CREATING CZECHOSLOVAKIA:

A CASE STUDY ON THE THEORIES OF NATIONALISM

Dana Korssjoen

JSIS B 436: Ethnic Politics and Nationalism

March 8, 2018
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Overview

The study of nationalism is rife with contradictory theories which seek to explain the

origins of nations and nationalism. The best way to test those theories is by analyzing them in

light of real, historical case studies and evaluating which theory offers the most fitting

explanation. In this paper, I will briefly outline the three dominant theories of nationalism, which

are primordialism, modernism, and ethnosymbolism. I will then examine their validity in

analyzing formation of Czechoslovakia and conclude which theory fits best. I focus specifically

on the formation of Czech, Slovak, and Czechoslovak identities prior to the 1918 establishment

of the Czechoslovakian state. Through this study, I conclude that ethnosymbolism presents the

best explanation for the development of the Czechoslovakian identity (or lack thereof).

Theoretical Framework

The theories of nationalism that are contrasted in this paper, namely primordialism,

modernism, and ethnosymbolism, can be distinguished by their conclusions on two aspects of

nationalism: the nature of ethnic ties and the antiquity of the nation. This section gives a brief

overview of each theory in respect to those questions.

Primordialism can be divided into several bodies of theory, but all primordialists hold the

belief that ethnic ties are primordial; that is, they are an innate, natural part of human nature that

has always and will always exist. These ties stem from (or, according to cultural primordialists,

are attributed to) shared ancestry, language, social practices, and other deep-rooted attributes. It

follows, then, that the nation itself is ancient and immutable.1 This is the view that nationalists

themselves espouse.

1 Umut Özkırımlı, Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (London: Palgrave, 2017), 51-52, 54-62.
 2

Modernism differs from primordialism in both aspects of nationalism. Modernists argue

that nationalism and national interest are constructed by elites to serve some political, economic,

or social purpose which primarily benefits themselves, not the nation. In other words, the

modernist approach is a constructionist, instrumentalist one. As their name suggests, modernists

theorize that nations are inherently modern phenomena, fundamentally linked to the concepts of

citizenship and constitutional rule.2 Unlike primordialists, modernists heavily stress the influence

of elites on ethnic and national identities.

Ethnosymbolism is a sort of ideological compromise between primordialism and

modernism. Like modernists, ethnosymbolists believe that the national identity is constructed by

elites, especially using cultural myths, symbols, and traditions to elicit emotional responses and

group identification. Like primordialists, ethnosymbolists posit that the nation is a pre-modern

phenomenon, fundamentally shaped by long-standing ethnic communities and collective cultural

units.3 This approach differs from modernism in that it stresses the continuity between pre-

modern identities and modern nations, rather than dividing them into two distinct epochs.

The Shaping of Czechoslovakia

Shared history

The territory that would eventually become Czechoslovakia (composed of Bohemia,

Moravia, and Slovakia) was originally settled by Celtic tribes in the fourth century BCE. In the

second century CE, nomadic Germanic peoples also settled the region, though most of them

continued migrating to the west. In the fifth and sixth centuries CE, the remaining inhabitants

were gradually assimilated by incoming Slav peoples, who are the shared ancestors of Slovaks,

2 Özkırımlı, 81-130
3 Özkırımlı, 154-168
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Czechs, Moravians, and Poles.4 By the ninth century, these groups were united under the Czech-

speaking Great Moravian Empire.5 In this period, missionaries from the Orthodox Christian and

the Roman Catholic churches fought for dominance, with the Roman Catholic church eventually

prevailing. Regional unity, however, was brief, as the Hungarian army annexed Slovakia into its

empire in 906, creating a division of Czech and Slovak lands that would last until the First World

War. For that reason, Czech and Slovak history are recounted separately in the following

sections.

Beginnings of Czech nationalism

After the collapse of the Great Moravian Empire in 907, Bohemia and Moravia were

briefly united under the Přemyslid dynasty, then collectively integrated into the Holy Roman

Empire. Life under the Holy Roman Empire was characterized by technological innovation,

Catholicization, and political stability. At its height, the empire reigned over Hungary and

Poland.6 In 1356, Emperor Charles IV established the Kingdom of Bohemia (including Moravia)

as one of the empire’s seven electoral principalities and founded Charles University in Prague,

which was central Europe’s first university.7 During the course of Holy Roman rule, Bohemia

and Moravia became more ethnically and linguistically mixed. Especially after the twelfth

century, large numbers of Germans formed their own exclave communities in cities and rural

areas. This ethnic heterogeneity would spell trouble for the national movements that would

emerge centuries later.

4 Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, s.v. “Slovakia,” 697; Janet Pollak, “Slovakia,” in Countries and Their
Cultures, 2001-02.
5 Zdenek Salzmann, “Czech Republic,” in Countries and Their Cultures, 601.
6 Harald Haarmann, “Czechs,” in Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and
Contemporary Issues, 231.
7 Howard Louthan, “Bohemia,” in Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, 276.
 4

In 1438, the Habsburgs gained control over Bohemia and Moravia. Except for a brief

period of Polish control towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Habsburgs administered

Bohemia and Moravia from Vienna until the empire dissolved in the aftermath of World War I.

Czech national historiography refers to this period of foreign rule as the “time of darkness.”8

During this time, the elective power of the Bohemian crown was abolished, the Bohemian

Chancellery was merged with the Austrian, and the administrative power of the local elite was

gradually dissolved.9 In the second half of the eighteenth century, rapid economic modernization

and industrialization resulted in the region becoming the most economically advanced in the

empire. These reforms eroded the traditionally rigid social structure of Bohemia, in which

Germans had gradually become the economic and political elite, liberating a Czech peasantry

that increasingly advocated against German-dominated policy.10 Those claims also become

imbued with ethnic fears of extinction, as, in 1851, the ratio of Czechs to Germans in Bohemia

was reported to be 60 to 38.5 - while still a majority, the Czech share of the Bohemian population

had noticeably shrunk under imperial rule.11 Ethnic fears and political agitation came to be

represented in cultural myths and symbols.

Development of Czech national identity

One of the most prominent narratives in Czech national historiography was that of the

Hussite Revolution and its leader, Jan Hus. Hus was credited with profoundly reforming the

Catholic church through his idea of devotio moderna, which emphasized the importance of the

individual, not the maxims of a papal authority, in true faith. Predictably, he was burned at the

8 Haarmann, 231.
9 Louthan, 278-79.
10 Eagle Glassheim, “Ambivalent Capitalists: The Roots of Fascist Ideology among Bohemian Nobles, 1880-
1938,” in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, ed. Mark Cornwall and Robert John Weston Evans
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 28.
11 Salzmann, 601.
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stake in 1415. His influence persisted in Bohemia, however, where several armies sent by the

pope to suppress the religious reformation movement were defeated by Hussite forces in 1419.

Czechs historians referred to the Hussites as the first Bohemian nationalists.

Hus and the Hussites took on a mythical role in Czech historiography as competing

narratives of their history became political tools to arouse or suppress Czech national pride.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth century rule of the Habsburgs, Hus was demonized for his

rebellion against the Catholic church, a narrative that is accused of having deeply political

motivations on behalf of the evangelical Catholic elite of the Hapsburg Empire. Leaders of the

Hussite movement were accused of being simple robbers and murderers, while the movement

itself was referred to as a “mass fever” by seventeenth-century historians.12 Conversely, Czech

national historian František Palacký characterized the Hussite movement as a symbol of German

determination to exterminate the Czech population and as a greater myth of Czech resistance to

religious and political absolutism. Palacký’s narrative inspired not only generations of similarly

nationalistic works on the history of Bohemia, but also leading politicians such as Tomáš

Masaryk and Kamil Krofta, who became central figures in the founding of the Czechoslovak

state.13 Masaryk himself suggested in his 1895 work on the “Czech question” that the

development of the Czech ideology of Slavonic humanism derived heavily from the “ethical

concepts of the Hussites.”14 In fact, the anniversary of Hus’ death became the most popular

Czech national celebration in the second half of the nineteenth century.15 Today, a monument in

Prague’s Old Town Square commemorates Jan Hus, attesting to his symbolic importance.
12 Frederick G. Heymann, “The Hussite Movement in the Historiography of the Czech Awakening,” in The Czech
Renacence of the Nineteenth Century, ed. Brock Peter and Skilling H. Gordon (University of Toronto Press, 1970),
224-28.
13 Heymann, 231-33.
14 Robert Auty, “Changing Views on the Role of Dobrovský in the Czech National Revival,” in The Czech
Renacence of the Nineteenth Century, ed. Brock Peter and Skilling H. Gordon (University of Toronto Press, 1970),
19-20.
15 Nancy M. Wingfield. “Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia,” in Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of
Industry and Empire, 261.
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In the second half of the nineteenth century, in fact, Czech politicians were increasingly

fueled by the fear of an ethnographic division of administration in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Such a division had the potential to make the growing Czech population a Slav minority within a

largely German state, constraining them not only geographically, but also politically and

culturally. These fears motivated a movement to “recapture” the regions of former Bohemia and

Moravia where Germans had settled.16 This movement began to take shape especially during the

1848 revolutions, when Czech politicians pressured the emperor for Bohemian-Moravian

autonomy based on historic right. As their demands became more radical, they were imbued with

Czech myths and symbols, creating a foundation for a nationalist movement.

Foundational was the concept of reviving the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was depicted

as the historic Czech state. Conveniently absent from the myth of Bohemia were its

ethnolinguistic minorities (especially Germans) - František Palacký referred to Czech as the

böhmische Sprache (Bohemian language), not the tschechische Sprache (Czech language).17 This

omission was made politically significant in context of the antagonism between Czech and

German nationalisms; Czech agitation for autonomy threatened German minorities in Bohemia,

who created their own myths to de-legitimize Czech statehood. Especially controversial were

fierce debates over Czech language rights in schools and public administration, which began in

the 1830s. In 1880, “National Defense” organizations - the Deutscher Schulverein and the Matice

Školská - were formed by both sides to enforce the use of the German and Czech languages,

respectively, in schools. By the 1890s, Germans and Czechs were calling for national boycotts of

one another, and inter-ethnic violence recurred periodically. An 1897 imperial ordinance

requiring civil servants in Bohemia and Moravia to demonstrate proficiency in both languages

16 Dan Perman, The Shaping of the Czechoslovak State: Diplomatic History of the Boundaries of Czechoslovakia,
1914-20 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962), 12-13.
17 Hugh Lecaine Agnew, “New States, Old Identities? The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Historical
Understandings of Statehood,” Nationalities Papers 28, no. 4 (2000): 621.
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prompted mass, violent demonstrations, primarily by local Germans.18 At the turn of the century,

each side had legitimate ethnic fears of extinction that were barely contained by imperial policy.

Beginnings of Slovak nationalism

In 907, Slovakia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary, politically isolating it

from the other western Slav lands. Slovakia remained part of the Kingdom of Hungary even after

it was integrated under the Habsburg dynasty in 1526, solidifying the influence of the Catholic

church in all its territories. After that, Hungarian rule over Slovaks continued until the end of

World War I. A brief period of peaceful administration from afar disintegrated when, in the

beginning of the seventeenth century, Magyar ethnic consciousness began to develop in response

to religious turmoil in Europe. Originally only advocating against the German Habsburgs,

Magyar leaders came to support a united Magyar nation in Hungary, leading the movement to

target all ethnic minorities living in Hungarian lands, including Slovaks. Magyar immigration,

periodic affirmations by the Diet of Hungary that the Magyar language was the sole language of

Hungarian schools, and the founding of cultural organizations like the Magyar Academy of

Sciences in 1830 threatened Slovak identity.19

In 1867, the formation of the Austro-Hungarian empire intensified existing

Magyarization efforts. A characteristic example of anti-Slovak rhetoric is the 1878 claim made

by Béla Grünwald, a noted Hungarian pundit, that Slovaks “lack self-awareness and are

exceptionally meek ... The Slovak and the lord are two mutually exclusive concepts.”20 The

proposed solution was assimilation of such minorities. This type of assimilationist thinking led to

18 Wingfield, 261-62.
19 Gilbert Lawrence Oddo, Slovakia and its People (New York: R. Speller, 1960), 99-101.
20 Robert John Weston Evans, “Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks: Some Mutual Perceptions, 1900-1950,” in
Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, ed. Mark Cornwall and Robert John Weston Evans (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 111.
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the closure of the Matica Slovenská, a Slovak cultural base, in the 1870s; mandatory Hungarian

language learning; and the closure of Slovak secondary schools. This was met with increased

determination on behalf of the Slovaks to preserve their cultural, religious, and ethnic identity.21

Time would reveal that Hungarian imperial politics were not amenable to these cultural revival

efforts - from 1875 to 1892, not a single one of more than 400 members of the lower house of the

Diet of Hungary was a Slovak.22 Such suppression politicized the Slovak ethnicity and culture.

As ethnic tensions rose, Slovak nationalist historians began to “uncover” national myths.

They traced the roots of their civilization to the ancient Slavic tribes who first inhabited their

territory in the fifth and sixth centuries CE, three centuries before Magyar settlement in the area.

This supported an argument of precedence that rejected Magyar nationalistic claims over the

same land. These historians also pointed out that the first unification of western Slavic lands was

under the Great Moravian Empire, which later provided a justification for what could be

considered as the long-awaited re-integration of Slovak and Czech lands under one state.23 Long-

term separation of the two populations had led to cultural divergence, however, which was

reflected in the development of a distinctly Slovak culture.

Century-long Magyarization efforts had already motivated a reactionary Slovak national

movement as early as the mid-seventeenth century. In that period, Slovak intellectuals began to

laud their native language as a symbol of their national individuality, as well as their short-lived

history of independence, in the face of Magyar repression. Myths revolving around the Great

Moravian Empire and of the antiquity of the Slovak nation were popularized in Slovak-language

21 Worldmark Encyclopedia, 697; Pollak, 2001-02.

22 Marek Syrný, “The Slovak Politics and Society in Austria-Hungary before the First World War,” Bylye Gody 43,
no. 1 (2017): 140.
23 Gernot Heiss et al, “Habsburg’s Difficult Legacy: Comparing and Relating Austrian, Czech, Magyar and Slovak
National Historical Master Narratives,” in The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National
Histories, ed. Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 387-90.
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literature. In 1801, the Society of Slovak Literature was founded.24 Notably, many of these early

movements towards national consciousness were limited to educated, wealthy spheres - Slovak

masses did not spend their time perusing literature, and it would be many centuries before a mass

national consciousness emerged. Some scholars believe that, partially owing to Magyarization,

there was no definitive, mass concept of a Slovak nation until after 1918.25 Thus, in its early

beginnings, the concept of a Slovak nation was limited to intellectual elites.

Nevertheless, there were disagreements over what form, exactly, the Slovak nation should

take. While Catholics (the vast majority) pursued this vision of an independent Slovakia revived

from the depths of history, Lutherans (who were never more than fifteen percent of the

population) developed a different tradition. Influenced by their use of Czech as a liturgical

language and increasingly drawn to the Czech myth of the reformist Hussite movement,

Lutheran Slovaks saw themselves intimately tied to the neighboring Czech community.

Abandoning it would mean abandoning their religion and culture.26 In the nineteenth century, the

conflict became linguistic, with two orthographies of the Slovak language competing for

dominance - one which preserved the Slavic influence and regional peculiarity of the written

Slovak language, and one which became known as the “Czecho-Slovak language” because of its

similarity to the Czech alphabet. Separatists succeeded in establishing the former as the norm for

Slovak education, though roughly half of the Slovak population were still illiterate at the turn of

the century anyway, and the spoken differences between the orthographies were insignificant.27

That is, the triumph of a distinct Slovak orthography only directly affected the elites.

24 Oddo, 97-99, 102-5.

25 Rychlík, 16.
26 Oddo, 103-5.
27 Alexander Maxwell, “Choosing Slovakia (1795–1914): Slavic Hungary, the Czech Language, and Slovak
Nationalism” (PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2003), 305-314, 326-7.
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As ethnic and cultural consciousness evolved into nationalist agitation, various arguments

were made to justify the Slovak national right, especially ethnolinguistic and so-called “natural”

claims to legitimacy. By the early nineteenth century, Slovak historians such as Ján Kollár and

Jozef Miloslav Hurban justified the Slovak right to independence based on the distinct language

and culture of the Slovak community. In his 1848 leaflet “Bratia slováci!” Hurban wrote:

What makes a nation a nation is mainly its national language; thus the Slovak nation has
that name because its national language is Slovak. … In the Slovak language the millions
of Slovaks have that unique bond, a holy bond, in which the dispersed strength of
millions of Slovaks is united, that is, without the Slovak language the Slovaks are like
scattered twigs which may easily be broken; but if they will keep their Slovak tongue in
honor, then they will be like a thick sheaf tied by a strong cord, which no one will be able
to break up as long as they do not cut it.28

The basis of this argument was that regardless of the presence of a historical Slovak state, a

linguistic and ethnic Slovak nation had continuously existed in the same territory since before

Magyar invasion, and it was this ancient ethnic community that entitled them to a state. Further

evidence was found in the fact that even without a politically defined state, the word “Slovakia”

was already in use in the eighteenth century to refer to the area of traditional Slovak settlement.29

For this reason, the “naturalness” of the Slovak nation became an important national myth.

Creating the Czechoslovak State

The fundamentally different claims to legitimacy in Czech and Slovak nationalism

proved challenging in the development of a Czech-Slovak movement. Czech nationalism rested

on the legitimacy of the former Bohemian state, which is essentially a civic/political argument.

Slovak nationalism, in contrast, claimed legitimacy based on the presence of a historically

persistent ethnolinguistic Slovak community, essentially an ethnic/cultural argument (though

28 Agnew, 625.
29 Heiss et al, 397.
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both nationalisms had aspects of each argument). This distinction was made even more

problematic by the respective opponents of Czech and Slovak nationalism - German and

Hungarian nationalism. German minorities in Bohemia opposed Czech nationalism on the basis

that the Germans had a natural right not to be absorbed into a Czech state because of their

distinctive language, culture, religious practices, and history - an ethnic/cultural argument in the

spirit of the Slovaks. Hungarian nationalists, on the other hand, claimed they had a right to

Slovak-inhabited land because they had ruled it for centuries - a civic/political argument much

like that of the Czechs.30 For this reason, it was difficult to support one another’s national rights

because it was tantamount to philosophically conceding to their own opponents.

Nevertheless, they did eventually support each other in the form of a movement for

collective autonomy. The first serious proposal for an independent Czech-Slovak state was made

at the Kroměříž Assembly of 1848 by František Palacký as part of a larger scheme for

reorganizing all of the Austro-Hungarian territories into ethnically homogeneous areas, namely

German-Austrian, Czech-Slovak, Polish, Illyrian, Serb, Magyar, and Romanian. This idea was

attractive not only because it liberated Czechs from the threat of Germanization and Slovaks

from that of Magyarization, but also because it would create a river route leading to the sea for

Bohemia. That is, it satisfied ethnic fears in a way that was politically beneficial. After Palacký

first articulated this concept, it “recurred periodically” in Czech national discourse.31 Still, for a

strong Czech-Slovak movement to develop, it would need popular support.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Tomás Masaryk provided exactly the sort of

compelling argumentation that could justify an independent Czech-Slovak state. First, it is

important to understand his vision. Masaryk rejected Palacký’s proposal for an ethnically

30 Jan Rychlík, “Czech-Slovak Relations in Czechoslovakia,” in Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist

Europe, ed. Mark Cornwall and Robert John Weston Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15.
31 Perman, 10-11.
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homogeneous state, which would in practice mean the assimilation of Slovaks by the more

numerous Czechs, especially in the face of centuries of cultural suppression by the Hungarian

empire against the Slovaks. Instead, Masaryk’s vision of a Czech-Slovak nation was

fundamentally political, where both ethnolinguistic identities were preserved.32 He called it

“Czechoslovakia.” Many Slovak intellectuals took to this idea, including Milan Hodža, editor of

the Slovenský Týždenník, a popular Slovak newspaper. In it, he condemned Magyar nobles for

social and economic exploitation of Slovaks while praising Czechs for having “raised themselves

by their unaided incremental endeavours.” Implicit in his comparison was a call for directing

ethnic fears generated by Magyarization and imperial exploitation into an allied movement with

Czechs for a shared state.33 The idea of such a state rested on several key considerations.

Czechoslovak nationalists often pointed out the ethnic and linguistic similarities between

Czechs and Slovaks. Both hailed from the same ancient Slavic roots; they had even been briefly

united under the Great Moravian Empire, a myth that was already central to Slovak national

identity. These shared roots led to a shared language which, despite diverging into several

regional dialects due to political separation, was still mutually intelligible in spoken form.34 The

orthographical debate that had occupied Slovak intellectuals for decades had almost no effect on

the still-illiterate Slovak masses, and the choice of a distinct Slovak orthography over a

Czechoslovak one was relatively recent. Moreover, the majority of both populations were

Catholic due to their shared history under the Habsburg empire. Thus, ethnic, linguistic, and

religious unity became a compelling reason for political unity.

After the First World War, Czechoslovak nationalists saw their opportunity to establish a

state. To convince the international community to support an independent Czechoslovakia,

32 Rychlík, 16-17
33 Evans, 112.
34 Maxwell, 338-39.
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however, they needed political arguments. Masaryk supplied these. To appeal to the Allied

victors, Masaryk and his deputy, Edvard Beneš, proposed an alliance of small Slav states to

maintain the post-Austro-Hungarian balance of power in Europe, especially as a counterweight

to the power of Germany. Among this alliance would be Czechoslovakia, Poland, and

Yugoslavia, knit together by enlightened self-interest. He further substantiated his argument by

depicting Czechoslovakian autonomy as a fair repayment for the bravery of Czech and Slovak

soldiers in the war.35 His arguments generated broad international support, particularly from

Russia and America, and Czechoslovakia was formally made an independent state in 1918.

Evaluation of Theories

One might wonder why two ethnic groups, who previously had developed distinct

national identities, could so readily support their union under one state. This is especially curious

since the appendage of Slovakia to the Czech state was entirely in conflict with the nationalist

myth of reviving historic Bohemia, which had never included Slovakia. This section examines

the reasons for such an unexpected change of trajectory and uses them to analyze the strengths

and weaknesses of each theory of nationalism. Ultimately, it is ethnosymbolism that provides the

best explanation for the formation of Czechoslovakia. The following paragraphs analyze each

factor that enabled the union of the two nationalisms.

First, the ethnic, linguistic, and religious similarities of Czechs and Slovaks which were

so often championed by Czechoslovak nationalists were actual indicators of cultural

compatibility. This argument lends credence to the primordialist theory, as it substantiates the

idea that shared ancestry, language, and religion are the basis for ethnic ties. What it does not

explain, however, is why Czech and Slovak identities initially became distinct in the face of these
35 Perman, 27; Victor S. Mamatey, “The Birth of Czechoslovakia: Union of Two Peoples,” in Czechoslovakia: The
Heritage of Ages Past, ed. Hans Brisch and Ivan Volgyes (Columbia University Press: New York, 1979), 81-87.
 14

similarities, nor does it explain the timing of the two identities merging into one state. It follows,

then, that a primordialist explanation of the Czechoslovakian case is an incomplete one.

Second, centuries of political domination and cultural exchange with their respective

imperial rulers meant that the realistic alternative to shared independence was absorption into the

German sphere of influence and the Hungarian state, respectively - this was especially feared by

the Slovaks, who had less wealth and political influence than the Czechs.36 This also meant that,

in order to withstand political challenges from these foreign powers, any Czechoslovak

movement had to demonstrate strong ethnic affinity for one another.37 This Realpolitik-style

strategizing is the result of a rational calculation of risks in the quest for more political power. It

provided an incentive to emphasize existing similarities between the Czech and Slovak identities

while emphasizing differences between Czechs and Germans, as well as Slovaks and

Hungarians. Empirically, this sort of rhetoric dominated among late nineteenth- and early

twentieth-century nationalists like Masaryk when he spoke of reviving the Great Moravian

Empire, or Milan Hodža when he redirected the existing ethnic fears of Slovaks into a shared

movement for a Czechoslovakian state. In this light, elite maneuvers to direct Czech and Slovak

nationalisms into a single movement were calculated manipulations of national identity to attain

the ultimate political goal of independence. This would imply that ethnic ties are constructed and

manipulated by elites, a modernist argument.

Third, the Czechoslovak concept included the promise of dual autonomy, where both

ethnic groups could effectively concern themselves with their own cultures and politics. Slovaks

even referred to the state as Czecho-Slovakia, symbolizing their concept of dual autonomy.38

This consideration problematizes the efficacy of the elite maneuvers outlined above. That is,

36 Evans, 112.
37 Evans, 114-5.
38 Maxwell, 339-40; Rychlík, 18, 21.
 15

their efforts were enough to justify the establishment of a Czechoslovakian state, but not enough

to create an actual Czechoslovak identity that could unite their cultures and perceived national

interests. This, then, is an ethnosymbolist argument, where a long-standing ethnic community is

fundamental and formative in the development of nationalism, especially concerning influential

myths and symbols. Despite actual similarities like shared ancestry and language, despite elite

maneuvering to create a shared Czechoslovak identity, Czechs and Slovaks retained a perception

of distinct national cultures and interests. Elites were successful in using existing myths and

symbols to construct a shared identity that was viable enough to justify a shared state, but this

projection was primarily used alongside politically compelling reasoning to win over foreign

actors, while the domestic populations remained unconvinced. This is a heavily nuanced

analysis, but due to the lasting influence of pre-modern ethnic ties and the evidence for elite

manipulation of identity (even if it was only partially successful), it favors the ethnosymbolist

interpretation.

Overall, then, the Czechoslovak identity is best explained by ethnosymbolism. What

about the separate Czech and Slovak identities that had been developing prior to the turn of the

century? In both narratives, persistent linguistic, cultural, and genealogical differences existed

between the ethnic communities and their imperial rulers. Immigration, imperialist language

policy, and economic inequality created ethnic fears of extinction that politicized those existing

differences. Only once those fears developed did nationalism become broadly relevant, and even

then, nationalism was directed by the elites who established literary societies and media outlets

and, in the case of the Slovaks, national orthographies. In other words, the character of long-

standing ethnies and newfound ethnic fears were voiced in elite-directed nationalist movements,

which centered around popular myths and symbols. This should all sound familiar; it, too, is an

ethnosymbolist narrative that stresses the strength of the pre-modern ethnic tie.
 16

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