Slovaks

“ 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. ”

“ The romantic period of the renaissance affected not only Czech and Slovak literature, but it left its imprint on all the arts—on philosophy, religion, the sciences, and political, social and moral life. The protest of rich imagination, of unfettered freedom in feeling and expression against the cold reasoning and polished conventionality of the eighteenth century found its outlet among the Czechs and Slovaks in an enthusiastic exaltation of their nation and language—two concepts never separated in the mind of the true patriot of that land. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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! ”

“ But the produce of the literary cultivation of the Slovaks during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is at most but small: for the times appear to have been too heavy, and men's minds too much oppressed, for a free development of their powers. The civil wars, the devastations of the Turks, the religious controversies, and after the battle at the White Mountain, religious oppression and persecution, chased the peaceful muses from Pannonia, and put the genius of the people in chains. ”

“ Their schools and institutions have been ruthlessly suppressed or reduced in numbers, their press muzzled, their political development arrested, their culture and traditions—far more truly autochthonous than those of the conquering Magyar invaders—have been discouraged and hampered at every turn. The Slovaks are a race whose artistic and musical gifts, whose innate sense of colour and poetry have won the sympathy and admiration of all who know them; and their systematic oppression at the hands of the Magyar oligarchy is one of the greatest infamies of the last fifty years. ”

“ The Slovaks when they come here, are poor, illiterate, have no training, are inured to oppression; yet they have pluck, perseverance, enterprise and courage. From their ranks are recruited many of the foremen in the mills and an ever increasing number of merchants. In the Woods Run district, with which I happen to be best acquainted,—a low-lying mill neighborhood along the Ohio in Allegheny City, probably one-half of the stores and saloons are in the hands of Slovaks, or their close neighbors, the Hungarian Rusnaks. ”

“ The masses have no more intercourse with the rulers than they can help. Linguistic and religious differences intensify the breach.
While the Slovaks form compact populations in the mountains of northern Hungary, their colonies are found scattered throughout the southern parts of this country except in the Transylvanian districts. The campaign waged by Hungarians to suppress Slovak national aims renders the lot of these Slavs particularly trying. ”

“ The Slovaks for nearly a thousand years have retained their national consciousness, in spite of the fact that long ago they were conquered by the Magyars, who have used every possible means to wean them from their language, the one strong link binding them to their historic past. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Outside of Slovakland Slovaks are scattered throughout Hungary except in Transylvania. There are few districts in Hungary in which they do not live. The various settlements in the interior of the country are in part ramifications of Slovakland proper, which formerly extended further south into Hungary than at present and in part colonies, the origin of which dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ”

“ Here among the Slovaks, the seed sown by the American missionary at home and abroad has brought forth more vital fruit, perhaps, than on the home soil. Although these Slovak disciples have gone out to save only this one or that one, they are helping to save a nation and are lifting a race out of degeneration.
Nominally, Jan Chorvat was a teacher in the Slovak language to our expedition; and to learn the more effectually, my students often went with him on his tours from village to village. ”

“ The Magyars, in pursuance of this policy, do their best to suppress the Slovak nationality in every way, even to the extent of taking away Slovak children to be brought up as Magyars, and denying them the right to use their language in church and school. The result is a large emigration to America. (See letters by Scotus Viator in Spectator, 1906 sqq.)
The Slovaks are a peaceful, rather slow race of peasants (their aristocracy is Magyarized) , living almost exclusively upon the land, which they till after the most primitive methods. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is the opinion of an Englishman who knows conditions in Hungary well. Exterminate the race, suppress its language, obliterate every evidence of its existence: that is now and has been for decades the policy of the Hungarian Government toward the Slovaks. Some time ago the American Slovaks formulated a demand for autonomy in a memorandum which they sent to influential friends and to those whom they hope to win as friends. ”

“ THE Slovaks, a branch of the Slavic family, numbering between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 people, and kinsmen of the Bohemians, inhabit the northwestern provinces of Hungary. There is not uniform agreement among Slovak scholars with reference to the ethnic affinity of this people with the Bohemians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this new order of things the kindred Slovak branch of our nation, which lies on the frontier of our historic fatherland, ought also to be considered on the basis of natural right. We of course demand this, subject to the condition that not our eager wish and our interests, but the free decision and self-determination of the 3,000,000 Slovaks should decide in this question. ”

“ The Czechs had chafed under Austrian misrule since the fateful day when, in a period of Bohemia’s weakness, the Hapsburgs gained control of the little country which, geographically, forms the very heart of Europe and in many another way has been the organ which sent the blood pulsating freely and vigorously through the body of the Old World. The Slovaks have suffered even greater persecutions with no chance of redress from the Magyar (Hungarian) population which forms the southeastern portion of what was once the Dual Empire. ”

“ The gendarmes were alert and agitated from the moment we entered the valley, and when they learned the nature of our errand they were incredulous. “Who ever heard of anybody’s having a disinterested concern for the Slovaks? How could they believe that Americans, cold, materialistic Americans, would equip an expedition to study the needs of this downtrodden race, that it might be lifted up? Of course, we were nationalistic agitators sent out by the Slovanic Society of America, to arouse the half-awake Slovak into revolution.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Slavs, the most numerous race after the Magyars, are divided into several groups: the Slovaks, mainly massed in the mountainous districts of northern Hungary; the Ruthenians, established mainly on the slopes of the Carpathians between Poprád and Máramaros Sziget; the Serbs, settled in the south of Hungary from the bend of the Danube eastwards across the Theiss into the Banat; the Croats, overwhelmingly preponderant in Croatia-Slavonia, with outlying settlements in the counties of Zala, Vas and Sopron along the Croatian and Styrian frontier. ”

“ In this war Britain has proclaimed herself the champion of the small nations, and none are more deserving of her sympathy than the Slovaks. Unless our statesmen renounce that principle of nationality which they have so loudly proclaimed, the Slovaks cannot be abandoned to their fate; for they form an essential part of the Bohemian problem. ”

“ The degree of relationship between the Czechs and Slovaks is one not easy to define. According to the one view, which is popular especially among the Czechs, the two peoples represent an original ethnic and linguistic unit—a single race, which through historic accidents came to be separated for centuries and to be considerably differentiated in speech, customs, and character, although always preserving such close linguistic and moral ties that they deserve to be considered as one nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All these facts—the government’s offer to the Slovaks, Karolyi’s negotiations with them and the statement of the Magyar workingmen—make it evident that in spite of the absence of all news the Slovaks must have made their Magyar rulers very uneasy. Everybody in Hungary realized that the sentiments and public acts of the Czechs found a ready response among the Slovaks, who had less opportunity and less liberty to say what they wanted. ”

“ The Slovaks at home are not permitted to approach their king with grievances, the last deputation to him having been denied admittance. Slovaks, therefore, are made to feel that they have no king, only a government—a government, however, that knows no mercy, that feels no remorse, that offers no hope, that fears no punishment. ”

“ When the doctrines of the German Reformers penetrated into Hungary, they found the Slovaks already so well prepared, that those doctrines were at once spread among the people by numerous books written by Slovakian clergymen in the Bohemian language. The Bible and the liturgical books were written and printed in Bohemian; and many Bohemians and Moravians came into Hungary as preachers and teachers. ”

“ With feelings of great joy and infinite happiness we send to you, brothers and sisters in Slovakia, warm greetings and heartiest congratulations, because after a thousand years of struggle and suffering the sun has finally risen above the Tatry and spread the warm rays of liberty over all Slovakia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the Slovak hates the Czech he hates the Magyar also, but whether he hates or not he is not very important in Europe, and is bound to find himself in a subordinate national position. The enmity of the German elements is more menacing, and it is not to be denied that the new State holds a million or so people who, by the accident of habitat, have to be called Czecho-Slovaks, though they are no more Czecho-Slovaks than Lot and his wife. ”