514
Conclusion
Very often people operate with the ethnic
fiction that the Slovaks are a different nation
from the Czechs, as if the Czechoslovak state
barely had a unitary Slav (Czech) majority.
Tomáš G. Masaryk, 1923 1
Our republic stands on two pillars. One pillar is
the Slovak nation and the other pillar is the
Czech nation. Whoever touches one of those
pillars threatens the whole building.
Karol Körper, 1934 2
T
he primary objective of this thesis has been dual. One objective was to explain why the
Czechoslovak nation project failed. The other was to analyze the basis for the increased
national conflict between Czechs and Slovaks during the First Czechoslovak Republic.
Drawing on theories of nations and nationalism and typologies of national conflict regulation,
I developed a nationality policy framework that was used as a structuring device for the
analysis and a point of departure for developing explanations.
In this concluding chapter, I will summarize the empirical findings, draw some conclusions,
and discuss some theoretical implications. The first part of the chapter concentrates on
summarizing findings across the previous chapters, with special emphasis on the cohesion and
composition of the various Slovak national demands and the nationality policy of the
government. The findings of each chapter have already been summarized along the way, and
will only be repeated insofar that it is necessary in order to underpin the conclusions.
The second part of the chapter addresses the overarching problems that were raised in the
introduction: (1) What was the foundation for the increased national conflict between Czechs
and Slovaks during the First Republic? (2) Why did the Czechoslovak nation project fail? The
focus is here on causes. This part also contains a discussion of what motivated the leading
politicians, which has been a secondary theme of the thesis. Of special interest in this regard is
why consecutive Czechoslovak governments kept insisting on a unitary Czechoslovak nation
and state, long after it had become clear that Czechoslovakism had failed.
The third part of the chapter is a discussion of the theoretical implications of the study, with
special emphasis on the debate as to whether nations can be constructed. In this context I will
return to the question in the title: Was the Czechoslovak nation project doomed to failure?
Finally, I will evaluate the nationality policy framework that formed the theoretical approach.
1
(Velmi často se dokonce operuje ethnickou fikcí, že Slováci jsou národ od Čechů různý, jako by československý stát sotva
měl jednotnou (českou) většinu slovanskou. To je, jak řečeno, fikce, jíž se užívá proti Československu v nevěcných politických polemikách). T.G. Masaryk: Slované po válce [1923], printed in: T.G. Masaryk: Slovanské problémy (1928:13–14).
2
(Naša republika stojí na dvoch pilieroch. Jedným pilierom je národ slovenský a druhým pilierom je národ český. Kto hýbe
jedným z týchto pilierov ohrožuje celú stavbu). Karol Körper, referred in Slovák no. 151, 8.7.1934:1.
515
Summary of the empirical findings
First to the matter of agency: The main cleavage at the elite level was not between Czechs and
Slovaks, but between Czech and Slovak Czechoslovakists/centralists on the one hand and
Slovak autonomists on the other hand. One part of the Slovak political and intellectual elite
thus supported the Czechoslovak nation project, while the other part defended the Slovak
nation, in the spirit of the pre-war Slovak national movement. This also means that most of the
national demands that were raised on behalf of the Slovaks were filed by the Slovak autonomists. The fact that the divide within the Slovak political elite at least partly followed the
religious divide between Protestants and Catholics, was a historical legacy. On the Czech side,
there was no substantial opposition to Czechoslovakism, for reasons to be discussed.
Composition of national demands over time
Among the symbolic demands, recognition as an individual Slovak nation was the most
salient. This demand was closely related to the demand for autonomy, since it was a central
premise in most of the arguments for autonomy. The more specific symbolic demands were in
turn linked to recognition and/or autonomy. Good examples are the demand that October 30th
be celebrated on par with October 28th, and that the name of the republic be spelled with a
hyphen. Likewise, the complaint that the Slovak nation was missing as a separate category in
the census was another way of demanding recognition.
Among the more practical national demands, the most salient demands within the cultural and
the economic dimension were expressed through the slogans "Slovak in Slovakia" and
"Slovakia for the Slovaks." Both were associated with the presence of a large (and increasing)
number of Czechs in Slovakia. The former was a linguistic demand, claiming that Slovak
should be used as the official language in all public organs in Slovakia, and usually concerned
the implementation of § 4 in the Language Act. When this did not work, the autonomists tried
to have the Language Act changed, without any success. This demand remained salient
throughout the period, but the arenas to which it applied changed somewhat, from an
emphasis on the administration and school system in the 1920s to an emphasis on the university, the railways, the police and the army in the 1930s. This seems to have reflected a reality.
The slogan "Slovakia for the Slovaks" concerned work opportunities in the public sector,
especially for the Slovak intelligentsia. In the early 1920s, the demand that jobs in Slovakia
should be reserved for Slovaks mostly concerned the situation of the "new Slovaks", as also
reflected in the argumentation. From the latter half of the 1920s, the focus shifted to the young
Slovak intelligentsia. It has been claimed that by the end of the 1920s, there were enough
educated young Slovaks to fill the public positions in Slovakia, but that more experienced
Czechs blocked their way. This is a classical example of a nationally relevant conflict where
the interests of one social group (the young Slovaks) were sublimated into the interest of the
whole nation. Reliable data showing the actual extent of unemployment among the young
Slovak intelligentsia were hard to come by. However, precisely because of this lack of
accurate information, also at the time, the reality was less important than the perception.
516
Within the political dimension, the most salient Slovak national demand concerned autonomy.
Autonomy demands started to appear almost immediately after the founding of the Czechoslovak state. Indeed, autonomy had even been discussed at Martin in October 1918, but was
omitted from the Martin Declaration, evidently for tactical reasons. Likewise, if Dérer's
version is correct, the entire Slovak Club (even the six ľudáks) agreed that it would not be
wise to demand autonomy at the time when the Constitution was adopted.
What was meant by autonomy varied, but most autonomy schemes included some sort of
federal arrangement. It is striking how all the three ľudák autonomy proposals that were
presented to the Parliament echoed the elements of the Pittsburgh Agreement: namely that
Slovakia should have her own administration, her own Parliament and her own courts.
Likewise, all proposals sought to respond to the two most salient demands within the cultural
and economic dimension, by ensuring the status of Slovak as the official language in Slovakia
and by placing the hiring of personnel under the jurisdiction of the autonomous Slovak organs.
Autonomy was a means to an end; that end was to safeguard the interests and the existence of
the Slovak nation. The cohesion between the most salient Slovak symbolic and more practical
demands was thus clear, and the same goes for the practical demands made within the
political, cultural and economic dimensions.
Other demands were more restricted in time. If we take the cultural dimension first, religious
demands were far apart, and mostly concentrated to the (early) 1920s. There were really only
two issues that created any national turmoil: The clash over Hus Day in 1925, and the matter
of the confessional schools. In the former case, the Slovak People's Party and the
Czechoslovak People's Party – otherwise allies in religious matters – parted company. To the
Slovak Catholics, Hus was a heretic; to the Czechs, he was a national figure. This was thus a
symbolic as much as it was a religious issue. In the case of the confessional schools the
Czechoslovak People's Party did side with the ľudáks (cf. Mičura's support), but since there
were no such schools in the Czech lands, confessional schools remained a Slovak matter.
In the 1930s, the demands for the completion of the Slovak higher education system dominated, with a polytechnic as a core demand. The reason why these issues were lower on the
agenda in the (early) 1920s was probably that Slovaks did not start to enter higher education
in any large numbers until the late 1920s. The demand for a Slovak polytechnic was also
associated with the chronic lack of technically skilled personnel, which had repercussion for
the economic life of Slovakia because it slowed down the construction of roads and railways.
In the economic dimension, the temporal issues were generally of a spatial kind. The most
burning spatial issues were insufficient investments in Slovakia, especially in infrastructure,
and higher freight tariffs and taxes in Slovakia than in the Czech lands. Railway construction
became an issue already in the mid-1920s, whereas demands concerning road construction
only began appearing in the late 1920s, since road transportation had not been economically
important in Slovakia previously. These demands lessened in the second half of the 1930s. In
addition, in the late 1920s there were some complaints of Czechs acquiring land in Slovakia
through the land reform.
517
The main conflict within the political dimension, apart from the autonomy question, concerned the political-administrative organization of the state. In addition, there were some complaints concerning violations of civil rights (chiefly in connection with censorship), and a few
concerning the "robbery" of Slovakia of some of the deputies that belonged to her by law.
Otherwise, autonomists complained that the Czechoslovak-oriented, Protestant wing was
over-represented in the Slovak Club in the Revolutionary Parliament and that that some of the
co-opted members were Czechs. Individual political or civil rights were not any major issue –
which was to be expected, considering that Czechoslovakia remained fairly democratic.
While a whole battery of demands was filed on behalf of the Slovaks, Czech demands were
exclusively of a cultural kind. Two of the most important unfulfilled Czech cultural demands
from the Austrian period were attended to already in the Revolutionary Parliament: The
founding of a second Czech university in Moravia, and the introduction of Czech as the
administrative language in Czech-speaking areas. After 1920, the great majority of the Czech
demands concerned Czech schools for the Czech minorities in the German-speaking areas.
The nationality policy of the government
The nationality policy of the Czechoslovak government during the First Republic cannot be
summed up in a single word. It was a typically mixed strategy and thus hard to place on a
scale from accommodating, via neutral to repressive strategies; moreover, it changed over
time. Some national demands within each of the dimensions were accommodated, while
others were not. Nevertheless, the nationality policy remained quite consistent, and was
inversely related to Slovak national demands, in the sense that the most salient demands were
those which were not met, while the demands that were met were more short-lived. This is in
line with the expectation that demands that are accommodated will disappear from the agenda.
At the symbolic level, the policy was consistently non-accommodating or repressive. The
government insisted on Czechoslovak national and state unity: those who opposed this
ideology were accused of being Magyarones or renegades and of running the errand of foreign
powers. The only Slovak symbolic demand that was met was the proposal to honor Milan R.
Štefánik, and although he was counted among the Czechoslovakists, not even this proposal
was accepted immediately. Only after the Munich settlement did the government coalition
recognize the Slovaks as an individual nation – and even then the leading Czechoslovak
politicians were not exactly happy about it.
Since Czechoslovak national and state unity were strongly interconnected in the Czechoslovakist national ideology, the refusal to recognize the Slovaks as an individual nation went
hand in hand with a rejection of the demand for autonomy. Bearing in mind that the
government did acknowledge the principle of national self-determination (according to which
Czechoslovakia was founded), recognizing the Slovaks as a separate nation would mean
recognizing their right to autonomy – or in the final instance even to secession. Conversely,
allowing autonomy would mean recognizing the Slovaks as a nation, which in turn would
undermine the status of Czechoslovakia as a nation-state.
518
To a certain extent, the stance of the government to demands for recognition and autonomy
also affected policies within other dimensions. This is perhaps clearest in the case of the
Language Act in pursuance of § 129 in the Constitution of 1920, where the "Czechoslovak
language" was granted privileged status as the state, official language. First, a proposal from
the Slovak Club to turn Czechoslovak into Czech and Slovak was turned down, because that
would have been contrary to the notion of a single Czechoslovak nation. Second, although
Article 4 decided that "as a rule" Czech should be used in the Czech lands and Slovak in
Slovakia, a Czech public employee could always answer a Slovak in Czech and vice versa. In
practice, this provision worked to the Czechs' advantage.
Although the government declined to amend the existing legislation with respect to language
rights, the policy did in fact change. Around the time when the ľudáks entered the
government, two decrees were issued, ordering all ministries to implement the language regulations regarding the use of Slovak as the state language in Slovakia, and to take action against
negligent public organs. This (and a Slovak krajina) were basically what the ľudáks got out of
their participation in the government. The language policy was thus partly accommodating in
practice, and it seems that the situation did improve in the 1930s.
Finally, the insistence that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation also had consequences for
the government's hiring policy in Slovakia. First, it legitimized the recruitment of Czechs to
jobs in the public sector of Slovakia after 1918. Since the Slovak intelligentsia was too small
at the time to fill the vacancies, Czechs were undoubtedly needed in order to run the Slovak
schools and administration, especially in the early 1920s. This argument is not equally valid in
the railways and postal service, where "national trustworthiness" was a more important reason
for hiring Czechs. The fact that the Czechs were privileged in terms of pay in this period, was
not a result of discrimination of the Slovaks, but of an employment policy that valued merit
over nationality. In this area the nationality policy should thus be characterized as neutral. The
pay privileges and drafting of Czech teachers were abolished around 1925/1926, when the
recruitment of new Czechs was no longer needed.
Second, the insistence that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation became an obstacle to
preferential treatment of the Slovaks once the Slovak intelligentsia became large enough to
run Slovak affairs, in the late 1920s. The economic crisis that started in 1929 only made the
situation worse, since the economic retrenchment policy reduced the number of public jobs. It
was the Slovaks who lost out in the competition, since they tended to have less education and
less experience than the Czechs, and official employment quotas for the Slovaks could not be
introduced – that would imply recognizing them as a nation. Dérer's silent "Slovaks first"
hiring policy in the case of qualified teachers applied only to the few vacant positions there
were. It was politically impossible for the government to kick out Czechs in order to employ
Slovaks, not least since the Czech lands were even more affected by the economic crisis than
Slovakia. The combination of Official Czechoslovakism and merit as employment criterion
thus worked against the interests of the Slovaks.
519
What the demands that were accommodated had in common, was that they did not run
contrary to Official Czechoslovakism, and that the Slovak autonomists were able to form
alliances with Czech interests, or also with Slovak deputies of the centralist parties. This
follows from the political law of gravity. As long as the ľudáks stood alone, they were simply
too small with their 7 % of the deputies to play any important role at the central level. But it
was also a matter of logic: for the government it represented less of a problem to go against a
bunch of "Magyarones" than to go against all the political representatives of the Slovaks.
Three types of issues stand out. First, in spatial issues concerning Slovakia, the Slovak autonomists found allies among other Slovak politicians. In fact, the latter were often as active as
the former. This especially goes for economic issues, like the Mint in Kremnica, the demand
for leveling of railway tariffs and taxes, the demand for investments in Slovak infrastructure,
but also the demand for the expansion of the Slovak school system. Solving some of these
problems did take some time, but major progress was achieved during the 1930s, especially in
railway construction, although the road plan of 1920 was never fully implemented. Not only
was the accommodation of these demands compatible with the official Czechoslovakist
doctrine; it was argued quite explicitly that if only all obstacles to Czechoslovak unity were
removed, then this unity would eventually become a reality. Besides, construction works
provided convenient emergency employment during the economic crisis in the mid-1930s.
Second, religious issues stand out, in the sense that most conflict matters were solved already
in the early 1920s, and religious issues were generally not allowed to constitute nationally
relevant conflicts between Czechs and Slovaks. An important precondition for this was of
course that the Czechs and Slovaks were both predominantly Catholic, but it also seems that
the government realized the conflict potential of religion, and consciously sought to steer
clear. In most religious issues the two Catholic parties, the ľudáks and the Czechoslovak
People's Party united against the socialists, while the pragmatic Agrarians had religious
conciliation as an explicit goal. Formal separation of church and state was never implemented,
and religion remained a compulsory subject in Slovakia, even in state schools. To the extent
that religious issues created national turmoil, they either had national-symbolic overtones (as
in the case of Hus Day and the celebration of the first church in Nitra) or also concerned the
degree of religiousness (the question of the confessional schools in Slovakia).
Third, in the case of the political-administrative organization of the state, the Slovak
autonomists had allies among the National Democrats as well as the Czechoslovak People's
Party, who actually represented the strongest opposition against the county arrangement of
1920. The former party feared what might come from the two almost exclusively German
counties, while the latter invoked Moravian patriotism and also wanted more regional
autonomy than the centralized system allowed. In 1920, the Slovaks were still organized in
one Club, and no opposition was thus voiced in the Parliament, while reports in Slovák
suggest that the main opposition to the new counties concerned the merging of the old counties into six larger units. When the regional reform was adopted in 1927, Slovak autonomists
nevertheless presented it as a victory and as a first step towards political autonomy.
520
While part of the motivation behind the regional reform may have been to accommodate the
Slovak autonomists, that can hardly be the whole picture. Of the Czechoslovak parties, it was
really only the Agrarians who changed their minds between 1920 and 1927, and their argumentation in the debate on regional reform suggests that without the strong Czech opposition
to the county system, a Slovak krajina would never have come into being. On the other hand,
the Agrarians changed their stance on the political-administrative structure only after the
election of 1925, which suggests that the fact that the Slovak People's Party had more than
doubled its following did make an impression. In addition, policy objectives like religious
conciliation and agrarian advantages (which could be achieved only through a bourgeois
coalition) probably also played a role for the Agrarians. All in all, the practical nationality
policy of the government was more on the accommodating than the repressive side.
Why did Czechoslovakism fail and the conflict level rise?
After this summary, it is time to turn to the more overarching questions. The questions of why
Czechoslovakism failed and the national conflict level increased will be treated together, since
the answer to the latter has a bearing on the former and (partly) vice versa.
I argued in Chapter Three that nation-forming processes seem to require as a minimum (1) the
presence of a nation-forming elite that formulates what it means to be a nation and spreads
this national identity to the masses, and (2) the necessary means to do so. Both conditions
were present in the case of the Czechoslovak nation project. The Czechoslovakists and the
Slovak autonomists were the carriers of competing national ideologies, but while the former
had at its disposal the means of a ruling elite, the latter had the means of a national movement.
Since Czechoslovakia was a democracy, the mass media were not under exclusive government
control. The autonomists had their own journals and newspapers, whereas the school system
was more or less under government control.
Furthermore, I argued that these two minimum requirements are not enough for the nationforming process to succeed. I then suggested that the existence of nationally relevant conflicts
is important – that national-cultural divides correspond to certain conflicts of interest.
Why did Czechoslovakism fail? The reasons can be divided in two. On the one hand, the
failure of the Czechoslovak nation project can be attributed to the ideology itself, or more
precisely, its contents and dispersal. The nature of the ideology is also the main reason why
the competition only came from the Slovak side, while there was no substantial Czech opposition to Czechoslovakism. On the other hand, it may be argued that the Czechoslovak nation
project failed because the conflict structure favored the Slovak autonomists – in other words,
it failed for the same reasons that the conflict level between the Czechs and Slovaks rose.
Several factors worked together to produce this result. First, the transition to independent
statehood in combination with the heritage of Austria-Hungary provided the basis for many of
the conflict issues. Second, the post-war economic crisis in 1921–23 and the worldwide economic crisis in the 1930s severely restricted the government's freedom of action. Third, the
government made some mistakes, and was also more directly responsible for some conflicts.
521
Reasons internal to Czechoslovakism as ideology
Overarching nation projects in the West have often been of a political kind, and it has been
claimed that also Czechoslovakism was based on a political nation concept. Our analysis has
demonstrated that the features that were deemed to constitute Czechoslovak unity were ethnic
and cultural affinity (based on the Slav forefathers and linguistic affinity), and partly shared
history. In other words, we have seen that Czechoslovakism was based on a cultural rather
than a political nation concept, albeit often combined with a voluntarist nation concept.
The foundations of Official Czechoslovakism were laid during the First World War, with the
independence movement abroad with Masaryk at the helm playing an important part. The idea
that the Czechs and Slovaks were one nation was of course nothing new; it had roots in both
national revivals. The same goes for the difference between the Czech and Slovak conception
of Czechoslovak unity, where the Czechs tended to see the Slovaks as a part of the Czech
nation, while the Slovak conception of Czechoslovakism was more that of two equal tribes.
However, Official Czechoslovakism differed from the Czechoslovak reciprocity of the 19th
century in three major respects. First, the existence of a Slovak literary language was taken for
granted. Second, through a reinterpretation of history, Czechoslovakist scholars and
politicians elaborated on what Czechoslovak national unity consisted in. Third, while
Czechoslovak reciprocity had been cultural in orientation, a central aim of Official
Czechoslovakism was political legitimization of Czechoslovakia as a nation-state.
There were two main problems with this ideology: For one thing, the projected Czechoslovak
national unity was based on the same constituting features (shared history and language) as
the existing Czech and Slovak identities. The latter obviously had an advantage over Czechoslovakism, both because of their head start and because the features that were said to unite the
Czechs (respectively the Slovaks) in fact did; the Czechs (Slovaks) shared a history and a
literary language. A considerable amount of construction, or even invention, was needed in
order make these features appear as uniting the Czechs and Slovaks. The duplicity of the
Czechoslovakist ideology suggests that this was no easy task. There was a dualism in terms of
language, since no serious attempt was made at turning Czech and Slovak into one language –
and, in view of the strong reactions to the new Slovak orthography, this was probably a wise
choice. The solution was to construct a theoretical Czechoslovak linguistic unity by presenting
Czech and Slovak as two variants of the same (Czech) language, to explain away the linguistic
split, and/or to down-grade the importance of language as a cultural marker.
There was also a dualism in terms of ethnicity, since the Czechs and Slovaks were regarded as
separate tribes of the Czechoslovak nation. Differences in national character were explained
by the long separation of the Czechs and Slovaks. Finally, precisely because the Czechs and
Slovaks had lived apart for almost one thousand years, it was no easy task to construct a
Czechoslovak history to support this new identity, especially since alternative Czech and
Slovak interpretations of that history had existed since the beginning of the national revivals.
The solution was to use the few contacts there were between the Czechs and the Slovaks for
what they were worth, which in practice mostly meant rewriting Slovak history.
522
The second problem was the Czech bias, which took several forms. First, there was an obvious one-sidedness in the presentation of who contributed to whom: The Czechs were always
on the giving, while the Slovaks were on the receiving end. (On this point, Hodža's and partly
Šrobár's interpretation differed somewhat from that of Czech scholars.) Moreover, all Czech
influences were regarded as positive, whereas severing of the contact was seen as negative.
Second, especially the Czech scholars (and they were the majority) presented the Czechs as
the norm, with the Slovaks as the deviation. Everything that separated the Czechs and Slovaks
was thus caused either by isolation of the Slovaks from the positive Czech influences, or by
cultural retardation caused by the long stay in a Magyar (by implication barbarian) environment. This tendency to present everything Czech as positive and normal and everything
Slovak as negative and Magyar created strong reactions, and must have been counterproductive to the formation of an overarching Czechoslovak identity.
Third, the Czech bias showed itself in the extension of the Czech interpretation of history. The
best example is perhaps implanting into Slovak history the view of Hussism as the most glorious period in Czech history. Great importance was attributed to the stay of the Czech Hussites
in Slovakia. This and the introduction of the Czech language in the administration of Slovakia
were held to strengthen Czechoslovak unity. In fact, Hussism was not important in Slovak
history – indeed, to a majority of the Slovak (Catholic) population, Hus was still a heretic. The
firm insistence on Hussism was thus most likely also counterproductive. In addition, it was
probably not even true that Hussism had served to strengthen the bonds between the Czechs
and Slovaks: invading forces are seldom welcomed by the native population.
The heavy emphasis on the role of the Protestant Czech exiles in strengthening Czechoslovak
unity was more in line with the facts, and it was also understandable considering who the
Slovak Czechoslovakists were. Nevertheless, it was tactically unwise to present Protestantism
as a positive force and Catholicism as a negative force. Also on this point, the Czechoslovakist
ideology was a continuation of a Czech tradition: the strong anti-clericalist current, and the
negative evaluation of the Papacy and the Counter Reformation in Czech historiography. In
this case an alternative was available: the Czechoslovakists could have emphasized that both
the Czechs and the Slovaks were in majority Catholics. However, this might have alienated
those Slovaks who were already Czech oriented – they were Protestants – as well as
progressive Czechs. Moreover, it was Masaryk who founded the ideology, and it would have
run contrary to all his earlier ideas to base Czechoslovakism on Catholicism.
While Czechoslovakism was contrary to Slovak historiography and attacked some of the core
ideas in the national ideology, it did not introduce any new elements that were contrary to the
existing Czech interpretation of history and the existing conception of Czech-ness. The new
identity was complementary rather than competing, which is probably one of the reasons why
there was no substantial Czech opposition to Czechoslovakism. For the Czechs, Czech and
Czechoslovak amounted to the same; it was a mere change of labels. This was also reflected in
the Czech proclivity towards using "Czech" and "Czechoslovak" synonymously, a striking
feature of school textbooks in history as well as statements of politicians and scholars.
523
The foundation for the increased conflict level
The other part of the explanation of why Czechoslovakism failed is tied to the rising level of
conflict. While they were still under Austria-Hungary, the Czechs and Slovaks were in a
similar situation nationally, in that both were oppressed – by the Germans and the Magyars,
respectively. And although there were large differences between the Czech lands and
Slovakia, these differences did not constitute nationally relevant conflicts between Czechs and
Slovaks, chiefly because they belonged to different parts of the empire. For the same reason,
contacts between Czechs and Slovaks were limited and mostly of a cultural kind.
After 1918, the Czechs became in practice the ruling nation of the new state, dominating the
political establishment, the central administration and economic life by virtue of their level of
development as well as their numbers. In the course of only a few years, the cordial elite
relations between the Czechs and Slovaks had changed dramatically. Once the political center
of gravitation shifted from Vienna and Budapest to Prague, the large differences between the
Czech lands and Slovakia became a problem, and it may be argued with some right that the
government did not take the Slovak grievances serious enough in the early 1920s. However, to
be fair, the tasks were formidable and the economic restraints on government action clear.
THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN HERITAGE
The legacy of Austria-Hungary was perhaps the greatest obstacle to a harmonious
development of Czecho–Slovak relations after 1918. The most important part of this legacy
involved the different economic, political and cultural development in the two parts of the
empire, which provided the material basis for many of the national conflicts of the inter-war
period. The spatial economic issues associated with infrastructure, uneven development, and
higher taxes and freight rates in Slovakia stand out in this respect, but also the demands for the
expansion of the Slovak education system were directly associated with the Hungarian past –
specifically the Magyarization policy of the former regime. These conflicts were thus not
caused by government policy – other than indirectly, through sins of omission.
To some extent, the conflicts surrounding the Czechs in Slovakia were also indirectly caused
by the historical heritage – specifically the Magyarization policy which had rendered the
Slovak intelligentsia too small to fill the necessary public positions in Slovakia. These
conflicts became exacerbated by the economic crisis of the 1930s, but also by a government
hiring policy based on merit.
Finally, Magyarization had left an important psychological legacy. Part of the reason why the
Czechoslovak nation project was perceived as threatening to Slovak national existence was
probably that what had started as an Hungarian political nation had taken on the ambition of
assimilating all non-Magyar groups in Hungary into a Magyar nation. Moreover, in Hungary
non-recognition of Slovak nationhood was intimately linked to a refusal of Slovak national
rights. The view that there was "no Slovak nation" thus had unfortunate historical antecedents.
In the Czech case, however, this was not a problem, since forced assimilation had never been
attempted in the Austrian part of the empire.
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ECONOMIC CONSTRAINTS
Throughout the period, the economic constraints on government action were severe, which
only added to the problems created by the Austrian-Hungarian heritage. During the 1920s,
very little was done to bridge the gap in industrialization and economic development between
the Czech lands and Slovakia, although construction plans for railways and roads had been
adopted already in 1920. Especially in the early 1920s, there was insufficient funding to
finance investments in industry and infrastructure, and at the same time carry out the
domestication process and support the Czechoslovak currency. It seems that, in this situation,
top priority was given to becoming independent of the former Austrian and Hungarian
economic centers and ensuring Czech ownership of commerce and industry.
The weakness of Slovak capital made Slovakia more vulnerable, and her weak infrastructure
and the higher tariffs were drawbacks in the competition on the Czechoslovak market. Slovakia thus faced de-industrialization at a time when what was needed was the opposite. One
result of this was that emigration was much higher from Slovakia than from the Czech lands.
At this point, Slovakia was simply not high enough on the list of priorities. By the late the
1920s, the challenges associated with the economic restructuring process had been dealt with,
and the problems of Slovakia were taken more seriously. There is a certain irony in the fact
that more was done to bridge the gap and improve the infrastructure in Slovakia during the
crisis years in the 1930s, than during the period of economic growth in the late 1920s, even at
the cost of accumulating state debt. This shows that Slovakia had indeed become a priority.
As already indicated, the economic crisis of the 1930s did work as a restraint on government
hiring policy. It would have been easier to introduce quotas for Slovaks in a situation with
economic growth. As it was, the only way of employing more Slovaks in public jobs in
Slovakia would have been to kick out Czechs, and a policy along these lines would certainly
have led to strong reactions from the Czech ruling nation. Likewise, the postponement of a
Slovak polytechnic was probably linked to the budgetary situation in the 1930s, although the
lack of qualified teaching staff may have played a role as well.
I had expected to find that the economic crisis created more national tensions between the
Czechs and Slovaks than it actually did. However, the Slovak autonomists were prevented
from using the economic crisis fully in their agitation, because all official economic data
showed that Slovakia was less affected by the crisis than the Czech lands. Registered average
unemployment, for instance, was higher in the Czech lands than in Slovakia throughout the
entire crisis. It is quite certain that the unregistered unemployment was higher in Slovakia than
in the Czech lands; moreover, Slovakia had more "semi-employed" because of the large
number of seasonal workers in agriculture. Considering the overpopulation in Slovak agriculture and the low income level in Slovakia to begin with, it is likely that the autonomists
were right in arguing that the situation was as bad in Slovakia as in the Czech lands. Since
they could not document this, however, the economic crisis could not be used effectively to
mobilize the Slovaks behind the national cause, which is reflected by the fact that electoral
support for the autonomists did not increase much between the elections of 1929 and 1935.
525
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
As already indicated, the government was only partly responsible for the spatial economic
conflicts, mainly through sins of omission. Economic constraints at least partly explain why
little was done about the infrastructure in the early 1920s, but this is no excuse for the delay in
the harmonization of laws, tax levels and railway tariffs. The neglect of Slovakia's economic
needs in the early 1920s also stands in stark contrast to the tremendous effort that was put into
building up a Slovak education system almost from scratch (the only exception being higher
education, which did not have the same priority). It appears that the government did not start
to take Slovakia's economic problems seriously until after the 1925 election.
These priorities may have something to do with the fact that the Slovaks in the government
gravitated towards ministries that were important from a national, cultural point of view
(including the Ministry of Education and Enlightenment), while they were almost absent in
ministries of economic importance. Likewise, the Minister Plenipotentiary of Slovakia, Vavro
Šrobár and his referent aide Anton Štefánek worked hard to put a Slovak education system in
place. On the other hand, although all the Ministers of Unification of Laws in the 1920s were
Slovaks, little was done, so perhaps it would not have made any difference.
The government (or rather its servants) made some early mistakes that served to antagonize an
important part of the Slovak elite. First, Šrobár made two mistakes in selecting people to the
Slovak Club of the Revolutionary Parliament: He picked Czechs to represent the Slovaks, and
he gave preference to the Protestant and Czechoslovak-oriented wing of the Slovaks. This
gave the Protestant elite (who were from the outset closer to the Czechs) a stake in the state,
while alienating the Catholic majority. Part of the reason for Šrobár's choice was probably that
he wanted people he could trust; and, as he was a central figure in the Hlas circle, it was not
unnatural for him to choose his acquaintances from there. Furthermore, Protestants were overrepresented among the known nationally aware Slovak elite, as Table 21 shows.
Second, the recruitment policy in Slovakia was ill advised. Although the Czechs were sorely
needed in order to run the administration and schools, they were simply too many. Especially
in the postal service and the railways, Czechs could and should have been replaced with
Slovaks. Besides, it was not a good idea to send Czechs who were compromised by their past
as Austrian civil servants to Slovakia. Finally, although the majority of the Czechs who
arrived in Slovakia meant well and did a good job, tact was not always their strong side. In the
anti-religious fervor after the war, they did not pay enough attention to Slovak religious sensitivities, and some refused to learn the Slovak language. Considering that the clergy was
strongly represented in the Slovak nationally conscious elite, and that the Slovak battle cry
had been "for that our Slovak language", such behavior served to alienate the Slovaks more.
Third, it was not a particularly smart move to arrest Andrej Hlinka upon his return from the
Peace Conference in Paris. Technically, his clandestine travel and the message he presented
could be viewed as an act of treason to the Czechoslovak state, but Hlinka did not see things
that way. By ordering his imprisonment, the government made a strong enemy.
526
Finally, some conflict issues were more directly caused by government policy. This applies,
for instance, to the introduction of Jan Hus Day, the attempt to abolish the confessional
schools, the attempt to erect a Mint in Prague instead of the one in Kremnica, and the
reluctance to change the language regulations. Complaints concerning the lack of Slovak spirit
and the Czechoslovakist school textbooks were also directly associated with government
policy. Most of all, the identity struggle was caused by the government's refusal to recognize
the Slovaks as an individual nation and by the insistence that Czechoslovakia was the nationstate of the Czechoslovak nation with two tribes. This is entirely in line with the expectation
that any attempt to advance an overarching nation project in the face of strong opposition from
one of the target groups may serve to exacerbate national conflict.
What were their motives?
The next question is why the government coalition insisted on Czechoslovak national and
state unity despite the opposition this generated – and why the Slovak autonomists were not
willing to settle for less than autonomy. This is a matter of motives. Obviously, some caution
is warranted here; people are often less than honest about their reasons for doing things, and
this is no less true of politicians. Basically, there are two opposite options: we can either take
the argumentation of each side in the political debate at face value, or we can assume that both
sides had a hidden agenda that cannot be read out of their argumentation. In the latter case, we
can use the other side's allegations as a point of departure.
Taking the arguments of both sides at face value, we find a striking difference between the
Slovak autonomists and the Czechoslovakists. Judging from their argumentation, the Slovak
autonomists believed in their Slovak nation and had it as their core value and main priority.
Czechoslovakism was evaluated, according to this value, as a fiction, a threat to the existence
of the Slovak nation (expressive version), and a threat to the interests of the Slovak nation
(instrumental version). Conversely, autonomy was presented as the solution to all the ills of
Slovakia, and as a right to which the Slovaks were entitled, either qua nation or by virtue of
various documents. The autonomists thus seemed motivated by a wish to ensure the wellbeing of the Slovak nation and the interests of the Slovaks as a group.
In contrast, it is quite apparent that although the Czechoslovakists argued as if a Czechoslovak
nation existed, Czechoslovak unity was an instrument, not a core value for them. This is
reflected especially in the strength-through-unity argumentation. On the one hand it was
argued that the Czechs and Slovaks would be stronger against their enemies if they could lean
on a Czechoslovak unity (instrumental version); alternatively it was argued that the Slovaks
(Czechs) would perish under the Magyar (German) yoke (expressive version). On the Czech
side, the obsession with "strength" was closely related to the self-conception as a small nation,
which goes back to Palacký. On the Slovak side, it was related to the fact that the Slovaks had
been free and independent only when they were united with the Czechs. The strength-throughunity theme recurred in the school textbooks, and the instrumental version of the argument
was used by Masaryk already during the First World War.
527
It seems quite clear that during the war, Czechoslovakism was advanced mostly for strategic
reasons, in order to legitimize Czechoslovak independence as a matter of national selfdetermination. A second motive that was made quite explicit by Masaryk was to ensure the
strength of the new state against its national minorities. It seems that these were also the
reasons why it was kept after the war. Since the state had been established by invoking the
principle of national self-determination, the Czechoslovak nation was its raison d'être. To
recognize the Slovaks as an individual nation would thus weaken the state by turning it into a
nationality state where the Czechs would comprise barely a majority.
At the same time, to grant the Slovaks autonomy would make it difficult not to grant the large
German minority the same, which would endanger the state as well as jeopardize the Czech
minorities in the German-speaking areas. The strength of the state was thus only seemingly
the main priority. Behind this lay a wish to ensure the existence and the development of the
Czechs and Slovaks. This was also voiced quite explicitly. The core value of both the
Czechoslovakists and the Slovak autonomists was thus the nation; it was only the means that
were different – Czechoslovak unity and Slovak autonomy, respectively.
Finally, that political power was at least a side motive is reflected by the fact that the identity
struggle and the dispute about Slovak autonomy often turned into a contest between Slovak
politicians about who were the legitimate representatives of the Slovaks. Each side accused
the other of treason, and claimed to be the only pure Slovaks. In addition, at some point each
side claimed to be backed by the majority, which entitled them to choose on behalf of the
Slovaks. Given the weakness of the ľudáks at the countrywide level, it is quite clear that they
would have a better chance of influencing Slovak politics if power were to be devolved to a
Slovak assembly. Conversely, the Slovak Czechoslovakists risked losing power if Slovakia
were granted autonomy, since they would not be guaranteed a majority in the assembly.
If we take as our point of departure the allegations of the opposite side, the Slovak autonomists were a bunch of Magyarones whose real aim was to bring Slovakia back to the Magyar
yoke. While there were some known Magyarones among the ľudáks (chiefly Tuka), this
hardly goes for a majority – and even less so as time went by and the movement was joined by
a new generation, educated in the Czechoslovak republic. It was certainly not true of Andrej
Hlinka, or other leading men who had been imprisoned during Hungary for "Pan-Slav activities." Prior to the First World War, it is hard to imagine any other reason for the struggle for
the Slovak cause than a strong Slovak conviction, since no conceivable gain was in sight.
Moreover, if my assumption that there were most Magyarones in areas with many Magyars is
correct, the Magyarone charges against the ľudáks were certainly not true on the mass level.
On the contrary, there was a strong correlation between ľudák support and the percentage of
Slovaks – stronger than for the parties that accused the ľudáks of being Magyarones. In all
likelihood, there were more Magyarones in the ranks of the Social Democrats and Agrarians
than among the ľudáks. These parties were even represented by Magyars in the Parliament.
Likewise, while the ľudáks did better in areas with many Catholics, the national dimension
was more important in terms of politics as well as support.
528
If we take the ľudák charges against the Czechoslovakists seriously, then the real goal of the
Czechs and their Slovak partners was the Czechization of the Slovaks. While it is true that
most of the Czechoslovakists did advocate Czech/Slovak rapprochement, the aim was not
cultural or linguistic assimilation of the Slovaks, but to create a new overarching subjective
identity. No attempt was made to abolish Slovak as a literary language; on the contrary, the
use of Slovak in Slovakia was strengthened during the period. The only example was the
revision of the Slovak orthography in 1931, but this was initiated by an expert commission
under the auspices of the Matica slovenská, and cannot be attributed to government policy.
The accusations of Pan-Czechism were thus unsubstantiated.
Whether it was the prospect of personal power or other reasons that made individuals like
Dérer or Hodža join the Czechoslovakist side is hard to tell, but I really doubt that this can
have been the main reason in Dérer's case. He remained opposed to Slovak autonomy also
after any prospect of power was gone: as late as in 1968 he was against federation of Czechoslovakia.3 As for Hodža, it seems to be a quite common view that he was more interested in
power than in principles. On the other hand, it may be argued that this served to turn him
away from Czechoslovakism over the years, since he wanted to ensure a largest possible
electoral base in Slovakia. Hodža was clearly more Czechoslovakist in 1920 than he was in
the 1930s, and his conception of Czechoslovakism went in the direction of a political nation
concept. Likewise, his regionalism implied decentralization, if not legislative autonomy.
Finally a qualification should be made. In the 1930s, a group of young Slovak Agrarians
abandoned the notion of a unitary Czechoslovak nation and recognized the Slovak nation.
However, they did not go beyond regionalism (i.e. decentralization of power), retaining the
unitary conception of the state. These young Agrarians thus divorced Czechoslovak national
unity from state unity and Slovak individuality from autonomy, thereby attacking the cornerstone in the argumentation of both sides. It should also be noted that, while in government, the
ľudáks abstained from demanding autonomy in the Parliament, while still insisting that the
Slovaks were an individual nation. In return, the other coalition partners kept quiet about the
Czechoslovak national unity, while the socialist parties in opposition continued as before.
Theoretical implications
Following Yin's recommendation of generalizing case-studies to theoretical propositions
rather than other empirical cases, this third part is devoted to the discussion of some
theoretical implications of my findings.4 First, I will discuss the theoretical implications of the
fact that the Czechoslovak nation project failed, with special emphasis on the prospect of
"constructing" nations. Second, I will evaluate the theoretical nationality policy framework,
both as a structuring device and as a point of departure for developing explanations.
3
Dušan Kováč found a memorandum to this effect in Dérer's papers, deposed in the Archive of the National Museum in
Prague, in the fund Ivan Derer, inheritance/pozostalost.
4
Robert K. Yin: Case study research (1991:21).
529
Doomed to failure?
The title of the thesis contains a question: Was the Czechoslovak nation project doomed to
failure? Under the given circumstances, the answer must be yes, and it seems that this was
realized in political circles, especially in Slovakia already in the mid-1930s. The question is
whether it could have succeeded, given more time and other circumstances. Or was the
Czechoslovak nation project doomed, also in principle?
Several arguments can be used to support the claim that, in principle, the Czechoslovak nation
project could have worked. First, the Czechs and Slovaks were arguably closer linguistically,
ethnically and culturally than many other groups out of which history has formed nations. If
the Slav forefathers of the Czechs and Slovaks had remained united in one state after the fall
of Great Moravia, the Czechs and Slovaks might even have been one nation. Moreover, in
other cases where culturally heterogeneous groups were welded together into nations, the
process went over several centuries. Twenty years is a very short time in a nation-forming
process. It may be argued that, in due time, Czechoslovakism might have succeeded.
Against this it may be held that the disparate groups out of which nations were formed in the
West were not "nations", hardly even ethnie. The fact that not even these nation-forming
processes were completely successful suggests that nation forming across cultural divides has
never been easy. In order to succeed, the Czechoslovak nation project would have had to win
more souls in competition with more or less well-established Czech and Slovak national
identities, and in the face of the active opposition of a large part of the Slovak national elite.
Second, it may be argued that if the economic situation had been more favorable, the government would have been able to do more to bridge the developmental gap between the Czech
lands and Slovakia at an earlier point. Likewise, without the economic crisis of the 1930s, the
contest for jobs in the public sector in Slovakia would not have become a zero-sum game, and
a larger share of the young Slovak intelligentsia could have been employed without forcing
more experienced Czechs out. Here it may be countered that the legacy of Austria-Hungary
and the nationally relevant conflicts that followed from it were not that easy to remove, even if
the government had had the economic freedom to do more at an earlier stage. This is
illustrated by the fact that even though the Communist regime sought to bridge the developmental gap after the Second World War, the differences between the Czech lands and
Slovakia have remained striking. Likewise, even with more public jobs, the Slovaks would
still have had less education and less experience, and national quotas would thus have been
necessary – which might again have provoked Czech reactions.
Third, it may be argued that if the Czechoslovak state had not included the sizeable German
minority, the government would have been more at liberty to meet Slovak demands, which
might have reduced the conflict potential. The counter-argument is that without the Germaninhabited area, Czechoslovakia's borders would have been impossible to defend; moreover,
the country would also have lost her most industrialized and economically developed parts –
and that would have reduced the government's economic freedom of action.
530
This brief discussion shows that even though the Czechoslovak nation project might have had
a better chance, given more time and more favorable circumstances, success would by no
means be guaranteed. This brings us to the second part of the discussion: Was the Czechoslovak nation project doomed, not only in practice, but also in principle? To what extent can
extent nations be constructed?
I would like to make three theoretical points here:
1. The study indicates that there are clear limits to invention. We have seen that actual
contacts between Czechs and Slovaks throughout their history worked as a restraint on the
reinterpretation or "construction" of a Czechoslovak history. Those contacts could be (and
were) exaggerated and interpreted as strengthening for Czechoslovak unity, but the fact
remained: Czechs and Slovaks had lived separate lives for most of the period. This is in
line with A. D. Smith's argument that it is always the past of that particular nation that is
reformulated,5 or in our case the past of the Czechs and Slovaks. This study has also
demonstrated that the features that are deemed to constitute national unity must correspond to a certain reality. It proved to be a complicated task to project Czechoslovak unity
on linguistic unity in a situation where two literary languages already existed, and where
these languages moreover were core constituting features of alternative identities. The
room for invention thus seems to be restricted also by those features that members of the
nation-to-be actually have in common.
2. The study indicates that the scope for reinterpretation of history is further limited by what
will be accepted by the target groups. This is well illustrated by the Slovak reaction to the
exaggerated role attributed to Hussism, which bordered on a falsification of history. There
were also strong reactions to the reinterpretation of the Slovak national revival, and the
presentation of specific Slovak features as being a result of Magyar influences. If the
heavy Czech bias was an important reason for the Slovak opposition to Czechoslovakism,
it logically worked the opposite way in the Czech case. This also means that a
reformulation of Czechoslovakism might not have increased the chances of success, since
a more balanced version might have included elements offensive to the Czechs.
3. The study indicates that nations are more difficult building blocks than are ethnie or ethnic
groups without any widespread national consciousness. Not only did Czechoslovakism
have to replace or supersede the existing national identities in order to succeed, but the
existing identities also represented alternative interpretations of history and alternative
uses of the same constituting features. Compared to the Czechoslovak reinterpretation of
history, the Czech and Slovak interpretations had the advantage of being more in touch
with reality, as well as of having a head start. At the same time, the Czech, respectively
Slovak, cultural and linguistic cohesion was "thicker."
5
A. D. Smith: The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed? in: Marjorie Ringrose/Adam J. Lerner (eds.): Reimagining
the Nation (1993:15–16).
531
To conclude: Does this mean that overarching nation projects are doomed to failure, also in
principle? That would perhaps be to go too far, but our discussion has shown that the
"construction" of nations against the actual historical "reality" is no easy task, at least when
national unity is projected on a cultural cohesion that is bound to be thinner than the cohesion
of the target groups. Overarching nation projects may have a greater chance if they are based
on a political or a voluntarist nation concept that can also respect cultural differences. In that
case, the overarching identity may be complementary rather than competing. However, it
remains an open question whether a purely political or voluntarist nation project would be any
match for the existing, culturally "thicker" national identities.
In our case, a political nation concept (including all citizens of Czechoslovakia) was no viable
option. In the first place, a cultural nation concept was predominant in the area, and the
historical antecedent of Czechoslovakism, Czechoslovak reciprocity, was based on cultural
cohesion. More importantly, Czechoslovakia was founded by invoking the right of national
self-determination on behalf of the Czechs and Slovaks against their former oppressors, the
Germans and Magyars, which made it impossible to include them in a Czechoslovak nation.
Evaluation of the theoretical approach
I will first evaluate the usefulness of the nationality policy framework as a heuristic device.
On the positive side, the nationality policy framework showed its usefulness in the collection
of data, providing a theoretical checklist of what to look for. It also helped to illuminate the
interconnectedness of national demands and government nationality policies and the dynamics
between them over time. Finally, through the focus on agency, it helped make national
conflicts more tangible – linked to real people and real events.
On the negative side, the focus on one level and one dimension at a time entails a risk that the
cohesion of the national demands (respectively, nationality policies) may disappear, especially
in a large and detailed narrative like this one. I have tried to solve this dilemma by crossreferences. It also turned out that, in our case, autonomy demands within the cultural and
economic dimensions were generally an integrated part of political autonomy demands, which
made the distinction between them less useful. This may, however, not always be the case.
The nationality policy framework was also used as a point of departure for developing
explanations. Official Czechoslovakism was an attempt at creating a new overarching identity
without forcing the target groups to change their culture, and it may thus be regarded as a
policy of integration more than one of assimilation. Yet, the Czechoslovak nation concept was
cultural more than voluntarist, which accounts for its inherent dualism. Regarding the preconditions for success, I argued that assimilation and integration strategies can be expected to
be more difficult to fulfill when national consciousness is strong, when the group in question
is large and lives in its ancestral lands, and when nationally relevant conflicts between groups
keep reinforcing national identity. I also argued that, in such cases, an attempt at forming an
overarching identity might exacerbate conflict. This seems to be fully substantiated.
532
I also made some assumptions about the nature of national conflict. First, I assumed that, at
least in a democracy, the most important national conflicts would be expressed politically,
simply because governments control many of the things that national movements are
interested in. This study seems to support this, since no substantial difference was found
between the complaints and demands voiced in Slovák and those voiced in the Parliament.
Second, I assumed that differences in national identity must to a certain extent correspond to
differences in power or access to goods and values in order to cause conflict. Although
perception also played an important part – as the issue of "Slovak bread" for the intelligentsia
demonstrated – national demands and complaints that were voiced on behalf of the Slovaks in
the Parliament seemed to reflect a reality. This means that national demands were not the
result of manipulation by an elite, but reflected nationally relevant conflicts; this even goes for
the demand for autonomy, as it was indirectly linked to asymmetric power relations.
Third, I assumed that the level of satisfaction (and thus lack of open conflict) was linked to the
accommodation of demands. The analysis clearly showed that politics do matter: Demands
that were accommodated disappeared from the agenda, while those that (for various reasons)
were not accommodated, remained salient. In these cases, an escalation of the conflict could
often be observed (cf. the series of parliamentary interpellations concerning the Language
Act). I also assumed that, in a functioning democracy, individual political and civil rights
would not be a major issue. Also this was confirmed.
Apart from this, what are the implications of this study for the theoretical framework? There
are two points I want to make.
1. The study has shown that alliances were important for the ability of the autonomists to
achieve accommodation for their demands. These alliances were of two kinds: either a
united Slovak bloc, or a cross-national alliance involving the Czech "ruling nation."
National unity was an advantage and disunity a disadvantage for the Slovak national
cause, and conflicts that crossed national lines were more easily solved. This is in line with
established theory that crosscutting cleavages tend to lower the level of conflict.
2. Second, the study has demonstrated that, in a democracy, strong election support can be
used as leverage against the government in order to get national demands fulfilled. It was
only after the ľudáks doubled their support in the 1925 election that the government
coalition began to take them seriously.
In order to test the usefulness of the nationality policy framework in general, it would have to
be applied to the study of national conflict also in non-democratic states. This may be more
problematic. First, nationality policies would probably be more divorced from national
demands, simply because articulation and aggregation of any kind of interest, including
national, would not be free. Second, the link between nationally relevant conflicts and national
demands may not be equally clear, since we cannot expect all national conflicts to be
articulated politically. We would have to ask whether some demands may prevented from
being expressed because the personal risk for the national elite was too high.
533
* * *
According to an English proverb, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – a pointed
way of expressing that the results of our actions are sometimes the opposite of what we
intended. That also applies to this case: Not only did the Czechoslovak nation project fail; the
attempt at creating a Czechoslovak nation sharpened national conflict and probably helped
complete the Slovak nation-forming process. What happened in the inter-war period proved
fatal for the Czechoslovak state in the long run; without an overarching Czechoslovak national
identity the original raison d'être of the state was gone, and a new one was hard to come by
once the Communist regime was history. Indirectly, the failure to create a Czechoslovak
identity thus contributed to the dissolution of the state in 1993.