The Politics of Retribution: The Trial of Jozef Tiso
The Politics of Retribution: The Trial of Jozef Tiso

Summary/Abstract: In the historiography of twentieth-century Czechoslovakia a notable lacuna exists in the serious study of the wartime Slovak Republic, which declared its independence, in concert with Hitler's annexation of the Czech portion of the rump republic, on 14 March 1939. Equally intriguing and unexplored, however, is the effect of the nationalism, clericalism, and anticommunism that marked that state's six-year existence on postwar Czechoslovakia's slide into communist dictatorship. In the immediate postwar period, the "Slovak question" that had plagued Czechoslovakia since its foundation called desperately for a solution that would both satisfy Slovak national aspirations and Czech demands for a unitary state. In the less than three years between the final liberation of the state and the communist assumption of power in February of 1948, the pursuit of a mutually acceptable form for Czech and Slovak relations was gravely damaged by political maneuvering that surrounded the long trial of the former president of the Slovak state, the Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso. [...]

• Details
• Contents