Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language and Accidental Nationalism (International Library of Political Studies)

277 Pages·2009·1.87 MB·English

by  Alexander Maxwell

Alexander Maxwell completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison in 2003. He has won a Merian postdoctoral fellowship at Erfurt
University, and a Europa fellowship at the New Europe College in Bucharest.
He has taught at City University in Bratislava, the University of Wales at
Swansea, and the University of Nevada at Reno. He is presently working at
Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
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27. Richard Crossman and the Welfare State: (eds)
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Politics in Post-War Britain 37. Choosing Slovakia:
Stephen Thornton Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak
978 1 84511 848 8 Language and Accidental Nationalism
28. Reunifying Cyprus: Alexander Maxwell
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Elizabeth Keane Séamus Ó Tuama (ed.)
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CHOOSING SLOVAKIA
Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language
and Accidental Nationalism
Alexander Maxwell
TAURIS ACADEMIC STUDIES
an imprint of
I.B.Tauris Publishers
LONDON • NEW YORK
With fond memories,
Δ · Β = 0
Published in 2009 by Tauris Academic Studies,
an imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © 2009 Alexander Maxwell
The right of Alexander Maxwell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by
the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may
not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978 1 84885 074 3
International Library of Political Studies 37
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press
camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author
CONteNtS
List of Figures and Illustrations vii
Note on Conventions ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1. National Awakening and Contingency 1
2. The Hungarian Context 8
3. Hungaro-Slavism: Imagining a Slavic Hungary 34
4. Slovak Theories of Dual Nationality 56
5. The Slavic Language 79
6. Linguistic Czechoslovakism Before 1843 101
7. Ľudovít Štúr and Slovak Tribalism 117
8. The Dialect Argument and Slovak Literacy 141
9. Czechoslovakia as a Slovakizing State 166
Notes 187
Index 250

LISt OF FIGUReS
ANd ILLUStRAtIONS
Figure 0.1: Ein Slovak
Figure 0.2: Base Map
Figure 2.1: Administrative Regions in Bach-Era Hungary (1850)
Figure 2.2: The Slovak Okolie in the June Memorandum (1861)
Figure 2.3: The Slovak Okolie in the December Memorandum (1861)
Figure 3.1: Ethnonyms for Hungarian
Figure 3.2: “Life of a Monk outside the Monastery,” verses 3 and 4 (1835)
Figure 3.3: Magyarization Sites in Beschwerden und Klagen (1843)
Figure 4.1: Hungaro-Slavic Theories of Dual Nationality
Figure 5.1: The Bernolákovci (1800)
Figure 6.1: Czechoslovak Grammar Book Production (1800)
Figure 6.2: Subscribers to Gitřenka (1840)
Figure 7.1: Living Hlasowé Contributors (1846)
Figure 8.1: Literacy in the Kingdom of Hungary by Nationality
Figure 8.2: Slovak Literacy by Age Cohort (1900-1910)
Figure 8.3: Letters to the editor in Slovenské noviny (1855)
EIN SLOVAK
Frontspiece to Jozef Dobrovsky, Slovanka (Prague: Herrlschen Buchhandlung, 1815), vol. 2
NOte ON CONVeNtIONS
Contemporary works on Central European history routinely begin with a
brief discussion of nomenclature. Places in central Europe, as in other parts
of the world, have different names in different local languages. Some of the
largest cities have English names, notably Vienna, Prague and Warsaw. This
posed few problems during the nineteenth century: the various languages
of the Habsburg monarchy have their own word for “forest” (Wald, erdő, les
etc.), why should they not also have a different word for “Vienna”? Twentieth-
century political propaganda, however, politicized city names: Central
European authors writing in English insist on naming contested cities in
their own language as a way of staking political claims. Hungarian authors,
for example, often use Hungarian names (e.g. “Komarno” and “Kassa”) while
Slovaks use Slovak names (“Komáron” and “Košice”).
Scholars who wish to discuss national conflict without taking sides thus
face a dilemma. While established English names are acceptably neutral,
how can one discuss a given town without favoring one or another national
claim? Some scholars list all possible variants, speaking e.g. of “Komarno/
Komáron” or “Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg.” Peter Fassler even exploited this
convention to highlight the multiple national heritages of Galicia’s largest city
his book: Lemberg-Lwow-Lviv.1 Jeremy King, observing that multiple national
sentiments often coexisted in the same person, has extended this convention
to personal names.2 Other scholars refer to cities by different names to mark
historical turning points: when the Treaty of Trianon partitioned the city of
Komarno/Komáron between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, for example, one
might begin speaking of Komarno and Komáron as distinct cities.
Referring to cities with multiple names, however, creates new difficulties.
One must list the names in some order, how can one avoid giving precedence
to the first ethnicity listed? More importantly, which languages and cultures
deserve recognition? The Habsburg capital, for example, hosted communities