INTRODUCTION
TO HUNGARIAN PHILATELY
Czechoslovakia
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The Czechoslovak Idea
At the turn of the century, the idea of a "Czechoslovak"
entity began to be advocated by some Czech and Slovak leaders.
The concept that Czechs and Slovaks shared a common heritage
was hardly new. But as the two nations developed, the Slovaks
had been intent on demonstrating the legitimacy of Slovak as
a language separate from Czech. In the 1890s, contacts between
Czech and Slovak intellectuals intensified. The Czech leader
Masaryk was a keen advocate of Czech-Slovak cooperation. Some
of his students formed the Czechoslovak Union and in 1898 published
the journal Hlas (The Voice). In Slovakia, young Slovak intellectuals
began to challenge the old Slovak National Party. But although
the Czech and Slovak national movements began drawing closer
together, their ultimate goals remained unclear. At least until
World War I, the Czech and Slovak national movements struggled
for autonomy within Austria and Hungary, respectively. Only
during the war did the idea of an independent Czechoslovakia
emerge.
World
War I
At
the outbreak of World War I, the Czechs and Slovaks showed little
enthusiasm for fighting for their respective enemies, the Germans
and the Hungarians, against fellow Slavs, the Russians and the
Serbs. Large numbers of Czechs and Slovaks defected on the Russian
front and formed the Czechoslovak Legion. Masaryk went to western
Europe and began propagating the idea that the Austro-Hungarian
Empire should be dismembered and that Czechoslovakia should
be an independent state. In 1916, together with Eduard Benes
and Milan Stefanik (a Slovak war hero), Masaryk created the
Czechoslovak National Council. Masaryk in the United States
and Benes in France and Britain worked tirelessly to gain Allied
recognition. When secret talks between the Allies and Austrian
emperor Charles I (1916-18) collapsed, the Allies recognized,
in the summer of 1918, the Czechoslovak National Council as
the supreme organ of a future Czechoslovak government.
In
early October 1918, Germany and Austria proposed peace negotiations.
On October 18, while in the United States, Masaryk issued a
declaration of Czechoslovak independence. Masaryk insisted that
the new Czechoslovak state include the historic Bohemian Kingdom,
containing the German-populated Sudetenland. On October 21,
however, German deputies from the Sudetenland joined other German
and Austrian deputies in the Austrian parliament in declaring
an independent German-Austrian state. Following the abdication
of Emperor Charles on November 11, Czech troops occupied the
Sudetenland.
Hungary
withdrew from the Hapsburg Empire on November 1. The new liberal-democratic
government of Hungary under Count Michael Karolyi attempted
to retain Slovakia. With Allied approval, the Czechs occupied
Slovakia, and the Hungarians were forced to withdraw. The Czechs
and Allies agreed on the Danube and Ipel' rivers as the boundary
between Hungary and Slovakia; a large Hungarian minority, occupying
the fertile plain of the Danube, would be included in the new
state.
THE CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC, 1918-39
Features of the New State
The
independence of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on October 28,
1918, by the Czechoslovak National Council in Prague. Only several
years before, an independent Czechoslovakia had been a dream
of a small number of intellectuals. The transformation of the
dream into reality was a formidable task. While the creation
of Czechoslovakia was based on certain historical precedents,
it was, nevertheless, a new country carved out of disparate
parts of the old Hapsburg Empire. Several ethnic groups and
territories with different historical, political, and economic
traditions had to be blended into a new state structure. In
the face of such obstacles, the creation of Czechoslovak democracy
was indeed a triumph. But the Czechoslovak Republic (which also
came to be known as the First Republic) suffered internal constrictions,
which, when coupled with foreign aggression, destroyed it.
Initial
authority within Czechoslovakia was assumed by the newly created
National Assembly on November 14, 1918. Because territorial
demarcations were uncertain and elections impossible, the provisional
National Assembly was constituted on the basis of the 1911 elections
to the Austrian parliament with the addition of fifty-four representatives
from Slovakia. National minorities were not represented; Sudeten
Germans harbored secessionist aspirations, and Hungarians remained
loyal to Hungary. The National Assembly elected Masaryk as its
first president, chose a provisional government headed by Karel
Kramar, and drafted a provisional constitution.
The
Paris Peace Conference convened in January 1919. The Czech delegation
was led by Kramar and Benes, premier and foreign minister respectively,
of the Czechoslovak provisional government. The conference approved
the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, to encompass
the historic Bohemian Kingdom (including Bohemia, Moravia, and
Silesia), Slovakia, and Ruthenia. The Czechs requested the inclusion
of Ruthenia to provide a common frontier with Romania. Tesin,
an industrial area also claimed by Poland, was divided between
Czechoslovakia (Cesky Tesin) and Poland (Cieszyn). The Czech
claim to Lusatia, which had been part of the Bohemian Kingdom
until the Thirty Years' War, was rejected. On September 10,
1919, Czechoslovakia signed a "minorities" treaty,
placing its ethnic minorities under the protection of the League
of Nations.
The
new nation had a population of over 13.5 million. It had inherited
70 to 80 percent of all the industry of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, including the china and glass industries and thesugar
refineries; more than 40 percent of all its distilleries and
breweries; the Skoda works of Plzen (Pilsen), which produced
armaments, locomotives, automobiles, and machinery; and the
chemical industry of northern Bohemia. The 17 percent of all
Hungarian industry that had developed in Slovakia during the
late nineteenth century also fell to the republic. Czechoslovakia
was one of the world's ten most industrialized states.
The
Czech lands were far more industrialized than Slovakia. In Bohemia,
Moravia, and Silesia, 39 percent of the population was employed
in industry and 31 percent in agriculture and forestry. Most
light and heavy industry was located in the Sudetenland and
was owned by Germans and controlled by German-owned banks. Czechs
controlled only 20 to 30 percent of all industry. In Slovakia
17.1 percent of the population was employed in industry, and
60.4 percent worked in agriculture and forestry. Only 5 percent
of all industry in Slovakia was in Slovak hands. Subcarpathian
Ruthenia was essentially without industry.
In
the agricultural sector, a program of reform introduced soon
after the establishment of the republic was intended to rectify
the unequal distribution of land. One-third of all agricultural
land and forests belonged to a few aristocratic landowners--mostly
Germans and Hungarians--and the Roman Catholic Church. Half
of all holdings were under two hectares. The Land Control Act
of April 1919 called for the expropriation of all estates exceeding
150 hectares of arable land or 250 hectares of land in general
(500 hectares to be the absolute maximum). Redistribution was
to proceed on a gradual basis; owners would continue in possession
in the interim, and compensation was offered.
REFERENCE : Extracts from: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cstoc.html
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