Czechs and Slovaks 1998
| Author | H. Gordon Skilling |
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209805300104 |
| Subject Matter | Essay |
H.
GORDON
SKILLING
Czechs and
Slovaks
1998
A
year
of
anniversaries
Fr
Czechs,
1998
is
a
year
of
anniversaries.
In
April
Charles
Universi-
ty
celebrates
the
650th
year
of
its
founding
by
Charles
IV
in 1348
when
the Kingdom
of
Bohemia
was
at
its
peak.
Three
hundred
years
later,
in
1648,
the end
of
the
Thirty
Years
War
marked the
victory
of
the
counter-reformation
and
sealed
the
fate
of
Bohemian
independence.
Two
centuries
after
that,
in
1848,
the
year
of
the
Spring
of
Nations
throughout
Europe, the
revolt
in
Prague,
although
crushed,
played
a
modest
role in
setting
out
Czech
demands
for
autonomy
and
democ-
racy.
Nineteen ninety-eight
is
also
the
anniversary
of
more recent
dra-
matic
events
which
are
better
known
to
the
contemporary world
-
1918,
when
the
first
independent
Czechoslovak
state
was
founded;
1938,
the
year
that
state
was
dismembered
after
appeasement
at
Munich,
followed in
March
1939
by
the
establishment
of
a
separate
Slovakia
and
the
Nazi
occupation
of
the
Czech
lands;
1948, the
com-
munist
coup
d'6tat
in
February;
and
1968,
the
Prague
Spring
which
was
crushed
by
Soviet
troops
in
August.
In
April
1969
Gustiv
Husik
assumed
power
and
the
long period
of
'normalization'
began.
While
1978
and
1988
were
not
memorable, the latter marked
the
beginning
of
more
active
Czech
opposition
which
culminated
in
the
Velvet
Rev-
Professor
Emeritus
of
Political
Science,
University
of
Toronto,
and
author,
most
recently
of T.G.
Masaryk-
Against
the
Current
1882-1914
(MacMillan
1994;
Prague
[in
Czech]
1995).
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1997-8
H.
Gordon
Skilling
olution
in
1989.
Four
years
later,
in
1993,
seventy-five
years
after
the
founding
of
a
common
state,
Czechoslovakia
broke
into
the
Czech
Republic
and
Slovakia.
Twenty
years
ago,
on
a
similar
anniversary,
I
wrote
that
this
series
of
events
illustrated
the
discontinuity
of
Czechoslovak
history
and
the
decisive
impact
of
external
forces
on
its
fate
and
demonstrated the
fre-
quent
failure
of
Czech
and
Slovak
leaders,
and
both
peoples, to
face
these
crises
effectively.' I
argued
that
the
Czech
tradition
of
pluralism
in
the
late
nineteenth
and
early
twentieth
centuries
was
rudely
inter-
rupted
and
only
briefly
and
partly
restored
during
these
repeated
crises.
Only
in
1998,
almost
a
decade after
the
Velvet
Revolution,
does
it
appear
that
at
least
the
Czechs,
by
their
own
efforts
and
in
a
favourable
international
environment,
have
achieved
a
relative
degree
of
political
and
economic
stability
based
on pluralism.
The
Slovaks,
although
they
shared
in the
Velvet
Revolution
and
later
gained
inde-
pendent
statehood,
have
been
less
successful
in
establishing
a
stable
democratic
order.
Some
Czechs
think
there
is
something
auspicious
about
the
numer-
al
8
in
their
history.
In
fact, these anniversaries
are
artificial
milestones
that
do
mark,
at
least
symbolically,
decisive
turning
points
in
the
for-
tunes
of
Czechs
and
Slovaks.
The
Slovaks
have
their
own
crucial
dates,
such
as
1939,
1944,
and
1993.
In
both
countries,
each
date
marks
fun-
damental
transformations
in
the
lives
of
these two
small
nations
and
reflects
basic
shifts
in
the
power relations
in
Europe
and
the world.
Because
for
some
Czechs
there
is
something
auspicious
about
the
number
8
in
Czechoslovak
history
they
hoped
that
the
year
of
the dou-
ble
eight,
1988,
would bring
a
new
turn
toward
freedom
and
indepen-
dence.
It
is
useful
from
the
vantage
point
of
1998
to look
again
at
the
sequence
of
events
and
to
analyze
the
interplay
of
domestic
and
inter-
national
forces
which
produced
these
recurrent
cycles
-
usually
every
twenty
years
-
in
the
troubled
history
of
Czechoslovakia
and
its
con-
stituent
nations.
2
1
H.
Gordon
Skilling,
'Sixty-eight
in
historical
perspective,'
International
Journal
33(autumn
1978),
678-701.
2
For
the domestic
aspects
of
this
retrospective analysis
I
have
relied
heavily
on
Jaroslav
KrejU
and
Pavel
Machonin,
Czechoslovakia,
1918-1992
(St
Martin's
in
asso-
ciation
with
St
Antony's
College, Oxford,
19.96).
See
also
uif
Musil,
ed,
The
End
of
Czechoslovakia
(Budapest,
Central
European
University
Press
1995);
and
Ladislav
Holý,
The
Little
Czech
and
the
Great
Czech
Nation:
National
Identity
and
the
Post-
Communist Transformation
of
Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press
1996).
74
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JOURNAL
Winter
1997-8
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