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National Minorities Under Communism: The Case of Czechoslovakia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Josef Kalvoda
Josef Kalvoda*
Affiliation:
Saint Joseph College (USA)
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Extract

After its establishment in 1918–1919, Czechoslovakia was a multinational state and some of its minorities protested against their being included into it. The nationality problem was related to the collapse of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1938 and the loss of some of its territories to Germany, Poland, and Hungary. It may be pointed out that the 1920 Constitution did not recognize a separate Slovak national identity and that the Czechs and Slovaks were termed “Czechoslovaks.” The post-Munich Second Republic recognized a separate Slovak nationality; however, the state came to its end in March 1939. In 1945, after its reestablishment as a national state of the Czechs and Slovaks, the country's government attempted to liquidate the national minorities' problem in a drastic manner by transfer (expulsion) of Germans and Hungarians.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities USSR and East Europe Inc. 

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References

Notes

1. For historical background and statistics see Josef Kalvoda, “National Minorities in Czechoslovakia, 1919–1980” in Horak, Stephan M., ed., Eastern European National Minorities, 1919–1980. A Handbook (Littleton, Co., 1985), pp. 108–127. A selected bibliography is on pp. 133–159. See also the attached statistics.Google Scholar

2. The Hungarian minority is discussed in the text of this paper and also in note 24 below. The 1968 Constitution was published, among others, in the source identified in note 19; Law No. 144 deals specifically with the nationalities living in Czechoslovakia.Google Scholar

3. , Kalvoda, op. cit., pp. 118, 121.Google Scholar

4. Program prvé domácí vlády republiky [Program of the First Home Government of the Republic] (Collection of Documents of the Ministry of Information) (Prague, 1945).Google Scholar

5. For a detailed discussion of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia's program, including the national question, strategy, and tactics, see Kalvoda, Josef, Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy (Washington, D.C., 1978), pp. 70–73.Google Scholar

6. Kalvoda, , “National Minorities…”, p. 123.Google Scholar

7. Nemec, Ludvik, “Solution of the Minority Problem” in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomír Luza, eds., A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918–1948 (Princeton, N.J., 1973), pp. 416–427. Among the many German publications dealing with the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans are: Theodor Scheider, ed., Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa, vol. IV; Beiheft, Die Vertreibung der Deutschen Bevölkerung aus der Tschechoslowakei; Margarete Schell, Ein Tagebuch aus Prag 1945–1946 (Bonn, 1957); Dokumente zur Sudetendeutschen Frage 1916–1967, 2d rev. ed. (Munich, 1967); Wilhelm K. Turnwald, comp., Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, trans. Gerda Johannsen (Munich, 1953); and Wilhelm K. Turnwald, Renascence or Decline of Central Europe: The Sudeten German-Czech Problem, trans. Gerda Johannsen (Munich, 1954).Google Scholar

8. Kazimous, Jan, ed., Vývoj společnosti ČSSR v Číslech. Rozbor výsledků sčítání lidu, domů a bytů [The Evolution of the Society in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in Numbers, Analyses of Results of Censuses of Population, Houses and Apartments] (Prague, 1965), p. 90.Google Scholar

9. Zvara, Juraj, Madărská menšina na Slovensku po roku 1945 [The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia after 1945] (Bratislava, 1969), pp. 13, 58–65; for the Hungarian point of view see Kalman Janics, Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority, 1945–1948. Introduction by Byula Illies. An English version adapted from the Hungarian by Stephen Borsody. (New York, 1982); and Laszlo Revesz, “Die magyarische Minderheit in der Tschechoslowakei,” Der Donauraum, 19:1–2 (1974), 25–46. Additional sources are listed in the Handbook, cited in note 1 above.Google Scholar

10. Zvara, , op. cit., pp. 66–68.Google Scholar

11. Kalvoda, , “National Minorities…”, op. cit., p. 124.Google Scholar

12. Ibid. Google Scholar

13. Statistická ročenka Československé socialistické republiky 1984 [Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 1984] (Prague, 1984), p. 94.Google Scholar

14. Statistická ročenka Ceskoslovenské socialistické republiky 1981 [Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 1981] (Prague, 1981), p. 92.Google Scholar

15. Häufler, Vlastislav, The Ethnographic Map of the Czech Lands 1880–1970 (Prague, 1973), pp. 76–78.Google Scholar

16. Statistická ročenka… 1981, op. cit., p. 92.Google Scholar

17. Ibid. Google Scholar

18. Häufler, , op. cit., pp. 85–86.Google Scholar

19. Text of the 1968 Czechoslovak Constitution has been published in Flegl, Vladimír, ástava Československé socialistické republiky (Prague, 1973).Google Scholar

20. Statistická ročenka… 1981, op. cit., p. 92.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. Google Scholar

22. Law No. 144 is printed in Flegl, op. cit., pp. 160–162.Google Scholar

23. Two recent publications dealing with the Sudeten German Question are Herget, Toni, “Diskriminierung der Deutschen in der Tschechoslowakei,” in Deutsche in der Tschechoslowakei (Munich, 1981); and Sudetoněmecká otázka. Krátký obrys a dokumentace [The Sudeten German Question. A Brief Sketch and Documentation] (Munich, 1985). Both publications present the Sudeten German point of view.Google Scholar

24. In 1978 the Committee for the Legal Protection of the Hungarian Minority in Czechoslovakia (CSMKJB) was established. It petitioned the Slovak government about Hungarian schooling and prepared a statement of the Hungarian minority's grievances in 1979. Among the complaints were charges of forcible assimilation (Slovakization) and unconstitutional discrimination against Hungarians (and also of Gypsies and Jews), intentional hampering of their cultural activities, and the expulsion of CZEMADOK, as a nonpolitical and cultural-organization, from the National Front in Slovakia. It demanded giving examinations in Hungarian at the Slovak schools of higher education, the founding of a Hungarian professional theatre in Bratislava, support for professional cultural activity, publishing more periodicals edited by ethnic Hungarians, Hungarian-language television programs from Bratislava, etc. It protested against the decrease of Hungarian elementary and secondary schools, economic discrimination against the Hungarian minority, and the intentional assimilation of ethnic Hungarians.Google Scholar

One of the founders of the CSMKJB was Miklós Duray whose case is briefly discussed below. His imprisonment led to widespread protests inside Czechoslovakia and abroad. In New York a group of Hungarian émigrés established the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, and later published in 1984 the “Blue Book” A Szlovákiai Magyar Iskolák Védelmében, about Hungarian schools in Slovakia. The Hungarian minority problems in Czechoslovakia have been voiced in the world press, including Le Monde, The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal and in the German and Austrian press. In 1985 the minority question was brought up at the Ottawa conference on the Helsinki Declaration of Human Rights in the Statement by the Hungarian Delegation, in the Opening Statement by the Head of the Delegation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic at the Meeting of Experts on Human Rights held in Ottawa in May of 1985, and in the Statement of the United States Ambassador, Richard Schifter, at the same Conference in Ottawa that May. (Viz. The New York Times, May 16, 1985). The Hungarian minority problem has been a subject of negotiations between the Czechoslovak and Hungarian governments, and it is dealt with in books such as Kalman Janics, A hontalanság évei [Years without Fatherland] (Bern, 1979); Olvedi Janos, Napfogyatkozás [Eclipse of the Sun] (New York, 1984); and Miklós Duray, Kutyaszoritó [The Dog Trap] (New York, 1985). One may also mention In Defense of Hungarian Schools in Slovakia (New York, 1984); Ladislav Matějka, “O kulturních izoglosách střední Evropy,” Proměny, no. 23/1 (1986); “List Mikuláša Duraya,” (Bratislava, 1984); Stálá konferencia slov. dem. exulantovi Aide-Memoire. The Hungarian Minority in Czechoslovakia. Attached to the Memorandum submitted to the United States State Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Canada, 1985); Martin Kvetko, “Narodnostná politika socialistického Československa. Postavenie madărskej národnosti na Slovensku,” Proměny (1986). Also Mary Hrabik Samal, “The Case of Miklós Duray,” in Cross Currents, a Yearbook of Central European Culture, no. 4, Ladislav Matejka and Benjamin Stolz, eds. (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985).Google Scholar

25. Actually the ethnic Hungarians are overrepresented in the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly, the country's highest legislative body. Although the minority forms 3.8 percent of the total population, there are eighteen Hungarian deputies, or 5.1 percent of the total of 350 deputies. Přikryl, František, “Slovenské Národní Povstání a národnostní politika KSČ” [Slovak National Uprising and the Communist Party's Policy on Nationalities], Nová mysl, nos. 7–8, (1983), p. 50.Google Scholar

26. Flegl, See, op. cit., the 1968 Constitution, especially Articles 1 and 16, pp. 47, 54.Google Scholar

27. Nová Cesta, no. 10 (1984), p. 21.Google Scholar

28. Ibid. Google Scholar

29. See note 24 above.Google Scholar

30. Meier, Viktor, “Hungarians in Slovakia,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 December 1984.Google Scholar

31. Ibid. Google Scholar

32. See note 24 above, especially Samal, “The Case of Miklós Duray” and Miklós Duray, The Dog Trap (New York, 1983). Also Anna Bujkovsky and Georg Breitner, “Penetrating Geologist: An Interview with Miklós Duray,” Gegenstimmen (Vienna, Summer 1983), no. 12/4, pp. 33–38; and Amnesty International, “Urgent Action: Czechoslovakia: Miklós Duray,” 21 January 1985.Google Scholar

33. Czech exile periodicals, Svědectví, Právo Lidu, and Listy, published articles sympathetic to Duray. Slovak dissidents, Jan Čarnogurský, Milan Šimečka, Miroslav Kusý, and Jozef Jablonický, protested against the imprisonment of Duray. In his letter to Jozef Lenart, the First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party, Miroslav Kusý, among others, wrote that in a democratic state such persons should not be imprisoned and that he cannot pass over the situation in silence. The imprisonment of Duray “has only created a martyr for the much suffering Hungarian community,” Kusý wrote, and said that he supports Duray's “unalienable democratic right to his cause.” Milan Šimečka, a Czech who sometimes writes in Slovak, sent a letter of protest to Petr Colotka, the Prime Minister of the Slovak Socialist Republic. As he put it, the imprisonment of Duray harmed the interest of the Republic abroad much more than the mere existence of a critical opinion of the state of affairs in Slovakia. In turn, Duray appreciated the expressions of solidarity from his fellow citizens, including those of the Charter 77 and the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (VONS) in Czechoslovakia. See Svědectví, vol. 18, no. 70/71, pp. 577–578.Google Scholar

34. This thesis is very well stated by Miroslav Kusý in his paper “Neslovenský fenomen” [A Non-Slovak Phenomenon]. A copy of the paper is in possession of the author. The basic principles of the nationality policy of the Czechoslovak state are stated in the 1968 Constitution.Google Scholar

35. In its preamble (“Declaration”) the new Constitution points out that “the working people of Czechoslovakia solemnly declare”that “socialism has won” in the state, that it “accumulates forces for the transition to communism,” that it will continue on this course “hand in hand with…the Soviet Union and with all other friendly countries of the world socialist system, in which our republic is a firm link.” Furthermore, the declaration says, that all efforts are directed to “creating material and spiritual preconditions for the transition of our society to communism,” that is, to attain a stage of historical development of society in which the principle of communism is realized: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” See Flegl, op. cit., pp. 43–47.Google Scholar

36. For “The National Democratic Revolution and the Socialist Revolution” in Czechoslovakia see Kalvoda, , Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy, op. cit., pp. 199–217; also “A Model for Revolution,” pp. 218–240.Google Scholar