Czechoslovakism

Czechoslovakism (Czech: Čechoslovakismus, Slovak: Čechoslovakizmus) is a concept which underlines reciprocity of the Czechs and the Slovaks. It is best known as an ideology which holds that there is one Czechoslovak nation, though it might also appear as a political program of two nations living in one common state. The climax of Czechoslovakism fell on 1918–1938, when as a one-nation-theory it became the official political doctrine of Czechoslovakia; its best known representative was Tomáš Masaryk. Today Czechoslovakism as political concept or ideology is almost defunct; its remnant is a general sentiment of cultural affinity, present among many Czechs and Slovaks.

Except some 70 years of Great Moravia in the early Medieval era, until the 20th century the peoples in the basins of Upper Elbe, Morava, Váh, Nitra and Hornád have never lived in a common state. Throughout ages they were gradually developing various and not necessarily conflicting identities, like Czechs, Bohemians, Moravians, Slavs, Slovaks, Slovjaks, Czechoslavs, Hungaroslavs and other, also hybrid concepts. These identities might have been constructed along dynastic, ethnic, cultural, religious or territorial lines and might have been embraced by various groupings, from few intellectuals to large rural masses. The current which emphasised some sort of general commonality between Slavic people living West and East of the White Carpathians was based on language. In the late 16th century the Bible was first completely translated into Czech from original languages and its vernacular version came to be known as Bible of Kralice. In the early 17th century Bible kralická and its linguistic standard, later known as bibličtina, was accepted for religious use in Protestant Slavic communities both West and East of the White Carpathians.

In the late 18th century the Slavic Protestant circles centered in Preßburg went beyond the purely religious usage of bibličtina and elaborated on a broader concept of common culture, shared by all Czech-related people. In 1793 Juraj Ribay worked out Projekt ústavu alebo spoločnosti slovensko-českej medzi Slovákmi v Uhorsku, a draft of educational institution to be based on Czech language; thanks to efforts of Bohuslav Tablic and Martin Hamaliar in 1803 the Preßburg Lyceum opened the chair "řeči a literatury československej"; in the 1810s Juraj Palkovič started to publish Týdenník aneb Císařské královské Národní noviny, a weekly which advanced a common Czech-related cause; in 1829 a number of scholars founded Společnost česko-slovanská, a cultural and education association which set branches also further East, e.g. in Késmárk and Lőcse; some activists established a network of bookstores and tried to propagate Czech literature. These initiatives did not exactly advocate a common Czech and Slovak cause; as the Slovak identity was at that time extremely vague, they rather tried to advance Czech as cultural model for Slavic people of Upper Hungary.

The current of building a common Slavic community centered upon Czech culture climaxed in mid-19th century thanks to activity of Jozef Šafárik and especially Jan Kollár, the latter graduate of the Preßburg Lyceum himself. A poet, scientist and politician, as ideologue he advanced the cause of Pan-Slavism. His monumental opus was written mostly in archaic Czech, though in the 1840s he tried to merge it with some Slovak features. However, he was opposed from two different angles. The trend towards buildup of Slovak literary language, commenced by Bernolák mostly to counter Protestantism already in the late 18th century, diverted from religious issues and assumed a decisively national flavor; championed by Štúr, Hurban and Hodža it opposed a Czech-focused perspective. On other hand, Prague-based representatives of purely Czech cultural vision like Jungmann or Palacký also considered Kollár's efforts harmful. The result was that with death of Šafárik and Kollár the idea of Czech-based linguistic unity was gradually dying out.

In the late 19th century the concept of Czech-focused affinity was reduced to general cultural sphere. Institutional outposts advocating a common cause were few, isolated and with limited impact. In 1882 the Slovak students in Prague set up Detvan, organisation which raised funds to send Slovaks to Czech gymnasia and to the Charles University in Prague; in 1895 it evolved into Českoslovanská jednota. Some one-off events, e.g. a 1895 Czech-Slavic ethnographic exhibition in Prague generated much interest, though they were not exactly focused on a joint Czech and Slovak cause. Among periodicals the key one was Hlas, established in 1892 in Szakolca; its contributors, led by Vavro Šrobár, came to be known as "Hlasici". Another periodical, far less important, was Prúdy, since 1909 issued in Prague. The level of social integration was marginal, with few hundred Slovak students in Prague and perhaps much lower number of Czechs in Preßburg. The rate of Czech-Slovak intermarriage was low, lower than the Czech-German and the Slovak-Hungarian one. There were no common Czecho-Slovak political parties, cultural, sporting, leisure or social organisations. However, a number of Czech prints, including high-quality periodicals, were fairly popular in Slovak-populated areas.

Except the 1848 proposal of Palacký politicians on both sides did not go beyond the state borders when drafting their own designs. The Czechs focused on gaining some sort of political autonomy within Austria, usually intended for the provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Their demands were based on historical arguments related to the so-called lands of the Czech crown; as Slovak-speaking territories had never been part of the concept, pointing to a common Czech-Slovak cause would have had ruined this logic. The Slovaks struggled to cope with state-sponsored Magyarization and merely aimed to build an institutional network of cultural and education outposts within Hungary; with just 1 deputy in the Budapest parliament their chances to influence the official Hungarian politics were extremely slim. Until 1914 neither Czechs nor Slovaks have seriously advocated independence, let alone independence of a common state of both Czechs and Slovaks.

Though the adjectives "Czechoslovak" or very rarely "Slovakoczech" were in circulation in both languages (usually standing for Czech type of Slav), the term "Czechoslovakism" was not in use prior to 1914. When applied retroactively to the period, it could have denoted 4 various concepts of commonality: 1) that Slovaks form part of the Czech nation; 2) that Slovaks are somewhat distinct branch of the Czech people; 3) that Slovaks and Czechs are equal components of one Czecho-Slovak nation and 4) that Slovaks and Czechs are distinct nations united by common political interest. It seems that most Czech-speakers tended to perceive Slovak-speakers within the first two perspectives; to them "Slovaks" were like "Moravians", but even poorer and more backward. Slovak-speakers were far less advanced in terms of embracing a common identity; some regarded themselves as part of a Czechoslovak tribe of the Slav nation, some as Slovaks, some as Hungarian Slavs akin to Czechs; however, most of them had already some notion of Slovak individuality.

In 1914 many Czech politicians left Austro-Hungary to advocate an independent Czech state; according to Masaryk, it would consist of the Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and Slovak-inhabited areas of Hungary. The related documents referred to "the Czech nation"; the same perspective was present in other documents of Czech exiles, e.g. in a 1915 booklet Bohemia's claim for freedom, issued by the Czech Committee in London. A different approach was agreed between two US-based groups, Czech National Alliance and Slovak League; known as the Cleveland Agreement of October 1915, it opted for a common state of two separate nations; at one point it referred to a federation and at another to Slovak autonomy. In early 1916 the Czech Foreign Committee in Paris, freshly joined by a Hlasici-related politician Milan Štefánik, renamed itself to Czechoslovak National Council, though they kept speaking of the Czech nation. In 1917-1918 the Council published a number of pamphlets, referring either to Czechoslovak or Czech nation.