A homogén szláv nemzetállam ideája. Edvard Beneš köztársasági elnök dekrétumai és a Szlovák Nemzeti Tanács rendeletei
The Idea of a Homogeneous Slavic Nation-state: Edvard Beneš’s Presidential Decrees and the Decrees of the Slovak National Council

Summary/Abstract: Edvard Beneš, the country’s second president, played a central role in the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia, which had ceased to exist after a brief two-decade period. With the help of his government-in-exile and State Council, established in London between 1940 and 1945, he secured the support of the Allied powers from 1941 onward for the restoration of the Czechoslovak state and the elimination of the German minority. Presidential decrees, which ensured the functioning of the state as legal norms with the force of law, played a key role in this process. The article specifically examines the decrees targeting the German and Hungarian minorities based on the principle of collective guilt, as well as the similar decrees issued by the Slovak National Council in 1944–1945. In the concluding section, the author examines the reasons why, since 1989, it has not been possible to draft a similar declaration of reconciliation in Hungarian-Czechoslovak or Hungarian-Slovak relations as those that had already been issued in German-Hungarian relations at the time.

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