Czecho-Slovakia

David Svoboda - The End of „Divine Providence“: Ukrainian Nationalism in Subcarpathian Rus in the Context of the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1938
Abstract

The nationality policy of the First Czechoslovak Republic governments applied in the colourful conflict region of Carpathian Ruthenia was ambiguous and volatile until the late 1930s. The Prague governments did not manage to obtain sufficiently loyal sympathizers that would defend the interests of the state in this most eastern part of the country at times critical for it. In the end, it was the Ukrainephiles, whose power upsurge marked the history of the region in the post-Munich months, that became the most promising force. Avhustyn Voloshyn, Prime Minister of the autonomous governments, promised to preserve the bearable civilized conditions in the region, but at the same time a radical irredentist stream with a base in eastern Galicia, Poland, which considered Voloshyn’s regime to be a tolerated makeshift, started to emerge. This led to a certain “double government”, presented externally by prudent and cultivated Voloshyn, with the feverish efforts of the Ukrainian Nationalists Organization in the background. All this happened at a time when the Ukrainian question was in the banner headlines of the world press as a crucial ace in Hitler’s fight for Eastern Europe. At the same time, the Czecho-Slovak authorities joined forces with the radical armed Ukrainians concentrated in the Carpathian Sich to reverse the Polish-Hungarian sabotage operations, although their mutual relationship was characterized by a significant lack of trust. For the population of the adjacent Ukrainian areas in Poland, however, the Munich solution to the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938 was a welcome signal of fundamental changes in Central-Eastern Europe, from which also the long-suffering oppressed Ukrainians could benefit.

Jaroslav Rokoský - „A Small Country, but Ours“: The Czechoslovak Autumn of 1938
Abstract

The study presents and analyses the period of the Second Czechoslovak Republic, contradictory and neglected by both Czech and European historiography. For Czech society, the Munich Agreement was a shock. What people have believed for twenty years and what they worked for self-sacrificingly was suddenly in ruins and questioned. For Masaryk’s republic, it was an economic, political, social and moral catastrophe. Weakened Czecho-Slovakia was in a difficult, desperate, even tragic situation. The belief in democracy was shaken, and the trust in the West was undermined. After its territorial losses, Czecho-Slovakia was left at the mercy of Hitler’s Germany. In a turbulent atmosphere, people looked for someone to blame. Attention is focused on the Sudetengau, which originated from the ceded borderlands, on the transformation of the relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks, on the situation in Carpathian Ruthenia, as well as on considerable economic and social difficulties. At the forefront of interest is also the transformation of the political system, the operation and role of Syrový and Beran’s government, the election of President Hácha and the creation of authoritative democracy. A sad reality of that time is the awaken anti-Semitism that affected overall civil society, including elite professions. The Jews and Roma became second category citizens. The question remains to what extent Czecho-Slovakia only bowed to Berlin’s pressure, which intensified and strengthened, and to what extent it introduced its antidemocratic demands by itself. At the end of the fateful year 1938, the country lived in the shadow of the Nazi threat.