An Attempt at an Objective View of Jozef Tiso Cover Image

Pokus o objektívny pohľad na Jozefa Tisa
An Attempt at an Objective View of Jozef Tiso

Author(s): Michaela Lenčéšová
Subject(s): History, Political history, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Fascism, Nazism and WW II, History of the Holocaust, Book-Review
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro soudobé dějiny
Keywords: Slovakia;Slovak republic 1939–1945;Jozef Tiso;Catholicism;Jews;antisemitism;Holocaust;World War II

Summary/Abstract: 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the reviewer, the book has a rather compilatory character, as it is based mainly on published sources and contains some outdated and now obsolete theses. When Krawczyk stresses Tiso’s pragmatism, his search for compromises and moderation when compared with local fascist radicals, he wrongly assumes that this meant that Tiso did not try to link Catholicism with Nazism. In his quest for objectivity, the author often, but not very successfully, puts himself in the role of an arbiter in the dispute among Slovak historians over the interpretation of certain events and burdens his work with moralizing judgements that do not promote historical understanding.

  • Issue Year: XXIX/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 260-263
  • Page Count: 4
  • Language: Slovak