Slovakia

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Slovakia
Slovakia.gif
Flag of Slovakia
Capital Bratislava
Inhabitants 5.455.407
Language(s) Slovak
Slovakia.jpg

Slovakia is a country in central Europe that became independent on Jan. 1, 1993. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, and Austria and the Czech Republic to the west.

From 1918 until Dec. 31, 1992, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were partners in the larger nation of Czechoslovakia. A Communist government took over and ruled Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989. In 1918 the Slovaks joined the closely related Czechs to form Czechoslovakia. Following the chaos of World War II, Czechoslovakia became a communist nation within Soviet-ruled Eastern Europe.

Soviet influence collapsed in 1989 and Czechoslovakia once more became free. The Slovaks and the Czechs agreed to separate peacefully on 1 January 1993.

Historic, political, and geographic factors have caused Slovakia to experience more difficulty in developing a modern market economy than some of its Central European neighbors.


Contents

History

The Great Moravian Empire

The "Roman" Emperor Charlemagne annexed Bavaria, uprooted the Avar dominion and established East Mark (Austria). Frankish missions entered west Slovakia and Moravia. The first church was established in Nitra by Prince Pribina, a protagonist of Frankish influence. He was driven out by Moravian Prince Mojmir who annexed his Principality. East Frankish king Luis the German appointed Pribina the Prince of a part of Pannonia, inhabited by Slavonic population. He deposed Mojmir and appointed his nephew Rastislav the Prince of Moravia. Rastislav asked in Rome for priests but obtained no answer. Then asked in Constantinopolis. Two missionaries, brothers Constantin and Methodius were sent. They knew the language of southern Slaves and invented a new alphabet for it. They translated the most important liturgical texts.

They arrived to Moravia in 863 and founded a school for priests there. They were denounced to the pope. They had to travel to Rome and defend there their Slavonic liturgy. Constantin (Cyril) died in Rome. Methodius was appointed Archbishop of Pannonia and Great Moravia. However, he was captured by Bavarians and released only after interventions of the Pope and new Moravian Prince Svatopluk, who immediately started to christianise and annex the neighbouring Slavonic territories (Krakow region, Silesia, Bohemia, Lusatania, Pannonia). Svatopluk sent Methodius to Rome to ask for direct protection independent of the Frankish Empire. The pope agreed and sent Svatopluk a letter "Industrie tue". After Methodius died in 885 no new archbishop was immediately appointed and the new Pope demanded abolition of Slavonic liturgy. After the pupils of Methodius were expelled from the country in 886 a high-rank papal delegation failed to find suitable candidates for higher church posts. New frankish attacks followed soon as well as ones of Magyars, who invaded Pannonia. After Svatopluk died in 894 the Czech princes offered their submission to Franks. Svatopluk's sons quarrelled over whether the country should submit to Franks or defend its independence. In 899 another papal delegation arrived and appointed an archbishop and bishops but it was too late. Franks and Moravians denounced each other to the Pope for the use of Magyar mercenaries in their permanent wars. The third (Magyars) won. The Great Moravia ceased to exist in 906 and Bavarians lost the battle of Bratislava in 907. This enabled Magyars to attack various parts of Europe (sometimes as mercenaries) before they were heavily beaten near Augsburg in 955 by Otto I.

The policy of direct agreement with Rome avoiding the dependence on the East Frankish Empire was successfully applied by many Hungarian and Polish kings thanks to early establishment of archbishopric in their countries which remained a dream of Czech dukes and kings from ruling Premyslid dynasty. After the collapse of Slavonic mission in Moravia Slavonic culture spread to Bulgaria and Russia, where the original Cyrillic script has been further developed and is presently used by more than 200 millions of people.

Medieval Dynastic States

The first remarkable Duke from Premyslid dynasty was Boleslav I., who came to power after having assassinated his brother Duke Wenceslas (known from the English carol) that later became Saint-Protector of Bohemia. Boleslav not only continued pacification of the tribes within Bohemia but also acquired Krakow and Silesia and married his daughter Dubrava to the Polish Piast Prince Mieszek. His son Boleslav II. extended his rule to parts of Galicia and Slovakia and managed to establish the bishopric in Prague. Since Boleslav II. intrigued with the Bavarian Duke Henry against new emperor Otto II the Prague bishop was not subordinated to the archbishop in Regensburg but in far-away Mainz. Boleslav II also liquidated his only internal rival East-Bohemian family of Slavnikovci, that produced bishop Saint Vojtech, one of best educated men of that time.

However, Boleslav the Brave (the grand-son of Boleslav I), the greatest king of Poland occupied all territories under Premislyd's rule as well as Slovakia. He was only thrown out with German aid. Another Premyslid Bretislav succeeded to conquer the whole Poland including its first capital Gniezdno, but was forced to retreat because of German military and political pressure. Bretislav's subsequent submission marked the end of Bohemian attempts to separate themselves from the German Empire. The next Premyslids engaged in friendly policy of co-operation with the (Holy Roman) emperors taking part in their military campaigns especially in Hungary and Italy. Two of them (Vratislav and Vladislav II) were given the royal title in recognition of their services. Vladislav's son Premysl Otakar I making use problems of succession in the German Empire achieved that (according to the Golden Bull of Sicily) Czechs themselves could elect their kings, who became elector of Empire.

Slovakia became a part of Kingdom of Hungary, which was a multinational political unit organised by the Arpad dynasty. The Magyars, originally nomadic horsemen who terrorised Europe for half a century and devastated parts of Saxony, France, Italy and the Byzantine empire, were compelled by their defeat in 955 to settle down in the plains along the Danube and the Theiss. They adopted the western and Roman liturgy and ritual.

The king Saint-Protector Stephen I, who married a sister of the Bavarian Duke Henry II, was baptised by the Prague bishop Vojtech. He was proclaimed king by both German emperor and pope.

Hungary stood only a short time under the suzerainty of the German emperors (of the Saxon line) that was followed by the period of Byzantine influence in 12th century. To prevent external involvement, the country called itself the Apostolic Kingdom. Latin became the official and literary language. Not nationality but social position was important. All power was in the hands of clerical and secular nobility with the King as its head.

The Later Middle Ages

The rulers of OB Premyslid, Arpad and Piast became increasingly involved in international relations including dynastic marriages. They were interested in reforming the economy and social structure of their countries in order to be able to compete with Western Europe and invited western (mostly German) settlers, artisans, miners and traders. The consequence was the dissemination of western political, legal and economic institutions as well as western sciences, poetry and art. In Bohemia, German settlement was confined to frontier regions where the Slavs have not settled. But the central areas of Bohemia remained in Czech hands, although Germans prevailed in the cities and towns. After the Tatar invasion of Hungary, its rulers invited Germans to Slovakia and Transylvania. A number of cities, mostly mining communities, were founded and developed into centres of trade and culture (e.g. Jihlava and Kutna Hora in Bohemia, Banska Stiavnica, Banska Bystrica and 24 Saxon towns in Spis County in Slovakia). New larger towns were added to the older cities (such as Praha and Hradec Kralovec in Bohemia, Olomouc, Brno and Znojmo in Moravia and Bratislava, Kosice, Nitra and Trnava in Slovakia).

The Czech nobility looked with displeasure on the growth of foreign influence in the country that took place especially under Premysl Otakar II, who extended sovereignty of his kingdom southwards to the Adriatic and tried to gain the crown of the German Empire. He was called the "Iron and Gold King" throughout Europe and Dante described him in the Divine Comedy as one of great contemporaries. The Imperial princes and the Pope were afraid of his power and elected Rudolf of Habsburg. Before the decisive battle of Marchfeld near Vienna in 1278 Premysl asked in vain the help of Czech nobles and Polish king stressing their common Slav kinship. The victorious Habsburgs then occupied Moravia, and Bohemia fell to Margrave Otto von Brandenburg, the guardian of Premysl Otakars son Vaclav. After the following five years of economical disaster, Vaclav (having reached adulthood) improved the economical situation by promoting mining and minting and attempted to win neighbouring territories. He was crowned King of Poland in 1300 and also Hungarian throne was offered to him. However, his sudden death and the assassination of his 17 year old son Vaclav III in 1306 brought the end to the male line of Premyslid dynasty.

In Hungaria King Endre II. made con-cessions to barons (in order to gain their support for the expansion of the kingdom) and guaranteed them corporate powers to restrict the King's freedom of action. The country mutually disintegrated into a number of regions ruled by feudal lords. Matus Cak of Trencin ruled over most of the Slovak territory. When the Arpad dynasty died out in 1301 a part of Hungarian nobles offered the crown to the Bohemian King Vaclav II. Another part (inspired by the Pope and the German Emperor Albrecht Habsburg) bestowed it to the Neapolitan House of Anjou in exchange for confirmation of their rights.

The Golden Age and the Rise of Nationalism

Hungarian crown's weakness was transmitted throughout Europe. Poland was most affected. The Hungarian King Luis d'Anjou inherited the crown of Poland in 1370 and proclaimed a charter to the gentry of Poland in Kosice in 1374.

The Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV (1346-1378), son of John Luxembourg (a Premyslide after his mother's line), made Prague the main centre of the German Empire. Under John and Charles the Czech Kingdom was enlarged by the regions of Silesia, Lusitania and Brandenburg that had been largely Germanised by that time. On the other hand, Charles could speak Czech and stimulated the development of Czech language and its use in legal documents (besides Latin and German). Charles imported architects from all over the Europe and built much of the Gothic that has given Prague its character and brought its admirers ever since. He had the Prague bishopric elevated to an archbishopric in 1344 and in 1348 he founded the university of international character that bears his name. It consisted of four parallel branches: Czech, Bavarian, Saxonian, and Polish. The intellectual ferment that followed put the Czechs scholars (discontent with their minority position at the university) at the forefront of reformist ideas and the seat of the first Christian reformation. (The Bible was translated into Czech).

It was Sigismund, son of Charles IV, King of Hungary and Emperor of Germany (since the forced abdication of his brother, the weak Czech King Vaclav in 1440), who lit the spark of nationalism in Bohemia. In 1414 he summoned the Czech reformer Jan Hus (criticising the Church for its blatant materialism) before the council of Constancy and gave him a promise of safe conduct. But Hus was condemned to death and burned at the stake. A revolt under the military leadership of Jan Ziska and Prokop was backed by the estates of Bohemia. All German crusades backed by Rome were defeated and Hussites launched attacks on the neighbouring countries. The wars exhausted the Czech Lands and embittered Czech-German relations. The Council of Basel in 1431 made peace with the moderate wing of Hussites, the radical wing was defeated in 1434 at the battle of Lipany. Sigismund was acknowledged as king of Bohemia, but died in 1437 without a son. He transferred the crowns of Empire. Bohemia and Hungary to his son-in-law Albrecht of Habsburg, who died in 1439. Afterwards, the estates of Bohemia and Hungary elected national Kings Jiri of Podebrad and Mathias Corvin. Both Kingdoms were united in 1490 under the rule of Polish-Lithuanian dynasty of Jagielons (that had merged with Anjou dynasty). The King Luis Jagielon was killed in the Battle of Mohacz against the Turks in 1526.


The Turkish Menace and Confessional struggles

In 1526 the Czech and Hungarian nobles elected the Austrian Duke Ferdinand Habsburg to their thrones. However another part of Hungarian nobles supported the counter King John Zapolya, who enlisted Turkish help. The Turks advanced towards Vienna in 1529 and 1532 but failed to conquer it. After the peace in 1538 an the death of John Zapolya in 1541 Hungary remained divided for 150 years with the central part including the capital Buda in Turkish hands. Ferdinand was left with a crescent-shaped strip of land containing Slovakia, the most western part of Hungary (with large German minority) and the western part of Croatia. Transylvania became a vassal state of the Otoman Empire and the basis of permanent attacks of Hungarian nobles against the Habsburg rule in neighbouring Slovak territories. Bratislava (Pressburg, Posony) become the administrative capital of Habsburg-ruled part of Hungarian kingdom. The archbishop-primate moved his residence to Trnava in 1543 The Turkish conquest of the central Hungary caused the advancement of Magyar influence in Slovakia, where the central institutions of Hungarian state were transformed. Some Magyar nobles escaping Ottoman power contributed, partly through intermarriage, to the increasing Magyarization of the lower gentry, which had been largely Slovak. Magyar peasants also sought refuge from Turks, and as a result the Magyar-Slovak ethnic frontier shifted north.

The migration of the Magyar nobles into the towns of Slovakia helped to weaken the position of the German patricians and improve that of Slovaks. The Magyar nobles brought along large retinues of Slovak servants and directly challenged the power monopoly of Germans. The Hungarian diet in Bratislava (1608) gave Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks equal share of municipal power and prescribed their regular rotation in each major office in royal towns.

The Lutheran religions reformation spread into Bohemia as well as Habsburg - ruled Hungaria and Transylvania in the second half of the sixteenth century. The effort of the Habsburgs to promote Catholicism started immediately. Rudolf II (1583-1612), conducted the imperial court in Prague and made the Czech lands again a centre of learning and culture, housing some of greatest names of European astronomy and painting. (J. Kepler, Tycho de Brahe).

By that time, however, the Turkish stranglehold on the Balkan and Middle Hungary terminated the once lucrative trade to the Middle East. The precious metals from the New World drastically reduced the value of Czech and Slovak silver. (The copper from Banska Bystrica a remained an important export article). The discovery of the new sea routes moved commerce and banking to the north-west Europe and undermined the prosperity of central Europe. Rudolf's charter of religions freedom from 1609 eased tensions throughout the country. Following his dead, however, the religious conflict again grew sharper. In 1619 the Diet of Czech kingdom deposed Ferdinand II Habsburg and elected Frederic of Palatine, a leader of Protestant Union and Imperial Elector. (Few days after his election to the Czech throne Frederic voted for the deposed Ferdinand to become German Emperor.)

Since Frederic was the son-in-law of king James I, help from English King was expected. However the English failed to help, the Netherlands alone gave certain financial aid, while Gabor Bethlen of Transylvania and the Prince of Savoy sent military help. Habsburgs could rely on the greet financial resources of Spain and the Pope.

The Czech revolt marked the beginning of the so-called Thirty Years War. It was crushed in the Battle of Biela Hora 1620 and 27 leaders were publicly executed in the Old Square of Prague and their heads stuck onto the bridge tower of the Old City. All who took merely an indirect part in the revolt had their property confiscated. Nearly three quarters of the land was confiscated and Habsburgs gave it or sold very cheaply to the Austrian, German, Italian and Spanish nobles (e.g. the Schwarzenbergs, the Mandsfelds, Colloredo).

The Czech Crown Lands became Habsburg hereditary provinces; Lusitania was given to the Protestant Elector of Saxony in recompense for his help. Latin became the language of Prague University, the administration of which was confided to the Jesuits. Catholicism was declared the only state religion. The free population (i.e. nobility and burghers) were given a choice: they had either to become Catholic or to leave the country. A considerable part of Protestant nobility emigrated and then served in the Swedish armies in further fights against Habsburgs. Protestant hopes engendered during the rest of the Thirty years War by periodic military or political successes of the Swedes and the Saxons (who joined the Protestant League 1631 and deserted it in 1637) were completely extinguished in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia, which gave the Habsburgs full freedom to settle religion affairs in both Bohemia and Moravia. The following Conter-Reformation was curtailed in Silesia as well as in Slovakia (where some 5000 Protestant families emigrated). One of the most famous Czech emigrants was pastor Jan Amos Komensky, renowned for his advocacy of enlightenment and humanity in education.

After the Thirty Year's War the towns and cities as well as some whole regions of the Czech kingdom were largely depopulated and Germanised. The remaining Catholic nobles lost their national consciousness and served the Habsburgs. The Czech language was kept alive by the peasantry and by catholic patriotic lower clergy.

During 17th century the Slovak territory faced devastating attacks waged by Hungarian nobility from Transylvania against Habsburgs, The recurring waves of aggression against Protestants culminated in 1671-73 and the threat of the neighbouring Turkish power was removed only after the war in 1683-99 (That started by the last Turkish siege of Vienna and ended by the total defeat of the Turks and the Hungarian estates under Thokoly). The detrimental effects of these events were only partly offset from the stand point of Slovak national interests - by isolating the Slovak territory from an overwhelming Magyar impact.

The influence of Czech culture intensified after the arrival of Czech Protestants including important literary figures as, e.g., J. Tranovsky, the author of the Protestant hymnal Cithara Sanctorum (1636), i.e. a collection of Czech Hussite hymns and Slovak religious songs, which has been used by the Protestants in Slovakia to the present time.

The Catholic university of Trnava was at that time a centre of Counter - Reformation. It published in 1648 the first Latin-Magyar-Slovak dictionary and in 1665 Cantus Catholicus (written in Slovak). This first initiatives to Slovak literary expression came from Jesuits, who were largely responsible for the decline of the Czech in Bohemian lands. In the second half of the 17th century Vienna lost interest in supporting the German burgers in Slovak cities viewing them as disloyal heretics. The Counter Reformation and lack of governmental support weakened the German elite that had to yield power to Slovaks in most of Slovak cities. New opportunities of migration to regained territories of central and southern Hungaria emerged in the first half of 18th century, when about 15 thousands of Slovak families migrated. Many migrants from the overcrowded northern counties settled in southern Slovak counties. As a result, the border of Slovak ethnic settlement, which had retreated north two hundred years earlier, once more moved farther south, especially in the area of Kosice and east of Bratislava. The population movement helped to generate a sense of Slovak ethnic unity, as the arrival of settlers from north into central and southern Slovak counties tended to blur regional, linguistic and psychological idiosyncrasies.

At the beginning of 18th century the magnates started to invest in manufactures. The first textile manufactures were founded in Northern Bohemia, Northern Moravia, Central and Western Slovakia. In Slovak Gemer country the output of iron flourished stimulated by military needs. The first high furnace was erected in Dobrina in 1680. In 1627 the first known use of gunpowder to extend mineshafts, anywhere in Europe, occurred in Banska Stiavnica, where a mining school of excellent European level has bean located since 1737. An exceptional position was occupied by Presov, which acted as a commercial hub for Transylvania's exports and imports (via Poland). In 1703 when Austria was involved in the War of Spanish Succession, another rebellion of Hungarian estates broke out under F. Rakoczi. It resulted in the Szatmar Compromise that guaranteed the Hungarian kingdom a kind of autonomy that proved to be an obstacle for further economical development.

Enlightened Absolutism and National Awakening

During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740 - 1780) Austria lost Silesia to Prussia. To compensate this loss the imperial government encouraged the development of textile production in Bohemia. Both Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II (1780-1790) introduced some reforms inspired by the ideas of the European Enlightenment. In 1781 Joseph II published a decree that restored to peasants their freedom of movement, which enabled their large-scale migration to the towns.

A by-product of the European Enlightenment was strengthening of central government that evoked a kind of Czech provincialism. In 1790 the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences was founded by German-speaking nobles. It later became the centre of Czech cultural revival. In 1818 the Bohemian Museum was set up in Prague. Its German Journal failed but the circulation of the Czech version grew rapidly. The German provincial nobility also gave essential support to a number of outstanding scholars whose writing facilitated and shaped the cultural revival. Josef Dobrovsky produced the first Czech grammar, Josef Jungmann translated foreign classics to demonstrate the capability of Czech and put together the first large dictionary. Frantisek Palacky set to work on his great history of the Czech nation which not only reconstructed the past but effectively created a national philosophy out of it. In the meantime the small but growing Czech middle class in Prague begun to penetrate various hitherto German organisations and to establish political clubs of their own. The backbone of Czech movement was provided by intellectuals. The school reforms of Joseph II opened young Czechs schools. The intellectuals gave the lead when the call for revolution spread from Paris in 1848. The Czech revolt collapsed, but it was highly significant. The Habsburgs yielded the use of Czech for limited purposes in university and secondary education.

The reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II. made less impact on Slovakia because the Hungarian nobility wanted to extend their own independence of the Habsburgs. In 1792 A. Bernolak, a Catholic priest, established a Slovak Learned Society in Trnava to publish and distribute books in the first version of Slovak language based on local dialects of Western Slovakia. In 1803 the Lutheran high school in Bratislava set up a centre of Czechoslovak literature. Some Slovaks like P.J Safarik and J. Kollar wrote in Czech. However the policy of Magyarization made the question of literary language and its political consequences absolutely crucial. In 1840 the Hungarian diet (that was transferred to Pest after Bratislava had been damaged during the wars with Napoleon) passed an alarming legislation that replaced Latin with Magyar as the official language in the whole Hungarian Kingdom. Young Slovak intellectuals, headed by Ludovit Stur from Bratislava Lutheran school, decided to develop the central Slovak dialect as probably the most likely to unite all Slovaks. Paradoxically, it was much more different from Czech than the first Trnava (catholic) version. In 1845 they began to publish the Slovak National News and they very soon achieved their purpose. With some modifications their choice was accepted at least among the Slovaks. Magyar policies and Slovak aspirations were inevitably on a collision course. In 1848 some hastily armed Slovak detachments attacked the Magyar rebels (with official encouragement of Habsburgs). But they received no recognition from Vienna in return.

Slovakia enjoyed more favourable preconditions for industrial development than the rest of Hungary. It possessed old tradition of crafts and urban life, and was endowed with substantial natural resources.

However, this potential was stifled by Habsburg government and influential Hungarian nobility that deliberately transformed Hungary into an agrarian appendage of the Austrian Empire. The textile industry experienced most drastically the stifling effect of Austrian and Bohemian competition. After 1815 the textile manufactories failed to develop into factories - Slovak iron industry was slow in applying the new techniques which were initiating industrial revolution in the Bohemia and Austrian lands. Nevertheless certain innovations did take place and Slovakia excelled in that regard over the rest of Hungary. Genuine factories first appeared neither in textile production, nor in metallurgy, but in the sectors of paper-manufacturing and sugar refining, thanks to the investment of Austrian and foreign capital.

Rapid economic growth in the Czech lands led to the systematic introduction of machinery in the textile and food industries, and in turn, the engineering industry began to expand. Requirements of machine building and railroads stimulated iron production. The first furnace using coke was erected in Vitkovice in 1836. A steam-powered railroad joined Brno with Vienna in 1839, and Prague with Olomouc in 1845 and Bratislava with Trnava in 1848.


Revolution, Reaction and (Constitutional) Dualism

In the second half of the 19th century Slovak cultural life was stifled by the reaction that followed the Revolution in 1848 and by the aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (After Austria lost the war against Prussia in 1866).

The Hungarian government adopted a policy that sought to "magyarize" the non-Magyar minorities and transform Hungary, in which the Magyars constituted less than half the population into an ethnically homogeneous Magyar state. The only escape from the oppressive Hungarian policies was emigration that reached the proportion of a mass flight. At the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th century about 30000 people (1% of the entire population) left Slovakia yearly for the countries on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Many

Slovaks moved to fast growing Budapest, where in 1910 lived about 164 000 Slovaks (that underwent Magyarization subsequently). Slovakia shared with Ireland the highest emigration rate in Europe. This further weakened the Slovak people by depriving them of their most enterprising elements.

In 1907 various Slovak organisations in the United States formed the Slovak League of America defending the interest of Slovak ethnic group and interpreting the aspirations of the Slovaks in Hungary to independence.

In the nineteen century the Czechs achieved a level of social economic and cultural development second only to that of the Germans in the empire. However, they failed to achieve their political ambition, which was to restore the historic "state right" of Bohemia and secure it the place in the empire analogous to that of the kingdom of Hungary after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867.

Emperor Francis Joseph I (1848-1916) three times promised to have himself crowned with the crown of St.Wenceslas. However, the Germans in Bohemia (counting 1/3 of the population) who feared isolation in an autonomous Bohemian state with a Czech majority, were always able to frustrate an agreement between Vienna and the Czechs by mobilising German opinion in other part of the empire in support of their stand. After 1906, when universal male suffrage was adopted in the Austrian part of the Empire, the Czechs hoped to achieve their objectives by forming an alliance of Slavs that formed two-thirds of the population. But they failed to gain their objective, because only the Slovenes (from south-eastern Austria) would cooperate with them (but not the Poles and the Ukrainians from Galicia). Frustrated, they became increasingly alienated to the empire but they did not consider their withdrawal before the out break of World War I in 1914.

The industrial revolution continued in the Bohemian lands until the economic crisis in 1873. While textiles has been the main source of accumulation of German capital, sugar refining would serve the same function for Czech capital. Other kinds of light industry that underwent mechanisation after 1848 were those producing glass, porcelain, paper and leather. Development of heavy industry followed. The steel production shifted slowly to blast furnaces fuelled by coke in Vitkovice, Kladno and Trinec. The most prominent machine-tool industries were located in Prague and its suburbs (Ring hoffer, Daneks Prvni Ceskomoravska Strojarna) and in Plzen (Walenstein machine works, acquired by E. Skoda in 1869). After the loss of Lombardy in 1859, the Czech lands became the most important area of industrial development in the empire. The beginnings of electrical industry were connected with the names of two inventors-entrepreneurs F. Krizik and F. Kolben. Construction of large electric power stations began in the first decade of the twentieth century. New types of production included motors, automobiles and equipment for electrical industries. Demand for armament opened another stimulus for expansion. The Skoda Works, with 10000 employees, was in 1914 one of the largest munitions producers in the world. The Bohemian Lands depended heavily on industrial capital especially Austrian and German. In 1914 only about one-third of investments in the industries of the Bohemian Lands were of Czech origin. Despite their rapid growth the holdings of Czech commercial banks did not significantly exceed one quarter of the stock capital of Viennese commercial banks. Vienna attracted a lot of migrants from South Bohemia and South Moravia and was in 1910 the largest Czech city together with Prague.

While still suffering from Austrian competition, Slovak industry benefited somehow from the Hungarian government's industrial subsidies after 1880. However, it lagged behind the general advance, particularly after 1900. Within the structure of Hungarian industry dominated by Budapest, Slovakia shared heavily in the output of unfinished and semi-finished products, especially paper, textiles, leather, iron, woods and chemicals. (A major oil refinery was established in Bratislava, where Dynamite-Nobel explosives fabric flourished since 1885.)

World War I. and the Creation of the Czechoslovak State

After the outbreak of the World War I on July 28, 1914 most of the Czech and Slovak politicians adopted the policy of two irons: it meant that whatever the final outcome of the war their nations would come out as victors. Professor T.G. Masaryk, leader of the small Realist party, made trips to neutral countries in the fall of 1914. While in Switzerland, he was warned he might be arrested by the Austrian authorities that had recently imprisoned a number of Czech politicians. He decided to stay abroad and join the pro-independence movement of Czech and Slovak emigrants that he soon led. As early as August 1914 Czech units including Slovaks were set up within the French and Russian armies. The Czech Alliance and the Slovak League of America) reached an agreement in Cleveland in 1915, in which they demanded the liberation of Czech and Slovak nations and their union "in a federative form of State, with complete autonomy for Slovakia, with its own parliament, political and financial administration, having Slovak as the language of the state". A further similar agreement was co-signed by T.G. Masaryk (who had a Slovak father) in Pittsburgh in May 1918. In 1915 Masaryk was joined by his chief assistant Dr. E. Benes and a Slovak, M.R. Stefanik, a French citizen and a Major of French Air Force, who had many influential friends in French, Italian and American governmental circles. The Allies, especially French, appreciated the Czech and Slovak contribution to the war, however they did not consider the possibility of assisting Czechs and Slovak independence. They were much more attracted by the prospect of separate peace with Austria.

The fall of Tsarist regime offered the Czechs and Slovaks an opportunity to play a more significant role in the war. T.G. Masaryk who travelled to Russia, was enabled by the Provisional Government of Russia to organise two Army Corps from among both the Czech and Slovak settlers and prisoners-of-war. By November 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power, the Czechoslovak Army Corps (otherwise called the Czechoslovak Legion) numbered 30 000 men.

After the Bolsheviks began to negotiate a separate peace, the Czechoslovak Legion, acknowledged meanwhile as an Allied army, remained the only substantial unit the Allies were left with in Russia.

In May 1918 a conflict broke out between the Czechoslovak Legion and the Soviet Government in Siberia. The speed and ease with which the Czechoslovak Legion seized the Siberian railway made the Allies consider their intervention. The Legion would become the pivot of their intervention forces. In summer 1918 - preparing the intervention in Russia - France, Great Britain and USA recognised the Czechoslovak National Council, led by Masaryk, as a "de facto government" of Czechoslovakia.

On October 16, 1918 the Austrian Emperor Charles issued a manifesto authorising the nationalities to form national committees and sanctioning existing ones.

On the basis of this manifesto (that was aimed on the federalisation of Austria) the German-Austrian deputies withdrew from the Austrian Reichsrat and constituted a provisional assembly of an independent German-Austrian state.

On October 27 Vienna conceded defeat. The Austro-Hungarian armistice, signed on November 3 left a legal vacuum in East Central Europe, which lasted until the opening of Paris Peace Conference more than two month later. On October 28, after securing the acquiescence of the Austrian military authorities, the Prague National Committee declared the independent Czechoslovak state. On October 30, the Slovak National Council adopted a resolution that declared the right of self-determination for Slovaks and endorsed the principle of Czechoslovak unity.

The German deputies from Bohemia and Moravia (Sudeten Germans) had joined other German deputies in forming the German-Austrian Parliament and declared the German parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia to be part of German-Austria. On November 12, 1918 the Anschluss of German-Austrian Republic to Germany was proclaimed, which definitely buried the possibility of a confederation of the successor states of the Habsburg empire.

According to an agreement between the Prague National Committee led by Kramar in Prague, and Benes as a representative of the Paris National Committee concluded in Geneva at the beginning of November, the first president of Czechoslovakia would be Masaryk, and the first premier Kramar, a hero of the domestic resistance (holding very extreme nationalistic views).

Assuming the subsequent approval of the Allies, the Czechoslovak government under Kramar decided to call for volunteers and to occupy the Sudeten German areas. The French leaders were determined that Germany must not come out of the war with any additional territory. They approved the Czechoslovak occupation, which was swift and almost without fighting, since Germans were depressed after the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungaria.

The Belgrade armistice put Hungary under direct Allied control that was enforced by a commission under a French Lt.Col.F.Vyx. The new government of Hungary actively resisted the effort to establish Czechoslovak authority in Slovakia. It sent troops to Slovakia and dispersed the Slovak National Council. Czechoslovak foreign minister Benes (still in Paris) protested to the French government and proposed a demarcation line between the Czechoslovak and Hungarian forces. Paris sent instructions to Col. Vyx. Hungarian government protested but complied. At about the same time (Dec.20,1918) Masaryk returned from exile, accompanied by the first elements of the Legions. They swiftly moved to Slovakia and occupied it by January 20, 1919. The last to return was Stefanik, who was in charge of legions in Russia. His prospective position in the government was inadequate to his role in the exile movement. The mysterious catastrophe of his plane near Bratislava has been never properly clarified.

The Paris Peace Conference, opened in January 1919, was faced with a series of fiats accomplish which they neither wished nor could challenge. Czechoslovakia entered the conference in possession of essentially all the territory to which it aspired.

The only exception was the region of Tesin disputed with Allied Poland. It was later divided so that its coal fields and an important railway were given to Czechoslovakia in return for territorial concessions in northern Slovakia. However, the subsequent Polish hostility prevented closer co-operation that could have been extremely profitable for both countries and for their security. (Masaryk had even contemplated a federation with Poland). The Paris Conference also approved the inclusion of Ruthenia (a small region east of Slovakia with majority of population of Ruthenian east Slavonic stock) in Czechoslovakia, that has been agreed by Masaryk and Ruthenian exile representatives. The Allied powers showed partiality towards Czechoslovakia in the political settlement but they showed none in the financial settlement. The liberation costs assessed to Czechoslovakia.

Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia were fixed at 1.5 billion gold francs. Of this amount, Czechoslovakia, as the most prosperous of them, was required to pay one half. She began her existence, therefore, with a considerable foreign debt.

Ethnically Czechoslovakia was a small inverse image of the Habsburg Empire. The population of 13.6 million was formed by Czechs (6,7), Slovaks (2,05), Ruthenians (0,46), Germans (3,2), Magyars (0,69), Jews (0,18) and Poles (0,08).

The first Czechoslovak Republic The first Czechoslovak provisional constitution was adopted on November 13, 1918. It vested all power in a (unicameral) National Assembly. It had 256 deputies 216 of them represented Czech political parties on the basis of their election results in 1911. Only 40 deputies (later 54) representing Slovakia were chosen in an arbitrary manner by V. Srobar, the only Slovak in the government. Half of them were Protestants, although Protestants constituted only 12% of Slovak population. Seven so-called Slovak deputies were Czechs (including E. Benes) chosen "for their Slovakophile activities". Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians and Poles were not represented at all. This "revolutionary" National Assembly passed many important laws (before being replaced after the elections in April 1920) as e.g.:

  1. the currency separation law
  2. the land reform laws
  3. the nostrification law
  4. the (definitive) Constitution of Czechoslovakia.

Under the currency separation law - the only successful stabilisation policy among the Successor States, prepared by the Minister of Finance A. Rasin - - 50 % of all privately hold bank notes were withdrawn; the bank and savings accounts were blocked and converted into a 1 per cent compulsory loan. The administration of currency and coin monopoly was transferred from the Austro-Hungarian Bank in Vienna to the Banking Office in Prague. The national currency (the Czechoslovak crown - Kcs) was introduced in April 1919.

The land reform empowered the government to expropriate (for financial compensation) all large estates exceeding 150 ha of arable land or 250 ha of land in general. It did away with the huge aristocratic estates of the largely German and Hungarian nobility but the major part of the allotments was too small and economically inexpedient. It allowed the creation of so-called "residual estates" in the hands of the Land Office and throughout it of the Agrarian Party, which used their sale to promote its political interests.

The nostrification Law forced joint-stock companies to transfer their head offices to the territory of the new state where they had their factories and plants. This law created favourable conditions for Czech banks, above all the Zivnostenska Bank. It provided a strong financial base for the Agrarian Party, that was the most stable political force of the Czechoslovak State. From 1922 to 1938 Agrarians were the core of all coalition governments, occupying the ministries of interior and agriculture, and holding the office of prime minister. (The last of them was a Slovak M. Hodza.)

The constitution adopted in February 1920, defined Czechoslovakia as a "democratic republic headed by an elected president". It entrusted the legislative powers to the National Assembly, elected both on the basis of universal suffrage and by a direct and secret ballot; the executive powers to the president and the cabinet of ministers; and judicial powers to an independent judiciary. Following the Western models, the constitution provided for the protection of fundamental civil and political rights of all citizens on a completely equal basis and for special protection of national and religious minorities. The Language law designed "Czechoslovak" as the country's official language. Since in reality a single Czechoslovak language never existed, the Czech and Slovak enjoyed the status of official languages. However, neither of them has ever been taught in the partner part of the country, which gave rise to increasing dualism. The law assured the national minorities full freedom in the use of their languages in everyday life and in schools, as well as in dealing with authorities in district in which they constituted at least 20 % of the population.

By identifying the Slovaks with Czechs under the label "Czechoslovak", the constitution ignored the Slovak national identity. The Slovaks (especially their Catholic majority) felt cheated since President Masaryk had signed the Pittsburgh agreement guaranteeing Slovak autonomy. The Slovak pre-war populist leader Andrej Hlinka revitalised the Slovak National Party in 1919. He insisted on Slovak legislative autonomy on the basis of the Pittsburgh agreement. The Slovak politics often appeared as a duel between Hlinka and Hodza.

The strongest party in the first elections in April 1920 were the Social Democrats that have forced through the National Assembly laws which established an eight-hours working day, special insurance schemes, and unemployment benefits for the workers. After the secession of the communists in 1921, the party lost a great deal of its strength and regained only a part of it in the late 1920's.

The internal conflict of the Social Democratic Party in 1920-21 when the right-wing minority invoked the aid of police to retain the party organisation, led to the furious reaction of the left-wing that turned against the system as such and planned to seize power. However President Masaryk appointed a new cabinet under J. Cerna, an experienced civil servant who had faced similar situations in the Habsburg Monarchy, and by directing personally repressive actions, the President put down the general strike, and the communist attempt with it. Before the end of 1921 Czechoslovakia was able to return to parliamentary government.

The relative political stability of Czechoslovakia was above all due to the solid administration and the political tradition it inherited from the Habsburg Monarchy. Czechoslovakia inherited about 80 % of the industries of the Habsburg empire, but the partition of the empire deprived them of their natural markets. The Sudeten area had traditionally been the centre of Bohemia's highly developed consumer industries, especially textiles and glass. The growth of protectionism among the successor states forced a shift in emphasis in Czechoslovak industrial production, from consumer goods to heavy industrial goods, especially machinery and reorientation of Czechoslovak export from Central Europe to Western Europe and overseas. This had the undesirable effect of increasing the social and political discontent of the Sudeten Germans.

In the last 2 decades before the war, industrial development in Slovakia was encouraged through subsidies, Hungarian state orders, tax alleviation, and favourable transport rates. It never faced a challenging competition because it remained effectively shielded from the more advanced Czech industry by such protective advantages and by the difficulty in east-west communication. After the war the situation of Slovak industry became very difficult since it lost Hungarian markets and new potential markets were in the great distance. Because of the many privately owned railroad lines in the eastern part of the country compared with a practically state-owned railway network in the west, the transportation rates were much higher in Slovakia and it took many years before they were unified. A further burden was the relatively higher tax rates in the east. Slovakia and Ruthenia remained under the Hungarian tax system until 1929, when the whole Czechoslovak tax system was overhauled. The Slovak and Ruthenian industry stagnated even during relatively prosperous 1920's. Of the combined national income Slovakia and Ruthenia shared 18,2% in 1911-13 but only 15% in 1929 and 1937.

The Slovak iron industry shared 10% in total Czechoslovak production in 1919 but only 2,7% in 1926. Industrialisation in Slovakia took place in relatively isolated areas, in many cases with specialised products which supplemented the advanced Czech industries (e.g. cables, rubber products, wood distillation). Whereas Slovak industry and banking were in the hands of German and Hungarian entrepreneurs before the World War I, Czech industrialists and bankers attained a decisive share of Slovak economy between the two world wars. This resulted in differences between Czechs and Slovaks in the economic sphere.

Development of industry in the Czech lands in 1920's was similar to that of Western Europe, with producer goods industries gaining in relation to the consumer goods industries.


From Wall Street Crash to Munich

The initial rapid growth of industry in 1920's was accompanied with the growth of larger enterprises and wide spread of cartels. Companies developed a pyramid structure which created opportunities for capital expansion in South-east Europe, via subsidiary companies of Czechoslovak banks and industrial concerns. This formed a significant incentive for foreign investors and was further reinforced by the comparatively low cost of labour, the relatively stable political conditions, as well as the strategic position of the country. Through direct investment a quarter of the Czechoslovak economy was in the hands of foreign investors (British, French, Belgian, Dutch) during the interwar period. The most important foreign investment in mechanical engineering industry was the decisive holding of the French iron and steel concern, Schneider Creusot in Skoda Plzen, that not only held the first place in this sector in Czechoslovakia but their significance in East Central and South-east Europe can be compared with Vickers in Great Britain and Krupp in Germany. The Czechoslovak chemical industry was dominated by the companies that were closely linked to the Belgian Solvay Company and to the Anglo-Dutch trust of Lever Brothers.

Only in the shoe industry the foreign capital played no important role. Thanks to a monopoly position of Bata Works Czechoslovakia held the first place among the world's leading shoe exporters in 1930's after overtaking Great Britain and the USA.

During the world economic crisis of 1929-1933 Czechoslovakia was very hard hit. Czechoslovak government provided legislative support for cartelisation of those branches of industry which were still relatively competitive. Czechoslovak cartels participated in the majority of international cartels existing at that time. In 212 valid international cartel agreements a striking by large number of German companies emerged. This way the German producers obtained an agreed stare in the former markets of Czechoslovak manufacturers, mainly in South-eastern Europe.

The Czechoslovak Government, dominated by agrarians introduced a system of protective tariffs for agricultural products. Consequently, exports of the Balkan states to Czechoslovakia began to drop, and they started to look to Germany as a potential trading partner. The German share of Balkan foreign trade rose while the Czechoslovak share fell.

This development weakened the so-called Little Entante, concluded by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania against Hungarian aspirations to revise the post-war borders. In 1936, when the new Czechoslovak president E.Benes proposed a military pact of the Little Entente against any aggressor. Rumania and Yugoslavia did not answer positively. Their position seemed to be less vulnerable and they did not want to antagonise Germany, which had already acquired hold over their economies. On the other hand, Benes, who had been Czechoslovak foreign minister since 1918, failed to conclude an alliance with Poland, that was strongly advocated by agrarians and military experts, since he considered the Polish position more vulnerable. (Both he and Masaryk expressed belief that the Danzig Corridor was "an absurdity" that Poland would have to abandon to the Germans.)

In 1934 Poland and Germany surprisingly signed a declaration of non-aggression, which was a blow to Prague's diplomacy. Worried by the German-Polish agreement, France came forth with a plan for an Eastern Pact including Czechoslovakia and Soviet Russia.

Eventually, only two bilateral treaties - a Franco-Russian and Czechoslovak-Russian - were signed in 1935. The Russian aid to Czechoslovakia was conditional on working of the French alliance of 1925. This alliance proved to be nothing but a theoretical link, when the Sudeten German problem became acute after Konrad Henlein's party gained seventy percent of Sudeten German votes in 1935. President Benes desperately tried to bargain secretly with Hitler, who was not interested in agreement but in discrediting and isolating Czechoslovakia.

In winter 1938 Hitler annexed Austria and publicly promised to help the Sudeten Germans. In September 1938 he made it clear that the Sudeten problem was a question of war and peace. The French and British governments tried to appease Hitler. On September 30, the French and British Prime Ministers, together with Mussolini and Hitler reached an agreement (in Munich) stating that the Sudeten districts would be separated from Czechoslovakia. Poland and Hungary also claimed parts of Czechoslovak territory. President Benes accepted the Munich arbitration despite wide-spread rioting in the Czech provinces. Czechoslovakia was deprived of one - third of her territory containing some of her most important industrial centres and most fertile farm land, left her economically crippled. President Benes resigned and went into exile. He was replaced by E.Hacha, a non-party bureaucrat. Rudolf Beran, an Agrarian party leader, who had criticised Benes for refusing to seek an agreement with Hitler, became prime minister. The old Slovak and Ruthenian demands for autonomy were finally granted.

France recalled her military mission from Prague. The giant armament concern Skoda Works, which had been under French control since 1919 was sold to a Czechoslovak consortium and latter passed to the Hermann-Goring Werke. The Communist party of Czechoslovakia was dissolved. Czech rightist parties established the National Unity party under Agrarian leadership, while leftist (non-communist) formed the National Labour Party. The Slovak Populists came to terms with Agrarians and formed the Slovak National Unity Party. It won more than 90% of the votes in the election to the new Slovak diet in December 1939. The Slovak minister of interior F. Durcansky visited Germany and indicated that some Slovak politicians preferred independence in association with Germany. The Prague government became suspicions, sent troops to Slovakia, deposed the Slovak government and appointed a new one under K. Sidor, a member of the Central government. Durcansky escaped to Vienna and sent a telegram to Berlin, asking for German help. Hitler summoned the deposed Premier Tiso to Berlin, and gave him the choice of declaring Slovakia's independence or seeing it annexed by Hungary. On March 14 the Slovak Diet declared Slovakia independent. Simultaneously, Hungary was permitted by Hitler to annex Ruthenia (together with a part of eastern and southern Slovakia).

Meanwhile President Hacha solicited an interview with Hitler to discuss the Slovak situation. Instead, he was bullied to sign a document placing Bohemia and Moravia under German protection. On March 15, 1939 the German army occupied the provinces.

Protectorate and Slovak State

Almost immediately the Czechs began to form resistance organisations. However, they were confined to gathering of intelligence, sabotage of industrial production, occasional attacks on German officials and maintaining communications with the exile government in London (established in 1940 by Benes and recognised by the British government).

After the student riots in November 1939 the Czech universities and colleges were closed. In contrast to Poland and Yugoslavia there was almost no news of open Czech resistance before 1942. To maintain the negotiating power of his exile government, Benes decided to parachute trained agents that assassinated the hated German Protector Heydrich in May 1942. Retribution was swift and vicious. Thousands were arrested, hundreds shot. Gestapo decided to destroy villages Lidice and Lezaky for it suspected their population of complicity in the assassination. The men were shot, the women sent to concentration camps and the children divided among German families. The buildings were burned and flattened. Almost the entire resistant movement was destroyed. But the assassination achieved its political aim. It confirmed Benes leadership in Allied eyes and the destruction of Lidice made the Czechoslovak cause plausible to Allied politicians and public opinion all over the world. The British and French governments repudiated the Munich agreement.

There were no major acts of sabotage in the Czech countries between May 1942 and May 1945. The Czech regions were of particular value to the German armament industry as places of greater security from Allied bombardment. In 1939-40 the German government was concerned with the impression that its treatment of Slovakia would make on the countries of South-eastern Europe, on which it depended for wheat, oil and other supplies. Therefore, it made a great show of respect of Slovak sovereignty and independence.

Slovakia had its own diplomatic service and was recognised by 27 governments, among them those of the Soviet Union, France and Britain. This, however, did not prevent German government agencies from assigning large "advisory missions" to all Slovak ministries. Soon the young Slovak nationalists as well as the Catholic conservatives began to demand a wider sphere of affairs free from German interference. Durcansky, who combined the posts of interior and foreign ministers, addressed proposals for neutrality to France and Britain to assure Slovakia's independence in the event of German defeat. The spectacular German victory in France put the Reich in position to discipline its Slovak protégé. Durcansky was dismissed and premier Tuka, who proclaimed "Slovak National Socialism" became minister of foreign affairs. The post of minister of interior was given to A. Mach. However, Tiso, who had been elected President in October 1939, was prepared to collaborate with Germany in the economic and diplomatic spheres, but as a priest an patriot he was dead against the nazification of Slovak life. The radicals intended to carry out a coup d' etat but their plans were disclosed by army circles. German government decided to sacrifice ideological conformity for the sake of political and economical stability. The corps of German advisers were transformed from an instrument of ideological indoctrination into a team of economic experts that sought to increase Slovak war production through the modernisation and reorganisation of Slovak industry. The war stimulated an economic boom in Slovakia. The number of employed in industry rose by 50 percent. However, the Slovak shares in the total Slovak joint-stocks capital increased only from 15 percent to 18 percent between 1939 and 1945, while the German share grew from 0,2 percent to 62 percent and the Czech decreased from 84 percent to 8 percent. Slovakia became a substantial creditor of Germany. It never received full payment for its exports. On September 10, 1941, Tuka and Mach pushed through the Diet the approval of a Jewish code, which provided the legal foundation for the property expropriation outlawing, internment, and, finally, deportation of 56000 Jews between March and August 1942 alone. The deportations were halted only when the Vatican repeatedly protested against them and pointed out that the question was not of "resettlement" but of extermination of Jews. For two years Tiso resisted the pressures of Tuka, Mach and Germans to resume the deportations. In May 1944 the Diet passed a law to stop the transports and to confine Jews in relatively "humane" Slovak concentration camps. Unfortunately, in September 1944, when Germany occupied Slovakia, the SS seized many Jews, most of whom did not survive the German special treatment.

The Battle of Stalingrad and the Allied landing in Italy opened the prospects of Germany's defeat in 1943. Two Slovak resistance movements, one democratic and one communist, then sprang up. In the Christmas Agreement of 1943 they agreed upon a common program of struggle for the restoration of a democratic Czechoslovakia with two distinct nations, the Czechs and the Slovaks and formed the Slovak National Council.

After the tragedy of Lidice Benes ceased his negotiations with Sudeten German Social Democrats and joined Czech radicals that demanded the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans after the war. In summer of 1942 he secured the agreement of Britain to the principle of transfer. American agreement, at least to a radical solution, came during Benes visit to the USA in summer 1943. However, in America he also confirmed the impression that the Czechoslovakia's future was more dependent on the Soviet Union. Although discouraged by the Western Allies he made a journey to Moscow, and in December 1943 signed a friendship treaty with the Soviets, that had already considered population transfer as a useful instrument for their own East European policy. The treaty was Presidents Benes recognition of the change in the balance of power in Central Europe as well as of in of internal Czechoslovak adjustment: the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia would have to be admitted and integrated into the post-war system.

Several high-ranking officers of the Slovak army were involved in the activity of the Slovak National Council and began to plan an insurrection against the Tiso regime. They managed (with a tacit approval of Minister of Defence Gen. Catlos to concentrate army units and supplies of ammunition, food, medicine and money in the highlands of central Slovakia. The preparations for the uprising were complicated by the outbreak of partisan warfare, led in part by parachuted Soviet commanders, which threatened to bring on the German occupation before the uprising was ready. The inopportune capture and execution of the German military mission by partisans, forced the Slovak National Council prematurely to proclaim the Slovak National Insurrection at Banska Bystrica on August 29. It took Germans exactly two months to crush the uprising. The Soviet army, waiting in the Carpathian Mountains, passively witnessed this national tragedy as they had done near Warsaw during the Polish revolt. The London exiles succeeded to persuade Americans to airlift weapons and ammunition from Italy to Slovakia. But the airlift was promptly stopped after the Soviets vetoed it as an encroachment upon what was their zone of military operations. Remnants of the insurrectionists retreated into the mountains and continued guerrilla warfare until the occupation of Slovakia by Soviet armies in the spring 1945.

In March 1945 Benes and the exile government moved from London to Moscow. There the exiled leaders of the democratic parties, Communists and of the Slovak National Council agreed upon the program and composition of the first post-war government. A draft of the program was drawn up by the Communists; there were no rival drafts. Conflict arose in the discussion of the Slovak organs of government. The Communists favoured a large measure of Slovak autonomy. Finally the Slovak National Council (SNR) was recognised as the instrument of legislative and executive power representing the Slovak nation and enjoying wide powers of autonomy. The six parties (National Socialists, Social Democrats, the People's Party and Communists on the Czech side, the Democrats and Communists on the Slovak side) agreed to ban the two formerly strongest parties the Czech Agrarians and the Slovak Populists "which had harmed the national interest".

The communists in fact replaced the Agrarian party. They managed to secure for themselves the key positions in the government, such as the Ministry of Interior which gave them control over the entire apparatus of internal administration including the police; the Ministry of Information and Education which put into Communist hands a powerful weapon of thought control; the Ministry of Agriculture which was to become the distributor of land to be confiscated from the expelled Sudeten Germans and whose possession by the Communists was thus certain to provide them with tremendous leverage over the country's sizeable peasant population.

The new government returned to Czechoslovakia on April 3 1945. They set foot in Kosice, where they announced their program, subsequently called the Kosice program.

They went to Prague on May 10, having been preceded by the Red Army that entered the capital one day after the end of the war. Three weeks before that the American Army liberated Plzen and was ordered to halt its unresisted eastward drive which would have allowed it to liberate the most populous portion of Czechoslovakia, including Prague.


From Democracy to Communism

As envisaged in the Kosice program, large-scale industry and all banking and insurance were nationalised and the first stage of land reform was performed. Some industries were transferred from the Sudeten area to Slovakia.

Nationalisation created a powerful public sector in the economy, including two-thirds of the industrial work-force. The land reform was concerned with the confiscation and distribution of land end farmsteads that had belonged to the expelled Germans. Their property was given to agricultural labourers and landless persons, giving rise to a new group of medium-size farmers who owed their existence to the new regime.

By the turn of the year the parties had completed their own structures and the population had settled into a party pattern. The most numerous was Gottwald's Communist Party, which by March 1946 had over a million members, about the some amounts the three other Czech parties together. In Slovakia, the Communist Party had a member ship of 63 000 and the Democratic Party some 400 000.

On the 26 May 1946 elections to the Constituent National Assembly the Communists emerged as the strongest party with a total for the whole country of 38 percent. The Communists were not happy about the election results in Slovakia where the Democratic Party obtained an absolute majority (about 67 %). Communists proposed the restriction on the autonomy of Slovak national authorities - to the applause of all the Czech non-Communist parties.

The election results entitled Communists to take the premiership but not to hold power alone. Despite the objections of his advisors, Benes re-appointed the Communist Minister of Interior who had been accused of misusing his powers.

In July 1947 Gottwald, after his interview with Stalin, telephoned from Moscow to say that the Czechoslovak government must rescind its previous decision to participate in the Marshall Plan talks in Paris, a decision for which Gottwald and his comrades themselves had previously voted. About the same time Benes suffered his first major stroke and thus was not in position to act.

The formation of the Cominform in 1947 signalled the communist decision to end their co-operation with democratic parties and to liquidate the latter as a dangerous fifth column of the West in the Soviet sphere.

In Czechoslovakia, the decision was implemented in two stages. First, in November 1947, the Slovak Democratic Party was emasculated. Next, in February 1948 the Czech democratic parties were eliminated.

It both instances, the Communists used the same tools--mass organisations to pass "spontaneous" resolutions and the police forces to enforce them. Only President Benes stood in the way of their monopoly of power. After a brief resistance, he bowed to a communist show of force in Prague, as he had bowed to Hitler's show of force at Munich ten years earlier. The communists had arrived to power by a bloodless (velvet) coup. (They lost their power in "the velvet revolution" in November 1989.)

From Gottwald to Dubček

February 1948 meant the end of Moscow compromise from 1945. Some leaders, like Benes, still nurtured faint hopes. Others, like Ripka fled abroad and still others, like Sramek were arrested and imprisoned. Jan Masaryk, the Foreign Minister, (who had failed to join the resignation of non-communist ministers on February 20 and presented Gottwald with a parliamentary means of taking all power) committed suicide. A general election in May 1948 brought the predictable victory of the "renovated" National Front; only ten percent dared to vote against. In October 1948 a Five Year Plan (1949-53) was approved. It was still based on pragmatic considerations rather then on ideological assumptions. However, after the COMECON had been founded in January 1949, Czechoslovakia was subjected to pressure to play the role of main supplier of investment goods for the entire Soviet block. As a result, the five-year plan was revised in 1950 and again in 1951, when Stalin ordered a drastic increase of military production. He believed that the Soviet bloc absolute superiority in conventional troops and weapons provided it the opportunity to occupy Europe. President Gottwald and his colleagues realised that Czechoslovakia had been given unrealistic quotas by the Soviet general staff. They decided to invite more Soviet advisors to run the militarisation program and take the responsibility if its objective were not achieved. Some Soviet advisors already arrived in 1948 and 1950. They organised and commanded a Soviet-style secret police apparatus and sought out victims, forced their confessions, and stage-managed their trials. Soon they extended the range of crimes and included Communists in their purge. Leading Slovak Communists (including G. Husak, who had headed their coup in November 1947) were arrested on a charge of bourgeois nationalism. Stalin's agents soon struck at the heart of Czechoslovak Communist Party. Even its Secretary General R. Slansky fell and was ultimately executed. His Jewish origin made Stalin pick on him rather than on Gottwald.

In March 1953 Stalin and Gottwald suddenly died. The results of the militarization program were disastrous. It absorbed half of the total industrial investment. Military production was increased by 700 percent! The output of agricultural machinery had declined to 69 percent of the 1949 level, tractors to 28 percent, passenger cars to 46 percent and truck to 87 percent. Traditional consumer industries were undermined. Living standard declined. Since high wages were paid to employees in industries that did not produce consumers goods and services, the population accumulated enormous savings. In June 1953 a currency reform nullified the savings, causing worker's riots in several industrial centres.

The period of relaxation started in mid-1953 and ended abruptly in 1955. During this time the Czechoslovak economy was run in accordance with continually redrafted, ad hoc, one year plans. Parallel to the development in USSR and Nikita Khrushchev's career, A. Novotny's rise to supreme power in Czechoslovakia began as well. He was a rather limited apparatchik who could manipulate other apparatchiki.

He had been Gottwald's chief aide in the party after Slansky's arrest. However, he succeeded to apportion blame to "enemies" within and without the party. He consecutively sacrificed all his Stalinist friends. Many party members and leaders accused of "deviations" were heavily sentenced.

In the second five-year plan for 1956-60 emphasis was once again placed on heavy military industries. In 1958, a sort of economic reform with an emphasis on overall economic efficiency was introduced. However, it was accompanied by a "political verification" of entire employed population. As a result, tens of thousands of managerial and technical personal were purged.

The third five-year plan for 1960-65 came to a bitter end, known as the first "socialist economic recession". The recession shocked the party leadership which firmly believed that the central planning would ensure non-cyclical economic development. A group of "economists" called for a profound systematic reform based on a synthesis of a market and an indicative plan. They were either reformers (O.Sik), or technocrats (O.Cermak) or even dissatisfied members of the central committee of the Communist party. However, the party apparatus refused to give up its control over the economy, including the day-to-day control of enterprises.

Tensions between the reluctantly reformed economic system and the unchanged political system were growing. The "economists" were joined by a large group of party "intellectuals" who detested the self-made President and resented his occasional interference in a sphere they considered as their own domain.

In addition, President Novotny succeeded in antagonising the Slovaks. In 1950s Slovak communists grumbling was drowned in the blood, but in the 1960s, when the surviving victims were rehabilitated and resumed important offices, the grumbling recurred.

The organisation structure of the Czechoslovak Communist Party was asymmetrical. The Slovak Communist Party had been surviving as its subordinated branch since the uprising in 1944. There was no similar Czech counterpart.

At the Central Committee meeting in October 1967, Alexander Dubcek, the First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party, unexpectedly criticised Novotny for systematically damaging Slovakia's economic and cultural interests. Many CC members from Bohemia and Moravia joined the attack demanding the separation of the posts of first secretary and president. Novotny found himself in a minority.

In despair he appealed to the Soviet leaders to help him, but they refused, for they considered him as the fallen Khrushchev's protégé, and disliked him accordingly. In January 1968 Dubcek was elected the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Novotny remained President. Surprisingly, Dubcek decided to force his retreat by means of the pressure of public opinion within and without the party. The media look up this task with great enthusiasm. Novotny had to resign.

In April 68 the Communist Party proclaimed a new action program - AP. It promised federalisation with Slovakia. (There would be no possibility of Czechs outvoting Slovaks on legal or constitutional questions). However, AP would not give up " the leading role" of the Communist Party.

Other political parties and associations would have been tolerated only under the condition of accepting the Communist monopoly of political power within the so-called National Front. AP recognised the necessity of introducing market forces and modest private enterprise in the service sector.

The newly acquired freedom of communication not only revitalised communist party but also resuscitated old political forces.

The Soviet leaders came to consider the Czechoslovak experiment as great unorthodox risk. But the Czechoslovak leaders were impressed by an enthusiastic popular support and wanted to make use of it. They believed that they would be permitted to devise their own particular "socialism with human face" different from the Soviet and Chinese ones. This was a miscalculation. On August 21, 1968 the Soviet army, and four other "allies" invaded and occupied Czechoslovak territory. Many leaders, including Dubcek, Premier Cernak and Parliament President Smrkovsky were kidnapped to the USSR.

The spontaneous passive resistance prevented Soviets to install a new government headed by members of die-hards Indra - Bilak group. However, on August 26 the Moscow Protocol was signed that enabled Dubcek to return as First Secretary of CP, but left him little room for manoeuvre. The Czechoslovak public was not informed of the full content of the protocol. Dubcek's reassurances that he intended to continue with so-called post-January policies calmed the situation for a while. Although many reformers could preliminary keep their position a strong group of die-hards had to be appointed to the Central Committee. However the die-hards were extremely unpopular and Bilak was replaced by Husak at the top of the Slovak Communist party. Husak had been in charge of the committee preparing Czech-Slovak federation. His position was that so long as Czechoslovakia was federated, much of the rest of the Action Program was negotiable. The constitution law signed on October 28, 1968, the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, created a new federal republic and two national republics, Slovak and Czech, which were to enjoy equal and wide autonomy. This meant at least temporary satisfaction for the Slovaks and strengthening the position of Husak. He became more and more critical of Dubcek and the unrealistic policies that he believed Dubcek stood for.

Reaction and Stagnation

On 17 April 1969 the central committee announced that Dubcek was replaced by Husak as first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. However, Husak soon found himself outvoted by the die-hards in the CC. He had to stop his frequent unprepared public presentations and limit himself to reading ideologically approved boring speeches. Having no other choice he served the die-hards and Soviets enjoying the glance of the topmost post in the party to which he added that of Czechoslovak President in 1975, reaching the very "cumulation of functions" for which Novotny had been removed.

He was ruthless enough to preside over the relentless purges of his former colleagues. The screening of party members reduced its numbers from 140000 to 1100000. The purges affected the central and local bureaucracies, the news media and the whole education system. Although Czechoslovakia was formally a federation of two national states with separate governments and national councils, the organisation structure of the Communist Party remained asymmetric and most of real power was centralised in the hands of its Presidium in Prague. Husak's only credit seems to be that no show trials of reform leaders have occurred.

Since 1970 most elements of the economic reforms from the second half of 1960s were withdrawn and Czechoslovakia became a rigidly neo-Stalinistic country. However, her economic performance in the first half of 1970s was surprisingly good. The post-1969 leadership began to invest in consumer branches, agriculture, housing and infrastructure. In Prague the construction of very expensive subway began, and so did the construction of a modern highway from Prague to Brno and Bratislava. The consumer/infrastructure boom was partly financed by loans both from the East and the West. Productive investment was postponed. The trade balance was in the red.

However, the situation changed since mid 1970-s Industry, energy and joint project with the Comecon required large investments while debts had to be repaid and trade balanced.

The world energy crisis forced the leadership increasingly to substitute soft coal for oil and gas with disastrous environmental damage as a result. In the early 1980s another recession arrived. In 1980s, consumption continued to increase despite declining growth and investment ratio declined substantially.

Inspired by Perestroika in the Soviet Union, various measures were taken after 1986. New laws increased the possibilities of companies to engage in foreign trade and in joint ventures with foreign partners that were allowed to repatriate their profits.


Culture

Different Arts

After almost 900 years of Hungarian domination, a 19th-century National Revival commenced with the creation of the Slovak literary language by the nationalist L'udovit Stur. This enabled the emergence of a Slovak national consciousness. One of the leading artists in the revival was poet Pavol O Hviezdoslav, whose works have been translated into several languages. Slovakia's architectural wonders include the Gothic St James Church in Levoca and the magnificent Renaissance buildings in Bardejov. Traditional Slovak folk instruments include the fujara (a 2m/6.5ft-long flute), the gajdy (bagpipes) and the konkovka (a strident shepherd's flute). Folk songs helped preserve the Slovak language during Hungarian rule, and in East Slovakia ancient folk traditions still play an important part in village life.

Religion

Religion is taken pretty seriously by the folksy Slovaks. Catholics are in a majority but Protestants and Evangelicals are also numerous. In East Slovakia there are many Greek Catholics and Orthodox believers. There are only a few thousand Jews in Slovakia today: some 73,500 Slovak Jews were removed to concentration camps by the Nazi SS and the Slovak Hlinka guards. After the war most survivors left for Israel. Slovakia's Romany gypsies escaped deportation but many have left for the Czech Republic where jobs have been easier to come by. As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, there is much prejudice against gypsies.

Language

An aspect of Slovak nationalism is pride in the language and Slovaks can get a little hot under the collar when Slovak is given short shrift in comparison with other Slavic languages. As a visitor you won't be taken to task for mixing Czech with Slovak, but any effort to communicate in the local language will be appreciated. Although many people working in tourism have a good knowledge of English, in rural Slovakia very few people speak anything other than Slovak. German is probably the most useful non-Slavic language to know.

Food & Drinks

Slovak cuisine is basic central European fare: meat, dumplings, potatoes or rice topped with a thick sauce, and a heavily cooked vegetable or sauerkraut. Caraway seed, bacon and lots of salt are the common flavourings. Lunch is the main meal; dinner may be no more than a cold plate. Vegetarians aren't going to have a great choice - beware of apparently meatless dishes cooked in animal stock or fat and get ready for lots of fried cheese, omelettes and potatoes. Slovaks are known as wine rather than beer drinkers - the Tokaj region along the Hungarian border squeezes out a good drop.

Christmas

Centuries ago, the western half of Czechoslovakia was known as Bohemia. This was the 10th century home of Good King Wenceslaus, the main character in the familiar English Christmas carol. It is said that English troops, fighting in Bohemia hundreds of years later, brought the song home with them.

In Slovakia, St. Nicholas is called Svaty Mikalas and is believed to climb to earth down from heaven on a golden rope along with his companions: an angel and a whip-carrying devil.

An ancient tradition shared by Czech, Slovakia and Poland involves cutting a branch from a cherry tree putting it in water indoors to bloom. If the bloom opens in time for Christmas it is considered good luck, and also a sign that the winter may be short. The hope of early spring helps keep spirits up during the long dark winter.

Source: lonely planet


Events

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National holidays

  • Jan 1: Slovak Republic Day
  • Jan 6: Epiphany
  • May 1: Labor Day
  • May 8: End of World War II
  • Aug 29: Slovak Nation. Uprising Day
  • Sep 15: The Day of the Virgin of Mary of the Seven Sorrows
  • Dec 24: Christmas Eve
  • Dec 25: Christmas Day
  • Dec 26: St. Stephen's Day
  • Jul 5: St. Cyril & St. Methodious Day
  • Sep 1: Slovak Consitituion Day
  • Nov 1: All Saints Day
  • Good Friday
  • Easter Monday
  • Easter Sunday

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