First Czechoslovak Republic
Czechoslovak Republic Československá republika | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1918–1938 | |||||||||||||||
Motto: Pravda vítězí / Pravda víťazí "Truth prevails" | |||||||||||||||
Anthem: ’Kde domov můj’ (Czech) ’Where my home is’ ’Nad Tatrou sa blýska’ (Slovak) ’Lightning Over the Tatras’ | |||||||||||||||
Capital and largest city | Prague | ||||||||||||||
Official languages | Czechoslovak[1] | ||||||||||||||
Common languages | |||||||||||||||
President | |||||||||||||||
• 1918–1935 | Tomáš Masaryk | ||||||||||||||
• 1935–1938 | Edvard Beneš | ||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | |||||||||||||||
• 1918–1919 (first) | Karel Kramář | ||||||||||||||
• 1938 (last) | Jan Syrový | ||||||||||||||
Legislature | National Assembly | ||||||||||||||
Senate | |||||||||||||||
Chamber of Deputies | |||||||||||||||
Historical era | Interwar period | ||||||||||||||
18 October 1918 | |||||||||||||||
28 October 1918 | |||||||||||||||
29 February 1920 | |||||||||||||||
30 September 1938 | |||||||||||||||
Area | |||||||||||||||
• Total | 140,800 km2 (54,400 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
Population | |||||||||||||||
• 1921 | 13,410,750 | ||||||||||||||
• 1938 | 14,800,000 | ||||||||||||||
Currency | Czechoslovak koruna | ||||||||||||||
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Today part of |
The First Czechoslovak Republic (Czech: První československá republika, Slovak: Prvá československá republika), often colloquially referred to as the First Republic (Czech: První republika, Slovak: Prvá republika), was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo), a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian (Bohemia, Moravia, a small part of Silesia) and Hungarian territories (mostly Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia).
After 1933, Czechoslovakia remained the only de facto functioning democracy in
History
The independence of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on 28 October 1918 by the Czechoslovak National Council in Prague. Several ethnic groups and territories with different historical, political, and economic traditions were obliged to be blended into a new state structure. The origin of the First Republic lies in Point 10 of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: "The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development."
The full boundaries of the country and the organization of its government was finally established in the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk had been recognized by World War I Allies as the leader of the Provisional Czechoslovak Government,[2] and in 1920 he was elected the country's first president. He was re-elected in 1925 and 1929, serving as President until 14 December 1935 when he resigned due to poor health. He was succeeded by Edvard Beneš.
Following the
Politics
To a large extent, Czechoslovak democracy was held together by the country's first president, Tomáš Masaryk. As the principal founding father of the republic, Masaryk was regarded similar to the way George Washington is regarded in the United States. Such universal respect enabled Masaryk to overcome seemingly irresolvable political problems. Masaryk is still regarded as the symbol of Czechoslovak democracy for the Czechs and Slovaks today.
The
The operation of the new Czechoslovak government was distinguished by stability. Largely responsible for this were the well-organized
- The peasantswith small and medium-sized farms. Svehla combined support for progressive social legislation with a democratic outlook. His party was the core of all government coalitions between 1922 and 1938.
- The parliamentary democracy in 1930. Antonín Hampl was chairman of the party, and Ivan Dérerwas the leader of its Slovak branch.
- The Social Democratic Party. It rejected class struggle and promoted nationalism. Led by Václav Klofáč, its membership derived primarily from the lower middle class, civil servants, and the intelligentsia(including Beneš).
- The labor unions – developed separately in Bohemia in 1918 and in the more strongly Catholic Moravia in 1919. In 1922 a common executive committee was formed, headed by Jan Šrámek. The Czechoslovak People's Party espoused Christian moral principles and the social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII.
- The Czechoslovak National Democratic Party developed from a post–World War I merger of the Young Czech Party with other right wing and center parties. Ideologically, it was characterized by national radicalism and economic liberalism. Led by Kramář and Alois Rašín, the Czechoslovak National Democratic Party became the party of big business, banking, and industry. The party declined in influence after 1920, however.
Foreign policy
In 1935, when Beneš succeeded Masaryk as president, the prime minister Milan Hodža took over the
The Czechoslovak Republic sold armament to Bolivia during the Chaco War (1932–35) and sent, close to the end of the war, an unofficial training mission, to support Bolivia in its Chaco war with Paraguay and advance Czechoslovak interest in Bolivia.[5]
Economy
The new nation had a population of over 13.5 million. It had inherited 70 to 80% of all the industry of the
The
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
Ethnic groups
1921 ethnonational census[6]
Regions | Czechoslovaks (Czechs and Slovaks) |
Germans | Hungarians | Rusyns
|
Jews | Others | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bohemia | 4,382,788 | 2,173,239 | 5,476 | 2,007 | 11,251 | 93,757 | 6,668,518 |
Moravia | 2,048,426 | 547,604 | 534 | 976 | 15,335 | 46,448 | 2,649,323 |
Silesia[7] | 296,194 | 252,365 | 94 | 338 | 3,681 | 49,530 | 602,202 |
Slovakia | 2,013,792 | 139,900 | 637,183 | 85,644 | 70,529 | 42,313 | 2,989,361 |
Carpathian Ruthenia | 19,737 | 10,460 | 102,144 | 372,884 | 80,059 | 6,760 | 592,044 |
Czechoslovakia | 8,760,937 | 3,123,568 | 745,431 | 461,849 | 180,855 | 238,080 | 13,410,750 |
National disputes arose due to the fact that the more numerous Czechs dominated the central government and other national institutions, all of which had their seats in the Bohemian capital Prague. The Slovak middle class had been extremely small in 1919 because Hungarians, Germans and Jews had previously filled most administrative, professional and commercial positions in, and as a result, the Czechs had to be posted to the more backward Slovakia to take up the administrative and professional posts. The position of the Jewish community, especially in Slovakia, was ambiguous and, increasingly, a significant part looked towards Zionism.[8]
Furthermore, most of Czechoslovakia's industry was as well located in Bohemia and Moravia and there mainly in the German speaking Borderlands, while most of Slovakia's economy came from agriculture. In Carpatho-Ukraine, the situation was even worse, with basically no industry at all. Therefore the Borderlands were also more heavily hit by the world economic crisis. This fact, and the fact that the central government did little to help out and even supported more the Czech companies led to the fact, that unemployment among the German community was the double, than it was among the Czech. Further steps like the loss of jobs for German speaking state employees, who did not speak Czech, which were employed earlier in the old Austrian empire or expropriations of big estates did not support the coherence within the state. Nevertheless still in 1929, for example, in the Carlsbad district, a mainly Bavarian speaking area, 46% still voted for Socialists and Communists. This is especially interesting, because the German Speaking community of the Bohemian Countries is often and from many side blamed for being nationalist and fascist. But the point of living in the or one of the most industrialized areas of Europe also brings a big support for Communist and Socialist Parties, which from another point of view may also be explained by heavy and long lasting traditions of mining industries in the area.
Still, nationalism arose amongst the non-Czech nationalities, and several parties and movements were formed with the aim of broader political autonomy, as the
The German minority living in the
Administrative divisions
- 1918–1923: different systems in former Austrian territory (Bohemia, Moravia, a small part of Silesia) compared to former Hungarian territory (mostly Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia): three lands (země) (also called district units (kraje): Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, plus 21 counties (župy) in today's Slovakia and three counties in today's Ruthenia; both lands and counties were divided into districts (okresy).
- 1923–1927: as above, except that the Slovak and Ruthenian counties were replaced by six (grand) counties ((veľ)župy) in Slovakia and one (grand) county in Ruthenia, and the numbers and boundaries of the okresy were changed in those two territories.
- 1928–1938: four lands (Czech: země, Slovak: krajiny): Bohemia, Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia, divided into districts (okresy).
See also
- Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918–1938)
- Hungarians in Slovakia
- Polish minority in the Czech Republic
- Ruthenians and Ukrainians in Czechoslovakia (1918–1938)
- Slovaks in Czechoslovakia (1918–38)
- Jews in Slovakia
References
- ^ "1920 Czechoslovak Constitution". Wikisource.
- ISBN 978-80-87173-47-3.
- ISBN 1576079996.
- ^ Mikulas Teich (1998). Bohemia in History. Cambridge University Press. p. 375.
- ^ Baďura, Bohumil (2006) Československé zbraně a diplomacie ve válce o Gran Chaco, p. 35.
- ^ Slovenský náučný slovník, I. zväzok, Bratislava-Český Těšín, 1932.
- OCLC 177389723.
- ^ "Slovakia Synagogues, Jewish Cemeteries, Jewish Museum Bratislava". Slovak Jewish Heritage. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Bibliography
- Kárník, Zdeněk: Malé dějiny československé (1867–1939), Dokořán (2008), Praha, ISBN 978-80-7363-146-8(in Czech)
- Olivová, Věra: Dějiny první republiky, ISBN 80-7184-791-7(in Czech)
- ISBN 80-200-1121-8(in Czech)
- Gen. ISBN 80-200-1006-8(in Czech)
- Axworthy, Mark W.A. Axis Slovakia—Hitler's Slavic Wedge, 1938–1945, Bayside, N.Y. : Axis Europa Books, 2002, ISBN 1-891227-41-6