Abstract
The Czechs and Slovaks have a common ancestry in the myriad Slavonic tribes that occupied their territories in the sixth century as part of the great migration of Slavs into Eastern, Central and South Eastern Europe. They also have a common political ancestor in the Great Moravian Empire, which in the ninth century occupied a territory significantly larger than modern Czechoslovakia. The claims of some contemporary Slovak patriots that this was the first Slovak state seem to be wide of the mark. Archaeological evidence suggests that its capital was in Moravia, perhaps at Mikulcice. Moreover the terms ‘Czech’ and ‘Slovak’ were meaningless in those days of predominantly tribal identity.
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Notes and References
Quoted by Hugh Le Caine Agnew, ‘Slovak Linguistic Separation’, in John Morison (ed.), The Czech and Slovak Experience (London: Macmillan, 1992), p. 51.
For more detail on this point see Z. A. B. Zeman, Pursued by a Bear (London: Chatto and Windus, 1989), pp. 25–32.
Cited in Joseph F. Zacek, Palacký: The Historian as a Scholar and Nationalist (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1970), pp. 84–5.
For a detailed discussion of this thesis, see Miroslav Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 44–61, 98–106.
Cited in Barbara A. Kohak Kimmel, ‘Karel Havlíček and the Czech Press before 1848’, in Peter Brock and H. Gordon Skilling (eds), The Czech Renascence of the Nineteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), p. 122.
Joseph F. Zacek, ‘Nationalism in Czechoslovakia’, in Peter F. Sugar and Ivo Lederer (eds), Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), p. 193.
James Felak, ‘Slovak Considerations of the Slovak Question: the Ludak, Agrarian, Socialist and Communist Views in Interwar Czechosloavakia’, in John Morison (ed.), The Czech and Slovak Experience (London: Macmillan, 1992), p. 143.
For detailed analysis, see Ludvík Němec, ‘Solution of the Minorities Problem’, in Victor S. Mamatey and Radomir Luza (eds), A History of the Czechoslovak Republic 1918–1948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 416–27.
H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 457–89, 858–77.
Martin Myant, The Czechoslovak Economy 1948–1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 261.
Interview with Adam Michnik and Andrzej Jagodzinski in Gazeta Wyborcza, reprinted in the Guardian on 25 September 1992.
Jan Obrman, ‘Slovak Politician Accused of Secret Police Ties’, RFE/RL Research Report, 10 April 1991; Jiri Pehe, ‘Political Conflict in Slovakia’, RFEIRL Research Institute Report on Eastern Europe, 10 May 1991; Jiri Pehe, ‘The Realignment of Political Forces’, RFE/RL Research Institute Report on Eastern Europe, 24 May 1991.
Bernard Wheaton and Zdeněk Kavan, The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia, 1988–1991 (Boulder Co: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 177–8.
For a clear analysis of this debate, see Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, ‘Les Slovaques et le droit des peuple à disposer d’eux-mêmes: a le recherche d’une solution’, in André Liebich and Andre Reszler (eds), L’Europe centrale et ses minorities: vers une solution européene (Paris: Press Uiversitaire Française, 1993), pp. 83–102.
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© 1995 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Morison, J. (1995). The Road to Separation: Nationalism in Czechoslovakia. In: Latawski, P. (eds) Contemporary Nationalism in East Central Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23809-5_5
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