The Process of National Identity Reaffirmation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia During Recent Years.

The Process of National Identity Reaffirmation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia During Recent Years

During the break up of the communist systems in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, one country in particular differed significantly in the way its communist regime was overthrown when compared to its neighbouring Eastern European states. November 1989 witnessed the break up of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR) and the creation of two sovereign states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Whilst the violent and bloody processes of dismantling the communist regime in Yugoslavia and the heavily publicised break up of the Soviet Empire reached the front pages of the media, the break up of the CSFR was rarely given a mention. Perhaps, due to the fact that no lives were lost and no blood was shed during the so-called ‘Velvet Divorce’ of the Czech and Slovak states, meant that the violent nature of the clashes in other states within Eastern Europe received the majority of the world-wide public attention. Furthermore, what makes the Czechoslovakian split even more significant, is that whereas the changes in other Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and the Soviet Union were forced upon its citizens by the ruling elites, the Czechoslovakian break-up differed greatly in the fact that its revolution was instigated by students, intellectuals and figures from the field of art. The Velvet Divorce represented a rare example of how diplomatic and peaceful efforts to deal with the demands of nationalism can be accommodated effectively without the need for shots to be fired or lives to be lost.

Paal Sigurd Hilde (1999) argues that the Velvet Divorce occurred due to the democratic regime, which followed the collapse of communist rule, failing to deal with the two main tasks it was faced with in 1989.

‘…First the problem of finding a new model for the common Czech and Slovak state…and second, reforming the not only the economy but the whole of society away from the socialist model…which proved too much of a burden for the new democratic regime to deal with’

There are a number of economic, political and social arguments which attempt to explain the main reasons behind the break up. For example, from an economic perspective Dedek (1996) pointed out that the economic structures of the Czech and Slovak states differed greatly, with the Slovak economy depending on the heavy industries that were constructed in the socialist era. This meant that Slovakian economy was affected much more adversely by the post communist reforms than the Czech economy, and ‘political opposition to radical reforms in Slovakia, in contrast to the widespread support for the reforms in the Czech Lands, was crucial in the conflict that led to the break up’ (Hilde, 1999). Meanwhile, sociologists such as Machonin (1996) tended to look towards the impact that the Normalisation era during the 20-year communist rule had on the world-views of the average Czech and Slovak.

Alternative explanations from political science and legal perspectives also exist, such as those evident in the work of Stein (1997), which highlight the importance of the constitutional character of the CSFR. The CSFR was troubled by the fact that important legislation could not be passed due to laws on minority vetoes [38 out of 300 MPs could block important legislation and only 31 deputy votes needed to stop constitutional amendments] which were making the drafting a three new constitutions particularly difficult. However, whilst the most important factor which determined the Czechoslovakian split varies according to the academic background of each study, Hilde (1999) points out that all of these arguments are, in themselves, insufficient in providing one single explanation for the Velvet Divorce. The factor that he suggests is vital in efforts to understand the break up is the importance of the fact that many writers frequently used the term ‘Slovak nationalism’ in their explanations for the divorce, and Hilde (1999) argues that ‘Slovak nationalism is generally presented as a kind of glue that binds all other factors to the break up’. Furthermore, he suggests that without nationalism, the economic and social issues blamed for the break up would not have occurred.

The purpose of this paper is not to investigate, define and prioritise the importance of the various economic, political and social causes of the Czechoslovakian break up. Rather, the aim of this essay is to examine the processes of national identity reaffirmation which caused and resulted in the break up. Moreover, the paper will investigate the extent of the differences between the national identities of the Czech and Slovak populations and examine the claim that the old CSFR was a Federation which housed two completely different groups of people with two completely different identities: the Czech and the Slovaks. ...

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The definition of both ‘nationalism’ and ‘national identity’ are important starting points in this paper, and a point from which one can begin to understand the processes of national identity reaffirmation and the break up of the CSFR. However, whereas ‘national identity’ is a concept somewhat simple to define as ‘who we are’ and ‘how we see ourselves’, the definition of ‘nationalism – the mechanism through which the character and demands of national identity is expressed – is a much more difficult concept to define, and is the subject of various theoretical approaches. However, for the purposes of this essay I shall adopt Hilde’s (1999) simple definition of nationalism being ‘…a set of demands made on behalf of a group of people characterised most often by a separate culture (and language in particular)’ (Hilde, 1999: 649). The demands of the Slovakian people were based on a desire to be recognised as ‘different’ and ‘separate’ to the people of the Czech lands. Slovaks saw themselves as separate from the Czechs both culturally and politically whilst being further divided and distinguished by language, and this belief overlapped with the argument that the Czech government did not understand the Slovaks and their needs. The Czechs referred to these grievances as the ‘Slovak Question, the answer was the formation of separate Czech and Slovak states due to the demands of Slovak secessionist nationalism.

National identity itself is not a constant state bond. It does not ‘emerge’ or ‘go into hibernation’ and then ‘resurge’, if by that we are assuming a fixed quality with fixed reference points, much less a fixed agenda. The question “who are we?” and the nature of the action, remedy or resolution that identification requires evolves over time in response to shifting circumstances, as well as to changing elite perceptions of threat and opportunity. Czech and Slovak national identity and the expression of nationalism shaped and was shaped by a series of political regimes in the 20th century, with each successive political environment posing a different problem for national identity and with each successive regime transmitting an ambiguous legacy to the next. The Czech lands and Slovakia began the century within the confines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The collapse if the Halbsburg regime following World War 2 facilitated a joint experiment in national self-determination and independence; this common state was temporarily abrogated by the German intervention of 1938-39. During this brief but telling period of separation, the Czech lands fell under a German protectorate and Slovakia was detached to pursue a circumscribed independence within the Axis camp.

The post-war communisation of a reunited state was not a politically indifferentiated period; for twenty years, Slovak distinctiveness received a very modest tribute in the form of “asymmetrical” Slovak political organs subordinate to the central government in Prague. This was a peculiar arrangement which gave way to the formal federalisation of the state in the aftermath of the Prague Spring reform period of 1968. Since 1989, democratisation efforts stalemated over the ultimately unresolvable question of the balance of national interests within a common Czech and Slovak state. Czechoslovakia, in many ways distinctive in its successes – the sole interwar regime in the region that maintained a parliamentary democracy, a developed economic base, and a tradition of peaceful politics – is now distinctive in the character of its failure, disintegration not by violence but by deadlock and acquiescence.

Over this era of highly varied political experiences - monarchy, parliamentary democracy, authoritarian occupation and communist rule – the circumstances of national expression changed with relentless frequency. The impact of these changes on Czech and Slovak national aspirations, identity and the processes of national identity reaffirmation that have occurred in recent years, is the focus of this essay. First it will be useful, however, to set a broader context for this examination of two nationalisms bound together by an experiment in statehood, to look at some of the distinctions between the national identities of the Slovak and Czech nations which were the driving forces behind the processes of national identity reaffirmation evident during the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in November 1989, and the factors that demarcated the boundaries of two societies that had been politically and economically integrated without having achieved a clear vision of mutual destiny.

By and large, the relevant national elites did recognise national identity as a dynamic factor, subject to change and redefinition. The political evolution of national identity in the 20th Century, in fact, was shaped not only by successive efforts to redefine political structures, but also by ‘conscious social engineering of the national fabric’ (Verdery, 1993: 28). The most striking of these efforts at social engineering include the ‘magyarization’ policies of the Hungarian state during World War I, through which it sought to turn Slovaks into Hungarians; the identification of the inter-war state with an elusive “Czechoslovakism”; the national ideology of the Slovak state; and the post-war Communist efforts to resolve the national question. In each case, the architects of national policy assumed that national identity was malleable, susceptible to redefinition in consonance with state purposes. In each case, the result was less than satisfactory, and the national question remained unresolved.

Part of the problem lay with the differences in the focus and core values of the two nations-Czech and Slovak-that were to be harnessed in a joint undertaking. A sense of national identity with a national group is a widespread building block of modern politics. According to Leff (1988), although the phenomenon of nationalism by definition contains an integral political component, there is no inherent or “natural” ideological content to its expression. It is common, but not inevitable, for nationalism to carry religious cargo; religious identity is often one of the core values that differentiates the national group, with the church serving as the ‘custodian of cultural identity’ (Pearson, 1983: 22). Moreover, national leaders may appeal to common religious identity in order to demarcate and mobilise a national constituency.

Religion was clearly an important politicising factor in the Slovak pursuit of national goals. From the beginning of the 20th Century through the First Republic (1918-38), this centrality was evident in the prominence of religious figures in the national movement. Priests forged multiple and enduring links with the local populations in a context where the parish remained a central element in village life and where the control of education also resided to significant extent with the clergy. However, the direct participation of religious leaders in nationalist politics was, in a sense, only a marker denoting the strong salience of religion for Slovak national identity and the larger relevance of religion to nationalism was a continuing thread throughout the 20th Century. In the First Republic, confessional issues were a constant factor in the nationalist agenda for an HSLS (Hlinka Slovak People’s Party) Party that sought to protect both the Catholic Church as an institution and the integrity of religious values-“For God and Country”-against a more secularly orientated central government and against Czech “atheism/agnosticism”.

In the post-war period, under a hostile Communist regime, the submergence of the religious component of Slovak national identity failed to extirpate the durable core of avowed believers. In the census of 1991, the proportion of religious believers of all faiths in the Czech lands was 44 percent (39 percent Roman Catholic), while Slovakia recorded almost 73 percent of its population as adherents of a religious faith (60 percent Roman Catholic). Moreover, religious concerns for religious instruction, the training and practice of priesthood, and the dissemination of religious material-had been clearly visible in the reform period of 1968, and the revival of dissident activity in the 1970’s had reconfirmed the centrality of religion as a focus of Slovak concern.

The religiosity of the Slovaks meshed poorly with the more secular Czech evolution. The seeming Catholic predominance in the Czech lands eroded steadily in the 20th Century, complicated by a strong anticlerical tradition against the thoroughgoing Counter-Reformation that accompanied the seventeenth-century of the Czech state. The ‘clear Catholic presence in the national renaissance was crosscut with the perception that the church hierarchy served Austrian interests’ (Luxmoore, 1982: 103). Although Moravia remained a firmer religious bastion, the number of Czech non-believers already neared 10 percent in the 1920 census and climbed to almost 40 percent in 1991 after decades of communism. By contrast, Slovakia’s nonbelievers reached the 10 percent mark only in 1991. This demographic differential had powerful political import that underpinned overt tensions between the two national groups. Even before statehood Father Hlinka, leader of the Slovak People’s Party, claimed to ‘worry less about language than about Czech atheism’ (Leff, 1987: 48). Czech politicians found it easier to cooperate with the influential Slovak Protestant minority, who shared their concern over the ‘exorbitant religiosity’ of the Slovak population as an impediment to rational governance - a posture that inevitably promoted intense resentment at home.

Nationalism and the formation of national identity can also carry a distinctive political orientation. It can certainly be integrated into authoritarian political institutions, with one-party rule and with strong leadership, as was the case in the wartime Slovak state. However, this linkage is hardly automatic as it is possible to speak of a ‘democratisation’ of nationalisms in the national revivals of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the sense that the ‘people’, rather than a narrow group of elites, was increasingly perceived as the proper repository of national sovereignty and elite competition to mobilize co-nationals gave concrete form to this conception. The process represented a twofold challenge to traditional government, for the nationalist challenge to a multinational state could readily attach itself to demands for a more representative government, alarming both officials and the dominant German and Hungarian nations as well. Even when the nation became a concept inclusive of the mass public, however, popular connections to politics still ran across a ‘spectrum from demagogic populism to autonomous citizen initiative’ (Pynsent, 1994: 34).

Tensions over the national identity between Czechs and Slovaks rested in part with a controversy over the democratic tendencies of each side, and notwithstanding support for the Communist transformation of the 1940’s, it is not a distortion to make the suggestion that the most dominant tendency of Czech national political expression has been liberal democratic in the tradition of Tomas G. Masaryk. The Czech political orientation, however, found itself at odds with the Slovakian in ways that marked long-standing controversies over the character of democracy and the authenticity of each nation’s democratic credentials, with the Czechs periodically accusing the Slovaks of forgery. From the outset, Czechs discerned in Slovak nationalist politics a ‘demagogic’ slant that delegitimated Slovak nationalist demands. The intemperate character of some of Hlinka’s pronouncements and the radicalism of the younger HSLS faction tended to discredit the movement [and the electorate naive enough to vote for them] as being ‘politically immature’ in Czech eyes. This diagnosis of Slovak political immaturity cast doubt on the capacity of Slovaks to govern themselves, insofar as Czechs and many Slovaks refused to believe that the strong electoral support for the HSLS [and later nationalist groups] ‘mirrored true Slovak interests, or that free speech defined those interests responsibly in the marketplace of ideas’ (Leff, 1987: 196).

The Czech and Slovak nationalisms displayed after World War 2 and during the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in 1989, suggests some profound historical incompatibilities. Nationalisms with ‘compatible’ political content may of course fight to the death, and incompatibility may be a result of differences in power and influence. Nonetheless, the divergent ideological content of the two national currents and identities, bound together in a single state but unable to reach a mutually acceptable constitutional equilibrium, and this proved to be a significant contextual element during the longer term processes influencing national identity reaffirmation in the Czech and Slovak states.

The processes of national identity reaffirmation leading up to the break up of Czechoslovakia in 1989 were all based upon one key theme: the Slovak people saw themselves as holding a completely different sense of national identity to the Czechs. The record of Czech-Slovak interaction finally compels one to conclude that the common state had no common history – or rather, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, that the Czechs and Slovaks were two nations divided by a common state. The common state foundered on an institutional and political incapacity to negotiate national differences. The peaceful break up of Czechoslovakia finally gave Slovaks the autonomy that they had been yearning for, and in July 1992 Slovakia declared itself a sovereign state, meaning that its laws took precedence over those of the federal government. The differences between the national identities of Czechs and Slovaks has finally been recognised, and the Slovak people were granted their wish for a separate state and provided with an arena in which the Slovak national identity could be reaffirmed and finally made to feel at home.

Cited References

Dedek, O. (1996) The Break up of Czechoslovakia: An In-Depth Economic Analysis. Aldershot.

Hilde, P.H. (1999) Slovak Nationalism and the Break-up of Czechoslovakia. In Europe-East Asia Studies, Vol. 51, No.4: 647-665.

Leff, C.S. (1988) National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: the Making and Remaking of a 1918-1987. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Luxmoore, J.(1982) Truth Prevails: The Catholic Contribution to Czech Thought and Culture. Religion, State and Society, 20, 103-19.

Machonin, P. (1996) Czechoslovakia 1918-92: A Laboratory for Social Change. London.

Pearson, R. (1983) National Minorities in Eastern Europe: 1845-1945. London: Macmillan, 22.

Pynsent, R.B. (1994) Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. Budapest: Central European University Press.

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Verdery, K. (1993) Ethnic Relations, Economies of Shortage and the Transition in Eastern Europe. In Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice, ed. C.M. Hann. ASA Monographs 31. London: Routledge.