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New States, Old Identities? The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Historical Understandings of Statehood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Hugh LeCaine Agnew*
Affiliation:
The George Washington University, U.S.A.

Extract

Imagine an intrepid web explorer looking for information on the Czech Republic. He or she might well stumble onto the SunSITE at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague. When our websurfer clicks on the “Czech Republic” link, the screen displays the image shown in Figure 1.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. “Czech pages at SunSITE Czech Republic,” http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/czechrep/Index.html Google Scholar

2. “History of the Czech Republic at SunSITE Czech Republic,” http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/czechrep/history Google Scholar

3. See Karel Šiktanc and Barbara Hučková, eds, $Cneské korunovační klenoty [The Bohemian Coronation Regalia] (Prague: Kancelář Prezidenta České republiky, 1993).Google Scholar

4. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 1. See also John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 2nd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 56–62.Google Scholar

5. See Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background (New York: Macmillan, 1944), and a briefer treatment, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (Princeton: Van Nestrand, 1965). Liah Greenfeld develops a more complex treatment of these issues that shows similarities to Kohn in Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

6. Andrzej Walicki, The Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Nationhood: Polish Political Thought from Noble Republicanism to Tadeusz Kościuszko (West Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), criticizes the simplistic application of Kohn's distinction to Eastern Europe. See especially pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

7. A good summary of significant historical differences is in Carol Skalnik Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, the Making and Remaking of a State, 1918–1987 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 11–41. Miroslav Hroch, “National Self-Determination from a Historical Perspective,” in Sukumar Periwal, ed., Notions of Nationalism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995), pp. 65–82, discusses the impact of these differences on the nineteenth-century national struggle.Google Scholar

8. See Jan Rychlík, “National Consciousness and the Common State (A Historical-Ethnological Analysis),” in Jiří Musil, ed., The End of Czechoslovakia (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995), pp. 97–100, and Ján Mlynárik, “História česko-slovenských vzt'ahov” [History of Czech–Slovak Relations], in Rüdiger Kipke and Karel Vodička, eds, Rozloučení s Československem: Příčiny a důsledky česko-slovenského rozchodu [Farewell to Czechoslovakia: Causes and Consequences of the Czech–Slovak Separation] (Prague: Český spisovatel, 1993), pp. 17–21.Google Scholar

9. Josef Jungmann, “O jazyku českém, rozmlouvání druhém” [A Second Conversation about the Czech Language], Hlasatel Český [Czech Herald], Vol. 1, 1806, p. 326.Google Scholar

10. See Jin Kořalka, “K pojetí národa v české společnosti 19. století” [The Concept of Nation in Czech Society in the Nineteenth Century], in Povědomí tradice v novodobé české kultuře (doba Bedřicha Smetany) [The Consciousness of Tradition in Modern Czech Culture in the Age of Bedřich Smetana] (Prague: Národní galerie, 1988), pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

11. Hugh LeCaine Agnew, “Noble Natio and Modern Nation: The Czech Case,” Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. 23, 1992, pp. 58–65. See also Hugh LeCaine Agnew, “Ambiguities of Ritual: Dynastic Loyalty, Territorial Patriotism and Nationalism in the Last Three Royal Coronations in Bohemia, 1791–1836,” in Bohemia: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder (forthcoming 2000).Google Scholar

12. Franz [František] Palacky, “Eine Stimme über Österreichs Anschluss an Deutschland,” in Gedenkblätter: Auswahl von Denkschriften, Aufsätzen und Briefen aus den letzten fünfzig Jahren (Prague: Tempsky, 1874), p. 150. Jiří Kořalka has identified this German text as Palacký's original, and the contemporary Czech version as printed in Národní noviny [National News], April 1848, as someone else's translation. See his “Palacký a Frankfurt 1840–1860: husitské bádání a politické praxe” [Palacký and Frankfurt, 1840–1860: Hussite Research and Political Practice], Husitský Tábor [Hussite Tábor], Vols 6–7, 1983–1984, p. 310n.Google Scholar

13. Palacký, “Eine Stimme,” p. 152.Google Scholar

14. Anton Springer, ed., Protokolle des Verfassungs-Ausschusses im Österreichischen Reichstage 1848–1849 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1885), p. 26. With his next breath, though, Palacký referred to the practical difficulties of dividing Bohemia without destroying it.Google Scholar

15. For a study of the work of the Kroměříž/Kremsier parliament and its end, see Andreas Gottsmann, Der Reichstag von Kremsier und die Regierung Schwarzenberg: die Verfassungsdiskussion des Jahres 1848 im Spannungfeld zwischen Reaktion und nationaler Frage (Vienna and Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994).Google Scholar

16. Edmund Bernatzik, ed., Die Österreichischen Verfassungsgesetze mit Erläuterungen, 2nd edn (Vienna: Manz, 1911), pp. 1087–1091. See also Agnew, “Noble Natio and Modern Nation,” pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

17. The request that Franz Joseph would be formally crowned King of Bohemia was one of the earliest acts of the reconvened Bohemian land diet after 1861. See the stenographic protocols of the Bohemian diet, Session 5, 11 April 1861, speech by Cardinal Archibishop of Prague. http://www.psp.cz/eknih/1861skc/stenprot/005schuz/s005003.htm Google Scholar

18. See Bruce Garver, The Young Czech Party, 1874–1901, and the Emergence of a Multi-Party System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), and William A. Jenks, Austria under the Iron Ring, 1879–1893 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965). A recent Czech account is Otto Urban, Česká společnost, 1848–1918 [Czech Society, 1848–1918] (Prague: Svoboda, 1982).Google Scholar

19. Cited in Jiří Kořalka, Tschechen im Habsburggerreich und in Europa, 1815–1914 (Vienna and Munich: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik and R. Oldenbourg, 1991), pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

20. Kořalka, Tschechen im Habsburgerreich, pp. 60–63.Google Scholar

21. Cited in Garver, Young Czech Party, p. 241.Google Scholar

22. See Thomas (Tomáš) Garrigue Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 1914–1918 (London: George Allen & Unwin; reprint New York: Howard Fertig, 1969), p. 41.Google Scholar

23. A good example of such arguments, produced specifically for the Peace Conference delegations, is Rudolf Laun, Les prétensions Tchécoslovaques à des territoires allemands (The Hague: Martin Nijhoff, 1919).Google Scholar

24. “Deklarácia slovenského národa v Turč. Sv. Martine 30 októbra 1918” [Declaration of the Slovak Nation in Turčianský Svätý Martin on 30 October 1918], in Za právo a stát: Sborník dokladů o československé společné vůli k svobodě [For Right and the State: A Collection of Documents on the Czechoslovak Common Will to Freedom] (Prague: Státní nakladatelství, 1928), p. 337.Google Scholar

25. See Peter Brock, The Slovak National Awakening: An Essay in the Intellectual History of East Central Europe (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976), pp. 6–7, and Theodor J. G. Locher, Die nationale Differenzierung und Integrierung der Slovaken und Tschechen in ihrem geschichtlichen Verlauf bis 1848 (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1931), pp. 160–161. A recent (postcommunist) summary in Slovak is Anton Špiesz, Dejiny slovenska na ceste k sebauvedomeniu [History of Slovakia on Its Journey to Self-Consciousness] (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Perfekt, 1992), pp. 63–136.Google Scholar

26. L'udovít Štúr did have some hopes during the 1840s of winning the Slovak gentry to his national program, but his success was meager. See L'udovít Štúr, Nárečie slovenské, alebo potreba písania v tomto nárečí [The Slovak Dialect, or the Necessity of Writing in that Dialect] (Bratislava: Slovenské vydavatel'stvo krásnej literatúry 1957), p. 110, and his retrospective letter to the Russian Slavist Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevskii, 15 December 1850, in L'udovít Štúr, Cestou života trnistou, Dielo v piatich zväzkoch: Doplnkový zväzok [Life's Thorny Path, Works in Five Volumes, Supplementary Volume] (Bratislava: Slovenské vydavatel'stvo krásnej literatúry 1959), p. 223. See also Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (New York: St Martin's, 1995), pp. 113–114.Google Scholar

27. Brock, Slovak National Awakening, p. 8. For a contemporary statement of some of these traditions, see Štefan Vragaš, Cyrilometodské dedičstvo v náboženskom národnom a kultúrnom živote slovákov [The Cyrilo-Methodian Inheritance in the Religious, National and Cultural Life of the Slovaks] (Zurich, Toronto, and Bratislava: Lúc; Nákladom zahraničnej Malice slovenskej-európskej odbocky, 1991).Google Scholar

28. As the Slovak leaders did in their “Žiadosti slovenského národa” [Demands of the Slovak Nation], adopted at Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš on 10 May 1848. The text is reprinted in Daniel Rapant, Slovenské povstanie roku 1848–49: Dejiny a dokumenty [The Slovak Uprising of 1848–49: History and Documents], Vol. 1 (Turčianský Sv. Martin: Matica slovenská, 1937), pp. 202–205.Google Scholar

29. Brock, Slovak National Awakening, p. 22.Google Scholar

30. See Hugh LeCaine Agnew, “Czechs, Slovaks and the Slovak Linguistic Separatism of the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in John Morison, ed., The Czech and Slovak Experience (London: St Martin's, 1992), pp. 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, “Bratia Slováci!” [Slovak Brothers], in Rapant, Slovenské povstanie, p. 74.Google Scholar

32. “Žiadosti slovenskieho národa,” pp. 202–203.Google Scholar

33. “Žiadosti slovenskieho národa,” pp. 204–205.Google Scholar

34. The best treatment in English of the Hungarian 1848 is Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848–1849 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); he discusses the revolution and the nationalities in particular on pp. 119–129.Google Scholar

35. “Memorandum národa slovenského k Vysokému snemu krajiny uhorskej, obsahujúce žiadost národa slovenského ciel'om spravodlivého prevedenia a zákonom krajinským zabezpečenia rovnoprávnosti národnej v Uhrách” [Memorandum of the Slovak Nation to the Illustrious Diet of the Hungarian Kingdom, Containing the Demand of the Slovak Nation with the Aim of the Legal Introduction and Constitutional Guarantee of National Equality in Hungary], in František Bokeš, ed., Dokumenty k slovenskému národnému hnutiu v rokoch 1848–1914 [Documents on the Slovak National Movement, 1848–1914], Vol. 1, 1848–1867 (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, 1962), p. 315.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 314.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 317. The reference of course is to Austria's defeat by Piedmont and France in 1859 and the subsequent moves towards Italian unification.Google Scholar

38. Pavel Mudroň, “Štát a národ” [State and Nation], Národnie noviny [National News], 9 January 1894, in Bokeš, ed., Dokumenty, Vol. 3, 1885–1901 (Bratislava: Vydavatel'stva Slovenskej akadémie vied 1972), p. 198.Google Scholar

39. See the documents, all from Národnie noviny, including coverage of the meetings and the text of the declaration adopted at the congress, in Bokeš, ed., Dokumenty, Vol. 3, pp. 271–281.Google Scholar

40. Svetozár Hurban-Vajanský, “Náhl'ady a výhl'ady” [Introspections and Prospects], Národnie noviny, 25–27 and 29–30 November 1897, in Bokeš, ed., Dokumenty, pp. 372–73.Google Scholar

41. “Deklarácia slovenského národa,” p. 337.Google Scholar

42. See Václav L. Beneš, “Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918–1920,” in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luža, eds, A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918–1948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 39–98; and Victor S. Mamatey, “The Development of Czechoslovak Democracy, 1920–1938,” in Mamatey and Luža, Czechoslovak Republic, pp. 99–166. This perspective was shared by Czech historians reflecting on the question during 1992; for example, see Otto Urban, “Na dobré cestě: Historické souvislostí česko-slovenské otázky” [Well Under Way: The Historical Context of the Czech–Slovak Question], Literární noviny [Literary News], 2–8 July 1992, pp. 1, 3.Google Scholar

43. Sec Owen V. Johnson, Slovakia, 1918–1938: Education and the Making of a Nation (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1985). See also Jan Rychlík, $Cneši a Slováci ve 20. století: Česko-slovenské vztahy 1914–1945 [Czechs and Slovaks in the Twentieth Century: Czech–Slovak Relations, 1914–1945] (Bratislava and Prague: Academic Electronic Press and Ústav T. G. Masaryka, 1997). Rychlík's arguments are summarized on pp. 257–260.Google Scholar

44. Rychlík, Češi a Slováci ve 20. století, pp. 60–61.Google Scholar

45. James Felak, “Slovak Considerations of the Slovak Question: The L'udak, Agrarian, Socialist and Communist Views in Interwar Czechoslovakia,” in Morison, ed., Czech and Slovak Experience, pp. 136–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. One example of this characteristic trait is the affair of the Slovak memorandum for the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919, which resulted in Hlinka's arrest (he was later shamefacedly released without trial). See Beneš, “Czechoslovak Democracy,” pp. 84–86. The memorandum, which asserted that “we are neither Czechs nor Czechoslovaks, we are just simply Slovaks,” is printed in Joseph A. Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918–1950 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963), pp. 331–340.Google Scholar

47. James Ramon Felak, “At the Price of the Republic”: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929–1938 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), provides the best survey in English of the party's activities during the 1930s.Google Scholar

48. Ivan Kamenec, Slovenský stát [The Slovak State] (Prague: Anomal, 1992), pp. 117–138; Jörg K. Hoensch, “The Slovak Republic, 1939–1945,” in Mamatey and Luža, Czechoslovak Republic, pp. 271–295; Yeshayahu Jelinek, The Parish Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1939–1945 (Boulder: East European Quarterly, 1976).Google Scholar

49. Program československé vlády Národní fronty Čechů a Slováků přijatý na prvé schůzi vlády dne 5. dubna 1945 v Košicích [Program of the Czechoslovak Government of the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks Adopted at Its First Meeting on April 5 1945 in Kosice] (Prague: Ministervstvo informací, 1945), pp. 15–17. See also Rychlík, Češi a Slováci pp. 227–256, and Anna Josko, “The Slovak Resistance Movement,” in Mamatey and Luža, Czechoslovak Republic, pp. 362–386.Google Scholar

50. See Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, especially pp. 243–252Google Scholar

51. Karel Vodička, “Koaliční jednání: Rozdělíme stát! Volby '92 a jejich důsledky pro československou státnost” [Coalition Negotiations: We Will Divide the State! The Elections of '92 and Their Consquences for Czechoslovak Statehood], in Kipke and Vodička, eds, Rozloučení s Československem, pp. 83–116; see also Sharon L. Wolchik, “The Politics of Transition and the Break-up of Czechoslovakia,” and Václav Žák, 'The Velvet Divorce—Institutional Foundations,“ both in Musil, ed., The End of Czechoslovakia, pp. 225–244 and 245–270, respectively.Google Scholar

52. See Žák, “The Velvet Divorce—Institutional Foundations,” pp. 250–251. See also Čarnogurský's interview with Smena [Changes], 11 October 1990, in Federal Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS), Daily Reports, Eastern Europe, EEU-90-200, 16 October 1990, p. 34.Google Scholar

53. Čarnogurský, in Smena, FBIS-EEU-90-200, p. 33.Google Scholar

55. L'uboš Jurik, “Ústava bez ultimát: Pripomienky MKDH a Spolužitia s deravou logikou” [Constitution without Ultimata: Proposals of MKDH and Coexistence with Flawed Logic], Koridor, 22 August 1992.Google Scholar

56. FBIS-EEU-92-170, 1 September 1992, p. 8: “Mečiar Presents Draft Slovak Constitution,” Bratislava Rozhlasova Stanica, Slovensko Network, in Slovak 12:26 GMT, 31 August 1992.Google Scholar

57. FBIS-EEU-92-171, 2 September 1992, p. 5, “Mečiar Addresses SNC on Slovak Constitution,” Bratislava Rozhlasova Stanica, Slovensko Network, in Slovak, 12:00 GMT, 1 September 1992.Google Scholar

58. The text of the constitution may be found at the Slovak Constitutional Court's homepage, http://www.concourt.sk/S/Ustava/ustava_a.htm#address. See also FBIS-EEU-92-171, 2 September 1992, p. 4, “National Council Approves Slovak Constitution,” Prague, ČSTK, in English, 17:58 GMT, 1 September 1992. The change in the designation of the Slovak language echoed a demand voiced by Matica Slovenská at its general meeting of 7–8 August 1992, which adopted a resolution stating, “in this historic moment Matica slovenská, true to its traditions and its National program, must insist that the Slovak language be unambiguously established as the state language in the Constitution of the Slovak republic.” See “Vyhlásenie Valného zhromaždenia Matice slovenskej” [Proclamation of the General Assembly of Matice Slovenská], Slovenský národ [Slovak Nation], 18 August 1992.Google Scholar

59. Address by Ivan Gašparovič, President of the Slovak National Council, 3 September 1992, http://www.concourt.sk/S/Ustava/ustava_a.htm#address Google Scholar

60. Ibid. Google Scholar

61. Ibid. He dismissed the 1939 constitution of Tiso's independent Slovakia from this historical litany, as having been adopted “under extremely unfavorable international circumstances and with the participation of an alien super power.”Google Scholar

62. “Pred pamätným dňom SR” [Before a Day of Remembrance for the SR], Národná obroda [National Renewal], 19 September 1992. At the conclusion of the festivities, the participants planted a commemorative linden tree in the museum grounds.Google Scholar

63. Ibid. Google Scholar

64. FBIS-EEU-90-200, 16 October 1990, p. 34, interview in Smena, 11 October 1990.Google Scholar

65. Joint Publications Research Service, Eastern Europe, 1992 (Hereafter JPRS-EER-92), 002, 7 January 1992, p. 18, interview with František Mikloško, Zemědělské noviny [Agricultural News], Prague, in Czech.Google Scholar

66. JPRS-EER-92-010, 24 January 1992, p. 10. Zora Bútorová and Tatiana Rosová, “Independent and Democratic?” Bratislava, Kulturný život [Cultural Life], 10 December 1991.Google Scholar

67. “Nedotknutel'né piliere padli: Slovenský a český historik hodnotia význam 28. októbra 1918” [The Untouchable Pillars Have Fallen: Slovak and Czech Historians Evaluate the Meaning of October 28, 1918], Pravda [Truth] (Bratislava), 27 October 1992, interviews with L'ubomír Liptak (Historický ústav SAV Bratislava) and Zdeněk Veselý (FFUK).Google Scholar

68. The constitution may be found at the Czech parliament's webpage, http://www.psp.cz/docs/laws/constitution.html Google Scholar

69. Speech by Stanislav Volák, ODS, http://www.psp.cz/eknih/1992cnr/stenprot/010schuz/s010010.htm, 16 December 1992.Google Scholar

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71. “Důvodová zpráva” [Supporting Report], attached to draft law on state symbols and flag, 4 December, 1992, http://www.psp.cz/eknih/1992cnr/tisky/t0189_00.htm. See also “Hádání o federální vlajku” [Arguments over the Federal Flag], Mlada fronta Dnes [Young Front Today], 20 November 1992; “Jaká bude vlajka?” [What Will the Flag be Like?], Český deník. [Czech Daily], 19 November 1992; and Vladimír Macura, Masarykovy boty a jiné semi(o)fejetony [Masaryk's Shoes and Other Semi(o)feuilletons], (Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1993), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

72. See Vladimir Macura, Masarykovy boty, pp. 40–41. Macura points out the interesting fact that the three “substitute” Czech figures chosen to replace the Slovaks were all women, suggesting this reflects semiotically a certain set of Czech attitudes to Slovaks and SlovakiA&Mdash;as does the rhetoric about the Czech–Slovak relationship as a marriage, and the dissolution of the ČSFR as a divorce. Images of the whole series of current banknotes may be found at the Czech National Bank website, http://www.cnb.cz/by clicking on the link “Bankovky a mince.”Google Scholar

73. “Ke státoprávním uspořádání” [On the Constitutional Settlement], Česko?Slovensko: Zvláštní příloha LN k otázkám státoprávního uspořádání [Czecho?Slovakia: Special Supplement to LN on the Constitutional Settlement Question], published as a special supplement to Lidové noviny [People's News], 15 October 1991.Google Scholar

74. Jan Rychlík, “Nad novým státem: Jak budé vypadat nová Česká republika” [On the New State: What the New Czech Republic Will Look Like], Lidové noviny, 19 October 1992.Google Scholar

75. Jozef Hanzal, “Česká státnost: Peripetie českého státu mezi samostatností a podřízeností” [Czech Statehood: Peregrinations of the Czech State between Independence and Subjection], Lidové noviny, 27 October 1992.Google Scholar

76. “Tradice humanity a democracie: Slavnost k obnově českého státu” [Traditions of Humanity and Democracy: Celebration on the Renewal of the Czech State], Český deník, 26 October 1992.Google Scholar

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78. “Havel Delivers Inaugural Speech,” FBIS-EEU-93-021, 3 February 1993, p. 10. Among the good traditions he included “truth as a moral quality, a desire for understanding, decency and tolerance, respect for people as unique beings, humility before the noble order of creation, a sense of coresponsibility for the general affairs of the human community, connected with a critical overview of them, and, of course, unshakeable determination for peace and, if possible, a peaceful solution to all disputes.” Among the bad traditions Havel listed “spineless adaptability, provincial little faith, unrestrained greediness, and cynicism masquerading as realism.”Google Scholar

79. Petr Příhoda, “Sociálně-psychologické aspekty soužití Čechů a Slováků” [Social-Psychological Aspects of Czech and Slovak Coexistence], in Rozloučení s Československem, p. 37.Google Scholar

80. Ján Litecký-Šveda, “Prečo?” [Why?], Koridor [Corridor], 20 August 1992.Google Scholar

81. JPRS-EER-92-041, 3 April 1992, p. 22: “Czech–Slovak Reciprocity in Historical Perspective” (Dušan Kovač, “Slovaks and Czechs: Looking Back”), Bratislava, Kulturný život, in Slovak, 30 January 1992, pp. 1, 6.Google Scholar

82. JPRS-EER-92-048, 20 April 1992, pp. 12–14: Stanislav Spanar, “Shades of the Past,” Literární noviny, 22 March 1992, pp. 1, 3.Google Scholar

83. JPRS-EER-92-010, 24 January 1992, p. 10: Zora Butorová and Tatiana Rosová, “Independent and Democratic?” Bratislava, Kulturný život, 10 December 1991, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

84. The recent controversy in February and March 2000, over the decision of the Žilina town council, headed by Mayor Jan Slota (also leader of the Slovak National party), to unveil a memorial plaque to Tiso, shows how sensitive the issue of the Slovak state still is. See for example RFE/RL, Newsline—Central & Eastern Europe, 23 February 2000, http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2000/02/3-cee/cce-230200.html Google Scholar

85. FBIS-EEU-90-125, 28 June 1990, p. 26: interview with Jozef Markuš, deputy premier of the Slovak Republic, broadcast on Slovak Radio Bratislava domestic service, 23 June 1990.Google Scholar

86. For example, see FBIS-EEU-90-211, 31 October 1990, Igor Cibula, “Who Has Divided the Nation?” commentary in Národná obroda, 27 October, 1990, p. 3.Google Scholar

87. According to research in 1990 by the Institute for Public Opinion Research at the Slovak Statistical Office in Bratislava, in the ethnically mixed regions of southern Slovakia, 37% of Slovaks spoke only Slovak, while only 3% of the Hungarians spoke only Magyar. 38% of Slovaks and 79% of Hungarians were nearly effortlessly bilingual, while an additional 25% of Slovaks and 18% of Hungarian spoke both languages, but with difficulties. See FBIS-EEU-90-200, 16 October 1990, p. 36: “Monolingual or Bilingual,” Lidové noviny, 12 October 1990.Google Scholar

88. FBIS-EEU-90-200, 16 October 1990, p. 36: Igor Cibula, “It Is Impossible to Fight on All Fronts,” commentary in Narodná obroda, 11 October 1990.Google Scholar

89. FBIS-EEU-90-210, 13 November 1990, p. 14: “Text of Slovak Language Law Passed October 25”, Bratislava, Národná obroda, 27 October 1990, p. 2.Google Scholar

90. Ibid., p. 15.Google Scholar

91. FBIS-EEU-90-196, 10 October 1990, p. 24: “Civic Forum Apropos the Slovak Language Statute,” from Rudé Právo [Red Right], 4 October 1990, p. 5.Google Scholar

92. FBIS-EEU-90-200, 16 October 1990, p. 35: Prague Television Service interview with Vladimír Mečiar, 14 October, 1990.Google Scholar

93. FBIS-EEU-92-171, p. 5: Mečiar's speech in SNR.Google Scholar

94. FBIS-EEU-92-174, 8 September 1992, pp. 10–11: interview with Mečiar broadcast on Bratislava Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko network, 4 September 1992.Google Scholar

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96. JPRS-EER-93-008, 17 January 1992, p. 6: “Pithart Rejects Nationalism, Favors Patriotism,” interview with Die Tageszeitung, 25 November 1991, p. 12.Google Scholar

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108. See also Petr Pithart, “Paradoxy rozchodu: Filozofická a mravní hlediska a evropské paralely” [Paradoxes of Separation: Philosophical and Moral Aspects and European Parallels], in Rozloučení s Československém, pp. 219–220.Google Scholar

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111. See Jolyon Naegele, “Czech Republic: New Law on Foreigners Causes Confusion,” RFE/RL Features, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/01/F.RU.000112154637.html, and Don Hill, “Czech Republic: Deputy Minister Faces Sharp Questions On Roma,” RFE/RL Features, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/10/F.RU.991019135255.html Google Scholar

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115. Josef Petráň and Lydia Petráňová, “The White Mountain as Symbol in Modern Czech History,” in Mikuláš“ Teich, ed., Bohemia in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 161.Google Scholar

116. See, for example, Jan de Weydenthal, “Slovakia Moves Further to Restrict Democracy,” RFE/RL Features, 27 March 1996, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1996/03/f.ru.96032714453314.html Google Scholar

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