"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.

"AT THIS SITE, A MONUMENT WILL BE INSTALLED": CHISINAU MONUMENTS AND COMMEMORATION PRACTICES DEDICATED TO FORCED SOVIET DEPORTATIONS

Author(s): Kateřina FUKSOVÁ / Language(s): English / Issue: 33/2020

The article deals with the politics of memory in Moldova, emphasizing the memory of the forced Soviet deportations from Moldova in 1941–1951. The article aims to analyse contemporary Moldovan politics of memory and discuss it on the example of Chisinau monuments and commemoration practices dedicated to the forced Soviet deportations. As the main theoretical concept for the analysis of the monuments serves Pierre Nora's term lieux de memoire, which is defined as the symbolic elements of the memorial heritage of any community (Nora, 1989). In the article, three monuments are discussed: 'Monument to the Bessarabians massacred by Bolsheviks', 'Monument in the Memory of Victims of the Soviet Occupation and Totalitarian Soviet Regime' and the 'Train of Sorrow'.

"Bermanov dosje", moje pripombe

Author(s): Janko Pleterski / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2001

Če vzamemo v roke spomine akademika profesorja dr. Aleksandra Bajta, vidimo, da opisujejo, vsaj v delu, kjer zadevajo njegovo bivanje v Italiji od jeseni 1943 in v prvih mesecih 1944, pričakovano neobičajne doživljaje. Nakazal jih je namreč že v svoji biografiji univerzitetnega učitelja, objavljeni v letu 1957.2 V primerjavi s tistim, kar je o svojem pohajanju po italijanskih gričih napisal takrat, je veličanje sicer nekoliko skromnejše, toda opisi so vzlic temu zanimivi in lepo berljivi. Ni šlo za neuspešne diverzantske podvige v ta namen posebej zbrane skupine, ampak za veliko manjše ambicije, četudi ne za manj tvegane in manj mučne doživljaje. Mladi Aleksander Bajt takrat iz Ljubljane ni "emigriral" pred Nemci, pač pa zato, ker se je bal, da bi ga v domačih hribih partizani kar umorili, čeprav je bil le manj pomemben član Narodne legije. [...]

"Bleiburg" and the British Treatment of Croatian Collaborators 1945-48

Author(s): Bernd Robionek / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

This article highlights ways in which British military and political personnel acted towards Croatian refugees fleeing the Communist takeover in the final stages of World War II and thereafter. Although events relating to the surrender o f various pro-German and anti-Communist forces at Bleiburg, a town in south Austria near the border with Yugoslavia, and the following quarrel over "war criminals" from Yugoslavia is a complex affair, this contribution examines sources shedding light on British perspectives on the Croatian part, notwithstanding that the developments and problems treated here also affected Serbian, Slovenian and (ethnic) German nationals. As a result of this study, the changes in the intentions of the decision makers in London as well as the principal-agent problem become transparent.

"Demokratizačná akcia"

Študentské čistky na slovenských vysokých školách na prelome rokov 1948 a 1949

Author(s): Marta Glossová / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2-3/2019

In her study, the authoress examines one of the ways the newly established Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was using since February 1948 in an attempt to build new loyal elites and to prevent the formation of non-conformist ones. The topic is the screening of study results and political reliability of Slovak university students, which took place at the turn of 1948 and 1949 under the euphemistic name “democratization campaign” or simply “democratization”. The authoress sets the campaign into a broader political framework and into the context of the ideological discourse of those days. In doing so, she compares it to a parallel, so-called “study screening” in the Czech Lands, and also sets it in the context of multiple waves of the “purging” of Slovak universities between 1948 and 1960, showing its connection with a subsequent purge launched in 1950 as part of a campaign against the so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalism. Using results of her research in Slovak archives, she describes and summarizes the organization, course, and outcome of the “democratization campaign”. The screening used both criteria related to study results (employed primarily to justify the screening) and political criteria (reflecting the true objective of the screening process); a combination of these two groups of criteria ultimately produced several categories of students. Every student was either cleared and allowed to study on, or expelled – either temporarily, for two to three semesters during which he or she was expected to work in production, or permanently. It should be noted that there existed substantial differences in numbers of expelled students among various universities and faculties, and the authoress is trying to find an explanation. Compared to the outcome of the “study screening” in the Czech Lands, that of the “democratization campaign” in Slovakia was generally more lenient, often falling short of radical expectations of its organizers. The authoress claims that Slovakia’s outcome reflects three factors: lack of and need for skilled experts in various fields compared to the Czech Lands, the weak position of the Communist Party among students and teachers at some Slovak universities, and the existence of an Appeal Commission at the Slovak Ministry of Education, Sciences and Arts which reversed or changed many expulsion rulings. The Appeal Commission’s chairman Ernest Otto and the Commissioner of Education, Communist writer Ladislav Novomeský (1904–1976), thus found themselves in a conflict with leaders of the University Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, their more liberal approach to the “democratization campaign” contributing to their political and criminal persecution in the 1950s.

"Depoi špijuna i terorista". Saveznički logori za "raseljene osobe" u Italiji, Austriji i Njemačkoj

Author(s): Marica Karakas Obradov / Language(s): Croatian / Publication Year: 0

Immediately after the end of World War II, Western Allies organized refugee camps in their occupation zones in Austria, Italy and Germany which existed until early 1950s. Foreign citizens, such as forced laborers and prisoners of concentration camps, who had been found mostly in Germany and Austria after the collapse of the German Reich, were placed in those camps, as well as military and civilian post-hostilities refugees fleeing from the Red Army and partisan-communist forces from Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. A great number of persons were extradited to their countries of origin on charges of war crimes. Among them were many Croats, primarily members of the Croatian armed forces and the Ustasha movement. The remaining refugees are displaced around the world especially in countries of South and North America and in Australia.

"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.

"La revolution nationale" du maréchal Pétain dans les documents diplomatiques bulgares (le 17 juin 1940 - le 11 novembre 1942)

Author(s): Hristo Milkov / Language(s): French / Issue: 4/1995

"Ma laulan seni kui tuksub elu mu käte all". Trauma poeetika Bernard Kangro luules

Author(s): Maarja Hollo / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 11/2017

The article discusses six poems from the poetry collection Põlenud puu (Charred tree, 1945) and three cycles from the collection Varjumaa (Shadowland, 1966), both published in exile by Estonian author Bernard Kangro (1910–1994). Those autobiographical poems and cycles are interpreted as a testimony, testifying not only to the author’s personal experiences of the World War II, but also in the name of the other Estonian refugees and in the name of those who suffered and perished in their home country. The article analyses Kangro’s themes, motifs and figures of speech associated with traumatic experience and remembering, as well as the witness position of the lyrical I. The themes of Kangro’s testimony poems include the great escape from Estonia in 1944, loss of homeland, its violent occupation, and also remembering, commemoration, witnessing, testification and the sinking of the traumatic events into oblivion, which all brings sadness, anxiety and melancholy to his lyrical I. Melancholy is associated with motifs of death referring either to the death wish of the lyrical I or to the painful events caused to the homeland by war and occupation. The gist of Kangro’s testimonial poetry consists of traumatic memories and emotions of recalling them, mainly expressed by means of personification, symbols and depersonification, as well as allegory.

"Malenkij robot" a plány o československom národnom štáte

Author(s): Attila Simon / Language(s): Slovak / Publication Year: 0

This study details how forced labour of Hungarians in the Soviet Union - also referred to as "málenkij robot" meaning "little work" in Russian - affected Hungarians in Slovakia. The author provides a short introduction to the historiography of the subject and outlines the history of abductions, but the study's core rests with the examination of what was the attitude of the Czechoslovak government toward the repatriation of Hungarians abducted from the territory of the then northern Hungary, currently southern Slovakia. The author observes that the Prague government pursued a selective repatriation policy and it made every effort to prelude their return to their homeland. That means the abducted Hungarian population of southern Slovakia became victim of the autocratic Soviet power and, at the same time, of the ambitions to build a Czechoslovak nation state.

"Převoz mrtvých do protektorátu nepřichází v úvahu "

Author(s): Birgit Sack / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 01/2018

Ještě dnes se na památník Münchner Platz v Drážďanech obracejí lidé, kteří pátrají po tělesných ostatcích svých příbuzných popravených v tomto městě během druhé světové války. Návštěva hrobu bývá pro rodinné příslušníky nejdůležitějším okamžikem jejich cesty do Drážďan. Konečně chtějí truchlit na místě, kde jsou pochováni jejich blízcí. Ne vždy je však možné jejich přání splnit.

"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.

"Spokojni ludzie" z Hołdunowa

Author(s): Ryszard Kaczmarek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2017

The gloomy events ended with burning down of some buildings, and since then, Hołdunów has been shown as the evidence of the insugrents’ lawlessness for decades to come.

"Temné jeho oči doslova fascinují"

Cesta českých kulturních pracovníků do Německa a Holandska v září 1940

Author(s): Jiří Křesťan / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 3-4/2020

Between 1939 and 1943, trips to Nazi Germany and to territories occupied by Germany (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, a large part of the Soviet Union) ranked among important tools influencing the public opinion in the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The study deals with a trip of a group of Czech intellectuals – artists, representatives of culture and journalists – to Germany and the Netherlands in September 1940. Under German guidance, the 35-strong delegation was composed to give a representative and diverse impression. Apart from newspapermen collaborating with Germans, such as Karel Lažnovský (1906–1941) or Vladimír Krychtálek (1903–1947), men active in different segments of culture were invited as well, including personalities as outstanding as the directors of the dramatic company and the opera ensemble of the National Theatre in Prague, Jan Bor (1886–1943) and Václav Talich (1883–1961), respectively, operatic singers Jan Konstantin (1894–1965) and Pavel Ludikar (1882–1970), violin virtuoso Váša Příhoda (1900–1960), publisher Bedřich Fučík (1900–1984), or architect Jan Sokol (1904–1987). The study focuses primarily on five writers who took part in the trip. Jaroslav Durych (1886–1962) and Václav Renč (1911–1973) ranked among Catholic-oriented authors, while Josef Knap (1900–1973) and Jan Čarek (1898–1966) represented so-called ruralists (writers of the country), and Josef Hora (1891–1945) was a leading poet, initially writing social poetry and later reflexive lyric poetry. Between the wars, all of them had been critical toward the reality of the First Republic in one way or another, the first four from conservative positions and Hora on the left (until 1929, he had been a member of the Communist Party). The trip’s programme had been put together very ingeniously. In addition to proofs of the Third Reich’s brutal strength (a visit of the bombed-out city of Rotterdam, a sightseeing tour of the Krupp arms factory in Essen), the travelers were served a menu of diverse cultural experiences (visits of theatrical performances, exhibitions and museums, outstanding architectural creations etc.). In Berlin, they were received by Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945), Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, who emphasized, while addressing them, that the survival of the Czech nation and its culture depended on its submission to the German Reich. Upon their return home, all participants were forced to give public statements about the trip and their impressions, which had to conform to Nazi propaganda. Having described the above facts, the author analyzes defence strategies which the above mentioned authors were using while writing made-to-order articles or showing their supposed loyalty in order to avoid being dragged into the Nazi propaganda machine. They were bypassing some topics, resorting to allegories and ambiguities, and making use of concealed irony. In the end of the study, the author follows the fates of those who took part in the trip to Germany and the Netherlands, pondering, in a more general manner, fuzzy boundaries and dilemmas of guilt and collaboration in a totalitarian regime. Attached to the article are short biographies of all thirty-five participants in the trip.

"UNRRA NË SHQIPËR1,1944-1947"

Author(s): Lefter Nasi / Language(s): French / Issue: 01+02/2000

The recently published book "UNRRA në Shqipëri, 1944-1947" is the result of persistent work of several years. It marks the first effort of Albanian historiography to present, at the level of a monograph, the programs and activities of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, applied just after the end of the Second World War.

"Ustaše sa strane - s fesovima na glavi!" Jedna problematična teza o nasiljima u istočnoj Hercegovini 1941. godine

Author(s): Ivica Šarac / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 6/2020

The article seeks to test a thesis - that was set during the Second World War and gradually grew into an unquestionable fact in a part of historiographical literature - "foreign Ustashe", primarily those from the western parts of Herzegovina, were the most responsible for crimes committed over Serbian-Orthodox community in the East Herzegovina during 1941. The article is composed of two parts: analytical elaboration in the first part and appendices containing extracts from documents of the District Court in Mostar.

"Vergangenheitsbewältigung" po česku

Holokaust v českém samizdatu

Author(s): Peter Hallama / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 3/2016

This is a Czech translation of ‘“Vergangenheitsbewältigung” auf Tschechisch: Der Holocaust im tschechischen Samizdat’, which is published in Peter Hallama and Stephan Stach (eds), Gegengeschichte: Zweiter Weltkrieg und Holocaust im ostmitteleuropäischen Dissens (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2015, pp. 237–60). The author analyses representations of the Holocaust in Czech dissident literature published as samizdat in the 1970s and 1980s. He concentrates on historical writings, but also considers journalistic contributions, memoirs, and works of belles-lettres, as well as translations of publications. In particular, the article considers two aspects that highlight the difficulties one faced and continues to face when trying to fully integrate the Holocaust into Czech national history. First, the Holocaust was often understood by the dissidents as evidence of the inhuman nature of totalitarian regimes. This interpretation, however, led to placing the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi regime on the same level as the persecution of the Czechs by the Nazi and Communist regimes. Second, if there was a reassessment or questioning of the Czech national master narrative, then topics such as home-grown antisemitism or the Holocaust were not addressed. The dissidents admitted that Czechoslovakia also had its question of guilt, but they related it to the expulsion of the German minority after the Second World War. The Holocaust, by contrast, did not generate any similar debate among the dissidents. The behaviour of Czechs during the Second World War, the attitude towards Jews, and domestic antisemitism were thus not questioned at all. The Holocaust has, according to the author, therefore tended to be overlooked or, at best, mentioned only incidentally in writing about twentieth-century Czech history – whether the authors published their texts in state-owned publishing houses or in samizdat.

"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.

(A)symmetry of (Non-)memory: The Missed Opportunity to Work Through the Traumatic Memory of the Polish–Ukrainian Ethnic Conflict in Pawłokoma

Author(s): Mateusz Magierowski / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2016

During the Second World War, the village of Pawłokoma, nowadays located a dozen kilometres from the Polish–Ukrainian border, was an area of conflict between the two nations. It has been almost ten years since a ceremony was held commemorating the victims of the conflict. The ceremony was attended by the Polish and Ukrainian Presidents. Today, the village is a symbol of reconciliation between the two nations. This article analyzes the dynamics of local collective memory about the conflict, using the “working through” concept and works on social remembering as a theoretical framework. In my discussion of the causes and effects of the changes in dynamics, I use data from individual in-depth interviews with three categories of respondents: the inhabitants of Pawłokoma, local leaders, and experts. The aforementioned ceremony was an opportunity for working through the traumatic past in the local community of Pawłokoma. Although social consultations were held in Pawłokoma rather than a comprehensive working-through process, we should be talking about a symbolic substitute for this process. Despite the fact that material commemorations of the Polish and Ukrainian victims were erected, some factors essential to accomplishing the working-through process were missed, such as complex institutional support, the engagement of younger generations, and empathy towards the “Others” and their sufferings.

(Od)czytywanie losów żydowskich

Author(s): Natalia Aleksiun / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2020

This text introduces a collection of articles which seek to interpret Jewish ego documents and testimonies, broadly defined. Reading these documents facilitates a process of uncovering intimate threads and problematizing Jewish biographies.