History of Czechoslovak nationality
The history of Czechoslovak nationality involves the rise and fall of national feeling among Czechs and Slovaks. Once forming a rather unified group, they were historically separated, unified under a democratic system, separated during threat of war, and reunified under a socialist authoritarian regime. However, a democratization process has led to a definition of separate statehood for the majority of Czechs and Slovaks.
History
Ancient time
The Czechs and Slovaks are both ethnic Slavs and speak very similar languages. Moreover, these peoples once formed a very unified group of tribes, which were basically indistinguishable from one another. It is through history and different circumstances, it is believed, that those tribes acquired the characteristics that made them Czechs and Slovaks. As to where exactly the Slav tribes came from, historians cannot agree.Empires
Great Moravia
The earliest instance of formal Czechoslovak unity was under the empire of Samo, whose capital was centered in what is today Bratislava. The Slavonic tribes of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia would continue to be united within the succeeding great Moravian Empire. Prince Mojmír I, founder of the House of Mojmír, established Great Moravia in 833. At the end of the 9th century, it extended further under the rule of Svatopluk I and became the most powerful Slavonic state of Christendom.However, the tribes living in today's Slovakia were conquered by Magyar tribes and were separated from the Moravians and Bohemians. In 1025, the territory of present-day Slovakia indeed became a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, thus reducing, but not ending relations between the Czechs and Slovaks. In this period, culture expanded mostly through literature, creating nationalist feelings. Nevertheless, the Czechs and Slovaks were still far from forming a strong united country and the Slovaks remained under Hungarian influence.
Habsburg Monarchy
In 1526, Bohemia became part of the Habsburg crown, but it was not until the battle of the White Mountain in 1620 that Bohemian independence was liquidated and the native, Czech aristocracy dispossessed. As for Moravia, it also became part of the Habsburg monarchy in 1648. Thus, the Czechs' and Slovaks' lands were divided between Austria and Hungary. This division remained even after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, whereby the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established.In their respective Empires, Czechs and Slovaks lived under strongly different conditions. On the one hand, Czechs enjoyed a certain autonomy within Austria. Their culture and language could continue to live and expand, even though Czech remained mainly spoken by the peasantry. Moreover, they were represented in the Austrian Parliament.
In 1862, the Sokol movement was founded in Prague. It played an important part in the Czech national revival and eventually extended to other Slavic countries. Educated Czechs called for increased political participation. They wanted to have similar privileges as the Magyars, or Hungarians, and Germans, but were unable to form a united force. Thus, the Czech national movement was mostly suppressed.
On the other hand, Slovaks were living under harsher conditions in the Kingdom of Hungary. Having no political nor economic power, they were dominated by the Hungarians who tried to assimilate them through Magyarisation process as Slovak schools were closed. Under such conditions, the development of a national identity was much more complex and slower.
Having cultural ties with the Czechs, Slovaks were divided between associating with the Czechs or seeking for a separate existence. Moreover, the appeal of joining the Czechs was great since they considered Slovaks as members of their own people and often defended Slovak interests in the Austrian Parliament.
First Czechoslovak Republic
was mainly a product of the First World War. The three founders of the Czechoslovak National Council, Masaryk, Beneš, and Štefánik, met in France, seeking for complete independence rather than only more autonomy in the Habsburg Empire. On 6 January 1918 Czech deputies in the Reichsrat issued the ‘Twelfth Night Declaration’ demanding self-determination for the Czechoslovaks. On October 28, the National Council seized power and Czechoslovakia was created as a parliamentary democracy.Besides the mutual feelings of unity among Czechs and Slovaks, there were also clear demographic incentives for creating Czechoslovakia. One in three of the population of the Czechs lands was Germans, most of them living in the Sudetenland region. The Czechs could not be confident of defending the new state against a German minority which constituted approximately a third of the population; association with the Slovaks would decrease the minority to just under a quarter and thus make it much more manageable. The Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 identified the "Czechoslovak nation" as the creator and principal constituent of the Czechoslovak state and established the "Czechoslovak language" as the official language. The concept of Czechoslovakism was necessary in order to justify the establishment of Czechoslovakia towards the world, because otherwise the statistical majority of the Czechs as compared to Germans would be rather weak.
After World War I, the First Czechoslovak Republic was finally formed by combining the Czech lands, Upper Hungary, and Carpathian Ruthenia, which was annexed in 1919 due to the Allies’ pressure. If the desire for a Czechoslovak nation had been expressed for a long time, the Slovaks in the 1920s, nevertheless, felt resentment because they were proportionally less represented into the Czechoslovak administration. This, however, can be explained by the fact that, in Austria-Hungary, the Czechs had the opportunity to develop an elite which could then lead the new country and that such an elite was totally absent in the Slovak population. Moreover, the formation of a Czechoslovak Hussite Church which conducted its services in Czech created large discontent. New national holidays, such as July 6, which commemorated the death of Czech reformer Jan Hus, created opposition within the Catholics. Also during the 1920s, the Slovaks became more and more literate, thus developing their own culture, and the structures promoting such a Slovak culture.
1938–1945: Nazi Regime and World War II
The resentment felt by the Slovak population was expressed by the growing support it gave to the Nazi regime and policies. Thus, when Adolf Hitler decided to split Czechoslovakia, Slovaks showed little opposition. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created, and Slovak State became a puppet state of Nazi Germany. However, Slovaks soon realized that this clearly meant Nazi domination and control, not real independence. The Slovak National Uprising in 1944 was suppressed by Nazi Germany, but guerrilla warfare continued until the Soviet Army liberated Slovakia in 1945.Soviet-backed regime
Following the defeat of the Nazis and the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia was restored as a unitary state. After the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, the Slovak independence movement was suppressed and the Communist Party of Slovakia incorporated into the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In addition, Slovak communists who favoured a unitary state were installed in power. The most important change in the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia was that it severely limited the autonomy granted to Slovakia. This provision was the decision of President Antonín Novotný. The executive branch of the Slovak government was abolished and its duties assigned to the Presidium of the Slovak National Council, thus combining executive and legislative functions into a single body. The legislative National Assembly was given authority to overrule decisions of the Slovak National Council, and central government agencies took over the administration of the major organs of Slovak local government.The situation changed under Nikita Khrushchev’s leadership. The new General Secretary had a very different perspective about nationalities and decided to rehabilitate Slovak nationalists. Moreover, the purges and destalinization process of the 1950s caused the revival of Slovak nationalism. On the one hand, many Slovaks had been purged from the Party, and on the other hand, the destalinization process asked for more concessions and compromises. Intellectuals began to have ideas of federalism. The Prague Spring in 1968 was followed by a period of normalization, sometimes called Husakism after Gustáv Husák. Thus, in October 1968, Czechoslovakia amended the 1960 Constitution by the Constitutional Law of Federation. The Slovaks were recognized as a separate nation and were given their own governmental bodies, namely the Slovak national council and the board of commissioners.
Velvet Revolution and divorce
With the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union, the historic differences between the Czechs and the Slovaks came back. Those were mainly expressed through different political and economic viewpoints. While Slovaks were more attached and committed to state welfare and ownership, Czechs were wishing for a quick change to the western model of capitalism. Moreover, there were intense debates on renaming the country, with various hyphened versions of Czechoslovakia. In addition, the system of checks and balances set up by the constitution made it possible for Slovak autonomists to block political institutions from functioning.On July 17, 1992, the Slovak National Council adopted Slovakia's declaration of sovereignty, and major constitutional changes gave the Slovaks their own state, which they had desired for a long time. The peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia led to the establishment of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.