Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/93

If the October revolution is an important milestone in the history of the former lands of the Bohemian crown, for Slovakia its importance is incomparably greater. It closes the era of slavery which lasted a thousand years, accompanied by cultural and economic poverty. For Slovakia free development begins with the end of the year 1918.

One year of free national life in Slovakia contributed a great deal toward the crystalization of political currents and tendencies. Magyars and Magyar sympathizers carry on their propaganda with new intensity and with all possible weapons. Emissaries are sent by Magyar government to scatter insurectionary bills. In Bratislava, Košice, Užhorod, Nová Ves, Rožnava etc. a surprisingly large number of Magyar dailies and weeklies are published. In the majority of cases it is plain from the manner of writing and from the low subscription price that the papers are not independent publications, but draw their financial support from beyond the boundaries. In Košice, Lučenec, Nová Ves, Rožnava, Nové Zámky, Komárno and other cities near the frontier there is evident passive resistance of the Magyar element in school matters. It is due to hostile propaganda that in these cities some 3000 children that ought to be in school are keeping out.

One of the favorite means of Magyar propaganda in Slovakia are unauthorized Magyar schools. Thus in Košice you will see Magyar children on the streets at a time, when they are supposed to be in school, but that they go to some school is plain from their conversation. They attend classes, where they are taught Magyar literature and history and geography in the Magyar chauvinist spirit. In some places this propaganda is carried on in the guise of private instruction given by former Magyar professors and teachers who are supposed to get thus an opportunity to earn their living. In many cases even public schools are used for hostile agitation against the Czechoslovak Republic, and especially in Catholic schools conducted by sisters children are exhorted to pray for the “holy, suffering Magyar fatherland.”

The center of this activity is Budapest, and serving Magyar propaganda are many who are Slovaks by birth, as for instance Hlinka’s best known co-worker Dr. Fr. Jehlička, but many more who never before pretended to be Slovaks, such as Dr. Bulissa, Karel Csecsotka and others. The Magyar government publishes in Budapest a periodical in Slovak under the name “Slovenský Národ”, written completely from the Magyar point of view and “Slovák Zahraničný”, intended for smuggling into Slovakia. Just what kind of poison Budapest sends to Slovakia can be illustrated from No. 3 of the “Slovák Zahraničný”, where we read the following about our liberators: “Masaryk and Beneš walked by the Vltava river and discussed what should be done. Masaryk said: “We really should do something that would please the Slovaks.” Beneš tried in vain to think of something that would answer. But a Slovak remarks to that: ‘Jump into the Vltava; that will be real joy for Slovak hearts.”

Handbills with similar sentiments were smuggled into Slovakia by the million. The headquarters of this activity is the “League for the Restoration of Hungarian Integrity” in Budapest. But on the whole one may say that this subversive Magyar activity in Slovakia is getting weaker. The bourgeois elements were cured of their Magyar enthusiasm by the bolshevist regime, and Magyar social-democratic workingmen in Slovakia are not exactly pleased with Huszar’s monarchistic and reactionary regime. Magyar workingmen have mostly joined Czechoslovak labor unions. In Prešov there is now a Magyar weekly which writes in a spirit friendly to our republic. And even the Košice and Bratislava Magyar papers employ lately better manners.

The intensive organization of Magyar propaganda could not remain without effect on the new-born Slovak politics. The most active work was done by the social democrats and by Hlinka’s “Slovak People’s Party”. This last went so far in its political activity as to step outside the limit of loyalty to the Republic, thus creating a veritable enthusiasm for itself among Magyar and Jewish circles, so that in many places the local leadership of the party got into untrustworthy hands. As against the hustling followers of Hlinka and the socialists the old Slovak National Party, with its headquarters in St. Martin, did not seem to be able to make a stand. Since the revolution not a single large meeting or party conference was held. The Hlinka party in many places captured the field without a fight. Under these circumstances the establishment of the National Republican Farmers’ Party was a very significant event; the founders were minister Šrobár, Dr. Milan Hodža, Dr. Pavel Bláho, Dr. Okanik, Kornel Stodola, Ant. Štefánek, Dr. Milan Ivanka, Dr. Slavík, Dr. Halla, Fr. Votruba and other distinguished Slovaks. The party formulated its pro-

Translated from the “Venkov,” Prague, Jan. 4, 1920.