Czechs and Slovaks

“ Slovak is, in fact, merely a more archaic form of Czech. But whilst the Czechs of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, numbering six and a half millions, at the present day, have fought for the last thousand years against German aggression and suffered from German tyranny, the two and a half million Slovaks who inhabit north-eastern Hungary have had their chief and bitterest enemies in the Magyars. Now when Germans and Magyars are united for life and death in this struggle for dominance over Central Europe, what a joy it must be to them to suggest divisions between their victims! ”

“ Culturally the Slovaks remained constantly in close relation with the Czechs. The Magyars depend culturally on the Slovaks. The union of the Czechs and Slovaks is therefore a legitimate demand. The demand was made not only by the Czechs, but also by the Slovaks. The Slovaks will employ their own dialect in the schools and in the public administration; there can be no language question, because every Slovak, even without an education, understands Czech and every Czech understands Slovak. ”

“ All over the world the Czechs have, by all means at their disposal, fought and counteracted the plots and rancours of their Magyar and German enemies. If at the end of this war the Czecho-Slovak nation attains its liberty and an open road to a new greatness and glory, no one will be able to say that this comes to them as a gift and that they had not done enough to deserve it. They are working and fighting in the best spirit of a modern democracy, without narrow calculation of sacrifice and immediate reward. ”

“ When they had been beaten by the united effort of all Europe, the Czechs, after merely existing for 200 years, roused themselves at the end of the 18th century to new cultural life—the renaissance of the Czecho-Slovak nation is proof of strong national vitality. Why, therefore, and by what right do the Pangermanists deny the Czechs and Slovaks independence? The present-day great nations have laid the foundation of their culture at a time when they were smaller or as small ”

“ The reason for this is that Czechs and Slovaks, though close neighbors, have lived a separate life for nearly a thousand years. The Czechs had for centuries their own kingdom of Bohemia, until in the 17th century they were merged with the Austrian possessions of the House of Hapsburg, while the Slovaks were a part of the kingdom of Hungary and lived under the sway of Magyar landholders. ”

“ While the bulk of the Czechs and Slovaks now living in the United States, came to this country during the last seventy-five years, yet immigration of Czechs, to speak of the older branch of the nation, is not a phenomenon restricted wholly to the nineteenth century. The first individuals of Czech (Bohemian) origin came to America during the seventeenth century, undoubtedly seeking religious and political liberty, even as did the Pilgrim Fathers. ”

“ In Russia, France and England, in the United States and Canada, in South America and South Africa Czechs and Slovaks organized themselves under various names, and under widely different conditions they have constructed widely differing organizations ”

“ In a few months the new organization under the leadership of patriotic and wise men and women accomplished what had formerly seemed impossible—they induced the Czechs of the United States to lay aside for a time the prejudices which separated them and to work together in the same ranks for the support of the campaign of liberation carried on in France, England and all the Allied countries. Today we may proudly and with complete satisfaction declare that the Czechs and Slovaks both at home and abroad are completely united. ”

“ The Czechs and Slovaks of the present day are imbued with the Hussite principle? and they go forth to battle with the same spirit as that which prompted the medieval warriors of Bohemia. They will not disappoint the world. ”

“ Even the American public still remembers the famous Czechoslovak memorandum to the President of the United States, declaring that the Czechs and Slovaks here owe their allegiance first of all to America; that they simply are citizens of Czechoslovak origin. ”

“ All world has adopted the great American principle: Government of the people, for the people and by the people. Now you will free, now you will yourselves decide your future as free citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic.
We know what misery and horror you had to bear during the war; but your liberty was worth all that suffering. Use your liberty with reason, loving each other as brothers. Slovaks and Czechs together, so that our beloved Slovakia may prosper politically, culturally and economically, from Prespurk to Užhorod. ”

“ There exists such complete confidence and trust between the Czechs and the Slovaks, brothers in blood and holders of the same high ideals, that the task of working out the details of their future common state, for the present left undiscussed, would seem to present no insuperable difficulties. A general understanding between them undoubtedly exists, to the effect that when the opportune moment comes the Slovaks will state what guarantees of self-government they may deem adequate, and that the Bohemians will agree to them in an unquestioning spirit. ”

“ In spite of the fact that Czechs and Slovaks are no longer neighbours of the Jugoslavs, their political, literary, and cultural reciprocity, and more recently also their economic reciprocity, is very close. ”

“ And what is true of the Czechs is also true of the Slovaks, who suffer even more under Magyar oppression.
The Czechs and Slovaks in Austria-Hungary fight only under compulsion; their unwilling regiments were decimated; their political and national leaders fill the Austrian and Hungarian prisons. Thousands of Bohemian and Slovak volunteers are fighting enthusiastically under the banners of France and Great Britain, and there are whole regiments of them attached to the Russian army. ”

“ Even if they be counted as the same or similar, possessing common historical traditions, using kindred languages, sharing common aspirations, and being willing to throw their lot in with the Czechs, there is a difference in culture—a striking difference. The Slovaks and the peoples of other regions ceded by Hungary to Czechoslovakia contain a large percentage of illiterates. ”

“ Whatever the Magyars may say, the Czechs will not abandon the Slovaks after their sacrifices. They will demand for them also the right to a national culture. It is true that the Czechs would welcome peace with open arms. But you must not forget that our people did not shed their blood for imperialism or Germanism. When the millions of men return from the front, they shall claim freedom and equal rights for themselves and they will demand that the bloody bath of the present war shall never again occur. ”

“ Most of the Czechs and Slovaks, whenever they could, have become American citizens. However, there will naturally be some who could not become naturalized here, and perhaps there may be some cases of neglect. ”

“ Simultaneously with the French Revolution the historians record the national awakening and renaissance of the Czechs and Slovaks, Magyars, Jugoslavs, and in general of all nations in Austria, Russia, etc., and the same applies to the Germans and Italians. This process of national individualisation is so powerful that we find attempts to create a separate existence for the Slovak, Ukrainian and other dialects and languages that had not as yet literary cultivation. ”

“ The immigration of the Czechs into this country dates very largely from near the middle of the last century, when, following the revolutionary movements of 1848, from which Bohemia was not spared, persecution drove many into foreign lands. During our Civil War many Czechs fought bravely in the armies of the North.
The total number of Czechs now living, exclusive of Slovaks, is estimated at 9,000,000, of whom 7,000,000 are under Austria-Hungary ”

“ We form one nation with the Czechs. The Czech Declaration is among other things a great blow at the Magyar Government which has remained deaf to all Slovak protests. We are indebted to our Czech brothers in that, through them, the whole Europe speaks to day of the oppressed Slovak race.’
“Whoever knows the situation in Slovakia cannot doubt that even the common Slovak people will be captured by Czech agitation, unless we take the proper steps in time. The intellectual class of the Slovaks has for a long time been Czechs. ”

“ The Slovaks, most nearly allied in language and customs to the Czechs, occupy the fields and Carpathian mountains of northern Hungary. A splendid and ancient history is theirs though in latter centuries it has become one continuous record of bitter oppression suffered first at the hands of the Tatar invaders and then from the cruel Magyars of Hungary and of the always privileged Germans of the Hapsburg domain. Slovakia suffered the misfortune of being incorporated with Hungary in the tenth century and Magyarization has gone on relentlessly as a result. ”

“ The population of Czechoslovakia is ethnologically of a mixed character. The prevailing element is that of the Czechs (7 millions) , with whom the Slovaks (2 1/2 millions) form one people; indeed as long ago as the 9th century the kingdom of Great Moravia, with frontiers roughly identical with the present boundaries of the Czechoslovak Republic, was the creation of the Slav people, who occupied in common a territory stretching from W. Bohemia to the Carpathians. ”

“ The Czecho-Slovak Nation, which has declared its demands for unity and complete independence, includes the Slovaks in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Czechs, now divided among Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, three of the seventeen crown lands of Austria. ”

“ What complicates these questions even more in the case of the culture of the Czech lands is the ethnically diverse traditions of that culture. For almost all of its history, Czech territory—especially Prague itself—has been an arena for competing cultures—Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and others. ”

“ Czechoslovakia is long and narrow, and part of her frontiers are arbitrary. Out of a population of less than 13,000,000, there are more than 3,000,000 Germans and nearly 1,000,000 Hungarians. Ruthenians or Ukrainians number 500,000. And there are Jews and some Poles. Whether the Czechs are outnumbered by “alien races” depends upon the classification of the two other branches of the Slav family in the body politic. Are Moravians and Slovaks different people from the259 Czechs? ”

“ One point which has not been sufficiently brought out in the discussion is the distinction between the designation of the race and of the country. The term Czechoslovak properly designates a people composed of two branches, the Czechs and the Slovaks. During the war the Czechoslovaks conducted a revolution against the Hapsburgs, organized their own Czechoslovak Army and followed the leadership of the Czechoslovak National Council. Their efforts resulted in the creation of a new state, the people of which are overwhelmingly of the Czechoslovak race, but which includes minorities of other races. ”

“ They told the people that the Czechs were Protestants and infidels and they would take away the Catholic religion from the Slovaks; on the other hand the promise was made that the ministers in Budapest would give Slovaks full autonomy. It was too much to expect that the people would forget so quickly the deep wrongs suffered by them. Everywhere meetings were held denouncing the Magyars and pledging loyalty to the Czechoslovak Republic. The attempt of the Magyar agents to create an independent Slovak republic met with a fiasco. ”

“ The Czechs maintain that the Slovaks are Czechs, and that Slovakia is Czechia. That is, translated into Western parlance: the Italians are Frenchmen, therefore Italy is France. One must cast one's mental functions to the winds! The deduction of the Czechs is somewhat as follows: Every eagle is a bird, and every sparrow is a bird, therefore every sparrow is an eagle. ”

“ CZECH (chĕk) or BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE. The Czech language, like the Polish, Kashubian, and Sorbian, belongs to the northwestern group of the Slavic languages (q.v.) . The number of persons speaking Czech, exclusive of the Slovaks, is about 6,000,000. Of these 3,650,000 are found in Bohemia, 1,550,000 in Moravia, 130,000 in Austrian Silesia, 300,000 in other Austro-Hungarian provinces, 30.000 in Russia, 100,000 in Germany, and 250,000 in America. The Czechs occupy the quadrangle bounded by the Bohemian Forest, the Erzgebirge, the Sudetic Mountains, and the Little Carpathians. ”

“ German peasants and workingmen have no quarrel with the Czechs and know quite well that they will receive fair treatment in the new state. Only the professional politicians have not yet become reconciled to the new order. A more difficult problem facing the new Czechoslovak government was the question of the Slovaks. Even before the revolution Slovaks had representatives on the National Committee. When news came to Slovakia of the Prague overturn, a meeting was hurriedly called together by the existing Slovak National Council. ”

“ It will be remembered that even during the war some of the most prominent Austrian statesmen were Czechs, notably Count Czernin. The Czechs make up 46 per cent of the population of the new state, and even with the Slovaks amount to only 60 per cent. The two million Slovaks have insisted upon autonomy from the very beginning of the national life, and260 only their cultural inferiority has prevented them from acting as the Croats have acted in Jugoslavia. ”