Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mideur-l
Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 14:18:44 EDT
From:         Hugh Agnew <AGNEWHL@GWUVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Czech Statehood

In the hope that this discussion by one of Czechoslovakia's leading
historians of the modern period on the sources and meaning of Czech
statehood may have wider interest in these lists, I am enclosing my
translation of an interview which originally appeared in Lidove noviny,
Prague, on July 24, 1992, under the headline:

   We Were before Czechoslovakia, We Shall Be After It!
The Historian Otto Urban Reflects on the New Czech Statehood


"These days politicians do a lot of talking about Czech statehood.  How do
you define it?"

     From the practical perspective it means the adoption of a constitution
and related legislation.  Current efforts to create a Czech state are logical
and respect the historical experience of previous decades as well.  But the
problem of the Czech state is from the historical perspective a little more
complicated.  It is a fact that, from the dynastic-territorial point of view
the Czech state has a thousand years of tradition, obviously always with a
complicated development of integration into other state formations, in which
it always maintained a certain autonomy.  A fundamental change ocurred during
the 19th century, when the territorial principle was replaced by efforts to
create a national state on the model of Italy and Germany.  The modern Czech
civil society, however, was trying to take shape tied to its Austrian neighbor.
This tendency lasted until 1918.  In any case, the Czechs had an existing
standard European society capable of independent life.  Therefore in 1918 the
state functioned -- we had enough qualified officials to ensure the continu-
ation of financial administration, justice, and so on.

"Wasn't it also a case of a pragmatic, politically advantageous union with
Slovakia?"

     Of course.  The First World War has two separate phases.  During the
first two years Czech policies reached rock bottom.  All Czech aspirations
were suppressed and the efforts of the emigration headed by Masaryk were
Platonic -- no one in the world gave them any guarantees.  For the concept
of Czechoslovakism as a state, political ideology, favorable conditions
emerged during the second phase of the war from the spring of 1917.  The
Czech policies placed them on the side of the victors and could participate
in making decisions about the future development of Central Europe.  They made
good use of the situation and got the concept of Czech historical rights
accepted.  The Czechoslovak Republic arose within historical frontiers, not
ethnic ones that even Palacky had once considered.

"Isn't the source of one of today's quarrels in the CSFR the fact that the
Czech historic rights were combined with the Slovak right to self-determina-
tion?"

     That is one of the sources of disagreement.  The Czechs purposefully
created, out of geopolitical considerations, a sort of corridor to the East,
so as not to be isolated in a German-Magyar confinement.  This potential
threat was removed pragmatically by uniting with Slovakia and Subcarpathian
Rus', which also eliminated the Pan-Hungarian tendency.  Let us not forget
in this context that CSR was a state that arose from the Versailles system,
which was not the result of a consensus of all participants.  In 1918 then
two different potentials were joined together -- the victorious Czech and
the Slovak, which in the given conditions appeared to be a more weakly-
developed addendum.  This hid within itself from the beginning the possibility
of a conflict.  The first republic was a time when, from the Czech side,
efforts to Slovakize Slovakia were carried out, that is to raise it to a
higher cultural level.  Obviously this also strengthened differential ten-
dencies.

"Today the Slovaks are making use of the new international political situation
for their own emancipation.  Is not Czech policy -- in contrast to 1918 --
on the defensive?"

     I wouldn't talk about being on the defensive any more.  It was a question
of time.  The consciousness of Czech statehood quite naturally was transferred
to Czechoslovak statehood, and this situation lasted until 1945, until at
Potsdam the Versailles system was de facto restored.  Its destruction after
1989, when a revision of the legal state structure of Eastern Europe came
about, could be characterized as the search for a way [line missing in
original]. . . . Today the key problem is how Czech statehood will be realized.

"Some have suggested that the Czechs never attempted to create a strictly
national state.  Aren't all the repeated proclamations about integration into
Western Europe just a form of substitute for the Austroslavism of the 19th
century?"

     That is possible, but a presupposition for integration of someone
into something is that it is established as a society.  But what is integra-
tion, actually?  Already certain forms of integration exist -- whether we
take traffic regulations or time.  Few people are aware of the fact that
the world time zones have been in effect only for a century.  Integration
is a question of a certain agreement, and may concern, for example, the
standardization of industrial products.  It will continue to take place, in
this sense, and is to be desired.  But "integrational" attempts like those
of Napoleon or Hitler -- integration by force -- is something completely
different.  To the extent that Europe is threatened by unification today,
by the creation of a single center in Brussels, thus by the loss of
polycentrism, then there will always be defensive reactions to this.
Imagine all of us dressing the same, eating hamburgers, and thinking the
same -- such integration already has a whiff of totalitarianism about it.

"Integration is of course the constant political argument used to disqualify
Slovak tendencies towards independence.  An image of a disintegrating East
Europe, which would so to speak disrupt the basis of historical development
represented by Western Europe, was created here . . ."

     The disintegration of states in Eastern Europe is a consequence of
destalinization.  Of course it has a two-fold meaning:  it could be the source
of the passions of the 19th century, but also of a new shape of Europe.
And it is never the case that the state system of Europe is a given once
and for all, and that all of Europe must integrate on the basis of those
states existing today.  Historical experience says that state structures
are temporary.  Thus in this context I paraphrase Palacky:  "We were here
before Czechoslovakia, and we shall be here after it!"  We should accept
the state as an organizing principle, as a legal basis for the internal
regulation of a given society.

"Thus states arise, where societies feel that a new state would be an
advantage for them.  What will independence bring the Czechs?"

     We could constitute ourselves as a relatively closed society aware
of its identity, and thus capable of opening outwards.  We should put
into effect the Western European concept of state, where it is not nation-
ality that decides, but citizenship.  Outside of the state sphere, in the
private lives of the citizens, the national ethnic group could express
itself.  The fact that an Italian might sell pizza in Prague and speak
Italian is for me irrelevant.  People are bothered by signs like "Zimmer
frei", but if they are only in the private sphere it doesn't matter.  It
would be worse if tri-lingual signs should appear in all offices.  This
would threaten our identity in state-political sense.

"But the arguments of the federalists emphasize precisely that our geo-
political situation forces us into the embrace of a powerful Germany . . ."

     That's possible.  But I don't accept that argument for one very simple
reason:  I believe that Czech society by itself is capable of establishing
itself on an equal footing with Europe and doesn't require any little crutch
in the form of a federation.  And if not, why preserve something which is
not capable of survival?  I reject the kind of fear of Germans which makes us
disarm in advance.  I don't suffer from any illusions that negotiations
with the Germans would always be simple.  By no means are all of them
willing to accept the fact that this land is the land of the Czechs.

"The land of the Czechs?  What should the new state actually be called?"

     Cesko!  It cannot be Cechy [Bohemia] -- this concept is historically
fixed on the old Kingdom.  For the land of the Czechs, inhabited by Czechs,
two concepts could be considered:  Cechie, or Cesko.  On the analogy of
Germany, Poland, Finland, [Nemecko, Polsko, Finsko] I prefer the
second concept.

"And what about Moravia?  Are you not denying its individuality?"

     Not at all.  The individuality of Moravia may be preserved.  Not only
because of historical tradition, but also with regard to genuine, contem-
porary economic and cultural uniquenesses.  The Czech republic should be
a federal state like Austria or Germany.

"What do you think the state symbols should look like?"

     That would depend on the considered opinions of experts.  The flag could
remain the Czechoslovak one, just as the current coat-of-arms of the Czech
republic could be retained.  The lands could then use their own land colors.
I would not like to underestimate the importance of the creation of these
symbols, they are very important, because they aid in internal self-
clarification, and inner certainty.  We don't have this at the moment and
we always have these inhibitions about clearly naming ourselves.  But such
a strengthening of the Czech state consciousness could also result in some
kind of primitive nationalism.  If we don't clarify the state-political
linkages, if we leave this land undefined, then in the end it may become
a sort of state of minorities -- Polish, Slovak, Moravian, Silesian,
Rom [Gypsy], and finally even Czech.

"How should this be avoided?"

     By defining Czech statehood as a state with a Czech administrative
language, a state as an integral structure.  We are creating a new kind
of statehood, which did not exist here before.  We cannot hark back to
history -- this state has never been a Czech state, it has always been
mixed.  Only after 1945-46 -- even if we do not agree with the principle
of the expulsion [of the Germans, trans.] -- was it for the first time
inhabited only by Czechs.  As a historian I would like to formulate one
thought:  Let us return to history, let us read in our history, but we
are now creating a new history, and thus it makes no sense simply to
copy from history.

The interview was conducted by Roman Krasnicky.
Otto Urban is head of the Department of Czech and Slovak History at
the Philosophical Faculty, Charles University, Prague.
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