Nová Tisova biografia nedosahuje úroveň dnešného historického poznania
This New Biography of Jozef Tiso Does Not Reach the Level of Today´s Historical Knowledge

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. According to the reviewer, the attempt to show the personality of Jozef Tiso in an objective light, without demonizing or praising him, is sincere and sympathetic, but unfortunately the author contributes almost no new findings to our understanding of Tiso. Moreover, the terminological ambiguity prevents him from grasping the dynamics of Tiso’s ideological development. The book includes several factual errors and some contradictions, which cannot be justified even by the fact that this is not a scholarly study, but rather a popular publication intended for a foreign audience.

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