Jozef Tiso pohledem polského historika a diplomata
Jozef Tiso Through the Eyes of a Polish Historian and Diplomat

Summary/Abstract: The subject of the review is a biography of the Slovak Catholic priest and politician Jozef Tiso (1887–1947). Tiso was the head of the independent Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945 under the patronage of Nazi Germany and was executed as a collaborator in April 1947, following a judgment of the National Court in Bratislava. The book "Kněz prezidentem: Slovensko Jozefa Tisa" [Priest as President: Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia] is a translation of the Polish original "Słowacja księdza-prezydenta: Jozef Tiso 1887–1947" (Kraków, Znak 2015). Its author, Andrzej Krawczyk, is a Polish historian and diplomat, the former ambassador to the Czech Republic and then to Slovakia. The reviewer criticizes the publication for its factual shortcomings but sees its contribution in its new perspectives and interesting questions as well as in its very readable presentation. In the reviewer’s opinion, the author is well versed in the modern history of the territory of the former Czechoslovakia and does not deviate from the role of an unbiased observer. In the dispute between Tiso’s historical apologists and critical biographers, however, Krawczyk is much closer to the latter group. He considers the first Slovak president to be a moderate conservative politician looking for a compromise, but also gives evidence of Tiso’s anti-Semitism, his responsibility for the alliance with Nazi Germany, and of his conscious participation in the Holocaust of Slovak Jews.

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