The Czechoslovak myth is a narrative that Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1938 was a tolerant and liberal democratic country, oriented towards Western Europe, and free of antisemitism compared to other countries in Central Europe and Eastern Europe. For example, the country was described as "a welcoming and tolerant place for Jews," and an "island of democracy in Eastern Europe". [1]
The alleged architects of the myth were Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš. Tatjana Lichtenstein notes that these politicians were "often depicted as tolerant, progressive, and politically sophisticated strategists bestowing rights on 'their' Jews". [2] However, Masaryk endorsed antisemitic theories about Jewish control of the press, writing to Beneš in October 1918: "Hilsner helped us a lot now: Zionists and other Jews have publicly accepted our programme." [3] Beneš refused to sign a treaty guaranteeing minority rights to Czechoslovak Jews because he declared it to be a form of defamation against Czechoslovakia. When Jewish activists pressed the issue, Beneš referred to increasing antisemitism in Czechoslovakia and warned that further demands could "provoke renewed recriminations from one side or the other". [2] [4] The myth of Czechoslovak exceptionalism was promoted in polemic fashion and exploited for political gain by Czechoslovak politicians from the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, throughout the First Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, and in the Third Czechoslovak Republic until the 1948 Communist coup. [5] Jan Láníček emphasizes the importance of a 1930 issue of the Jewish Daily Bulletin , dedicated to Masaryk and featuring praise from American Jewish leaders Stephen Samuel Wise and Felix Frankfurter, as well as the Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky and American vice president Charles Curtis, especially for Masaryk's support for Zionism. [4]
According to Andrea Orzoff the "Masaryk cult", an element in the Czechoslovak myth, exaggerates the importance and positive qualities of Masaryk, while downplaying the role that domestic resistance played in securing Czechoslovak independence. [6] [7] [8] However, historians disagree on whether "cult of personality" is the right term, noting the differences between Masaryk and Joseph Stalin. [9]
Orzoff notes that "all successful myths incorporate elements of generally recognized truth": Czechoslovakia was the last central European state to retain its democracy, up until 1938; its minorities enjoyed greater protections than in other countries; and Czechoslovakia was in many respects closer to Western Europe than its neighbors. [10] She does not intend the term "myth" to be pejorative: "Rather, the term “myth” helps highlight the essentialist, fabulistic narrative underscoring political and academic discourse on the “natively democratic” Czechs and Czechoslovakia since 1918". [11] However, the narrative is inconsistent with some events in Czechoslovak history, such as antisemitic violence between 1918 and 1920. [12]
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked state in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was a Czechoslovak statesman, progressive political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. He is regarded as the founding father of Czechoslovakia.
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described Masaryk as "a brave, honest, turbulent, and impulsive man".
Philosemitism, also called Judeophilia, is "defense, love, or admiration of Jews and Judaism". Such attitudes can be found in Western cultures across the centuries. The term originated in the nineteenth century by self-described German antisemites to describe their non-Jewish opponents. American-Jewish historian Daniel Cohen of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies has asserted that philosemitism "can indeed easily recycle antisemitic themes, recreate Jewish otherness, or strategically compensate for Holocaust guilt."
The German-speaking population in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, 23.6% of the population at the 1921 census, usually refers to the Sudeten Germans, although there were other German ethno-linguistic enclaves elsewhere in Czechoslovakia inhabited by Carpathian Germans, and among the German-speaking urban dwellers there were ethnic Germans and/or Austrians as well as German-speaking Jews. 14% of the Czechoslovak Jews considered themselves Germans in the 1921 census, but a much higher percentage declared German as their colloquial tongue during the last censuses under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
With the collapse of the Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed as a result of the critical intervention of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, among others.
The Slánský trial was a 1952 antisemitic show trial against fourteen members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), including many high-ranking officials. Several charges, including high treason, were announced against the group on the grounds of allegedly conspiring against the Czechoslovak Republic. General Secretary of the KSČ Rudolf Slánský was the alleged leader of the conspirators.
Czech National Social Party is a civic nationalist political party in the Czech Republic, that once played an important role in Czechoslovakia during the interwar period. It was established in 1897 by break-away groups from both the national liberal Young Czech Party and the Czech Social Democratic Party, with a stress on achieving independence of the Czech lands from Austria-Hungary. Its variant of socialism was moderate and reformist rather than a Marxist one. After the National Labour Party dissolved and merged with National Socialists in 1930, the party also became the refuge for Czech liberals. Its best-known member was Edvard Beneš, a co-founder of Czechoslovakia and the country's second President during the 1930s and 1940s.
Karel Kramář was a Czech politician. He was a representative of the major Czech political party, the Young Czechs, in the Austrian Imperial Council from 1891 to 1915, becoming the party leader in 1897.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The history of the Jews in Slovakia goes back to the 11th century, when the first Jews settled in the area.
The Pětka, or Committee of Five, was an unofficial informal extraparliamentary semi-constitutional political forum that was designed to cope with political difficulties of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. Founded in September 1920, it was a council of leaders of the coalition parties that made up the Czechoslovak government. Its name came from the Czech word for "five" and is pronounced pyetka. It played a crucial role in the country's politics.
Czechoslovak resistance to the German occupation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during World War II began after the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and the formation of the protectorate on 15 March 1939. German policy deterred acts of resistance and annihilated organizations of resistance. In the early days of the war, the Czech population participated in boycotts of public transport and large-scale demonstrations. Later on, armed communist partisan groups participated in sabotage and skirmishes with German police forces. The most well-known act of resistance was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Resistance culminated in the so-called Prague uprising of May 1945; with Allied armies approaching, about 30,000 Czechs seized weapons. Four days of bloody street fighting ensued before the Soviet Red Army entered the nearly liberated city.
Relations between Israel and the Czech Republic, and its predecessor state Czechoslovakia, have varied widely over time.
The Jewish Party was a political party of the First Czechoslovak Republic. It was founded in 1919 by the Jewish National Council in Prague. It was the strongest Jewish political party in the interwar Czechoslovakia although many Jews were rather active in non-Jewish parties, be they Czech, German or Hungarian. The party adopted a Zionist political program and succeeded in influencing the Czechoslovak government to acknowledge Jews as an official national minority in the constitution of 1920.
Arijský boj was a pro-Nazi Czech-language weekly tabloid newspaper published between May 1940 and May 1945 in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Inspired by the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper made antisemitism its main theme and was also critical of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Denunciations published by the newspaper contributed to the isolation of Jews during the first years of the Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia.
Postwar anti-Jewish violence in Slovakia resulted in at least 36 deaths of Jews and more than 100 injuries between 1945 and 1948, according to research by the Polish historian Anna Cichopek. Overall, it was significantly less severe than in Poland. The causes of the violence included antisemitism and conflict over the restitution of property stolen from Jews during the Holocaust in Slovakia.
Václav Kopecký was a Czechoslovak politician, journalist and chief ideologue of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) during the leadership of Klement Gottwald. A high-ranking member of the party since the interwar period, he spent World War II in Moscow and served as Minister of Culture and Minister of Information in post-war Czechoslovakia. Kopecký was noted for his antisemitic statements, criticizing Jews for Zionism and cosmopolitanism; he also stage-managed the Slánský trial.
After World War I and during the formation of Czechoslovakia, a wave of anti-Jewish rioting and violence was unleashed against Jews and their property, especially stores.
Zionists in Interwar Czechoslovakia: Minority Nationalism and the Politics of Belonging (2016) is a book by Tatjana Lichtenstein published by Indiana University Press. It discusses the rise of Zionism among Jews living in the First Czechoslovak Republic. Lichtenstein also challenges the Czechoslovak myth of exceptionalism by chronicling the constant accusations faced by Jews that they lacked national patriotism towards Czechoslovakia. The book received positive reviews.
