Conceptions of Czechoslovakism among Czech Politicians in Government Inauguration Debates 1918–1938.

Abstract

This article analyses Czechoslovakism as the state ideology of the First Czechoslovak Republic. The main purpose is to shed light on an understudied a part of the history of Czechoslovakism: namely, how Czech politicians used the concept of a Czechoslovak nation in parliamentary debates during the First Republic. Czechoslovakism held that Czechs and Slovaks were one nation, or alternatively, that Slovaks were part of the Czech nation. While Slovak autonomists bitterly opposed this ideology and national minority representatives were often critical toward it, it garnered little or no Czech opposition. A close reading of all government inauguration debates between 1918 and 1938 reveals that Czech MPs were more likely to evoke the concept than MPs representing Slovak autonomist or national minority parties, although there were differences in the manner and frequency of use between parties. The concept occurred most often in the context of the topics of a Czechoslovak nation-state and Czechoslovak national unity. Finally, the author addresses the question whether it is possible to speak of Czechoslovakism, at the time, as a concept of a political nation. She maintains that there is absolutely nothing to suggest that any MP in the First Republic regarded all citizens (including national minorities) as part of a Czechoslovak nation.