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The Congress of the Youngslovak Intelligentsia, June 1932: Its Context, Course and Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James Felak
James Felak*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

When the editorial board of the bi-weekly current affairs journal Politika decided, in early 1932, to organize a congress of members of the so-called young Slovak generation, its intent was to find a solution to Slovakia's pressing political, economic, social, and cultural problems. Attended by approximately five hundred members of the intelligentsia, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties, the congress was held on June 25 and 26 in the health resort town of Trencianski Teplice in western Slovakia. The Congress of the Young Slovak Generation attracted the attention of its contemporaries for two reasons. First, it marked the first time since at least 1920 that Slovaks from across the political spectrum came together to discuss issues of mutual concern relating to Slovakia. Second, the congress provided an opportunity for observers of Slovak political life to gauge the mood and become acquainted with the ideas of Slovakia's future leaders, especially as far as the crucial question of relations between Czechs and Slovaks in the Czechoslovak Republic was concerned. From the vantage point of the present-day historian, a further factor enhances the congress's importance: as a manifestation of Slovak national discontent, it was a milestone on Slovakia's road to autonomy. An in-depth examination of the Trencianske Teplice Congress, its background, its course, and its consequences, will illustrate the congress's importance for Slovak national and political development.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 21 , Issue 2: Special Issue - The Ex-Soviet Nationalities Without Gorbachev , Fall 1993 , pp. 107 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Inc. 

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References

Notes

1. Not since the dissolution of the Slovak Club, a parliamentary bloc of all representatives from Slovakia in Czechoslovakia's Provisional National Assembly, in April 1920, did Slovaks from the political Left, Center, and Right come together to discuss matters of common concern. See Victor S. Mamatey and Radomír Luza, eds., A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1948 (Princeton, NJ, 1973), pp. 73–75, for a discussion of the Slovak Club.Google Scholar

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18. Politika, , June 20, 1932, no. 11, p. 121.Google Scholar

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21. Státny slovensky Ϻstredny archiv, Bratislava, fond Policajné riaditel'stvo (hereafter referred to as SSUA, PR), K. 223, F. 879-882, June 28, 1932.Google Scholar

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24. Politika, June 20, 1932, no. 11, pp. 123–126.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., pp. 127–130.Google Scholar

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27. Politika, June 20, 1932, no. 11, pp. 131–135.Google Scholar

28. Slovák, June 28, 1932, no. 146, p. 1.Google Scholar

29. Ibid.Google Scholar

30. Ibid.Google Scholar

31. SUA, PMR-S, K. 24, attachment to no. 11.388, June 27, 1932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Politika, July 1, 1932, no. 12, p. 165.Google Scholar

33. Slovensky denik, June 28, 1932, no. 148, p. 1.Google Scholar

34. Ibid.Google Scholar

35. SUA, PMR-S, K. 24, attachment to no. 11.388, June 27, 1932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Politika, June 20, 1932, no. 11, p. 135.Google Scholar

37. Kirschbaum, Joseph M., Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York, 1960), p. 236.Google Scholar

38. Politika, June 20, 1932, no. 11, p. 139.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., pp. 139–142.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., pp. 143–146.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., pp. 147–151.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., pp. 151–154.Google Scholar

43. Slovák, June 28, 1932, no. 146, p. 2.Google Scholar

44. Ibid.Google Scholar

45. SUA, PMR-S, K. 24, attachment to no. 11.388, June 27, 1932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. Ibid.Google Scholar

47. Slovak, June 28, 1932, no. 146.Google Scholar

48. SSUA, PR, K. 223, F. 879-882, June 28, 1932.Google Scholar

49. Politika, July 1, 1932, no. 12, p. 165.Google Scholar

50. SUA, PMR-S, K. 24, attachment to no. 11.388, June 27, 1932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. Politika, June 20, 1932, no. 11, p. 157.Google Scholar

52. For the reports of Kordos, Millo, Okáli and Panák, see Politika, July 1, 1932, no. 11, pp. 154–164.Google Scholar

53. SSUA, PR. K. 223, F. 879-882, June 28, 1932.Google Scholar

54. Slovak, June 28, 1932, no. 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. Politika, July 1, 1932, no. 12, p. 165.Google Scholar

56. Slovak, June 28, 1932, no. 146, p. 1.Google Scholar

57. Viliam Plevza and Vlasta Plevzová, Slovenská inteligencia v komunistickom hnutí (1921-1938) (Bratislava, 1979), p. 191.Google Scholar

58. Slovensky deník, June 28, 1932, no. 148, p. 1.Google Scholar

59. Slovensky deník, June 29, 1932, no. 149, p. 1 and July 1, 1932, no. 151, p. 2.Google Scholar

60. Politika, August 15, 1932, no. 15, p. 193.Google Scholar

61. Politika, July 15, 1932, no. 13-14, pp. 177–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Prítomnost, July 6, 1932, no. 27, pp. 419–420 and July 13,1932, no. 28, pp. 440–442.Google Scholar

63. Plevza and Plevzová, op. cit., p. 187.Google Scholar

64. Zuberec, Vladimir, “Ceskoslovakizmus Agrárnej strany,” pp. 524–525.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., pp. 525–527.Google Scholar