Slovakia

“ I take pleasure in every spontaneous activity people undertake to improve their neighbourhood, town or society as a whole. I take pleasure in every citizen who comes home to Slovakia and every initiative that encourages these returns. This awakening is mainly about faith in the country, in people’s potential and what we can achieve together. It is not just about banding together to get through hard times. I am proud to avow this positive patriotism. I am convinced that we have what it takes to make Slovakia a little bit better every day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is plain that Slovakia is a rich country with a great future, and its underground wealth of minerals will transform it into one of the most industrial districts af all Europe. But it is necessary to bring capital into the country. Up to now the country was exploited by the Magyars and held down artificially to a low degree of economic and intellectual well-being. But the people are higly gifted and the precious gift of liberty will develop their talent, as it has done in America. The future of Slovakia is assured. ”

“ It is enough if we remember the love for our neighbours that is the basis of respect for diversity.
Dear guests, dear fellow citizens,
Slovak history is a history full of struggles. The struggle for our own language, for statehood, the struggle to preserve our faith, for civil liberties, for recognition and for visibility. Each of these struggles has helped to make Slovakia better and been accompanied by positive patriotism and social awakening. We are now witnessing another awakening in society – a political and civic awakening of an inconspicuous and somewhat invisible silent majority. ”

“ There are no easy shortcuts on the road to the best possible Slovakia. It is something that needs to be said openly, even at moments like this. If we want to get there, we have to walk the whole route patiently, step by step, as citizens, as residents and as a society.
I sincerely hope that this is a journey that we will make together. I want to be the president of the people who are walking that road, and those who come to join them. I want to be the president of all the citizens of the Slovak Republic. ”

“ When we take into consideration the undeveloped resources of Slovakia, which naturally will form a part of the state, we see very readily that economically the future Bohemian-Slovak State will be amply able to stand on its own feet. ”

“ Against the Czech aspirations is to be set, not only the matter of fact that Slovakia is by no means Czechia, but also the fact that at any rate a great majority of the Slovaks—in spite of the most furious instigation—do not at all wish to become Czechish, but desire an independent Slovak Republic, whose Government was, already constituted. ”

“ When one remembers that some 130,000 Magyars were employed in Slovakia in official positions in the post-office, telegraph offices, rail roads, the amount of damage that was done by them can be imagined. ”

“ These particular gypsies really came from Hungary, which however does not mean that Hungarians or Magyars and gypsies are one and the same. The gypsies, like the Jews, do not belong to any one country.
Besides Bohemia, the Czecho-Slovak states comprise Moravia, a rich farming country, the birthplace of the great educator, John Amos Comenius; a part of Silesia, famous for its mines; and Slovakia, also rich in mineral wealth which is largely undeveloped. Of these, Slovakia suffered perhaps the most under the scorn, oppression, and exploitation of the Magyar oligarchy. ”

“ 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 Magyars, whether radical, as under Karolyi, or Bolshevist, as under Bela Kuhn, or Christian socialist, as under the present premier Friedrich, never give up hopes of getting the Slovaks back under their rule. There are still many Magyar officials scattered in Slovakia, there are many men, Slovak by birth, but thoroughly Magyarized, who hold positions of influence ”

“ The Slovak League plans to invest large sums of money in industrial enterprises in Slovakia, for every Slovak believes in the future prosperity of his native land. It has been decided to send other leaders to the liberated country ”

“ But as against that Slovaks will lose large fragments of their people who have been for centuries settled in small compact bodies in the midst of Magyar territory. In Budapest itself there are 25,000 Slovaks, and in the neighborhood of the capital there are many Slovak villages. These ethnographical islands are scattered throughout the Hungarian plains as far south as the territory of the South Slavs. The number of men thus lost to Slovakia is estimated at 450,000, more than twice as many as the Magyars will lose. ”

“ The few Magyars found there are state officials or rail road employees, and these men will naturally disappear with the disappearance of Magyar rule. According to the census of 1910 there were 134,060 such Magyar employees in Slovak land, so that the real of these people also has been artificially settled in Slovakia during the last fifty years, both in the cities and on large estates owned by Magyar noblemen. ”

“ At that time Slovakia, in Slavic Slovansko, viz. the regions adjacent to the two rivers Waag and Gran, reappears as an ingredient part of the ephemeral kingdom of great Moravia. The rest of Pannonia was inhabited by other Slavic tribes, by Bulgarians, Rumelians and Khazares. In A.D. 894, the Magyars conquered Pannonia, drove back the Slovaks into the mountains, and made them tributary; whilst they themselves settled on the plains. ”

“ The Czech people are Slavs who, along with the closely related Slavic group of the Slovaks, moved from regions in the east into three adjacent territories in central Europe—Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia—in the fifth century AD, where they have remained ever since. ”

“ Slovakia is therefore an agricultural country, but at the same time it is more industrial than the rest of Hungary. Among the Slovaks the number of persons making their living out of agriculture was 65.7 per cent; in the rest of Hungary 67.4 percent. Industrial and commercial workers among the Slovaks number 22.1 percent and in the rest of Hungary 20 percent. ”

“ The conference unanimously adopted a resolution declaring Slovakia to be a part of the new Czechoslovak republic. It elected a national committee of 20 members and de cided to send a delegation to Prague to reach an understanding with the Czech leaders about the manner of uniting Slovakia with the Czech lands. ”

“ The northwestern portions of the monarchy have organized themselves, with the sanction of the Conference, as the republic of Czecho-Slovakia. The Czechs and Slovaks are two brother races, established, the one in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the other in the northwestern parts of Hungary. According to the census of 1910, the Czechs numbered about six and one half millions; the Slovaks about two millions. Allowing for the peculiar methods of Austrian and Hungarian census-takers, one will hardly go far wrong in raising the total for the two peoples combined to about ten millions. ”

“ I would like to pick out one of the threads woven through the modern history of Slovakia that I think is especially praiseworthy. The revolutionary regime change of 1989, the division of the federal state and all the other significant social changes that have taken place in our society have followed a peaceful path. With no violence or unrest. Even countries with longer democratic traditions sometimes see people taking to the streets in anger expressing their grievances through destruction. ”

“ Many Czech of ficials and teachers, sent to Slovakia to supply the vacancies caused by the expulsion of Magyar functionaries, have not been men of sound character or tact, and have been guilty of offending the sensibilities of the Slovak peasants. ”

“ In culture and the educational level of its people it ranks with the most progressive cities of Europe, having two universities, one Bohemian, the other German. In the whole of the Bohemian population the percentage of illiteracy is only 2 per cent. Another important city is Pressburg, in Slovakia, also the site of a modern university. Slovakia, of a much lower cultural level, is inhabited by an agricultural people, of simple manners and a lower standard of living. ”

“ We claim the right of Bohemia to be reunited with her Slovak brethren of Slovakia, once part of our national State, later torn from our national body, and fifty years ago incorporated in the Hungarian State of the Magyars, who, by their unspeakable violence and ruthless oppression of their subject races have lost all moral and human right to rule anybody but themselves. ”

“ It should be emphasized that the economic strength of the new states would be reinforced by the undeveloped resources of Slovakia, the inhabitants of which form a part of the same ethnic group as the Bohemians, and desire to be joined with the Bohemians in one state. ”

“ Revolution in Bohemia was carried out smoothly without the least bloodshed. It was a more complicated process in Slovakia for the slavery to which the Slovaks had been subjected was far more severe and debasing. In Bohemia the people had their Sokols, a highly developed national culture, strong economic and political organizations, a competent staff of public officials ”

“ But as a Moravian by birth I cannot understand how it is that for 46 years I have been a Čech and suddenly I find myself a Čechoslovak which means a Čech Slovak. I have always loved our Slovak brothers, but I object to the composite term. It seems to me that a Czechoslovak is either a Slovak who speaks Czech or a Czech who speaks Slovak or lives in Slovakia. Now that does not agree with similar terms. A Jugoslav is a Slav, a Little Russian is a Russian, and therefore Czechoslovak by analogy is a certain species of Slovak. ”

“ The most important practical action decided upon by the committee was to organize immediately in this country large supplies of clothing, shoes, agricultural and industrial tools, machinery and other supplies and to export them to Slovakia as soon as practicable after hostilities cease. The goods will be sold to the people at cost price and on easy terms so that even the poorest Slovak farmer or laborer might be enabled to purchase the necessaries of life and of his calling. ”

“ Let the Jew convince his Slovak neighbor that he is with him sincerely and for good, and he will be treated as fairly as any other citizen. There existss no desire to curb the Jew by special enactments or restrictions. If the Jewish inhabitants of Slovakia will identify themselves with the Czechoslovak cause, if they will deal honestly with their customers, the peasants will live on the best terms with their Jewish fellow citizens. ”

“ Rich in natural resources and peopled by an intelligent, experienced and frugal population, the country had every reason to look forward to a prosperous industrial development in the future. Without Slovakia the republic would be mainly an industrial State: with it there is a slight preponderance in favour of agriculture, 41·5% of the entire population being occupied on or in connexion with the land and 38% in industry and commerce.
In special branches of industry Czechoslovakia is prominent among European countries, as for instance in the production of sugar and glass. ”

“ The Slovaks of Hungary have lately been using the so-called “Pan-Slavic” tricolor, which. however, is properly Russian. In the Manifesto of the Slovak Constituent Assembly (Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas May, May, 1848) , the right to use the white and red as the national colors of Slovakia was made one of the chief demands. ”

“ Friendship for the Führer; gratitude, that through the Führer, autonomy has become possible for the Slovaks: The Slovaks never want to belong to Hungary. The Slovaks want full independence with strongest political, economic, and military ties to Germany. Bratislava to be the capital. The execution of the plan only possible if the army and police are Slovak.
“An independent Slovakia to be proclaimed at the meeting of the first Slovak Diet. In the case of a plebiscite the majority would favor a separation from Prague. Jews will vote for Hungary. ”

“ A nation producing the quality of men who never forgot what they were striving for even though the struggle was centuries old arouses the interest of the thinking public. Whence came the strength of purpose of these representatives of so small a country? The Czechoslovak Republic comprises, with the combined areas of the former kingdom of Bohemia, margraviate of Moravia, duchy of Silesia and province of Slovakia but 50,000 square miles of territory and some 12,000,000 of people. ”

“ They also learned that the renowned Bohemian glass employs over fifty thousand workers; that there are excellent highways, extending to ten thousand miles, and several important railroad lines; that one-third of all the gold and silver mined in Hungary is mined in neglected Slovakia. Jozef was particularly impressed by the fact that despite all the discrimination of the Government against the Czech schools, the Czechs were by far the most literate people of the monarchy. ”