way and not with merciless hardness. The above thoughts have prompted us to respectfully submit our plea for your gracious consideration and favorable decision. With an expression of profound respect: (Signatures) : Dr. Karol Kmefko, Archbishop-Bishop of Nitra; Jozef Carsky, Bishop-Apostolic Administrator; Dr. Andrej Skraltik, Bishop on Banska Bystrica; Dr. Jozef Tomanocy; Dr. Karol Jantausch; Dr. Eduard Necsey, ordaining Bishop. Bratislava, January 8, 1946. • • • HERO AND PATRIOT OF SLOVAKIA The smaller nations have been the marytrs in tlte maelstrom that evil men made out of Europe in the last decade. Changing fortunes of war often presented a double crown of martyrdom. Honest men in these minor states often found it difficult to see where the path of honor lay, but once their conscience revealed the way they remained steadfast in what they believed their sacred duty. Slovakia has presented such a puzzling picture. The Slovaks had long sought and had long been denied their independence. When the moment dawned for freedom before the last war, there is no doubt that the patriots of that land felt that their long-deferred ambitions had been realized. There was outside wonder at the auspices under which freedom came but there can be no question about the sincerity of the Slovak patriots who meant to use their new prerogatives solely for the good of Slovakia. Chief among these was Monsignor Joseph Tiso who was elected president of the new republic. The war's outcome threw Slovakia as part of the old Czecho-Slovakian state into the Red orbit. Monsignor Tiso was placed on trial for treason. It could not be proved that he was a traitor to Slovakia for the simple reason that he never was a traitor to Slovakia. But that did not prevent �SLOVAKIA 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland, � SLOV AKIA PubHshed VOL. VII quarterly by the Slovak League of America MARCH, 1957 NO. 1 (22) THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF DR. JOSEPH TISO'S EXECUTION JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM When Monsignor Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of thewartime Slovak Republic, was executed on the gallows on April 18, 1947, a victim of Communist and Czech vengeance, with the assistance of the adherents of Czecho-Communist collaboration most of whom are today living in exile, the Vatican broadcast, commenting on the reaction of the world press to Tiso's murder, said: "As a martyr of his love for his country, Dr. Tiso-who finally died in a very nice manner and as a priest internally very dignified, even though the manner of putting him to death was not befitting a priest-shall continue to live in the Catholic Slovak nation. Tendencious articles in the world press cannot change this fact." Ten years later, it is not necessary to prove the truthfulness of that forecast. Shortly after the first President of the Slovak Republic was surrendered to his vengeful political opponents, there resounded in the American and world press so many manifestations of sympathy, admiration, and respect for Dr. Joseph Tiso, as had been tendered no Slovak in the thousand-year-old stirring history of the Slovak people. Verily, Dr. Tiso outgrew the Slovak framework and "continues to live today" not only in the hearts of his Slovak people, but in the hearts of millions of people who love truth and freedom. Slovakia and the Slovak nation still belongs to the world which did not succumb to Communism, to the world which, so to speak, is personified in Dr. Tiso and his fate. And many people even here on the American continent today see in Tiso the first great victim of Communism in the attack on the civilized world. With decent and intelligent people, the name of Tiso has �2 SLOVAKIA become the key to sympathy for and frequently also to the knowledge of Slovakia and our fight and destiny. In this unusual turn of world public opinion, it is interesting to recall what Dr. Joseph Tiso said when he was asked by the so-called National Court in Bratislava why he had left Slovakia. Tiso at that time had replied: "I left Slovakia, because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak nation to its own way of life better known and more understandable to the Western powers." Of course, we know that the Western powers did not allow the living Tiso to do this, but we also have knowledge that they did not know, and still do not know, how to prevent the dead Tiso from fulfilling his mission. 'Dhe political murder, of which Dr. Tiso was the victim, did not bring about a change of heart only in alien circles, in circles frequently unfavorable to Slovakia and disinterested in the fate of Slovak nation. The crime committed against Dr. Tiso has stirred the conscience and awakened from national lethargy and indifference the Slovaks themselves, and especially the Slovaks beyond the borders of Slovakia who could not partake of the blessings of Slovak independence. If at the present time, outside the borders of Slovakia, the absolute majority of informed Slovaks is again in the fight for the sacred Slovak cause of freedom and independence, without any reservations whatsoever, this is due in a large measure to the death of Tiso, the hevo and martyr of the 'Slovak nation. Today there is not a single country in the free world, where the Slovaks do not annually commemorate March 14, 1939, Slovak Independence Day, and the Slovak Day of Infamy, April 18, 1947-the day that the Benes Czechs-Czech Socialists and Communists- shamefully put Dr. Tiso to death on the gallows. And in all these manifestations and celebrations, the personality, heroic fight and martyr's death of President Dr. Joseph Tiso stand out pre-eminently as a symbol, as a permanent light of Slovak history. On this tenth anniversary of the Bratislava murder, it is appropriate, I believe, to point out the fundamental principles, which led Dr. Joseph Tiso in his work for his �SLOVAKIA 3 people all the way up to the gallows and which characterized one historical period of the Slovak nation. Tiso on Politics, Nation and State Like Andrew Hlinka, Dr. Joseph Tiso left to Slovak generations no compact work about his views on Slovak national life, on their mission and on the ideological foundations of Slovak politics. Always in the middle of obstinate struggles for the preservation of his people and Slovak national existence, in which he played the foremost role since 1918, Dr. Tiso had little time to write books, so he probably postponed the task for a time when he would depart from the political arena. But this was denied hilli by the executioner. Although ideologically he formulate<l the Slovak struggles for national life, and systematically in his countless manifestations and reflections placed the foundations of and consciously developed the fundamental principles of Slovak national ideology in a manner as no one else had in his century, or in previous centuries, a systematic explanation of Tiso's views still awaits the efforts of an expert. The first step in this direction was made by Prof. Dr. Stephen Polakovic during the lifetime of Dr. Tiso, when he expertly and systematically collected in the work "Tiso's Doctrine"l the fundamental concept of Dr. Tiso relating to nation, nationalism, state, religion, and social questions. Even though the volume bears the seal of war conditions in Slovakia, it remains for us thusJar, along with the final speech of Dr. Tiso before the Bratislava Court, which was edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco2, a priceless source of knowledge of the fundamental ideas, aims and efforts of Slovak political life in the first half of this century. These two literary works are not only a source of knowing the past, but also a sum total of the fundamental directives for national and political work, about which Dr. Joseph Tiso, as if following the example of the Old Testamnt prophets, said: "In profound humility we are paying tribute to our good God for the lig}:tt of principles of the natural law, according to which we conducted ourselves in the fight for �4 SLOVAKIA independence, as well as in our work of construction. A return to the natural law can be the only foundation upon which a new world can be built, a world of contentment, order, and permanent peace"3. Placing the foundation of Slovak politics on the Natural Law, Dr. Tiso also defined the aims and the ways of Slovak politics. "Our Slovak State was not born out of hatred, but out of our great love for our homeland," proclaimed Dr. Tiso on March 16, 1939. "Let us above all else be led by this thought: no hatred toward anyone, but love, an ardent love for our State, which inspires us to work and sacrifice ... " "A practical manifestation of the Natural Law is an~ shall remain our old goal: Slovakia for the Slovaks. Slovakia in its entirety and indivisible and without reservations in the legal, cultural, economical, and social departments, so that the independent Slovak nation might be the living carrier of all power and the consumer of all that the Slovak country contains and represents." Regarding politics as a service to the nation, Dr. Tiso during his many years of political activity pleaded tha.t political factors learn to depersonalize themselves. His understanding of politics was that "the interest of the nation is the highest directive of political work;" politics is not supposed to be "medium for several individuals, who with it would conceal their own materialistic interests. Politics serves the nation." As Tiso saw it, even "the State should serve the nation, therefore, it has the right to existence only insofar as it does not threaten the interests of the nation." As far as State order is concerned, this must "be subordinated to the law of morality and law; the State must respect the rigihts of the individual, the family, society, and hold sacred the right ,o f parents to educate their children, the right of free confession; it guarantees the right of private ownership and sefeguards the peaceful coexistence of labor and capital, of employer and employee." "Not force, but law which is founded on truth," was the thesis of Dr. Joseph Tiso, and he followed it in the full �SLOVAKIA 5 sense of the word throughout his life, because he preached and believed that "no one will be mistaken who builds on the nation and always has only the interests of his nation in mind. We have ta:ken over this thesis from stirring times for the future so that we might strengthen ourselves in the old convictions that individuals retire but the nation remains, and the person, who, separated completely from his own person, stands unconditionally in the service of the nation, knows how to hold his ground and is the only one fit to lead and to speak in the name of the nation." "The politician, more than any one else, must be the guardian of the traditional values of the nation and must be the ever ready interpreter of the Natural Law in any given situation. Should any one lack the one or the other, he is not fit to be the representative of the nation, because he will either become a figure tossed about by contemporary political or social currents which has no connection with the living corpus of the nation, or else he will be a museum guardian of the nation who stands afar from contemporary routes along which life flows and on which the fate of the future of the nation is determined." "Whoever boasts that he is a loyal son of the nation, he must also ponder what he is giving to his nation. Whether an infection which causes a fever, or bacilli which cause decay and can bring the nation to the grave; or whether he contributes labor which shall forever remain in the nation as a cell of healthy social and cultural development." "A nation whose sons do not know how to bear a blow and personal sacrifices, such a nation will not get far. The nation lives, the whole lives, only by the fight and work of individuals." "Love for the nation is a religious precept, and a person sins against the Fourth Commandment who does not love his nation. He bears a stigma not only as an earthly t raitor, but also as a transgressor who does not keep the Divine Commandmants." Every loyal son of the Slovak nation, acording to Tiso, "sanctifies his nationalism with a Christian spirit, so that �ti SLOVAKIA nationalism be not a slogan or a mantle of dubious aims, but an internal motivating force to create values for the benefit of the national whole." In the Spirit of Tiso for a New Independence From the above quotations it is quite evident that the main principles of Dr. Joseph Tiso's ideology were: 1. Natural Law; 2. Love in place of hatred; 3. Right instead of violence; 4. Respect for morality; 5. Nation above the State. 6. Loyalty to traditions; 7. Personal selflessness and sacrifice of political factors; 8. Nationalism sanctified by Ohristianity; 9. Social justice; and 10. Religious tolerance. During the decades of his successful political activity, Dr. Tiso developed these ideas not only in his manifestations to the people, but also in his classically and stately styled reflections, parliamentary speeches, and presidential messages, so that the expert schooled in statecraft and sociology will have little difficulty in systematically elaborating his ideology. nr. Tiso himself indicated Christianity as the outlet of his ideas, especially the philosophy of St. Thomas4, and in the social sphere the Papal Encyclicals. On the question of nationalism Tiso said that "the symbol of Slovak nationalism is Stur"5, because "Stur's nationalism was the dynamic force in individuals whom he prompted to work and socrifice for the nation; it was the connecting link of individuals into a rock-firm whole with a united aim and a united will ... "6 A study of Dr. Tiso's manifestations reveals that he frequently tied in his talks with the spiritual-political heritage of the followers of Louis Stur, the great Slovak patriot and "father of modern Slovak nationalsm." And Tiso did this consciously to preserve the continuity of Slovak ideological-politica l development and so that the Slovaks could build on traditions. If we compare the basic ideas of Stur's political and philosophical manifestations - which are dealt with in several published works7 - with Tiso's, then the ideological structure, as well as the entire political activity of Dr. Tiso, of course, shows an entire series of preferences and varied outlines. �SLOVAKIA 7 Objectively it may already be said today that tying in with Stur and the idelogical continuity of former Slovak generations, Dr. Tiso anchors more deeply in Christian world outlook on the individual and his relation to the state, nation, family, and society. His ideology is firmly founded on the principles of modern sociology and statecraft; it has solid philosophical foundations and a strictly logical system; it emanates from an idea and stresses the primacy of spirituality, but it depends on the reality of life and respects actuality; it is the result of long years of study and political experience, drawn from daily contact with the nation and into unceasing struggle with its enemies, so that it is, as it were, forged in the fire of battles and tested in confrontation with the actual life of the nation in the phase of its political formation, but also in the phase .of struggles for its natural rights and, finally, also in the period of building up its own state. In comparison to the ideology of the Sturites, we are concerned, therefore, with an ideology whose foundations are not only broader by far, but one which was more thought out, mature and tested ·b y life. Divine Providence had allowed Dr. Joseph Tiso a life of political activity almost as long as Stur's entire life (1815-1856) and, hence, he <!ould see the ideas, which he promulgated and foT which he labored and fought, validated in national life. If we should compare Dr. Tiso as a politician and ideologue with other factors of Slovak life, then objectively it can be said that during the last 100 years there was no political factor in Slovakia who could compare with Dr. Joseph Tiso as far as preparation for political activity, working out of ideology and the concert of expressed principles with their validation unto self-immolation are concerned. If any of them did shine in theoretical expressions and plans, either fate did not grant them to measure up with reality, or they were only gleaners of grain where Dr. Joseph Tiso was the owner of fruitful fields of ideological and character wealth. Living Slovak generations will therefore hardly find a better example than Dr. Tiso, or a better ideology than �8 SLOVAKIA the one he sanctified with his blood. Anchored in eternal principles and designed for the future of the Slovak nation, it can be the most certain course for winning a new and full independence for the Slovaks. Czech chauvinism and Communist hatred did not kill the idea of Slovak indepedence by murdering Dr. Tiso. Conversely, they gave the nation more martyrs and, therefore, the idea shall win out sooner or later. REFERIDNCIDS: 1. "Tisova nauka," Dr. Stefan Polakovic, Bratislava, 1941. ~- "Dr . Joz.e f Tiso o sebe," edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Passaic, N. J., 1952. 3. This and other quotations are taken from either one of the previous two references. 4. "All who recall our thesis that 'the nation is the substance and the state only the form' should know that is state-political formula is the practical consequence of the state•.p olitical theory Wihich is built on the foundations O'f Thomistic philosophy." SOOVAK, 1935. 5. See "Prve posolstvo" (The First Message), Ruizomberok, August 16, 1939. Already in 1936 Dr. Tiso had proclaimed: "It is this monument of Louis Stur, built in the Banovce country, that shall be the visible proof of the fact that we have progressed so far that only we, Slovak Catholics, have not forgotten our Slovak past and we pay our respects to the memory of our national awakeners even when they are Evangelicals (Lutherans), as was Stur." - SLOVAK, 1936. 6. Dr. Tiso also characterized Stiir's nationalism in this manner: "Stiir's nationalism - built on the foundation of the independent Slovak nation and the genuine Slovak language, because it acknowledges the law of God and the law nature - was the natural foundation of the life of the Slovak nation." - SLOVAK, 1936. 7. Among the most significant works are those of Professor Cfzevsky, Dr. Stephen Polakovic, Dr. Samuel S. Osusky, Profesor Rap ant, and Dr. Joseph Pauco. • • • WHO SAID IT? "The right of se1f-<leteiimination in:cluded in the .AJtlantic Charter does not carpry wliith it the right O!f any government to commit wholesale muTder or the right to make slaJVes of its own people, or of any other peoples in the world." - F. D. Roosevelt, Feb. 12, 1943. �SLOVAKIA 9 I WAS EDITOR OF PRESIDENT TISO'S NEWSPAPER JOSEPH PAUCO ( Msgr. Joseph Tiso, prelate of the Catholic Church, was president of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. The proCommunist regime of Dr. Edward Benes executed him on the gallows, April 18, 1947, after a lengthy mock trial, before which the presiding judge had declared, echoing the words of Benes, that "Tiso must hang." Dr. Pauco's article is a brief recollection of the years he spent in free Bratislava as "Tiso's" editor.) Shortly after I was appointed editor of the "SLOVAK," the official organ of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party, my secretary entered my office to announce that President. Dr. Joseph Tiso wished to see me. "Where is he?" I asked excitedly. "In my office," replied the secretary. At that time I had a visitor, whom I requested to be excused because President Tiso had arrived, but the latter was already coming through the door of my office. Overhearing my request of the visitor, the President, greeting me and shaking my hand, said: "Now, Joe, you just finish your business with your visitor. I am a citizen like anyone else." That was characteristic of Dr. Joseph Tiso, the President of the Slovak Republic, who always considered himself only "one of the people." When my predecessor, Dr. Aladar Kocis, handed over the editoTShip of the "SLOVAK," he reminded me that, among other things, I should visit President Tiso regularly. Dr. Joseph Tiso, he told me, wanted to be informed about what was going on in the editorial office of the largest Slovak daily, which was otherwise regarded as the official newspaper of Dr. Tiso, since he was the chairman of the entire enterprise. But Dr. Tiso did not feel the necessity of personal contacts with the editorial office because of commercial considerations. He was mainly concerned with the spirit of the enterprise. It was necessary to defend Slovak interests. He �10 was aware of the great influence of the press and, hence, fully appreciated it. As a youthful journalist I naturally welcomed the support of the President. I visited Dr. Tiso regularly once a week, and when circumstances called for it even more frequently. Of course, besides personal visi½S, there were also many phone calls between the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" and the president's palace. The editor-in-chief always had the doors to t~e president's office open to him; there was no specified time for his visits. Whenever I phoned Tiso's personal secretary, Dr. Karol Murin, that I would like to see the president, in every instance he replied that I should come over at once. If my memory does not fail me, I believe I had to wait a half-hour or a bit more only twice in three years to see Dr. Tiso; and this happened because Tiso was in conference with foreign diplomatic representatives. Entering the president's office, I usually found Dr. Tiso at his desk, going through his mail or studying various state papers, proposed legislative acts, and activities of the various branches of government or the Hlinka Party, of which he was chairman. When I greeted him, he would raise his head, remove his spectacles and reply: "Welcome, young man, welcome!" Whenever I missed a meeting with the President, for some reason other, at the very next meeting he would ask where I had been, whether I had been i_ll. During these visits there were various matters that interested me. Of these not the least interesting was to observe the effects of the visitor before me. Once it would •b e a prime minister, other times a worker from the countryside; then again some deputy, economic expert, high officer, a foreign correspondent, or a member of the Cabinet. Once in a while some one would come up with an alarming report or rumor. President Tiso excluded no one from visiting him; he listened attentively to all and in every instance did whatever he could to satisfy all comers. Whenever I met him, �SLOVAKIA 11 President Tiso usually was either in a pensive or a smiling mood. Even at times when he appeared in a serious mood, and during our convers,a tion it would seem to me that in his mind he is returning to the fresh impressions of previous visitors, yet in a short while his face would brighten up and his melodious voice would ring out in healthy laughter. President Tiso had a real sense of humor. Dr. Joseph Tiso never acted in an affected or artificial manner. Once in 1939, when he was being welcomed in Nitra, an event which I witnessed, the district official addressed Tiso as "Your Excellency." At that Time Dr. Tiso smilingly reminded him: "Without the excellency, Mr. official!" From that time on, I never heard anyone address Dr. Tiso as "His Excellency." In his study Tiso was happy to be addressed simply as "Mr. President" (Pan prezident), as he was when his parishioners called him "Reverend Deacon." Conversations with Tiso usually began with his asking about one's health, his family, and his work. He was always very much interested in the work of our editorial office. President Tiso was not often curious about details, unless it was a matter of immediate interest, like, for example, the political side of our editorial work. Furthermore there was not a single visit during which we would not touch upon the most serious objective and personal moments which influenced Slovak politics. Dr. Tiso spoke openly about individual resolutions of the Parliament, the deputies, ministers, the Germans, and in general about everything that had any influence on Slovak life and the presidential office. On occasions Dr. Tiso recalled many innovations especially of his political opponents. He criticized them unsparingly and talked about them with feelings of bitterness; his criticism was sincere at all times, whether it concerned Slovaks or foreigners. I always felt refreshed in the President's study. Usu.ally Dr. Tiso gave no directives how any article was to be written. On the other hand, however, he willingly read the �12 SLOVAKIA more delicate articles before they went to print. Even when I asked him what from the ideological standpoint we should deal with most on the pages of the "SLOVAK," he would usually reply: "Hold the line. Don't let yourself be broken. Don't be discouraged-persevere!" Nothing more and nothing less. Otherwise, however, the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" had an exemplary coworker in the person of President Tiso. His speeches, articles and messages were care-fully prepared. Dr. Tiso prepared and wrote them himself. On occasions, especially for Christmas and March 14th, the President gave us articles written in his own hand so that we might have them on time; these were usually accompanied by the remark: "Correct as you see fit." On his visits to us, he would always compliment all the workers connected with the paper, saying: "Fine work, men; keep up the good work; give the best that's in you!" I'll conclude with what I had mentioned at the beginning: the visits of President Tiso to the editorial office of the "SLOVAK." He came among us regularly. When he visited us the first time, all of us were very surprised that he was accompanied only by his personal secretary. No secret, no public police came with him; none in or outside the building; and none in his auto. On occasions he visited us coming on foot alone, without a bodyguard. That was Tiso: his people did not fear him, and he did not fear his people. No man in Slovakia was more revered and loved than was Tiso. I attended many gatherings which Dr. Tiso addressed; I traveled with him. Not once did he have more than one person accompany him. Not to guard him, but simply to accompany him. President Tiso moved about freely and without fear in Bratislava and everywhere in Slovakia, just as he did at the altar where he daily said the Holy Mass to his Divine Master. • • • REOOMMENDED $3.00; SLOVAK FOR (the set); "!Ih-obailr's "SLOVAK DE)SSONS" BOOKS: "The Slovaks" (Juircha.k BEGINNERS" (Books I-III) $1.50 English-Sl01Va:k Dictionary" $4.00 ; (iHroba.k) $3.50. �SLOVAKIA 13 EIGHT FATAL DAYS IN THE LIFE OF DR. JOSEPH TISO KAROL MURiN (The author of this article was the personal secretary of President Dr. Joseph Tiso from 1938 until Tiso's tragic end in 1947. At the present time Dr. Karol Murin is on the profes• sorial staff of Montreal University.) On April 8, 1945, just a month before the conclusion of World War II in the West, at President Tiso's request, I went to Munich to ask for an audience with His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber. The reason was that I was to inform the Cardinal of Monsignor Tiso's arrivel in Kremsmlinster and petition him to graciously do what he could to protect the President of Slovakia. Munich at that time was a shambles. The Cardinal received me in the afternoon; his residence was damaged extensively by bombs and shells. After waiting for a moment in a small, poorly furnished room, Cardinal Faulhaber made his appearance, the burdens of the war clearly apparent on his features. After the customary Slovak greeting "Laudetur ... ," I went on one knee before him, kissed his ring, and then presented myself. The Cardinal replied to the greeting and asked me to be seated. After a few introductory words, I told him the purpose of my visit. I must admit that I did expect several questions. During the war years it had become the custom to classify people only into two categories: the democrats on the one side, and the nazis and fascists on the other. No one asked why or how a person got to be on the one or the other side, or even what one did. According to that attitude, which excluded all colors between black and white, Stalin and the bolsheviks were regarded as democrats, while Dr. Tiso was supposed to be a nazi; Benes, despite his pro-Soviet and evident bolshevizing tendencies and the fact that he was responsible for the death of thousands of people, was regarded as a "moral" democrat, while Dr. Tiso, despite his prayers and many acts of kindness and his great love for �14 SLOV.AlKIA his Slovak people, or . just because of this, was regarded as a criminal. Cardinal Faulhaber, however, never did belong among the people who measured morality according to their own interest and evaluated their neighbor and acknowledged his right to life only according to the benefit they might reap from him. He was accustomed to judge and measure 9,ccording to the eternal and unchangeable principles of 8hrist. That is why he had become the symbol of the fight against nazi blunders, and the world regarded him highly for it. "I know about your President," began Cardinal Faulhaber, "and I know that he defended the Christian Faith in Slovakia." From what he further said, it was evident that he was well-informed about Slovakia and especially about the activity of President Tiso. He immediately set himself to the task of doing what he could to secure the safety of Tiso in the face of the surge of passions resulting for the most part from the false information propagated by Dr. Edward Benes. The three alternatives mentioned by the Cardinal are proof of his love for President Tiso : 1. He invited the President to his residence; 2. he offered as a temporary abode for President Tiso the Capuchin monastery at Alt Otting; or, 3. the Scheyrn monastery. Both monasteries were in the Freising-Munich Archdiocese which Cardinal Faulhaber administered. According to circumstances, as they might develop in regard to Tiso, the Slovak President was free to resort to the alternative most favorable to him. My audience with Cardinal Faulhaber lasted two hours. He told me about what especially worried him and made him fearful about the future: about the plans formulated by fanatics for the last days of the war, about the night of the long knives ("Nacht der langen Messer"), during which they intended to liquidate revered and respected Catholic priests and laity. The last half hour of my visit I spent with the Cardinal in his study. Looking over a map of Bavaria, His Eminence compared the advantages and disadvantages uf �SLOVAKIA 15 the two monasteries; the Scheyrn Monastery was more advantageous, except, of course, if the "night of the long knives" should be realized. At the end of my visit I thanked Cardinal Faulhaber sincerely for the time he gave me, asked for his blessing, and departed after His Eminence bade me Godspeed. President Tiso was happy to hear my report about my visit to Cardinal Faulhaber after I returned to Kremsmtiunster. In no time at all, President Tiso decided to accept the hospitality of the Archbishop's palace only as a last resort; he did not wish to burden one of the outstanding Princes of the Church with the cares and troubles of his Slovak people and his own person, because he was aware of the fact that the saintly Cardinal was greatly burdened by the troubles of his own German people. At the beginning of May, 1945, when Dr. Joseph Tiso left Kremsmtinster for the West, he was not definitely certain whether he would seek refuge at Alt Otting or Scheyrn. In any event, however, he decided to first stop at Alt Otting. On the first leg of his journey, President Tiso was supposed to leave a written or oral message for me at the rectory of the Bavarian community of Stammham. I set out after President Tiso about two weeks later, stopping first at Stammham, where the pastor told mf': that I would find the person I was seeking at the first place we had talked about. That same afternoon I met with President Tiso in the monastery at Alt Otting. My first task was to again make contact with Cardinal Faulhaber. Since the war had just ended in the West, everything was chaos and confusion; outside the military, there was no public transportation to speak of; and no one was permitted to travel even short distances without a permit. After about a week in Alt Otting, which, by the way, is one of the most famous of pilgrimage cities, I was quite fortunate in getting to Munich. The Cardinal received me shortly after I was nounced. He was in ·b etter spirits than he had been April 8th: the "night of the long knives," thank God, not come about! In due time the Cardinal told me of anon did his �16 SLOV.A.I{JA plan to help President Tiso: he wanted to secure a plane to take Tiso to the Vatican. However, before he could begin working out his plan, the Cardinal said, he wanted to get the assent of the Papal Nuncio. During the entire war, the Nuncio for Germany was Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo. Cardinal Faulhaber asked me to look him up as soon as possible and present his desire to help Dr. Joseph Tiso to him, reckoning also with help to transport Tiso to the Vatican. In the Cardinal's name I was to ask His Excellency whether he agreed with his step. At that time the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Cesare Orsenigo, resided in Eichstatt in northern Bavaria. To get to him by auto I needed gasoline and to get gasoline I had to see the American authorities. Aware of this, Cardinal Faulhaber wrote a letter telling whoever it may concern that I was his courier, carrying mail and reports from the Cardinal to the Papal Nuncio. For a longer time the Cardinal could not send mail to the Nuncio, so he really appreciated this opportunity to do so. Besides that Cardinal Faulhaber gave me a general recommendat ion which I could use as I thought best. The next day I travelled by auto to Eichstatt. Below the portals to the Archbishop's palace, by sheer accident, I met with a group of four Slovaks, who had come by auto. After hearty handshakes and embraces, all gratefully accompanied me on my journey. Archbishop Orsenigo received me warmly. After I gave him the mail from Cardinal Faulhaber, he listened with great interest to my report about the fate of Preside,1t Tiso. To the Cardinal's question he replied thusly: "Tell His Eminence that I not only agree that he do everything possible in his power to save Dr. Tiso, but that I most ardently beg him to do so." Then the Archbishop said that he was completely out of contact with the world, adding that a certain member of the Swiss diplomatic corps in Berlin is supposed to visit him this same afternoon and take his first mail in a long time to the Vatican. He graciously offered to be of service if I had anything to send outside the borders of Germany. �SLOVAKIA 17 As soon as Cardinal Faulhaber had the Nuncio's reply, he immediately wrote a letter to the Vatican in which he told of his intention to transport Dr. Tiso by plane to the Vatican. His greatest worry was how to send the letter. Besides American planes only an accidental diplomat, who saved his petrol well, could be considered. In about a week I was supposed to return for further reports and advice. After eight days, I visited Cardinal Faulhaber again, who greeted me and then told me of the unfortunate thing tkat had happened. He was almost in tears. The Cardinal told me that the day after he had written the letter to the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he had secured a way of getting the letter to the Vatican. According to a promise made to the Cardinal by a person unknown to me, this person was supposed to take the letter before his departure from Munich. But the day before my last visit to Cardinal Faulhaber, when he asked his chancery whether there was any reply from the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he learned to his utter sorrow that the letter was still in his palace, the person who promised to deliver it to the Vatican evidently forgetting to pick it up. This unexpected delay worried the Cardinal and his concern was great, as if he had a foreboding that so very much depended on those eight days. After giving vent to his great disappointment, Cardinal Faulhaber again gave me his blessing and asked me to return in a week. I did return, but only after over two years. After my last visit to the Cardinal, we learned about the arrest of the members of the Slovak Government in Kremsmlinster. President Tiso asked for reports about what had happened there. My request for a travel permit into Upper Austria lay on the desk of the CIC in Alt btting for several days. Fate came into play. With the CIC in Alt btting there collaborated a man by the name of Spigler who was originally from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. When he came upon my name, Spigler immediately came to the monastery and forbade me to leave the building. After two days he took me to jail. During my confinement in the monastery, it became �18 SLOVAKIA quite evident that this Bratislava agent, full of personal resentment, found out that President Tiso was in the monastery. After my arrest President Tiso wrote to Cardinal Faulhaber, respectfully requesting His Eminence to notify the American authorities that he was staying in the monastery and that he use his influence to set me free, as well as that he c-o ntinue to give consideration to his own case. The Capuchin Provincial delivered the President's letter to Cardinal Faulhaber. In the meantime, I was transferred to a concentration camp where frightful conditions prevailed. One hot and sultry afternoon, at the beginning of June, 1945, a jeep pulled up before the barbed-wire camp. I became numb when I sighted President Tiso in it. It was at this point that my pilgrimage to various concentrati0!1 camps with President Tiso began, the tour which finally ended in the Bratislava jail. We felt the benefiscence of good Cardinal Faulhaber once again in the concentration camp at Garmisch Partenkirchen. It was on his initiative that the events, which had taken place during the reception of our group in this camp, were investigated. The Cardinal's effort to help Dr. Joseph Tiso did not result in success. Nevertheless, the Slovaks will never forget that Cardinal Faulhaber, now deceased, really did try to save Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of the Slovak Republic . • • • WHO SAID IT? "W:t"th eq'll!al enlthusfasm we are today manifesting for the ideaJls of our, and onliy our, Owchoslovruk Democracy, which is on its way of development ,t o a new poople's fomn . . . . T.he unreseJ:1ved alliance with Oll!r Eastern ncighbor, witlh the mighty USSR, bUft also our friend!ly coot'acts wirtih the rest ,of tlhe world, especiaUy with our western democracies, gives us the feeUng of oerlainty that no mrutter what might h!appen a!broad, O'Ur ,inJternatiiona1 positt'ion is £i:nm rund we need not fea1r that we can come uipon new d'aingera aind dlnifiou[ties." ([)r. Joseph Lettrich, Vice,Ohairm.an of the Exem.rt.ive Oommittee of the "Coundl of Free Czechoslov.aJkia,'' CAIS, November 18, 1947). �SLOVAKIA 19 SLOVAKIA: TRIAL OF DR. JOSEPH TISO (Under previous order of the House, the Hon. Ray J . Madden from Indiana, was recognized for 20 minutes to make the following address on the floor of the House of Representatives, March 31, 1947): Mr. Speaker, America and all liberty-loving nations should at this time concentrate against international situations which might bring about war in the future. I have, on several occasions, stated on the floor of Congress that the application of the principles of the Atlantic Charter is our greatest antidote for future peace. Self-government, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion is essential for smaller countries as it is for th~ large nations. Our Nation, during World War II, spent billions of dollars and sacrificed in lives and casualties to preserve the above principles in order to insure liberty and fnture peace. Since VJ-day, aggression and tyranny has again launched in certain areas of Europe. The latest example of persecution, unfair trial, and threatened execution for political belief is that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, former President of the Interim Republic of Slovakia. Dr. Tiso has been acclaimed a hero in the eyes of nearly all the people of Slovakia and the prevailing majority of Americans of Slovak ancestry. My attention has been called to the fact that over 80 percent of the Slovak American fraternal organizations have forthrightly declared themselves to be of the opinion that Tiso was a hero in the defense of the best interests of the Slovak people. During his presidency, Slovakia thrived, progressed, and developed internally more than it had during any five years of the existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The communistic control now over the country of Slovakia will execute Dr. Tiso, a political prisoner, unless our Government intervenes. This communistic control is inflicted upon the people of Slovakia in spite of the fact that the election of May 26, 1946, gave over 64 percent of the total vote cast against the present government. The press is likewise controlled, at least to the extent that the newspaper cannot publish what they think. This is evidenced in the fact that four American newspapers have �20 SLOVAKIA been barred in Slovakia. The present communistic government will brook no freedom of political thought; though the people voted for Christian democracy, they received totalitarian communism. The archbishop of Slovakia testified at the trial of Dr. Tiso. He is and has been a respected member not only of the hierarchy of Czecho-Slovakia, but of the official family of Czecho-Slovakia, including its President Edward Benes. Appearing as a witness for Dr. Tiso, the archbishop testified that: Tiso acted and worked in the interest of Slovakia and was never a traitor, and that his electeion as President of Slovakia was the will of 90 percent of the Slovaks at that time and was acclaimed by the bishops, priests, and ministers of both the Catholic and Protestant churches. It is apparent that Czecho-Slovakia has been re-created with the aid of Moscow and that Moscow will undoubtedly demand the extinction of Slovak national leaders of ability and high intelelct. The ways of the Communists are devious and it behooves us to understand more of the Slovak situation. In the meantime, the least that freedom loving nations can ask is that the so-called peoples courts in the Communist-dominated countries in eastern Europe, refrain from any further political executions or from liquidating political opposition by long-term imprisonment as in the case of Archbishop Stepinac. All of this adds up to the price we will have to pay to aid in the establishing of true democracy in the countries of eastern Europe to insure world peace. In supporting President Truman's international program, we cannot be unmindful of what is happening throughout this region in Europe, comprising over 100,000,000 Christians who have nothing in common with communism. We have heard of political executions, imprisonment, and banishment of outstanding citizens in Poland, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and other small countries. Thousands of brave Polish soldiers who fought to stamp out fascism are now prohibited from returning to their native Poland by a communistic controlled government. Americans are asking the question "do we not have at least a moral obli- �SLOVAKIA 21 gation to veice our protest against such trials and executions?" The judge who presided at the trial of Dr. Tiso, previous to the trial, vowed personal vengeance on Tiso and was provided this opportunity by being placed in charge ef the case. These facts, though not appearing in the American press releases, are not disputed. Almost uninimously, the people of Slovak descent in America, are rising in protest to the impending execution of Dr. Tiso. I ask the Members of Congress to join with me in protesting this unjust conviction by interceding with President Truman and Secretary Marshall to use their good offices to prevent this injustice. We might as well apply the words of the Honorable Judge Robert H. Jackson: All experience teaches that there are certain things you cannot do under guise of judicial trial. * * * You must put no man on trial before anything that is called a court, if you are not prepared to establish his personal guilt * * * If you are determined to execute a man in any case, there is no occasion for trial. The world yields no respect to courts that are merely organized to convict. - Congressional Record. • ON TISO'S BEHALF: • • PLEA OF THE COUNCIL OF SLOVAK BISHOPS To the Presidium of the Slovak National Council in Bratislava: The Catholic Episcopal Council of Slovakia, in past years, has more frequently turned to appropriate governmental offices in the interest of those who were suffering, were imprisoned or persecuted - without regard to whetlier Catholics or non-Catholics were concerned. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command prompted and encouraged us to raise our protective voice in the interests of the people who were suffering on account of political or racial reasons and we did that at a time when we could expect various humiliations in return. �22 SLOVAKIA This noblest Model in all history and His commandment, expressed in the Gospel, we bear in mind even now, when we respectfully commend to Your graciousness the fate of the former President Dr. Joseph Tiso. We do this not only because a Catholic priest is concerned, but also because the solution of his personal problem shall have a far-reaching influence on the thinking and behavior of a part of the Slovak nation in respect to the renovated Czecho- Slovak Republic and its representatives. Furthermore, we are prompted to take this step also by the generally known actuality, which is conceded by all objective critics, that Dr. Joseph Tiso always was a zealous priest, of a virtuous life. In his extensive activity he tried to work for the good of the whole, and personally did not enrich himself. The administration of justice belongs among the most difficult tasks of state power. Experience proves that this delicate task is aggravated when the judgment of political transgressions is concerned. History tells us how many fatal mistakes were made during political trials - and this results from the delicate task of impartially judging the activities of a political opponent. So, it is no rarity that after rendering severe verdicts in political trials, sooner or later a call for their revision was made. In judging the activity especially of a political factor his intentions also should be given · consideration. The majority of the Slovak nation is convinced with us that the intentions of Dr. Joseph Tiso while performing public functions were the best. Certainly some mistakes were made and the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not fail to bring these to his attention. However, here we must mention the generally known reality that even the most clever political factors frequently made serious mistakes. Nevertheless an unbiased observer - whether a contemporary or historian - can deduce an over-all judgment only when he evaluates also the good and positive things they did. And this thesis often outweighs the mistakes which they made in their weakness. �S LOVAKIA 23 It will be pertinent to the matter at hand to shed some light also from another viewpoint on the mistakes which are ascribed to Dr. Joseph Tiso. We respectfully point out at least some of the circumstances. After the most recent announcements of the present governmental factors even the 2ilina events of October, 1938, are presented in a different light than that shed by the one-sided propaganda to persuade the public; nay, even in the press it was demonstrated that in these political changes practically all Slovak political parties had participated. Here it is necessary to recall also the very important document which has just now been made public during the Nuremberg trials; we mean the letter of the ruler of the Hungarian realm sent to Berlin in March 13, 1939. This weighty circumstance gives an altogether different significance to the March 14, 1939, decision of Dr. Joseph Tiso and the other political factors of that time. One should think about what would have happened with the Slovak nation if the plan of Horthy had succeeded? We also know that after the issuance of anti-Jewish regulations, Dr. Joseph Tiso did want to resign from the presidency. That he did not do so happened because he tried to hamper and ameliorate the effects of those provisions, as well as to prevent a greater evil. It is worthy of consideration that what the ruler of the larger and more independent Hungary could not prevent in his country Dr. Joseph Tiso could not prevent in Slovakia. After considering all the circumstances after the passage of time, even other pilloried political mistakes - such as the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944 can be judged otherwise than the manner in which it is done by a one-sided propaganda. The entire Slovak public is following the developments of events around Dr. Joseph Tiso with attention and in its majority is taking a negative stand towards those efforts which would incite hatred against his person. Thereby the unfortunate splintering of the nation is increased when unity of all forces is so greatly desired for the important �24 SLOVAKIA work of construction. It will be to the credit of the farsightedness of the State and will serve the peace of the nation, if the case of Dr. Joseph Tiso is solved in a cautious way and not with merciless hardness. The above thoughts have prompted us to respectfully submit our plea for your gracious consideration and favorable decision. With an expression of profound respect: (Signatures) : Dr. Karol Kmefko, Archbishop-Bishop of Nitra; Jozef Carsky, Bishop-Apostolic Administrator; Dr. Andrej Skraltik, Bishop on Banska Bystrica; Dr. Jozef Tomanocy; Dr. Karol Jantausch; Dr. Eduard Necsey, ordaining Bishop. Bratislava, January 8, 1946. • • • HERO AND PATRIOT OF SLOVAKIA The smaller nations have been the marytrs in tlte maelstrom that evil men made out of Europe in the last decade. Changing fortunes of war often presented a double crown of martyrdom. Honest men in these minor states often found it difficult to see where the path of honor lay, but once their conscience revealed the way they remained steadfast in what they believed their sacred duty. Slovakia has presented such a puzzling picture. The Slovaks had long sought and had long been denied their independence. When the moment dawned for freedom before the last war, there is no doubt that the patriots of that land felt that their long-deferred ambitions had been realized. There was outside wonder at the auspices under which freedom came but there can be no question about the sincerity of the Slovak patriots who meant to use their new prerogatives solely for the good of Slovakia. Chief among these was Monsignor Joseph Tiso who was elected president of the new republic. The war's outcome threw Slovakia as part of the old Czecho-Slovakian state into the Red orbit. Monsignor Tiso was placed on trial for treason. It could not be proved that he was a traitor to Slovakia for the simple reason that he never was a traitor to Slovakia. But that did not prevent �SLOVAKIA 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to 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 SLOV AKIA PubHshed VOL. VII quarterly by the Slovak League of America MARCH, 1957 NO. 1 (22) THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF DR. JOSEPH TISO'S EXECUTION JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM When Monsignor Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of thewartime Slovak Republic, was executed on the gallows on April 18, 1947, a victim of Communist and Czech vengeance, with the assistance of the adherents of Czecho-Communist collaboration most of whom are today living in exile, the Vatican broadcast, commenting on the reaction of the world press to Tiso's murder, said: "As a martyr of his love for his country, Dr. Tiso-who finally died in a very nice manner and as a priest internally very dignified, even though the manner of putting him to death was not befitting a priest-shall continue to live in the Catholic Slovak nation. Tendencious articles in the world press cannot change this fact." Ten years later, it is not necessary to prove the truthfulness of that forecast. Shortly after the first President of the Slovak Republic was surrendered to his vengeful political opponents, there resounded in the American and world press so many manifestations of sympathy, admiration, and respect for Dr. Joseph Tiso, as had been tendered no Slovak in the thousand-year-old stirring history of the Slovak people. Verily, Dr. Tiso outgrew the Slovak framework and "continues to live today" not only in the hearts of his Slovak people, but in the hearts of millions of people who love truth and freedom. Slovakia and the Slovak nation still belongs to the world which did not succumb to Communism, to the world which, so to speak, is personified in Dr. Tiso and his fate. And many people even here on the American continent today see in Tiso the first great victim of Communism in the attack on the civilized world. With decent and intelligent people, the name of Tiso has 2 SLOVAKIA become the key to sympathy for and frequently also to the knowledge of Slovakia and our fight and destiny. In this unusual turn of world public opinion, it is interesting to recall what Dr. Joseph Tiso said when he was asked by the so-called National Court in Bratislava why he had left Slovakia. Tiso at that time had replied: "I left Slovakia, because I wished to make the claims of the Slovak nation to its own way of life better known and more understandable to the Western powers." Of course, we know that the Western powers did not allow the living Tiso to do this, but we also have knowledge that they did not know, and still do not know, how to prevent the dead Tiso from fulfilling his mission. 'Dhe political murder, of which Dr. Tiso was the victim, did not bring about a change of heart only in alien circles, in circles frequently unfavorable to Slovakia and disinterested in the fate of Slovak nation. The crime committed against Dr. Tiso has stirred the conscience and awakened from national lethargy and indifference the Slovaks themselves, and especially the Slovaks beyond the borders of Slovakia who could not partake of the blessings of Slovak independence. If at the present time, outside the borders of Slovakia, the absolute majority of informed Slovaks is again in the fight for the sacred Slovak cause of freedom and independence, without any reservations whatsoever, this is due in a large measure to the death of Tiso, the hevo and martyr of the 'Slovak nation. Today there is not a single country in the free world, where the Slovaks do not annually commemorate March 14, 1939, Slovak Independence Day, and the Slovak Day of Infamy, April 18, 1947-the day that the Benes Czechs-Czech Socialists and Communists- shamefully put Dr. Tiso to death on the gallows. And in all these manifestations and celebrations, the personality, heroic fight and martyr's death of President Dr. Joseph Tiso stand out pre-eminently as a symbol, as a permanent light of Slovak history. On this tenth anniversary of the Bratislava murder, it is appropriate, I believe, to point out the fundamental principles, which led Dr. Joseph Tiso in his work for his SLOVAKIA 3 people all the way up to the gallows and which characterized one historical period of the Slovak nation. Tiso on Politics, Nation and State Like Andrew Hlinka, Dr. Joseph Tiso left to Slovak generations no compact work about his views on Slovak national life, on their mission and on the ideological foundations of Slovak politics. Always in the middle of obstinate struggles for the preservation of his people and Slovak national existence, in which he played the foremost role since 1918, Dr. Tiso had little time to write books, so he probably postponed the task for a time when he would depart from the political arena. But this was denied hilli by the executioner. Although ideologically he formulate<l the Slovak struggles for national life, and systematically in his countless manifestations and reflections placed the foundations of and consciously developed the fundamental principles of Slovak national ideology in a manner as no one else had in his century, or in previous centuries, a systematic explanation of Tiso's views still awaits the efforts of an expert. The first step in this direction was made by Prof. Dr. Stephen Polakovic during the lifetime of Dr. Tiso, when he expertly and systematically collected in the work "Tiso's Doctrine"l the fundamental concept of Dr. Tiso relating to nation, nationalism, state, religion, and social questions. Even though the volume bears the seal of war conditions in Slovakia, it remains for us thusJar, along with the final speech of Dr. Tiso before the Bratislava Court, which was edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco2, a priceless source of knowledge of the fundamental ideas, aims and efforts of Slovak political life in the first half of this century. These two literary works are not only a source of knowing the past, but also a sum total of the fundamental directives for national and political work, about which Dr. Joseph Tiso, as if following the example of the Old Testamnt prophets, said: "In profound humility we are paying tribute to our good God for the lig}:tt of principles of the natural law, according to which we conducted ourselves in the fight for 4 SLOVAKIA independence, as well as in our work of construction. A return to the natural law can be the only foundation upon which a new world can be built, a world of contentment, order, and permanent peace"3. Placing the foundation of Slovak politics on the Natural Law, Dr. Tiso also defined the aims and the ways of Slovak politics. "Our Slovak State was not born out of hatred, but out of our great love for our homeland," proclaimed Dr. Tiso on March 16, 1939. "Let us above all else be led by this thought: no hatred toward anyone, but love, an ardent love for our State, which inspires us to work and sacrifice ... " "A practical manifestation of the Natural Law is an~ shall remain our old goal: Slovakia for the Slovaks. Slovakia in its entirety and indivisible and without reservations in the legal, cultural, economical, and social departments, so that the independent Slovak nation might be the living carrier of all power and the consumer of all that the Slovak country contains and represents." Regarding politics as a service to the nation, Dr. Tiso during his many years of political activity pleaded tha.t political factors learn to depersonalize themselves. His understanding of politics was that "the interest of the nation is the highest directive of political work;" politics is not supposed to be "medium for several individuals, who with it would conceal their own materialistic interests. Politics serves the nation." As Tiso saw it, even "the State should serve the nation, therefore, it has the right to existence only insofar as it does not threaten the interests of the nation." As far as State order is concerned, this must "be subordinated to the law of morality and law; the State must respect the rigihts of the individual, the family, society, and hold sacred the right ,o f parents to educate their children, the right of free confession; it guarantees the right of private ownership and sefeguards the peaceful coexistence of labor and capital, of employer and employee." "Not force, but law which is founded on truth," was the thesis of Dr. Joseph Tiso, and he followed it in the full SLOVAKIA 5 sense of the word throughout his life, because he preached and believed that "no one will be mistaken who builds on the nation and always has only the interests of his nation in mind. We have ta:ken over this thesis from stirring times for the future so that we might strengthen ourselves in the old convictions that individuals retire but the nation remains, and the person, who, separated completely from his own person, stands unconditionally in the service of the nation, knows how to hold his ground and is the only one fit to lead and to speak in the name of the nation." "The politician, more than any one else, must be the guardian of the traditional values of the nation and must be the ever ready interpreter of the Natural Law in any given situation. Should any one lack the one or the other, he is not fit to be the representative of the nation, because he will either become a figure tossed about by contemporary political or social currents which has no connection with the living corpus of the nation, or else he will be a museum guardian of the nation who stands afar from contemporary routes along which life flows and on which the fate of the future of the nation is determined." "Whoever boasts that he is a loyal son of the nation, he must also ponder what he is giving to his nation. Whether an infection which causes a fever, or bacilli which cause decay and can bring the nation to the grave; or whether he contributes labor which shall forever remain in the nation as a cell of healthy social and cultural development." "A nation whose sons do not know how to bear a blow and personal sacrifices, such a nation will not get far. The nation lives, the whole lives, only by the fight and work of individuals." "Love for the nation is a religious precept, and a person sins against the Fourth Commandment who does not love his nation. He bears a stigma not only as an earthly t raitor, but also as a transgressor who does not keep the Divine Commandmants." Every loyal son of the Slovak nation, acording to Tiso, "sanctifies his nationalism with a Christian spirit, so that ti SLOVAKIA nationalism be not a slogan or a mantle of dubious aims, but an internal motivating force to create values for the benefit of the national whole." In the Spirit of Tiso for a New Independence From the above quotations it is quite evident that the main principles of Dr. Joseph Tiso's ideology were: 1. Natural Law; 2. Love in place of hatred; 3. Right instead of violence; 4. Respect for morality; 5. Nation above the State. 6. Loyalty to traditions; 7. Personal selflessness and sacrifice of political factors; 8. Nationalism sanctified by Ohristianity; 9. Social justice; and 10. Religious tolerance. During the decades of his successful political activity, Dr. Tiso developed these ideas not only in his manifestations to the people, but also in his classically and stately styled reflections, parliamentary speeches, and presidential messages, so that the expert schooled in statecraft and sociology will have little difficulty in systematically elaborating his ideology. nr. Tiso himself indicated Christianity as the outlet of his ideas, especially the philosophy of St. Thomas4, and in the social sphere the Papal Encyclicals. On the question of nationalism Tiso said that "the symbol of Slovak nationalism is Stur"5, because "Stur's nationalism was the dynamic force in individuals whom he prompted to work and socrifice for the nation; it was the connecting link of individuals into a rock-firm whole with a united aim and a united will ... "6 A study of Dr. Tiso's manifestations reveals that he frequently tied in his talks with the spiritual-political heritage of the followers of Louis Stur, the great Slovak patriot and "father of modern Slovak nationalsm." And Tiso did this consciously to preserve the continuity of Slovak ideological-politica l development and so that the Slovaks could build on traditions. If we compare the basic ideas of Stur's political and philosophical manifestations - which are dealt with in several published works7 - with Tiso's, then the ideological structure, as well as the entire political activity of Dr. Tiso, of course, shows an entire series of preferences and varied outlines. SLOVAKIA 7 Objectively it may already be said today that tying in with Stur and the idelogical continuity of former Slovak generations, Dr. Tiso anchors more deeply in Christian world outlook on the individual and his relation to the state, nation, family, and society. His ideology is firmly founded on the principles of modern sociology and statecraft; it has solid philosophical foundations and a strictly logical system; it emanates from an idea and stresses the primacy of spirituality, but it depends on the reality of life and respects actuality; it is the result of long years of study and political experience, drawn from daily contact with the nation and into unceasing struggle with its enemies, so that it is, as it were, forged in the fire of battles and tested in confrontation with the actual life of the nation in the phase of its political formation, but also in the phase .of struggles for its natural rights and, finally, also in the period of building up its own state. In comparison to the ideology of the Sturites, we are concerned, therefore, with an ideology whose foundations are not only broader by far, but one which was more thought out, mature and tested ·b y life. Divine Providence had allowed Dr. Joseph Tiso a life of political activity almost as long as Stur's entire life (1815-1856) and, hence, he <!ould see the ideas, which he promulgated and foT which he labored and fought, validated in national life. If we should compare Dr. Tiso as a politician and ideologue with other factors of Slovak life, then objectively it can be said that during the last 100 years there was no political factor in Slovakia who could compare with Dr. Joseph Tiso as far as preparation for political activity, working out of ideology and the concert of expressed principles with their validation unto self-immolation are concerned. If any of them did shine in theoretical expressions and plans, either fate did not grant them to measure up with reality, or they were only gleaners of grain where Dr. Joseph Tiso was the owner of fruitful fields of ideological and character wealth. Living Slovak generations will therefore hardly find a better example than Dr. Tiso, or a better ideology than 8 SLOVAKIA the one he sanctified with his blood. Anchored in eternal principles and designed for the future of the Slovak nation, it can be the most certain course for winning a new and full independence for the Slovaks. Czech chauvinism and Communist hatred did not kill the idea of Slovak indepedence by murdering Dr. Tiso. Conversely, they gave the nation more martyrs and, therefore, the idea shall win out sooner or later. REFERIDNCIDS: 1. "Tisova nauka," Dr. Stefan Polakovic, Bratislava, 1941. ~- "Dr . Joz.e f Tiso o sebe," edited by Dr. Joseph Pauco, Passaic, N. J., 1952. 3. This and other quotations are taken from either one of the previous two references. 4. "All who recall our thesis that 'the nation is the substance and the state only the form' should know that is state-political formula is the practical consequence of the state•.p olitical theory Wihich is built on the foundations O'f Thomistic philosophy." SOOVAK, 1935. 5. See "Prve posolstvo" (The First Message), Ruizomberok, August 16, 1939. Already in 1936 Dr. Tiso had proclaimed: "It is this monument of Louis Stur, built in the Banovce country, that shall be the visible proof of the fact that we have progressed so far that only we, Slovak Catholics, have not forgotten our Slovak past and we pay our respects to the memory of our national awakeners even when they are Evangelicals (Lutherans), as was Stur." - SLOVAK, 1936. 6. Dr. Tiso also characterized Stiir's nationalism in this manner: "Stiir's nationalism - built on the foundation of the independent Slovak nation and the genuine Slovak language, because it acknowledges the law of God and the law nature - was the natural foundation of the life of the Slovak nation." - SLOVAK, 1936. 7. Among the most significant works are those of Professor Cfzevsky, Dr. Stephen Polakovic, Dr. Samuel S. Osusky, Profesor Rap ant, and Dr. Joseph Pauco. • • • WHO SAID IT? "The right of se1f-<leteiimination in:cluded in the .AJtlantic Charter does not carpry wliith it the right O!f any government to commit wholesale muTder or the right to make slaJVes of its own people, or of any other peoples in the world." - F. D. Roosevelt, Feb. 12, 1943. SLOVAKIA 9 I WAS EDITOR OF PRESIDENT TISO'S NEWSPAPER JOSEPH PAUCO ( Msgr. Joseph Tiso, prelate of the Catholic Church, was president of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. The proCommunist regime of Dr. Edward Benes executed him on the gallows, April 18, 1947, after a lengthy mock trial, before which the presiding judge had declared, echoing the words of Benes, that "Tiso must hang." Dr. Pauco's article is a brief recollection of the years he spent in free Bratislava as "Tiso's" editor.) Shortly after I was appointed editor of the "SLOVAK," the official organ of the Hlinka Slovak People's Party, my secretary entered my office to announce that President. Dr. Joseph Tiso wished to see me. "Where is he?" I asked excitedly. "In my office," replied the secretary. At that time I had a visitor, whom I requested to be excused because President Tiso had arrived, but the latter was already coming through the door of my office. Overhearing my request of the visitor, the President, greeting me and shaking my hand, said: "Now, Joe, you just finish your business with your visitor. I am a citizen like anyone else." That was characteristic of Dr. Joseph Tiso, the President of the Slovak Republic, who always considered himself only "one of the people." When my predecessor, Dr. Aladar Kocis, handed over the editoTShip of the "SLOVAK," he reminded me that, among other things, I should visit President Tiso regularly. Dr. Joseph Tiso, he told me, wanted to be informed about what was going on in the editorial office of the largest Slovak daily, which was otherwise regarded as the official newspaper of Dr. Tiso, since he was the chairman of the entire enterprise. But Dr. Tiso did not feel the necessity of personal contacts with the editorial office because of commercial considerations. He was mainly concerned with the spirit of the enterprise. It was necessary to defend Slovak interests. He 10 was aware of the great influence of the press and, hence, fully appreciated it. As a youthful journalist I naturally welcomed the support of the President. I visited Dr. Tiso regularly once a week, and when circumstances called for it even more frequently. Of course, besides personal visi½S, there were also many phone calls between the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" and the president's palace. The editor-in-chief always had the doors to t~e president's office open to him; there was no specified time for his visits. Whenever I phoned Tiso's personal secretary, Dr. Karol Murin, that I would like to see the president, in every instance he replied that I should come over at once. If my memory does not fail me, I believe I had to wait a half-hour or a bit more only twice in three years to see Dr. Tiso; and this happened because Tiso was in conference with foreign diplomatic representatives. Entering the president's office, I usually found Dr. Tiso at his desk, going through his mail or studying various state papers, proposed legislative acts, and activities of the various branches of government or the Hlinka Party, of which he was chairman. When I greeted him, he would raise his head, remove his spectacles and reply: "Welcome, young man, welcome!" Whenever I missed a meeting with the President, for some reason other, at the very next meeting he would ask where I had been, whether I had been i_ll. During these visits there were various matters that interested me. Of these not the least interesting was to observe the effects of the visitor before me. Once it would •b e a prime minister, other times a worker from the countryside; then again some deputy, economic expert, high officer, a foreign correspondent, or a member of the Cabinet. Once in a while some one would come up with an alarming report or rumor. President Tiso excluded no one from visiting him; he listened attentively to all and in every instance did whatever he could to satisfy all comers. Whenever I met him, SLOVAKIA 11 President Tiso usually was either in a pensive or a smiling mood. Even at times when he appeared in a serious mood, and during our convers,a tion it would seem to me that in his mind he is returning to the fresh impressions of previous visitors, yet in a short while his face would brighten up and his melodious voice would ring out in healthy laughter. President Tiso had a real sense of humor. Dr. Joseph Tiso never acted in an affected or artificial manner. Once in 1939, when he was being welcomed in Nitra, an event which I witnessed, the district official addressed Tiso as "Your Excellency." At that Time Dr. Tiso smilingly reminded him: "Without the excellency, Mr. official!" From that time on, I never heard anyone address Dr. Tiso as "His Excellency." In his study Tiso was happy to be addressed simply as "Mr. President" (Pan prezident), as he was when his parishioners called him "Reverend Deacon." Conversations with Tiso usually began with his asking about one's health, his family, and his work. He was always very much interested in the work of our editorial office. President Tiso was not often curious about details, unless it was a matter of immediate interest, like, for example, the political side of our editorial work. Furthermore there was not a single visit during which we would not touch upon the most serious objective and personal moments which influenced Slovak politics. Dr. Tiso spoke openly about individual resolutions of the Parliament, the deputies, ministers, the Germans, and in general about everything that had any influence on Slovak life and the presidential office. On occasions Dr. Tiso recalled many innovations especially of his political opponents. He criticized them unsparingly and talked about them with feelings of bitterness; his criticism was sincere at all times, whether it concerned Slovaks or foreigners. I always felt refreshed in the President's study. Usu.ally Dr. Tiso gave no directives how any article was to be written. On the other hand, however, he willingly read the 12 SLOVAKIA more delicate articles before they went to print. Even when I asked him what from the ideological standpoint we should deal with most on the pages of the "SLOVAK," he would usually reply: "Hold the line. Don't let yourself be broken. Don't be discouraged-persevere!" Nothing more and nothing less. Otherwise, however, the editorial office of the "SLOVAK" had an exemplary coworker in the person of President Tiso. His speeches, articles and messages were care-fully prepared. Dr. Tiso prepared and wrote them himself. On occasions, especially for Christmas and March 14th, the President gave us articles written in his own hand so that we might have them on time; these were usually accompanied by the remark: "Correct as you see fit." On his visits to us, he would always compliment all the workers connected with the paper, saying: "Fine work, men; keep up the good work; give the best that's in you!" I'll conclude with what I had mentioned at the beginning: the visits of President Tiso to the editorial office of the "SLOVAK." He came among us regularly. When he visited us the first time, all of us were very surprised that he was accompanied only by his personal secretary. No secret, no public police came with him; none in or outside the building; and none in his auto. On occasions he visited us coming on foot alone, without a bodyguard. That was Tiso: his people did not fear him, and he did not fear his people. No man in Slovakia was more revered and loved than was Tiso. I attended many gatherings which Dr. Tiso addressed; I traveled with him. Not once did he have more than one person accompany him. Not to guard him, but simply to accompany him. President Tiso moved about freely and without fear in Bratislava and everywhere in Slovakia, just as he did at the altar where he daily said the Holy Mass to his Divine Master. • • • REOOMMENDED $3.00; SLOVAK FOR (the set); "!Ih-obailr's "SLOVAK DE)SSONS" BOOKS: "The Slovaks" (Juircha.k BEGINNERS" (Books I-III) $1.50 English-Sl01Va:k Dictionary" $4.00 ; (iHroba.k) $3.50. SLOVAKIA 13 EIGHT FATAL DAYS IN THE LIFE OF DR. JOSEPH TISO KAROL MURiN (The author of this article was the personal secretary of President Dr. Joseph Tiso from 1938 until Tiso's tragic end in 1947. At the present time Dr. Karol Murin is on the profes• sorial staff of Montreal University.) On April 8, 1945, just a month before the conclusion of World War II in the West, at President Tiso's request, I went to Munich to ask for an audience with His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber. The reason was that I was to inform the Cardinal of Monsignor Tiso's arrivel in Kremsmlinster and petition him to graciously do what he could to protect the President of Slovakia. Munich at that time was a shambles. The Cardinal received me in the afternoon; his residence was damaged extensively by bombs and shells. After waiting for a moment in a small, poorly furnished room, Cardinal Faulhaber made his appearance, the burdens of the war clearly apparent on his features. After the customary Slovak greeting "Laudetur ... ," I went on one knee before him, kissed his ring, and then presented myself. The Cardinal replied to the greeting and asked me to be seated. After a few introductory words, I told him the purpose of my visit. I must admit that I did expect several questions. During the war years it had become the custom to classify people only into two categories: the democrats on the one side, and the nazis and fascists on the other. No one asked why or how a person got to be on the one or the other side, or even what one did. According to that attitude, which excluded all colors between black and white, Stalin and the bolsheviks were regarded as democrats, while Dr. Tiso was supposed to be a nazi; Benes, despite his pro-Soviet and evident bolshevizing tendencies and the fact that he was responsible for the death of thousands of people, was regarded as a "moral" democrat, while Dr. Tiso, despite his prayers and many acts of kindness and his great love for 14 SLOV.AlKIA his Slovak people, or . just because of this, was regarded as a criminal. Cardinal Faulhaber, however, never did belong among the people who measured morality according to their own interest and evaluated their neighbor and acknowledged his right to life only according to the benefit they might reap from him. He was accustomed to judge and measure 9,ccording to the eternal and unchangeable principles of 8hrist. That is why he had become the symbol of the fight against nazi blunders, and the world regarded him highly for it. "I know about your President," began Cardinal Faulhaber, "and I know that he defended the Christian Faith in Slovakia." From what he further said, it was evident that he was well-informed about Slovakia and especially about the activity of President Tiso. He immediately set himself to the task of doing what he could to secure the safety of Tiso in the face of the surge of passions resulting for the most part from the false information propagated by Dr. Edward Benes. The three alternatives mentioned by the Cardinal are proof of his love for President Tiso : 1. He invited the President to his residence; 2. he offered as a temporary abode for President Tiso the Capuchin monastery at Alt Otting; or, 3. the Scheyrn monastery. Both monasteries were in the Freising-Munich Archdiocese which Cardinal Faulhaber administered. According to circumstances, as they might develop in regard to Tiso, the Slovak President was free to resort to the alternative most favorable to him. My audience with Cardinal Faulhaber lasted two hours. He told me about what especially worried him and made him fearful about the future: about the plans formulated by fanatics for the last days of the war, about the night of the long knives ("Nacht der langen Messer"), during which they intended to liquidate revered and respected Catholic priests and laity. The last half hour of my visit I spent with the Cardinal in his study. Looking over a map of Bavaria, His Eminence compared the advantages and disadvantages uf SLOVAKIA 15 the two monasteries; the Scheyrn Monastery was more advantageous, except, of course, if the "night of the long knives" should be realized. At the end of my visit I thanked Cardinal Faulhaber sincerely for the time he gave me, asked for his blessing, and departed after His Eminence bade me Godspeed. President Tiso was happy to hear my report about my visit to Cardinal Faulhaber after I returned to Kremsmtiunster. In no time at all, President Tiso decided to accept the hospitality of the Archbishop's palace only as a last resort; he did not wish to burden one of the outstanding Princes of the Church with the cares and troubles of his Slovak people and his own person, because he was aware of the fact that the saintly Cardinal was greatly burdened by the troubles of his own German people. At the beginning of May, 1945, when Dr. Joseph Tiso left Kremsmtinster for the West, he was not definitely certain whether he would seek refuge at Alt Otting or Scheyrn. In any event, however, he decided to first stop at Alt Otting. On the first leg of his journey, President Tiso was supposed to leave a written or oral message for me at the rectory of the Bavarian community of Stammham. I set out after President Tiso about two weeks later, stopping first at Stammham, where the pastor told mf': that I would find the person I was seeking at the first place we had talked about. That same afternoon I met with President Tiso in the monastery at Alt Otting. My first task was to again make contact with Cardinal Faulhaber. Since the war had just ended in the West, everything was chaos and confusion; outside the military, there was no public transportation to speak of; and no one was permitted to travel even short distances without a permit. After about a week in Alt Otting, which, by the way, is one of the most famous of pilgrimage cities, I was quite fortunate in getting to Munich. The Cardinal received me shortly after I was nounced. He was in ·b etter spirits than he had been April 8th: the "night of the long knives," thank God, not come about! In due time the Cardinal told me of anon did his 16 SLOV.A.I{JA plan to help President Tiso: he wanted to secure a plane to take Tiso to the Vatican. However, before he could begin working out his plan, the Cardinal said, he wanted to get the assent of the Papal Nuncio. During the entire war, the Nuncio for Germany was Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo. Cardinal Faulhaber asked me to look him up as soon as possible and present his desire to help Dr. Joseph Tiso to him, reckoning also with help to transport Tiso to the Vatican. In the Cardinal's name I was to ask His Excellency whether he agreed with his step. At that time the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Cesare Orsenigo, resided in Eichstatt in northern Bavaria. To get to him by auto I needed gasoline and to get gasoline I had to see the American authorities. Aware of this, Cardinal Faulhaber wrote a letter telling whoever it may concern that I was his courier, carrying mail and reports from the Cardinal to the Papal Nuncio. For a longer time the Cardinal could not send mail to the Nuncio, so he really appreciated this opportunity to do so. Besides that Cardinal Faulhaber gave me a general recommendat ion which I could use as I thought best. The next day I travelled by auto to Eichstatt. Below the portals to the Archbishop's palace, by sheer accident, I met with a group of four Slovaks, who had come by auto. After hearty handshakes and embraces, all gratefully accompanied me on my journey. Archbishop Orsenigo received me warmly. After I gave him the mail from Cardinal Faulhaber, he listened with great interest to my report about the fate of Preside,1t Tiso. To the Cardinal's question he replied thusly: "Tell His Eminence that I not only agree that he do everything possible in his power to save Dr. Tiso, but that I most ardently beg him to do so." Then the Archbishop said that he was completely out of contact with the world, adding that a certain member of the Swiss diplomatic corps in Berlin is supposed to visit him this same afternoon and take his first mail in a long time to the Vatican. He graciously offered to be of service if I had anything to send outside the borders of Germany. SLOVAKIA 17 As soon as Cardinal Faulhaber had the Nuncio's reply, he immediately wrote a letter to the Vatican in which he told of his intention to transport Dr. Tiso by plane to the Vatican. His greatest worry was how to send the letter. Besides American planes only an accidental diplomat, who saved his petrol well, could be considered. In about a week I was supposed to return for further reports and advice. After eight days, I visited Cardinal Faulhaber again, who greeted me and then told me of the unfortunate thing tkat had happened. He was almost in tears. The Cardinal told me that the day after he had written the letter to the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he had secured a way of getting the letter to the Vatican. According to a promise made to the Cardinal by a person unknown to me, this person was supposed to take the letter before his departure from Munich. But the day before my last visit to Cardinal Faulhaber, when he asked his chancery whether there was any reply from the Vatican in regard to Tiso, he learned to his utter sorrow that the letter was still in his palace, the person who promised to deliver it to the Vatican evidently forgetting to pick it up. This unexpected delay worried the Cardinal and his concern was great, as if he had a foreboding that so very much depended on those eight days. After giving vent to his great disappointment, Cardinal Faulhaber again gave me his blessing and asked me to return in a week. I did return, but only after over two years. After my last visit to the Cardinal, we learned about the arrest of the members of the Slovak Government in Kremsmlinster. President Tiso asked for reports about what had happened there. My request for a travel permit into Upper Austria lay on the desk of the CIC in Alt btting for several days. Fate came into play. With the CIC in Alt btting there collaborated a man by the name of Spigler who was originally from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. When he came upon my name, Spigler immediately came to the monastery and forbade me to leave the building. After two days he took me to jail. During my confinement in the monastery, it became 18 SLOVAKIA quite evident that this Bratislava agent, full of personal resentment, found out that President Tiso was in the monastery. After my arrest President Tiso wrote to Cardinal Faulhaber, respectfully requesting His Eminence to notify the American authorities that he was staying in the monastery and that he use his influence to set me free, as well as that he c-o ntinue to give consideration to his own case. The Capuchin Provincial delivered the President's letter to Cardinal Faulhaber. In the meantime, I was transferred to a concentration camp where frightful conditions prevailed. One hot and sultry afternoon, at the beginning of June, 1945, a jeep pulled up before the barbed-wire camp. I became numb when I sighted President Tiso in it. It was at this point that my pilgrimage to various concentrati0!1 camps with President Tiso began, the tour which finally ended in the Bratislava jail. We felt the benefiscence of good Cardinal Faulhaber once again in the concentration camp at Garmisch Partenkirchen. It was on his initiative that the events, which had taken place during the reception of our group in this camp, were investigated. The Cardinal's effort to help Dr. Joseph Tiso did not result in success. Nevertheless, the Slovaks will never forget that Cardinal Faulhaber, now deceased, really did try to save Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of the Slovak Republic . • • • WHO SAID IT? "W:t"th eq'll!al enlthusfasm we are today manifesting for the ideaJls of our, and onliy our, Owchoslovruk Democracy, which is on its way of development ,t o a new poople's fomn . . . . T.he unreseJ:1ved alliance with Oll!r Eastern ncighbor, witlh the mighty USSR, bUft also our friend!ly coot'acts wirtih the rest ,of tlhe world, especiaUy with our western democracies, gives us the feeUng of oerlainty that no mrutter what might h!appen a!broad, O'Ur ,inJternatiiona1 positt'ion is £i:nm rund we need not fea1r that we can come uipon new d'aingera aind dlnifiou[ties." ([)r. Joseph Lettrich, Vice,Ohairm.an of the Exem.rt.ive Oommittee of the "Coundl of Free Czechoslov.aJkia,'' CAIS, November 18, 1947). SLOVAKIA 19 SLOVAKIA: TRIAL OF DR. JOSEPH TISO (Under previous order of the House, the Hon. Ray J . Madden from Indiana, was recognized for 20 minutes to make the following address on the floor of the House of Representatives, March 31, 1947): Mr. Speaker, America and all liberty-loving nations should at this time concentrate against international situations which might bring about war in the future. I have, on several occasions, stated on the floor of Congress that the application of the principles of the Atlantic Charter is our greatest antidote for future peace. Self-government, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion is essential for smaller countries as it is for th~ large nations. Our Nation, during World War II, spent billions of dollars and sacrificed in lives and casualties to preserve the above principles in order to insure liberty and fnture peace. Since VJ-day, aggression and tyranny has again launched in certain areas of Europe. The latest example of persecution, unfair trial, and threatened execution for political belief is that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, former President of the Interim Republic of Slovakia. Dr. Tiso has been acclaimed a hero in the eyes of nearly all the people of Slovakia and the prevailing majority of Americans of Slovak ancestry. My attention has been called to the fact that over 80 percent of the Slovak American fraternal organizations have forthrightly declared themselves to be of the opinion that Tiso was a hero in the defense of the best interests of the Slovak people. During his presidency, Slovakia thrived, progressed, and developed internally more than it had during any five years of the existence of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The communistic control now over the country of Slovakia will execute Dr. Tiso, a political prisoner, unless our Government intervenes. This communistic control is inflicted upon the people of Slovakia in spite of the fact that the election of May 26, 1946, gave over 64 percent of the total vote cast against the present government. The press is likewise controlled, at least to the extent that the newspaper cannot publish what they think. This is evidenced in the fact that four American newspapers have 20 SLOVAKIA been barred in Slovakia. The present communistic government will brook no freedom of political thought; though the people voted for Christian democracy, they received totalitarian communism. The archbishop of Slovakia testified at the trial of Dr. Tiso. He is and has been a respected member not only of the hierarchy of Czecho-Slovakia, but of the official family of Czecho-Slovakia, including its President Edward Benes. Appearing as a witness for Dr. Tiso, the archbishop testified that: Tiso acted and worked in the interest of Slovakia and was never a traitor, and that his electeion as President of Slovakia was the will of 90 percent of the Slovaks at that time and was acclaimed by the bishops, priests, and ministers of both the Catholic and Protestant churches. It is apparent that Czecho-Slovakia has been re-created with the aid of Moscow and that Moscow will undoubtedly demand the extinction of Slovak national leaders of ability and high intelelct. The ways of the Communists are devious and it behooves us to understand more of the Slovak situation. In the meantime, the least that freedom loving nations can ask is that the so-called peoples courts in the Communist-dominated countries in eastern Europe, refrain from any further political executions or from liquidating political opposition by long-term imprisonment as in the case of Archbishop Stepinac. All of this adds up to the price we will have to pay to aid in the establishing of true democracy in the countries of eastern Europe to insure world peace. In supporting President Truman's international program, we cannot be unmindful of what is happening throughout this region in Europe, comprising over 100,000,000 Christians who have nothing in common with communism. We have heard of political executions, imprisonment, and banishment of outstanding citizens in Poland, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and other small countries. Thousands of brave Polish soldiers who fought to stamp out fascism are now prohibited from returning to their native Poland by a communistic controlled government. Americans are asking the question "do we not have at least a moral obli- SLOVAKIA 21 gation to veice our protest against such trials and executions?" The judge who presided at the trial of Dr. Tiso, previous to the trial, vowed personal vengeance on Tiso and was provided this opportunity by being placed in charge ef the case. These facts, though not appearing in the American press releases, are not disputed. Almost uninimously, the people of Slovak descent in America, are rising in protest to the impending execution of Dr. Tiso. I ask the Members of Congress to join with me in protesting this unjust conviction by interceding with President Truman and Secretary Marshall to use their good offices to prevent this injustice. We might as well apply the words of the Honorable Judge Robert H. Jackson: All experience teaches that there are certain things you cannot do under guise of judicial trial. * * * You must put no man on trial before anything that is called a court, if you are not prepared to establish his personal guilt * * * If you are determined to execute a man in any case, there is no occasion for trial. The world yields no respect to courts that are merely organized to convict. - Congressional Record. • ON TISO'S BEHALF: • • PLEA OF THE COUNCIL OF SLOVAK BISHOPS To the Presidium of the Slovak National Council in Bratislava: The Catholic Episcopal Council of Slovakia, in past years, has more frequently turned to appropriate governmental offices in the interest of those who were suffering, were imprisoned or persecuted - without regard to whetlier Catholics or non-Catholics were concerned. The example of the Divine Samaritan and His positive command prompted and encouraged us to raise our protective voice in the interests of the people who were suffering on account of political or racial reasons and we did that at a time when we could expect various humiliations in return. 22 SLOVAKIA This noblest Model in all history and His commandment, expressed in the Gospel, we bear in mind even now, when we respectfully commend to Your graciousness the fate of the former President Dr. Joseph Tiso. We do this not only because a Catholic priest is concerned, but also because the solution of his personal problem shall have a far-reaching influence on the thinking and behavior of a part of the Slovak nation in respect to the renovated Czecho- Slovak Republic and its representatives. Furthermore, we are prompted to take this step also by the generally known actuality, which is conceded by all objective critics, that Dr. Joseph Tiso always was a zealous priest, of a virtuous life. In his extensive activity he tried to work for the good of the whole, and personally did not enrich himself. The administration of justice belongs among the most difficult tasks of state power. Experience proves that this delicate task is aggravated when the judgment of political transgressions is concerned. History tells us how many fatal mistakes were made during political trials - and this results from the delicate task of impartially judging the activities of a political opponent. So, it is no rarity that after rendering severe verdicts in political trials, sooner or later a call for their revision was made. In judging the activity especially of a political factor his intentions also should be given · consideration. The majority of the Slovak nation is convinced with us that the intentions of Dr. Joseph Tiso while performing public functions were the best. Certainly some mistakes were made and the Catholic Bishops of Slovakia did not fail to bring these to his attention. However, here we must mention the generally known reality that even the most clever political factors frequently made serious mistakes. Nevertheless an unbiased observer - whether a contemporary or historian - can deduce an over-all judgment only when he evaluates also the good and positive things they did. And this thesis often outweighs the mistakes which they made in their weakness. S LOVAKIA 23 It will be pertinent to the matter at hand to shed some light also from another viewpoint on the mistakes which are ascribed to Dr. Joseph Tiso. We respectfully point out at least some of the circumstances. After the most recent announcements of the present governmental factors even the 2ilina events of October, 1938, are presented in a different light than that shed by the one-sided propaganda to persuade the public; nay, even in the press it was demonstrated that in these political changes practically all Slovak political parties had participated. Here it is necessary to recall also the very important document which has just now been made public during the Nuremberg trials; we mean the letter of the ruler of the Hungarian realm sent to Berlin in March 13, 1939. This weighty circumstance gives an altogether different significance to the March 14, 1939, decision of Dr. Joseph Tiso and the other political factors of that time. One should think about what would have happened with the Slovak nation if the plan of Horthy had succeeded? We also know that after the issuance of anti-Jewish regulations, Dr. Joseph Tiso did want to resign from the presidency. That he did not do so happened because he tried to hamper and ameliorate the effects of those provisions, as well as to prevent a greater evil. It is worthy of consideration that what the ruler of the larger and more independent Hungary could not prevent in his country Dr. Joseph Tiso could not prevent in Slovakia. After considering all the circumstances after the passage of time, even other pilloried political mistakes - such as the war in the east, the events of August 29, 1944 can be judged otherwise than the manner in which it is done by a one-sided propaganda. The entire Slovak public is following the developments of events around Dr. Joseph Tiso with attention and in its majority is taking a negative stand towards those efforts which would incite hatred against his person. Thereby the unfortunate splintering of the nation is increased when unity of all forces is so greatly desired for the important 24 SLOVAKIA work of construction. It will be to the credit of the farsightedness of the State and will serve the peace of the nation, if the case of Dr. Joseph Tiso is solved in a cautious way and not with merciless hardness. The above thoughts have prompted us to respectfully submit our plea for your gracious consideration and favorable decision. With an expression of profound respect: (Signatures) : Dr. Karol Kmefko, Archbishop-Bishop of Nitra; Jozef Carsky, Bishop-Apostolic Administrator; Dr. Andrej Skraltik, Bishop on Banska Bystrica; Dr. Jozef Tomanocy; Dr. Karol Jantausch; Dr. Eduard Necsey, ordaining Bishop. Bratislava, January 8, 1946. • • • HERO AND PATRIOT OF SLOVAKIA The smaller nations have been the marytrs in tlte maelstrom that evil men made out of Europe in the last decade. Changing fortunes of war often presented a double crown of martyrdom. Honest men in these minor states often found it difficult to see where the path of honor lay, but once their conscience revealed the way they remained steadfast in what they believed their sacred duty. Slovakia has presented such a puzzling picture. The Slovaks had long sought and had long been denied their independence. When the moment dawned for freedom before the last war, there is no doubt that the patriots of that land felt that their long-deferred ambitions had been realized. There was outside wonder at the auspices under which freedom came but there can be no question about the sincerity of the Slovak patriots who meant to use their new prerogatives solely for the good of Slovakia. Chief among these was Monsignor Joseph Tiso who was elected president of the new republic. The war's outcome threw Slovakia as part of the old Czecho-Slovakian state into the Red orbit. Monsignor Tiso was placed on trial for treason. It could not be proved that he was a traitor to Slovakia for the simple reason that he never was a traitor to Slovakia. But that did not prevent SLOVAKIA 25 his condemnation and execution. History is filled with these rigged trials and martyrs deaths. The condemned priest left a noble testament to his beloved Slovak people. On the eve of his unjust execution he wrote: "In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: "In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. "This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature a11J has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. "This precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God's law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr in the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. "As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise. to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that he bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God artd for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ." When this black night in Europe passes with the destruction of the powers of darkness incarnated in atheistic communism Father Tiso will be seen as the hero that he truly was. - (The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, 0 ., 6-27-47). • • • THE TERRITORY OF ANCIENT SWVAKIA P.A. HROBAK Today there is no doubt that the original homeland ancestors of present-day Slovaks was somewhere the of beyond the Carpathian Mountains. We know that the Slovaks came into their present territory - which was later incorrectly called "Uhry" (hura=hora; uhor, uhorie= near, at the foot of, the mountains)-through the western Carpathians. Historical records do not tell us exastly when the Slovak ancients migrated from their original homeland,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Tenth Anniversary of Dr. Joseph Tiso's Execution Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 7, No. 1 (22), March 1957<br />pp. 1-25<br /><ul><li>"Dr. Joseph Tiso's Execution," Joseph Kirschbaum, pp. 1-8.</li> <li>"I Was Editor of President Tiso's Newspaper," Joseph Paučo, pp. 9-12.</li> <li>"Eight Fatal Days in the Life of Dr. Joseph Tiso," Karol Murín, pp. 13-18.</li> <li>Slovakia: Trial of Dr. Joseph Tiso, pp. 19-21.</li> <li>On Tiso's Behalf: Plea of the Council of Slovak Bishops, pp. 21-24.</li> <li>Hero and Patriot of Slovakia, pp. 24-25.</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hrobak, Philip Anthony, 1904-1964 Kirschbaum, Jozef M., 1913-2001 Paučo, Jozef, 1914-1975 Murín, Karol, 1913-1998 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1957 LCNAF SNK