"Akaratunk ellenére..." -Dokumentumok a csehszlovákiai magyarság történetéből 1918-1992

Author(s): / Language(s): Hungarian

In the year 2020, the Hungarian nation throughout the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the diktat designed with reference to the right of nations to self-determination, but at the same time defying this principle, not only the borders of Hungary were changed, but—against their will—one third of the Hungarian nation was driven into minority position, including the Hungarian population of Upper Hungary. The Treaty of Trianon, signed on 4th June 1920, thus provided a decisive contribution to the birth of the Hungarian minority community in the former Czechoslovakia, the present Slovakia.To date, no comprehensive monograph or collection of documents on the history of the Hungarian nation´s segment falling under Czechoslovakia has been published. This prompted the Forum Minority Research Institute to gather and present to readers in one volume the most important sources on the history of the Hungarian minority community now living in southern Slovakia, from the founding of the Czechoslovak state in 1918 until its dissolution in 1992.The size constraints did not, of course, allow the publication of all the documents considered important, so documents consisting of only a few lines on the one hand and the too voluminous ones on the other hand were left out of the volume. The published documents were selected in such a way that they provide a comprehensive picture of the history of the Hungarian minority community and present the most important issues of its seventy-five years existence within the Czechoslovak state. Some of the omitted documents are presented in the form of illustrations.The vast majority of the documents included in the collection come from the archives of Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and partly from the contemporary Hungarian press in Czechoslovakia. Some of them have already been published in various collections of documents, but there are some among them which have been unknown not only to a wider readership, but also to historians. Most of the documents come from the most dramatic and hectic periods in the history of the Hungarian minority, i.e. the years following the formation of the Czechoslovak state, the period of the first Vienna Award, the years of post-World War II disenfranchisement, the Prague Spring and the regime change.The volume consists of five chapters, adapted to the general historical eras of Czechoslovakia. The first chapter contains documents on the First Republic, the second on the Slovak autonomy and the Slovak State, the third on the years after the Second World War, the fourth on the decades of the communist dictatorship, and the fifth on the years between the regime change and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Each document is preceded by the place and time of its origin, followed by a brief introduction to interpret and place the document in historical context. The documents are followed by references indicating their current location. At the end of the collection, there is a selected bibliography containing the most important pieces of academic literature on the history of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia.

"Away with German and Russian influence!" Ethno-political considerations in the reorganisation of the Estonian school system in the early 1920s

Author(s): Kari Alenius / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2007

Die in Estland im Zusammenhang der Neuordnung des Schulwesens 1918-1926 geführte Diskussion ist exemplarisch für die seinerzeit in Europa zu beobachtende Verbindung von Sprach- und Nationalitätenfragen mit der Reformierung der Schulsysteme. Im gleichen Maße, in dem 'Nationalität' als ein wesentliches Merkmal individueller und kollektiver Identitäten im späten 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts an Bedeutung gewann, avancierte Sprache, insbesondere in Ostmitteleuropa, zum wichtigsten Kennzeichen und Sinnbild nationaler Zugehörigkeit. Die Frage nach der Unterrichtssprache in den Schulen wurde damit zu einem nationalpolitischen Thema mit hohem Konfliktpotenzial. Die nach Erlangung der Unabhängigkeit von der Regierung Estlands ergriffenen Maßnahmen spiegeln einen durchaus zeittypischen Gegensatz wider. Einerseits wurde Estnisch zur alleinigen offiziellen Landessprache erhoben und vom Gesetzgeber in jeder erdenklichen Weise gefördert. Andererseits war die Regierung Estlands zugleich bemüht, der offiziell als Leitlinie der Weltpolitik geltenden und mit dem Namen des amerikanischen Präsidenten Woodrow Wilson verbundenen Vorstellung von der Gleichheit der Völker zu entsprechen. Aus diesem Grund wurde den Minderheiten in Estland Unterricht in der eigenen Sprache zugebilligt, und verglichen mit anderen Staaten im östlichen Europa war die Schulpolitik in Estland insgesamt toleranter. Minderheitenschulen wurden vom Staat gefördert, sofern in einem Ort mindestens 20 Schüler einer nicht-estnischen Bevölkerungsgruppe lebten, unabhängig vom prozentualen Anteil der jeweiligen Minderheit an der Gesamtbevölkerung. Das Recht auf Unterricht in der Muttersprache galt grundsätzlich jedoch nicht für die im Land lebenden Finnen und Ingrier (Ischoren), die wie die Esten zu den ostsee-finnischen Völkern gehören und die der Staat zu assimilieren hoffte. In gewisser Weise typisch für die damalige Zeit war auch die Forderung nach einer Garantie und weiteren Verbesserung ihrer Rechte, insbesondere auf sprachlichem Gebiet, welche die Minderheiten in Estland gleich nach der Unabhängigkeit des Landes erhoben. Das Gruppenbewusstsein und der Organisationsgrad der in Estland lebenden Deutschen, Russen und Schweden waren so ausgeprägt, dass es anfangs fast zwangsläufig zu Meinungsverschiedenheiten mit der estnischen Regierung kommen musste. Die Konflikte wurden jedoch recht bald durch die überwiegend liberale estnische Schulpolitik und die Verabschiedung neuer Schulgesetze in den Jahren 1919 und 1920 entschärft.

"Egy európai formátumú államférfi". Klebelsberg Kuno (1875-1932)

Author(s): Gábor Ujváry / Language(s): Hungarian

Nowadays, beside Governor Miklós Horthy, István Bethlen, Pál Teleki and Gyula Gömbös, probably the name of Kuno Klebelsberg comes up most frequently in the Hungarian media and in public discourse. We are concerning a real renaissance of dealing with him, however superficial they often are. Lately, several institutions have been named after Klebelsberg and he has become an almost cultic figure. Nevertheless, his cult frequently and unnecessary goes too far. In the past decades, many people have investigated his activity, but they have mainly concentrated on minor details. Following 1942, this have been the first book to attempt to summarize Kelbelsberg’s whole career, presenting the partly known and well-founded achievements in the politician’s performance and some of his unimplemented plans. It also designates the new direction of research on Klebelsberg: namely the significance of the lesser-known period of his life preceding his ministry of culture, when he started to build up himself. “I trust that my book, intended to be readable yet written with due scholarly background and citing many of Klebelsberg’s writings and the responses given to them, will contribute to the respect for my hero that he had well deserved. I also think it important that we should value him objectively and consider him not a semi-god but a man and politician. However excellent he was, as a fallible man, he also made mistakes when he sometimes perceived the possibilities before him and his country inaccurately. However, these facts do not detract from his merit but rather strengthen it because we can approach him through them.” Gábor Ujváry

"In bratje, mi smo hvala Bogu, opravili delo v dobrobit naroda, domovine in srečo prevzvišene dinastije" (Konstituiranje Sokola Kraljevine Jugoslavije)

Author(s): Tomaž Pavlin / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2010

After the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's Sokol organisation was legally established in December 1929 and after the gymnastic organisations that refused to join the new Sokol organisation were abolished, a founding session followed, where the statute had to be confirmed and the Sokol organisation brought to life. In the following article we will analyse the formalisation of the new Sokol organisation in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

"Korak naprijed". Češka manjina između Marseilleskoga atentata (1934.) i Masarykove smrti (1937.)

Author(s): Vlatka Dugački / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 4/2019

This work analyzes key segments of the activity of the Czech minority on Croatian territory from the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 up to the death of the first President of Czechoslovakia, T. G. Masaryk in 1937, two individuals who left an indelible mark on the political, cultural and economical life of the Czech minority community. Although Czechs supported the idea of Yugoslavian unitarianism and centralism from the moment the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was founded, for which they were awarded (in the 1931 Yugoslav Constitution) with the right to establish private (minority) schools and to put members of the Czech and Slovak minorities as substitutes on the government list for the 1931 elections, systematic prolonging in dealing with the issues of nationality for a large number of the members of the Czech minority and general impoverishment of Czech peasants and craftsmen in smaller rural communities due to the effects of the larger economical crisis and corruption of the Yugoslavian government apparatus led to the political stratification of the Czech minority. While the Czech intelligentsia, mostly employed in the government, for its own benefit continued to support state unitarianism and centralism, Czech peasants started to side with the opposing Croatian Peasants’ Party (HSS), which offered solutions for their economical problems, and by publicly admitting Czech cultural and national individuality, Maček insured the support from some of the intelligentsia that, through the articles in the Jugoslávští Čechoslováci newspaper, began to openly advocate for dealing with the Croatian issue.

"Korošec vihti bič nad železničarji" (Stavka železničarjev leta 1920 in minister za promet Anton Korošec)

Author(s): Mateja Ratej / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2010

In the following discussion the author focuses on the role of Anton Korošec in the railway strike of April 1920, when as a Head of the Slovenian People's Party he was the Minister of Transport in Stojan Protić's government. After the government of the Kingdom of SHS abolished the collective labour agreement for transport workers, in April 1920 transport all over the state was brought to a halt by a railway strike. The workers on strike were joined by the communists, who saw the mobilisation of the workers as a strong political potential. In the years after the establishment of the Kingdom, the communists represented an influential political factor. In November of the same year, after the Constituent Assembly elections, they became the third most powerful party in the country. On 24 April the strike on the streets of Ljubljana transcended any democratic norms. After the police and military intervention, 13 workers died on the Zaloška cesta street. A few days before that, at the assembly of the Slovenian People's Party confidants in Ljubljana, Korošec had cautioned against the danger of the communist movement, while during the strike he refused to communicate with the railway representatives, claiming that the strike was illegal - that is, unannounced.

"Křičel jsem: – Mrdat, mrdat!"

Vítězslav Nezval a jeho poetika Moskvy

Author(s): Tomáš Glanc / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 3-4/2020

In August 1934, poet and writer Vítězslav Nezval (1900–1958), a leading personality of the Czechoslovak inter-war art avant-garde and also a member of the Communist party, visited Moscow as one of the Western guests invited to the founding congress of the Union of Soviet Writers; one year later, he published a prosaic-essayistic reflection of his visit under the title "The Invisible Moscow" (Neviditelná Moskva. Praha: F. Borový, 1935). The purpose of the present study approached from a semiotic angle is to obtain access to the intentional meaning of this specific testimony concealed behind a factual description of events and environments. The author first outlines a broader socio-political context consisting in an intensive interest of Western left-wing intellectuals in the Soviet Union between the world wars and, on the other hand, in systematic efforts of the Soviet leadership to make use of this potential for their own benefit. Nezval ranked among artists who felt a priori sympathies toward the Soviet social experiment, and they are clearly seen in his text, although he himself declared that his intention was not to provide a testimony about the Soviet “objective reality” which is what media reports or articles do. To understand Nezval’s work, the author believes it must be kept in mind that Nezval, while in the Soviet Union, was looking for, first and foremost, inspiration and connections with poetic and ideological principles he professed. Nezval’s cognitive method is intuition, free of any rational and critical reflections, and his creative principle is imagination, whose incarnation Nezval founds in surrealism. The reality around him serves as a matter for a distillation of experiences occurring in a dream mode. This allows him to overlook or willfully interpret various phenomena related, for example, to the repressive aspect of Stalin’s regime or the onerous everydayness of the Soviet Union’s citizens. The author sees the dominant feature of this dreamlike experience and the line connecting seemingly incompatible segments of reality into all-embracing lyrical intoxication in an erotic principle. Nezval is excited by Moscow as an object of bliss, as a source of sexual arousal. This principle is offered to him as a key enabling an individual to cross the boundary of individualism and blend into the society as a bridge between the eternity of sexual ecstasy and the eternity of the classless Communist society, thus promising the fulfillment of human utopias. The author provides an analysis of the text of "The Invisible Moscow" in support of his conclusions, and links them to some period esthetic and philosophical concepts.

"Kronika naše Kalvarije pod Italijo". Gradivo Komisije za ugotavljanje zločinov okupatorjev in njihovih pomagačev o obdobju 1918-1941

Author(s): Damijan Guštin / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2000

The Committee Investigating The Crimes Committed By Occupiers And Their Accomplices was set up by the Slovenian National Liberation Movement in 1944 and continued working as a government body after the Second World War. Its task was not only to investigate the war crimes committed in Primorska, the Slovenian ethnic territory annexed to the Italian monarchy in 1918, but also to gather information on the specific, institutionalized violence exercised by the Italian state (through denationalization) and, in particular, the fascist forces between 1918 and 1941. In the paper, the author presents the scheme for ascertaining the various forms of pressure to which the population was subjected in the implementation of the denationalization policy, as well as the findings and their quantification.

"Naša naloga, smer in cilj" Idejne osnove sokolske misli in vzgoje

Author(s): Tomaž Pavlin / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2009

After World War I the so-called "Sokoli" (Falcons) as a national defence and gymnastic movement with its idea and education clashed with the positions of the traditional tutor - the Roman Catholic Church - and was thus involved in the cultural struggle. The founder of the Sokoli idea and gymnastic activities was Miroslav Tyrš, a Czech who defined the basic guidelines and tasks of the Sokoli movement in his article Our Task, Direction and Goal, published in 1871. The author of the following contribution shall define the Sokoli education and idea on the basis of Tyrš's article. Within the Slovenian Sokoli movement, this idea was introduced by Viktor Murnik.

"Nisu dali gospodaru 'z ruk...“. Starost u prigorskim i zagorskim selima između dva svjetska rata

Author(s): Suzana Leček / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 23/2000

The paper deals with the position of the elderly in the complex families of the Prigorje and Hrvatsko Zagorje regions in the time period between the World War I and the World War II. It aims at answering the questions until what age do people maintained the power within their families, how was this power expressed, and how their work and ownership over land influenced their maintenance of authority. The paper also warns about the differences between the widowers and widows, shown through the differences in the land ownership.

"Panama żyrardowska" w okresie dwudziestolecia międzywojennego – wyrok Sądu Obywatelskiego w sprawie Aleksandra Lednickiego

Author(s): Przemysław Dąbrowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2014

„The Żyrardów Affair” was the loudest case of interwar period. It is an excellent source to learn about the history of foreign capital in Poland. A major role was played by Alexander Lednicki – a lawyer, the leader of Moscow’s Poles in the period of the Russian Empire, former president of the Liquidation Committee for the Affairs of the former Kingdom of Poland, and president of the American Bank in Poland in the interwar period. He participated in the signing of the agreement in Biskupice, for what he was called a traitor to the Polish state. After this event, he committed suicide. His son, Wenceslaus, stood in defense of Alexander Lednicki’s honour. Thanks to his initiative, the convened Civil Court composed of well- known people in contemporary Poland. After initial process, Lednicki was acquitted of the charges against him.

"Prima companie austriaca de naviga?ie cu piroscafe pe Dunare" in porturile romanesti (1829–1938)

Author(s): Cristian Constantin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 30/2020

The times between the Treaty of Adrianople and World War II were favorable to the Danubian navigation growing within the Romanian area, except for some breaking intervals. The international commerce of the Danubian hinterland, mainly through the agency of foreign shipping companies, was characterized during the 19th century by a diplomatic war among the great European powers. Russophobia that London chancelleries kept internationally up during the second quarter of the 19th century was for the public opinion a subject as topical as controlling of any epidemics on the continent. The two British contractors John Andrews and Joseph Prichard had got in 1829 an exclusive privilege being allowed to navigate steamboats on the Danube, for three years. It was the context of “The First Austrian Steamboat Shipping Company on the Danube” (Erste österreichische Donau Dampfschiffahrts Gesellschaft – D.D.S.G.) coming into being. The steamboat “Francis I” made the test way between Vienna and Budapest in September 1830, and revolutionized so the European navigation. Soon after the regular navigation between Vienna and Constantinopole would better connect the Oriental world with the Occidental realities in the “century of nations”. For the present study I have used besides a series of works preponderately published in West Europe, unplublished documents from the Diplomatic Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bucharest, stock: Problema 68 (Societăţi de navigaţie fluvială, maritimă, aeriană: române şi străine). I might turn the readers’ attention to the fact that I won’t insist on the life and sociability on the ships that navigated on the Danube during the 19th century, however much exotic and captive would be such a subject.

"Rajš' ko Talijana, sem zbrala Slovana"

analiza preseljevanj Slovencev na ozemlje držav nekdanje Jugoslavije in njegove posledice

Author(s): Marina Lukšič Hacin,Boštjan Udovič / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 2/2014

The following contribution analyses the history of emigration from the Slovenian ethnic space to the countries of the former Yugoslavia and its contemporary consequences. The main thesis builds on the understanding that the Slovenian emigrant community in the “Yugoslav state” was largely neglected from the viewpoint of operative politics as well as from the scientific study perspective. The analysis is divided into four historical periods, which differed significantly as far as the migration dynamics is concerned: the first migration stage (1850–1914), dominated by economic reasons; the second migration stage (1919–1941), when the political and cultural reasons also became important; the third migration stage (1945–1991), when the main reasons for migration were economic and ideological; and, finally, the article is concluded with the analysis of policy towards the Slovenian immigrants to the Yugoslav territory in the time of the independent Slovenia, together with all of its advantages and shortcomings.

"Riževi standard proti mesnemu standardu" (Elementi stereotipa o japonskem gospodarstvu pri Slovencih pred drugo svetovno vojno)

Author(s): Žarko Lazarević / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 2/2000

The stereotype image of the Japanese economy created by the Slovenian press before the Second World War was not based on its own experience, but was assumed from the western European press. This is understandable, given the very small trade exchange between the two countries at the time. This stereotype included elements, such as social and foreign-exchange dumping, a patriarchal system, a better organised and more efficient economy, and unfair competition.

"Sacro pellegrinaggio". Visits to World War I Memorials on the Soča/Isonzo Front in the Interwar Period

Author(s): Petra Kavrečič / Language(s): English / Issue: 40/2017

The paper presents a case study of visits to World War I battlefield sites (monuments, sacred zones, cemeteries) on the Soča/Isonzo front. The focus is on acknowledging the motivations related to the construction of monuments and the role and interest of the Italian authorities when influencing and encouraging these visits. The paper will also attempt to determine the importance of this practice in the case of memorial sites at the Soča/Isonzo front. Additional issues addressed in the paper include how common visits to these sites were in the interwar period, who the primary visitors were and if and how this activity resonated in the tourism sector, and how tourism reflected the Italian national narrative in the contested border region.

"Viss" par Jēkabu Strazdiņu

Author(s): Eduards Kļaviņš / Language(s): Latvian / Issue: 25/2021

The book review analyses the monograph "Jēkabs Strazdiņš" (Riga: Neputns, 2020) by art historian Jānis Kalnačs who has gathered all available data about the noted Latvian figural painter and art collector of the inter-war period.

"Vráťme si mesto!" Prejavy nespokojnosti "mestského občana" v politickom diskurze v Prešove 1918 - 1938

Author(s): Veronika Szeghy-Gayer / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2015

The paper aims to provide an analysis of the politics of two local interest groups of Prešov, the so-called city parties, as specific forms of middle class dissatisfaction in the interwar period. Based on contemporary election results and archival sources, the first part of the study examines the political behaviour of the inhabitants of Prešov between 1920 and 1935, which helps to determine to what extent the city parties were popular among the multilingual and multi-religious voters. The second part investigates the social composition and the political discourse of the city parties. These local political groups were supported by 10-12% of the voters. Most of their followers were organized among the liberal middle classes, who were not able to identity with the politics of the big parliamentary parties. Their members defined themselves mainly against the Communist and Catholic movement. However, they also criticized the measures of the Czechoslovak government. And at the level of discourse they expressed dissatisfaction with the domestic policy of Czechoslovakia in the form of a virtual community of city burghers, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. It is argued that because of the high percentage of Hungarian and Jewish intellectuals and entrepreneurs among the leaders and supporters of the local parties, this type of local politics might have been an alternative to the Jewish and Hungarian national politics at a local level.

"Zdravo je biti Amerikanac": Rana hrvatska imigracija u SAD, prakse na otoku Ellis i stvaranje hrvatske dijaspore

Author(s): Tanja Bukovčan / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 29/2006

From 1892 to 1954 more than 12 million immigrants entered the United States through its famous gateway, Ellis Island. They were processed through immigration procedure and majority of them, from that period, were allowed to enter the US and become the citizens of their choice. Poverty, scarcity and hard field labour forced many Croats to seek better life in America. Almost four millions of them went through the Ellis Island in the period from 1880 to 1930. Very young, of average age not more than 22, most of them single males, together with all other steerage passengers, underwent the quick medical examinations, "six seconds physicals" through which they were checked for signs of infectious diseases, insanity, "feeblemindedness" of physical defects. To avoid the trap of being too easily critical 100 years after Ellis Island happenings, it has to be said that they were a practical solution to immigration admission. The number of people entering the US through Ellis Island could reach 5000 up to 11000 people per day during America's peak immigration years from 1890-1924. However, Ellis Island practices legitimatized and deepened the division between the ethnically desirable (North and Western Europe immigrants) and less desirable (South-Eastern Europe and Asia). Furthermore, they provided a mass demonstration of power and political practices, which used health as an instrument of separation between those who were eligible to become the members of a politically stable, healthy labour force, and those who were not. This paper tries to examine in what way did such "segregatory" practices, which already at the entrance to the New World, defined Croats and other immigrants as possibly unhealthy, insane or inapt, influence the formation of Croatian Diaspora in North America as a culturally distinct ethnic group. It also raises the question as to how will the newly emerging medical borders affect notions of ethnicity and the ways in which dispersed/displaced peoples construct their identities in the time of "global ethnoscapes" (Appadurai) The fact that this first "legalized" segregation on the basis of a six-second medical examination was going on under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, shows to what extent it was assumed as "scientifically" reasonable and politically correct, and explains the existence of its current practices of creating medical borders. Who remains on the other side of the medical border? The ethnical and cultural "Others", or, just "the ill"?

"Здесь русский дух… здесь Русью пахнет!": Борьбас "русским духом" в Таллине в начале 1920-х гг

Author(s): Aurika Meimre,Antonia Nael / Language(s): Russian / Issue: 1/2014

This article is aimed at reconstructing the course of events that resulted in the relocation of a monument of Peter the Great in the capital of Estonia. The bronze standing figure of Peter by Léopold Bernstamm (unveiled in September 1910 to commemorate the bicentennial of the siege of Reval) was removed in April 1922. The reasons for its demolition were mainly ideological: for Estonians Peter the Great symbolized years of suffering under Russian rule. The controversy around Peter the Great attracted Georg Tõnisson (Gori), a graphic artist, who portrayed the czar in a series of caricatures published by Waba Maa and Meie Mats.

"Рат је био највиша школа моја, а несумњиво и општа"

Први светски рат у делу Данице Марковић

Author(s): Dunja S. Dušanić / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 2/2012

The position of Serbian women writers regarding the First World War is a specific issue and one that has largely been left unexamined. There are several reasons for this; some of them are political, some are literary. First, the war had a distinctive character in Serbia – it was considered as the final stage in the process of Serbian national liberation, which culminated, or at the least, was intended to culminate, in the creation of a new, multinational state – making it extremely difficult to draw direct comparisons between Serbian women's engagement in the war and that of other nations'. Second, Serbian women writers' arrival on the literary scene in the pre-war years had a decisive influence on their writing, limiting them to genres, themes, and forms, traditionally linked to "feminine" values. It cannot be easily assessed to what extent the experience of War shaped their subsequent literary choices, and generalizations should, if possible, be avoided. However, by examining individual cases, we can maybe arrive at a better understanding of the multifaceted reality of World War I. This paper attempts to do so by examining the involvement of Serbia's most distinguished pre-war poetess, Danica Marković, in the 1917 uprising against the Bulgarian authorities, and the account of this experience in her poem "Twelve thousand" and her testimony "Impressions from the Toplica uprising".