From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

The history of the Czechoslovakian political turmoil in 1938 must be regarded as a reaction against Czech political and territorial expansion in opposition to the aspirations of other national groups. The existence and collapse of the first Czechoslovak republic cannot be seen only as a solitary fragment in the history of Bohemia with extended borders eastward, but also as an unbelievably fortunate period in Czech national expansion. The growth of an illusory Czech power-policy was made possible by the unreasonable behavior of the victorious allied and associated governments in 1918. The inflated, short 1ived Czechoslovak state was condemned to extinction as soon as the military situation was to be changed in Europe. For twenty years the Czechs ruled the other provinces from Prague. The components of the newly formed state were captive nations de- graded to the status of national minorities. The entente political leaders unilaterally, without consultations with the governments of the area, imposed territorial changes in Central Europe without a minimal semblance of serious statemanship.

With this act the Czech politicians wanted to perpetuate their rule over those non-Czech people who formed the majority of the population; and yet, they were subjugated to a Czech minority rule.

The emergence and even the unglorious disappearance of the first Czechoslovak republic, 1918-1938, was connected with the political activities of its first two presidents, Thomas G. Masaryk and Edward Benes. Before we try to understand the apogee and fall of the Czech political manoeuverings in modern European history, it is proper to examine the Czech historical development. Since their settlement in modern-day Bohemia, the Czechs have been surround- ed by German tribes. The Czech tribes were in the Carolingian Em- pire's zone of influence, the Christian successor in the Western European part of the once powerful ancient Roman Empire. The Germano-Roman emperors extended their political domination together with Christian missionary activity to theSlavic tribes, and

widened their political and military influence eastward in the lands inhabited by Slavic tribes. As a result of this politico-religious activity, fourteen Czech noblemen were baptized in 846 at Regensburg. The Moravian tribes, east of the Czechs, wanted to counterbalance the Frankish political weight, and requested Emperor Michael II of the Byzantine Empire to send Slavic speaking missionaries to Moravia. These two centres of Christianity competed for religious influence in Central Europe, and their rulers for political authority. Missionaries from Byzantium arrived in 863 to the Morava and Danube rivers to diffuse religious- political ideas from the East. This project did not succeed, and Moravia remained in the Roman sphere of influence and under Germano-Roman imperial rule. Later a Bavarian-Hungarian alliance destroyed the Moravian state. The Magyar tribes arrived in 896 in present-day Hungary, and expanded their rule from the central plains to the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. In the northern part of Hungary, a Slavic tribe, the modern-day Slovaks, became the subjects of the Hungarian state for one thousand years when Hungarian control was stretched to the mountain peaks, the natural borderline between Poland and Hungary for a millennium. The predecessors of the Slovaks in that area were the Avars, Marcomanns, the Quads and the colonizing Romans. There existed no established Slovak state. Tribal ancestors of the Slovaks surrendered without resistance or war, and accepted the rule of the central Hungarian tribe as did the newly arrived Hungarian tribes.3 The Czechs and Moravians started a new political existence in a state, called Bohemia, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation as it was later renamed by Charles IV, king of Bohemia and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Czech dukes received on different occasions the royal crown from the Germano- Roman emperors as a reward for faithful services rendered to the emperors. The royal crown was given in 1085 and 1158 only for the lifetime of the dukes; and later, in 1212 it became inheritable in the first Czech national dynasty, the Premysl House by the disposition of the Sicilian Golden Bull of emperor Frederick II. Bohemia and Moravia remained, for one thousand years, a member state of the Holy Roman Empire. The kings of Bohemia became office holders of the empire, imperial cupbearers, and held the distinguished title, one of the seven electors of the empire. Inhabitants of the kingdom of Bohemia enjoyed every advantage of Western civilization, offered by membership in the empire. The kings of Bohemia opened the frontier regions of their country for German colonists because they needed their higher skills in trade as well as their intellectual qualifications. They were the predecessors of the Sudeten German population of the twentieth century Czechoslovakia.

During the Middle Ages, for over five centuries, the Bohemian and Hungarian kingdoms played a decisive role in European history under the rule of their national dynasties, the Premyslides and the

Arpads. After the extinction of their native royal families, the Czechs and the Magyars at many occasion& elected common kings from the Luxembourg and Jagiellonian dynasties, and the two neighbouring countries were joined in personal union by their common monarchs. When Louis II, the king of Bohemia and the apostolic king of Hungary, died in 1526 on the battlefield of Mohacs fighting the Turkish invaders of Hungary, the Habsburg dynasty acquired the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns. The Habsburgs of Vienna wore the royal crowns of Bohemia and Hungary until the end of World War I. The Habsburg kings during their four hundred- year long rule equally pursued anti-Czech and anti-Magyar policy contrary to their coronation oath. There were many misunderstand- ings with the government of Vienna, including armed rebellions against its rule, but at the same time these small nations of Central Europe were able to withstand the incursions from powerful neighbours in the multinational Austrian Empire. During their common history a feeling of togetherness, a cultural affinity and shared citizenship developed among the eleven national groups in the empire of 51,390,223 inhabitants. Later in Austria-Hungary the road for cultural, economic and political progress and success was open to all component nations.

The historic kingdom of Bohemia lost its constitution and national independence after the battle of the White Mountain, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. After that fateful event, the Czechs were rather willing to serve the Habsburg dynasty rather than to oppose the centralized tendencies of the Viennese govern- ment. They were not openly in opposition to the Austrian empire but they resented the fact that they did not obtain a similar deal as the Hungarians in the compromise with Austria in 1867 concerning national independence. During World War I the Czechs were working, secretly at home and openly abroad, against Austria- Hungary and were waiting for the defeat of the common homeland. With external help they succeeded in founding a new state in 1918. The delimitation of the frontiers of Czechoslovakia surpassed the dreams of Masaryk and Benes, and the republic absorbed numeri- cally more national minorities than the entire Czech population of that area. The nationality problems of the now destroyed Austria- Hungary were inherited by the Czechoslovak republic. The multinational Central European monarchy, which was previously able to resist imperialist pressures from the East and West, fell pray to the hatred of its enemies. The Allied and Associated Powers partitioned the Austro-Hungarian Empire and mutilated Hungary in the peace treaties although the Hungarian government had been against the declaration of war on Serbia(4) after the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne because Hungary had no territorial claims on the Balkan peninsula. With the dissolution of the Danubian empire a political vacuum was created in Central Europe.

The weak successor states had to face innumerable internal problems and these small states were unable to resist the imperialist expansion of Hitler.

A Fraudulent Trick: the Existence of a "Czechoslovak" Nation

During World War I, Masaryk, Benes and their political collabo- rators in exile in Western Europe deceived the political leaders ofthe entente governments with the fabrication of a legend that a "Czechoslovak" nation existed on the territory of Austria-Hungary. They added to their invention that this "nation,, wanted to be united in an independent state with leadership from Prague, under the direction of the Czechs. It is necessary to ascertain the historical fact that a "Czechoslovak" nation never existed, and does not exist even today. In 1918 the Czech political emigration succeeded in founding a Czechoslovak state. The unsatisfied Slovaks, after twenty years of cohabitation with the Czechs in the same republic, created their own Slovak state at the first possible opportunity. In October 1938 they demanded from Prague full autonomy for Slovakia promised them by the Czechs in 1918. They established, for the first time in history in March 1939, their Slovak republic with the assistance of Hitler. The undemocratic Czechoslovak government in Prague disappeared as a political factor in Central Europe, partly as a result of the intervention of the National Socialist government of Germany, and partly under the pressure of the demands of the discontent autonomist front of the Slovaks, Sudeten Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ruthenians.

According to the teaching of romantic historiography, when glorious non-existing national histories were written throughout Europe, an illusion emerged that the Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks formed one Moravian state in the ninth century. This is only a legend which does not correspond to historical fact. The short-lived Moravian state never extended control over the territory of Bohemia or over Northern Hungary, which is twentieth century Slovakia. The Czechs in the second half of the nineteenth century, in the process of their national rebirth, wanted to gather more strength for their struggle against the Habsburg hegemony, and they saw in the Slovaks, living in Hungary, a reservoir to supplement the lacking element of the Bohemian nation. The Czechs and Slovaks never lived under a common government until 1918. The Czechs in Bohemia were exposed to different cultural and social influences than the Slovaks in Hungary. Slovak Lutherans, about 20% of their nation, did not accept the Catholic Bible nor the Latin ecclesiastic language. For two centuries, they adapted the Czech Hussite Bible and church songs for their congregations until finally they were translated into Slovak and their own ecclesiastical language was

formed. The Slovak Lutherans strongly altered the Czech eccle- siastical language by the linguistic characteristics and specific features of the Slovak language. The Catholics initially worked out among the Slovaks a literary language which was followed by a scholarly dispute among the linguists. Later, in the middle of the 19th century the central Slovak dialect was accepted as a modern literary language. Use of Czech as a liturgical language by a small minority of the Slovaks contributed later, during the era of nationalism, to a pro-Czech political orientation and an anti- Catholic stand among the Slovak Lutherans. This political and ideological disagreement remained a divisive force among the Slovaks at home and abroad until the present day.

For ten centuries, the Slovaks as well as the Magyars regarded Hungary--a multinational state with Latin as the official language of the Parliament until 1844--as a common homeland. This feeling ripened under the influence of their common historic heritage, common fate and long struggles with the external enemies of both nations in the defence of their fatherland. This pro- Hungarian affection of the Slovaks was demonstrated in contem- porary Slovak literature.

In the Habsburg empire the non-German peoples almost simultaneously turned against the Germanization program of emperor Joseph II. The Czechs, Magyars, Slovaks, among others, began to cultivate their national conscientiousness. The intellectual leaders, writers, poets of the component nations of the Habsburg monarchy were very anxious to create educational and scientific institutions and theatres for preserving their national language and culture put in peril by the Germanization of Vienna.

Fresh Contacts Between the Czechs and Slovaks

The development of philology gave a great impulse to the creation of literary and linguistic works in national languages in the Austrian empire. The energetic activity of Joseph Dobrovsky, 1753- 1829, the illustrious Czech philologist, author of the History of the Czech language and literature, opened a new era of linguistics. He was born in Hungary as the son of a non-commissioned officer of the Austrian imperial army and, after his departure to Bohemia, he followed with interest not only the Czech but also the Slovak philological publications. The Slovak linguists remained in contact with him and they exchanged with him the results of their research. Their topics were focused on the problem of grammatical systems, questions of comparative Slavic linguistics which allowed for the examination of the growing awareness of Slavic affinity on a scientific basis. Dobrovsky, the Czech Catholic priest remained in scholarly contact with Slovak Lutheran ministers, teachers and printers in Hungary who had interest in

philology, publications in literary journals and books or who were collectors of Slovak proverbs and folk songs. Philology was acknowledged as an

authority to give scholarly explanations on cultural and linguistic relations among the Slavic nations, including Slovaks and Czechs. The old common Slavic tribal relations became exploited for divergent cultural and political ends. Scholarly cultivation of Slavistics obtained a new significance in the contemporary situation. In the Austrian monarchy, national movements came into existence, and the intellectual leaders of the Slavic nations developed the idea of Slavic reciprocity as a means of cultural self- defence against the policy of denationalization and Germanization of Vienna. Its result was the spread of comparative Slavic studies, promotion of cultural cooperation and meetings among the promoters of these ideas.

The writers of the small nations in Central Europe desired to raise the quality of their national literature to the standard of Western European literatures. Linguistic progress gave an impetus to the embellishment of Slovak literature as a first step towards political nationhood. Slovak language reform was delayed by the persistence of the Slovak Lutherans regarding the use of Czech liturgical language not only for ecclesiastical purposes but also in literary works. The use of the antiquated biblical language of the Czech Brethren in liturgy by the Slovak Lutherans and in their literary products--inserted with Slovakisms--was a unique phenomenon. It was neither a Czech nor a Slovak living language. It became a tradition in the Lutheran congregations without representing a Czechophile political orientation in the first phase of Slovak national development. By 1843 the Slovak literary evolution reached the point of culmination with the foundation of the rules for a literary language by which the Slovak national consciousness gained significant animation. The Slovak language became protected from Bohemianisms which threatened its purity. There are deep grammatical differences between the Czech and Slovak languages in accidence, structure, word formation, declension of nouns and adjectives, conjugation of verbs, grammatical agree- ments and phonetics. The Slovak Lutherans gave up the use of old Czech liturgical language but as a remnant of their long religious connections with the Czech Brethren, they transferred their former ecclesiastical links to the political field in the form of cooperation with the Czechs against the wish of their Catholic confreres.

Foundation of the Slovak literary language encouraged demands of a cultural and political nature from the Hungarian government during the decades of boiling national feelings, and caused conflicts of national character which disturbed the thousand-year old peaceful relations between Magyars and Slovaks. This controversy was artificially instigated by the Czechs for political gains. Establishment of the Slovak literary language also fundamentally afflicted the dreams of those Czechs who tried to strengthen their own national energies from

the potential forces of the Slovak people. They saw in the literary movement of the Slovaks a clear sign of national identity, and even a possible separation of the Slovak

Lutherans from the Czech biblical language. The Slovak linguistic independence was directed against the Czech intrusion into the intellectual life of the Slovaks with their alien culture and divergent language. One does not have to forget that in spite of the existing affinity among the Slavic languages in general, it is true that should a Slav want to speak another Slavic language it must be learned as any other foreign language. The Czechs also attempted to extend their grip on the Slovaks from another direction. The Habsburg kings for political reasons developped to a high degree the industrialization of Bohemia to the detriment of Hungary. They wanted to penalize the Hungarian nobility for maintaining their exemption from taxation and for refusing to pay taxes to the imperial treasury. Furthermore, the Hungarian nobility dared to lead revolts on many occasions against the unconstitutional rule of the Habsburg dynasty. The industrial development was therefore reserved to the politically faithful parts of the Habsburg domains. The economic prosperity of the lands of the crown of St. Wenceslas was promoted by the Czech loyalty to the Habsburg house. With the surplus capital the Czechs started enterprises in Upper Hungary inhabited by the Slovaks. In their efforts for economic expansion and hegemony among the Slovaks, the Czechs emphasized their Slavic affinity. It was a propaganda tool to gain economic advantages. Meanwhile, the Czechs spread news of political offenses directed by the Hungarian government against the Slovaks in order to bring them closer to themselves. The Czech propagandists gained the understanding of many Slovaks with their literary and political appeals. The defeat of the Hungarian revolution against the Habsburgs of Vienna in 1849, and the brutal Austrian oppression of Hungary was felt by Slovaks and Magyars alike. Later the government of Vienna under the pressure of external political events was obliged to grant concessions to the Magyars and to even conclude a political compromise with them. It resulted in the foundation of the Dual Monarchy of Austria- Hungary. Triumphant, the Hungarian government did not show much understanding for the linguistic rights and cultural demands of the Slovaks. Even the minimal national-cultural claims of the Slovaks were not recognized in Budapest, the very same goals for which the Magyars were willing to revolt against the imperial government in Vienna. In their struggle for cultural survival, the Slovaks received support from tsarist Russia and from Bohemia but not for altruistic reasons from any of them. Both Slavic nations demonstrated a keen interest in the political, cultural and linguistic strife of the Slovaks. Political events of the twentieth century proved that it was not for unselfish motives. Slovaks fell victim to the Czech politicians. In 1873, a commemorative festival was organized in Prague for the centennial of the birth of Joseph Jungmann, the leading figure, poet, translator, founder and designer of the revival of modern Czech literature and national rebirth. Matica Slovenska', a literary society, sent a three-member delegation to Prague,

consisting of prominent Slovak cultural activators. Participants expressed in their speeches the necessity and importance of the conclusion of a literary accord with the Czechs in the hope for a better understanding between the two nations. The Slovaks wanted to strengthen themselves with the new contacts, however, in the long run they did irreparable damage to the Slovak cultural tradition and national cause. A systematic cultivation of literary relations began between the two centres, Prague and Turciansky Svaty Martin--Turocszentmarton. At that time, Czech literature glittered in a more advanced stage of growth. The Slovaks hoped to gain from these contacts, especially after the dissolution of the Matica Slouenska in 1875 by the Hungarian government as a hotbed of anti-Hungarian agitation. The Slovaks accepted this outside encouragement, although some brochures printed in Bohemia considered the Slovak language as a dialect of the Czech, and the writers of those articles advocated a common literary language for both nations. This approach was a much more dangerous way for the annihilation of the Slovak national values than the open administrative measures of the contemporary Hungarian government which was subject to changes after each parliamentary election or appointment of a new government. The Czechs attacked the existence of a separate Slovak language in its roots with the insistence on the identity of the two languages. Behind the imagined and fabricated linguistic unity of these two Slavic nations, there was also a political danger for the Slovaks through a legend of a Czecho-Slovak national unity which became the newest threat against the existence of a Slovak nation. The penetration of Czech publications among the Slovak readers began with some articles in Czech almanachs written by Slovak poets and writers. After 1875, the Hungarian government with an intolerant educational policy drove away many Slovaks for study in Prague. Some Slovaks from Upper Hungary went to university in Prague and some even completed high school in Bohemia. The reopening of the Czech branch of Charles University in 1882--it became a bilingual institution--gave a new incentive for learning to the young Slovaks who chose Prague instead of Vienna or Budapest. In the same year the "Detvan", a Slovak student association, was founded in the Czech capital to keep the countrymen together and to foster interest in their common tongue. This student club main- tained friendly relations with similar Czech and Moravian organizations. These political actions did not remain under the guise of innocent student movements forever. A new social club was founded in Prague in 1896, named Cesko-Slovenska Jednota, Czecho-Slovak Unity. This association studied and propagated the idea of national fusion but made limited inroads into the ranks of the Slovaks, who remained faithful to their

homeland and looked with fear upon the advertised political union with the Czechs. There were elaborate plans for Czech penetration into different walks of life of the Slovak region of Hungary: investments in economy, trade,

commerce and literary publication. Bohemia sent her agents to the Slovaks for preparation of the Czech domination of every facet of the Slovak life. At this time, Slovak leaders did not suspect any intricate nor coordinated attack against their national existence on the part of the Czechs.

Scholarships were distributed for the Slovak students from Upper Hungary for studies in Bohemia. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, various Czech clubs participated in granting aid to lure young Slovaks to Prague and to gain their support for the new Czech national expansion. In 1879, professor Thomas G. Masaryk arrived in Prague from Vienna to teach philosophy in the Czech section of the university. He became more of a politician than a professor of philosophy, more of a fighting student leader and political figure who, with the publications of his political views, wanted to influence different segments of Czech national life. Masaryk gave inspiration to the realists who in 1886 started to publish a bi-weekly entitled "Cas". In 1891, the politician-professor became a deputy in the Imperial Parliament of Vienna and the following year a member of the Bohemian Provincial Diet in Prague. It is true that for personal reasons and political disagree- ment with the Young Czech leaders he resigned from his parlia- mentary positions. In 1907, he again became a member of the Viennese Parliament and remained there until his escape from Austria-Hungary in 1914.

While at the University of Prague, Masaryk supported the radical section of the Slovak students who in their journal the Hlas propagated the Czecho-Slovak national unity. Their activity in Prague provoked the reaction of the anti-Czech Slovaks who in their newspaper the Narodnie Noviny attacked the Czech manipulations against the linguistic, literary, cultural, national and historical existence of the Slovak nation under the pretext of the fictitious "Czecho-Slovak', national unity. The Hlas was not long-lived but it started the fermentation of political views which remained alive in intellectual circles. "Later this group was attracted to the Russophile political orientation".(5) In 1909, another faction of the Slovak youth movement started a review Prudy which survived for five years. Along with the Slovak weekly in Budapest, Slovensky Tyzdennik, 1903-1918, edited by Milan Hodza, member of the Hungarian Parliament and later Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in the days of her dissolution, the Prudy continued bitter attacks against the Magyar political leadership. Masaryk used these political agitators in his hate campaign against Hungary.

Formation of an Artiflcial Mosaic State in 1918

Today it is well known, from the plethora of available literature in many languages, that the peace treaties after World War I were drafted in an emotionally charged atmosphere in which it was

impossible to arrive at negotiated treaties by reasonable compro- mises based on incontestable and undeniable evidence. The peace arrangements concluded among the former belligerents therefore came under attack several years after their signature, for several reasons, by those governments which were not satisfied with the dispositions of the treaties. The victorious countries, in their shortsighted hatred, wanted the total annihilation of their former enemies, and to extend their own territorial limits at the expense of their neighbours.

It is impossible to separate the formation of the first Czechoslovak republic from the names of Masaryk and Benes. These two Czech emissaries used their connections abroad for the realization of their political aims. Their antipathy for the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians found a favourable echo in the foreign ministries of Paris, London, Petrograd and Washington where the Czech exiles gained admittance through their acquaintances. These persons organized the Czech emigrants for their cause, encouraged the desertion of Czech soldiers from the Austro-Hungarian army and enlisted them in units--called Czech legions--in France, Russia and later in Italy.

Masaryk, the 64-year old university professor and Benes, the 30- year old teacher at a commercial academy, met in Prague in September 1914 and they coordinated their political ideas which culminated in the foundation of a Czech state after World War I. In 1914 Masaryk escaped from Austria-Hungary, and Benes slipped away abroad less than one year later. During the war, Masaryk travelled around the world and worked mainly in British, American and Russian circles. Benes successfully put into action his French-- mainly free masonic--connections which he cultivated as aformer university student in Paris. Masaryk had been several times in the United States of America even before his escape from Prague where he was introduced by his American wife into university and freethinker circles.(6) During the war Masaryk returned to the USA several times where he immediately acquired supporters among the Czech immigrants who gave him financial help. Even some Ame- rican Slovaks sanctioned his vaguely described objectives.

Years before the outbreak of hostilities, several plans were circulated for the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary among the politicians of the nationalities living in the Dual Monarchy, and among their adherents in foreign countries. Masaryk and Benes added to those plans their own ideas, and propagated them in numerous memoirs favouring the creation of a democratic Czech national state. In a memorandum, submitted in the Foreign Office to Sir George Clerk on 15

April, 1915, Masaryk claimed Upper Hungary for the Czech republic in order that this territory constitute a corridor between Bohemia and Russia. Masaryk did not think that the independence of a Czech republic could be guaranteed in any other way but by Russia,s military might.(7) Besides Czech emigrants and influential foreigners, Czech agents abroad skilfully used the

Czech legions for the realization of their political purposes. In Austria-Hungary the regiments were recruited on a territorial basis, therefore, Czech officers were able to direct entire detachments to the side of the enemies on different fronts. These deserters numbered about 1,000 in Italy, 1,600 in France, 5,000 in Serbia and 50,000 in Russia. In February 1916, national committees were formed abroad. The National Council of the Czech Lands, later renamed as Czecho- Slovak National Council, issued a declaration in Paris for the establishment of a Czecho-Slovak state. Its chairman was the leader of the Czech exiles, Masaryk, vice-chairman Josef Durich, Milan R. Stefanik, and the agile Edward Benes. This Czech national council devoted its energy to activities in the entente chancelleries, newspapers, periodicals, addressed memoirs to entente govern- ments for the realization of an independent Czech state which would be an important and useful ally against Germany. This promise was especially emphasized before French leaders. The champions of the Czech political exile worked indefatigably in entente circles and among the nationalities of the Danubian monarchy. Masaryk was a successful lobbyist in Washington and among some leaders of the Slovak and Ruthenian immigrants from Austria-Hungary. Masaryk's first success was achieved among the American Slovaks in Cleveland where the Slovak League of America agreed to the union of the Czechs and Slovaks in a new federal state. He continued his aggressive campaign, and the masterpiece of his activity in the USA was the conclusion of the Pittsburgh agreement in his presence, as Chairman of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, with the representatives of the following Slovak and Czech organiza- tions: the Slovak League of America, the Czech National Alliance and the Federation of Czech Catholics. The political program for the union of the Czechs and Slovaks in an independent state was approved by these private citizens in the USA. In their belief, the Slovaks were to have their own administrative system in the province of Slovakia--until then Upper Hungary--with their own Parliament and the Slovak as a second official language. A democratic constitution was promised for a future Czecho-Slovak republic. The seventeen Slovak and twelve Czech signatories-- among them Masaryk--promised intensified cooperation among American Slovaks and Czechs.8 In their initial enthusiasm they collected for Masaryk $800,911.00 (9), or according to another version only $674,885.00.(10). Masaryk influenced even the leaders of the American Ruthenians, and promised their nationals in Upper Hungary autonomy if they would join a new Czech state.

The Ruthenians in Hungary lived in the mountainous North- Eastern part of the kingdom and for centuries demonstrated their strong loyalty to their Hungarian homeland. They spoke a dialect of the Ukrainian language and belonged to the Greek-Catholic Church. They were separated from the Ukrainians of Russia by religious, linguistic and historic background. There was a trend-- represented by a minority group--among the American Ruthenians

which favoured a political union with the Ukraine; but after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the entente governments were not willing to allow Russian penetration south of the Carpathian mountains. Masaryk, the ardent Pan-Slavist, was willing to extend the borders of the future Czech state even to the territory inhabited partly by Ruthenians. On 26 October 1918, in Philadelphia, he signed a private agreement with Gregorij Zatkovic,1l leader of the American Council of Hungarian Ruthenians, for the national autonomy of Ruthenians living in Hungary. Masaryk, an Austrian citizen in self-imposed exile, and Zatkovic, a naturalized American citizen, acted without any mandate from the population whose fate was involved in the annexation of Ruthenia by Bohemia.

These private agreements of Masaryk together with the distorted reports and memoranda of Benes to the Allied and Associated Powers during the war and after the signature of the armistice were taken into consideration by various committees at the peace conference. These private agreements and reports were recognized as binding treaties or acceptable documents by the peacemakers. The solemn declaration of the American president in which he proclaimed the right for self-determination of the nationalities of Austria-Hungary was simply forgotten. The Czechs, once in power, never granted autonomy voluntarily neither to the Slovaks nor to the Ruthenians. The private agreements with Masaryk ended in the political oppression of the Slovaks, Ruthenians and other national minorities in the CSR starting in 1918. The Czech political exiles thought it simpler to ask for the creation of an independent state for one nation--even if a "Czechoslovak" nation did not exist--than to explain the complicated historical relations between the Czechs and Slovaks.(12)

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award