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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
Paul robert magocsi has written a thought-provoking essay on the role of North American political diasporas from east central Europe before and after the seminal years of 1918 and 1989. While he showed that the pre-1918 diasporas had a major impact on the future of east central Europe during and after World War I, he found very little evidence of a similar impact before and after 1989. He suggested that we look closely at 1989 to see what, if any, impact such diasporas had at the end of the twentieth century.
1 For an overview of Slovak immigration to Canada, see Jakešová, Elena and Stolarik, M. Mark, “Slovaks,” in Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples, ed. Magocsi, Paul R. (Toronto, 1999), 1168–79.Google Scholar
2 For the story of Slovak immigration to the United States, see my Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870–1918 (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; see also my entry on “Slovaks” in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Thernstrom, Stefan (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 926–34.Google Scholar For the Slovak press in North America, see my “The Slovak-American Press,” in The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook, ed. Miller, Sally M. (New York, 1987), 353–68.Google Scholar For relations between Canadian and American Slovaks, see my Slovaks in Canada and the USA, 1870–1990: Similarities and Differences (Ottawa, 1992).Google Scholar
3 For the founding of the Slovak League of America, see Čulen, Constantine, “Beginnings of the Slovak League of America,” in 60 Years of the Slovak League of America, ed. Paučo, Joseph (Middletown, 1967), 26–36Google Scholar; for the founding of its Canadian counterpart, see Sutherland, Anthony X., The Canadian Slovak League: A History, 1932–1982 (Toronto, 1984), 24–27.Google Scholar Unlike the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League was also a fraternal benefit society, and it did not serve as the cover organization for other fraternals.
4 For the role of the Slovak League of America in the interwar period, see Sidor, Karol, “The Slovak League of America and the Slovak Nation's Struggle for Autonomy” in Sixty Years, ed. Paučo, 37–70.Google Scholar For Canada, see Sutherland, , The Canadian Slovak League, 32–37.Google Scholar For the history of the Slovak People's Party, see Felak, James R., “At the Price of the Republic”: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929–1938 (Pittsburgh, 1994).Google Scholar
5 The Slovak League's wartime activities were described by Mikuláš Šprinc in “Slovak League of America and Independent Slovakia,” in Sixty Years, ed. Paučo, 71–103Google Scholar; The Canadian League's actions appeared in Sutherland, The Canadian Slovak League, 38–41Google Scholar; the wartime work of the “Czechoslovaks” in the United States and Canada has not yet been adequately documented. For Edvard Beneš's wartime activities, see Taborsky, Eduard, “Politics in Exile, 1939–1945,” in A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918–1948, ed. Mamatey, Victor S. and Luža, Radomír (Princeton, 1973), 322–42.Google Scholar For the efforts of Dr. Milan Hodža, the pre-Munich prime minister of Czechoslovakia, to reach a compromise between the separatists and the “Czechoslovaks” in America, see Pavol Lukáč, “Politická Činnosť Milana Hodžu v emigrácii v USA a reakcie na jeho federalistické plány” (The political activity of Milan Hodža in the USA and reactions to his federalist plans), Historický časopis (Historical journal) 51, no. 4 (2003): 605–25.Google Scholar
6 This period has not been systematically studied by professional historians. Jozef Špetko, a post-1968 émigré, wrote a journalistic and pro-Czechoslovak account of the postwar émigrés in Líšky kontra ježe: Slovenská politická emigrácia 1948–1989 (Foxes versus hedgehogs: The Slovak political emigration, 1948–1989) (Bratislava, 2002). His colleague Miroslav Ličko reprinted the most significant newspaper articles by the “Czechoslovaks” in this period in Ako chutí cudzina? Slovenská demokrácia v exile 1948–1989 (The taste of foreignness: Slovak Democrats in exile, 1948–1989) (Bratislava, 1999).Google Scholar The separatists, meanwhile, published a very large number of books explaining and justifying their activities after World War II. The most famous is, perhaps, Ferdinand Ďurčanský's Právo Slovákov na samostatnosť vo svetle dokumentov (The right of the Slovaks to independence as reflected in documents), vol. 1Google Scholar, Biela kniha (White paper) (Buenos Aires, 1954). Jozef M. Kirschbaum compiled a history of the Slovak World Congress and its predecessors in Desať rokov činnosti SKS (Ten years of achievements of the SKS) (Toronto, 1981)Google Scholar; and in 1996, the Matica slovenská organized a large conference on postwar émigrés and published the proceedings as Slovenský povojnový exil. Zborník materiálov zo seminára Dejiny slovenského exilu po roku 1945 (The Slovak postwar exiles: Materials from the seminar on the history of Slovak émigrés after 1945) (Martin, 1998), to which a large number of still living émigrés contributed papers. For a longer discussion of the historiography of this period, see my “Slovak Historiography since the Downfall of Communism (1989),” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 29, nos. 1–2 (2002): 67–82.Google Scholar
7 When I attended a scholarly conference in Slovakia in the summer of 1988, the Matica slovenská invited the attendees to a reception hosted by the Slovak National Council in Bratislava Castle. There I bumped into Vladimir Mináč, writer, member of the Central Committee of the Slovak Communist Party, and president of the Matica slovenská. He had had a few too many drinks and, when he spotted me, he approached and asked, “Well, Mr. Stolarik, is your father still crapping into that Canadian newspaper?” Shocked by his crudeness, but delighted that he knew about my father's political activities (my father was past president of the Canadian Slovak League and a supporter of Slovak independence), I replied, “Yes, he's still writing for Kanadský Slovák, and will probably do so until he dies.” I described this trip under the pseudonym Leo Carpenter in “Looking for Mr. Glasnost: Scenes from Today's Czechoslovakia,” Crisis: A Journal of Lay Catholic Opinion 7, no. 7 (1989): 33–39.Google Scholar
8 Aarons, Mark and Loftus, John, Ratlines: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (London, 1991), 217–22.Google Scholar
9 Vicen, Jozef, Vo viroch rokov, 1938–1988 (The whirlpool years, 1938–1988) (Bratislava, 1999).Google Scholar Vicen was the leader of the “White Legion” until 1957, when he was kidnapped in Vienna by the STB and repatriated to Czechoslovakia. He lived to tell the tale.
10 Letz, Róbert, Slovensko v rokoch 1945–1948: Na ceste ku komunistickej totalite (Slovakia in 1945–1948: On the road to communist dictatorship) (Bratislava, 1994), 53–65.Google Scholar
11 See Kanadský Slovák (Toronto) and Slovák v Amerike (New York), starting in March 1948, and continuing every March to the present.
12 Ľudové zvesti (Toronto), 10 10 1959, p. 6Google Scholar; 6 February 1962; 28 June 1962, p. 4; and 4 July 1962, p. 4; Canadian Jewish News (Toronto), 27 07 1962, pp. 1, 8Google Scholar; Kanadský Slovák, 4 08 1962, p. 2Google Scholar; 6 July 1963, pp. 1, 5. While the Canadian Jewish News apologized to Kirschbaum and published a retraction on 28 June 1963, p. 1, Kirschbaum's enemies, whether “Czechoslovaks” or communists, kept attacking him for his alleged Nazi connections. Eventually, the leftist “muckraker” Paul McKay wrote a scathing article about him entitled “The Kirschbaum File,” which took up the entire Saturday magazine of the Kingston Whig-Standard, 10 12 1988.Google Scholar McKay repeated the charges in his subsequent book, The Roman Empire: The Unauthorized Life and Times of Stephen Roman (Toronto, 1990)Google Scholar, which was a vicious attack upon the late Stephen Roman, millionaire entrepreneur and supporter of Slovak independence, and his friendship with Jozef Kirschbaum.
13 Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, book 1, The Official Languages (Ottawa, 1967), xv.Google Scholar
14 Kanadský Slovák, 23 11 1962, p. 4Google Scholar; and 24 April 1965, p. 4. The full “Brief of the Canadian Slovak League to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism” was published by Kirschbaum in his Slovaks in Canada (Toronto, 1967), 435–39.Google Scholar For the Ukrainian position, see Bociurkiw, Bohdan, “The Federal Policy of Multiculturalism and the Ukrainian Canadian Community,” in Ukrainian Canadians, Multiculturalism, and Separatism: An Assessment, ed. Lupul, Manoly R. (Edmonton, 1978), 98–128.Google Scholar
15 See the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, book 4, The Cultural Contribution of the Other Ethnic Groups (Ottawa, 1970)Google Scholar; and House of Commons, Debates, vol. 8 (Ottawa, 1971), 8545–46.Google Scholar For its impact on the Slovaks, see my “Multiculturalism in Canada: A Slovak Perspective,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 35, no. 2 (2003): 123–28.Google Scholar
16 A good example was Cyprián Slimák, who was born in Liesková, Liptov county, Slovakia, in 1906. In 1922, he helped organize the Communist Party in his home village. He emigrated to Canada in 1930 and spent the next eighteen years organizing his countrymen into various “worker” societies, and he also served as chief administrator of the communist weekly Robotnícke slovo (Workers' world; the predecessor of Ľudové zvesti). In 1948, he returned to communist Czechoslovakia, was hired by the Czechoslovak Foreign Service, served as a consul in Budapest and Shanghai, and worked at the Institute of the History of the Communist Party in Bratislava until his retirement. In 1966, he was given the “Award for Work,” the state's highest decoration. He died in 1972. See Ľudové zvesti, 11 11 1972, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar The phenomenon of the return of communist zealots among Slovaks remains largely unexplored.
17 Information provided by a political émigré and former member of CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the civilian successor to the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; CSIS was broken off from the RCMP by the Canadian government in 1983). My informant requested anonymity. It will be some time before historians are allowed access into RCMP and CSIS files dealing with espionage and double-agents.
18 This sad chapter in Slovak history was first documented by the Rev. Zubek, Theodoric J. in The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whiting, 1956).Google Scholar
19 Kanadský Slovák, 5 01 1963, p. 4Google Scholar; and 5 October 1963, pp. 1, 5.
20 This part of the story still needs to be documented. The late Rev. Stefan Sencik, S.J., former provincial of the Slovak Jesuits in Canada, told me a part of it.
21 See, for instance, the “Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vatican requesting a Church Province and Archbishop for Slovakia,” Kanadský Slovák, 25 September 1965, p. 1. J. M. Kirschbaum had first suggested this move in 1959. Ibid.
22 Mulík, Peter, “Úsilie o zradenie slovenskej cirkevnej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vývoj po súčasnost”Google Scholar (Efforts to establish a Slovak Church Province from 1939 and its development to the present), in Katolícka cirkev a Slováci. Úsilie Slovákov o samostatnú cirkevnú provinciu (The Catholic Church in Slovakia: Efforts of the Slovaks to establish an independent Church Province), ed. Peter Mulík (Bratislava, 1997), 63–85, does recognize the efforts of émigré Slovaks, but also gives credit to the collaborationist priests in the procommunist “Pacem in Terris” organization and to Communist Party first secretary and president Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia for not having prevented it (p. 68). Since Mulík provides no footnotes, one wonders where he acquired such curious information.
23 See the “Žiadost' kalifornskych Slovákov na národ doma” (Appeal of California Slovaks to the nation at home), dated 13 December 1989 and mailed on 14 December by Igor Bazovský, president of the Slovak American Association of California to Dr. Ján Čarnogurský, first deputy prime minister of Czechoslovakia, with copies to, among others, federal prime minister Marián Čalfa, Slovak prime minister Milan Čič, speaker of the federal parliament Alexander Dubček, and several Slovak newspapers and radio and television stations. Interestingly enough, Rudolf Schuster, speaker of the Slovak Parliament–and future president of the independent Slovak Republic in 1999–2004–received a copy of this letter from Ján Čarnogurský and promised to “take it into account”! See the Jozef Mikuš Fonds, ARCS 95–1, Series V, File 30, Slovak American Association of California, in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada.
24 The visit was covered by the Slovak dailies Smer (Direction), 15 February 1990, and Práca (Work), 16 February 2002, among others. Rudolf Schuster, who was then speaker of the Slovak Parliament and later president of the Slovak Republic, mentioned the visit in his autobiographical Ultimátum (Bratislava, 1996), 101–2.Google Scholar He also published photos of this meeting in an extensive photo section between pages 96 and 97.
25 I happened to be a member of this delegation. We were received by the Slovak prime minister Milan Čič and by the speaker of the Slovak Parliament, Rudolf Schuster. The June 1990 issue of Slovák v Amerike carried a complete report on our activities. Schuster also published a photograph of our meeting in Ultimátum, between pages 224 and 225.
26 Schuster, , Ultimatum, 208–9.Google Scholar
27 The best account of the breakup of Czechoslovakia is Rychlík, Jan, Rozpad Československa: Česko-slovenské vztahy, 1989–1992 (The collapse of Czechoslovakia: Czech-Slovak relations, 1989–1992) (Bratislava, 2002).Google Scholar Rychlík also included a brief discussion of the role of Slovak émigrés in the independence movement in 1990. See ibid., 107–10.
28 Hornáček's discussion with the delegates to the Conference on Slovaks Abroad, Government Conference Center, Častá-Papierníčka, Slovakia, 5 May 1998.
29 As president of the Canadian Slovak League from 1994 to 1999,I coordinated a letter-writing campaign to the Canadian government to either open a Canadian embassy/consulate in Bratislava or, failing that, to let Slovaks utilize the consular services of the Canadian embassy in Vienna, which is only 50 km west of Bratislava, as opposed to Prague, which is 400 km west and 800 km from eastern Slovakia. See, for example, my letter to Sergio Marchi, minister of citizenship and immigration, 13 October 1995, and his reply of 9 November 1995. Author's personal correspondence.
30 Kanadský Slovák, 19 06 2004, p. 3.Google Scholar
31 Émigré politician of the postwar Slovak Democratic Party and a leader of the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia Martin Kvetko returned to Slovakia from New York in 1990 and resurrected his Democratic Party. However, it enjoyed no electoral success and died with him. See, for example, Pravda (Bratislava), 15 January 1990, p. 1. Meanwhile, the post-1968 émigré Igor Uhrík and his wife Natalia also returned in 1990 to help out. Igor joined the Slovak National Party and served as an unpaid advisor to the minister of privatization in the Jozef Moravčík government (1994). However, he found the corruption in Slovakia so widespread that in the fall of 1994 he returned to New York in disgust. Telephone conversation with Mr. Uhrík, November 1994.
32 Magocsi, Paul R., “Carpatho-Rusyns: Their Current Status and Future Perspectives,” Slovakia 35 (1991–1992): 36–57.Google Scholar
33 Ján A. Holy told me about these communications in the summer of 1996.