Martin Lacko

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Martin Lacko (* 1976 in Piešťany ) is a Slovak historian . He is mainly concerned with modern Slovak history , especially the time of the Slovak state from 1939 to 1945 . Originally seen as a renowned historian with internationally acclaimed and cited works, Lacko is now considered controversial due to his open support for the right-wing extremist party ĽSNS .

Life

Lacko completed his studies in history and philosophy at the Comenius University in Bratislava . He completed his doctorate at the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Lacko worked as an employee of the Scientific Research Section of the Ústav pamäti národa in Bratislava. He is mainly concerned with Slovak history during the Second World War and has already published more than 30 scientific studies in Slovakia and abroad on this subject.

In 2002–2004 he organized the conference Slovenská republika 1939–1945 očami mladých historikov (The Slovak Republic 1939–1945 in the eyes of young historians) three times . Lacko was considered (see section controversies ) as one of the most renowned Slovak historians of the so-called “young generation of historians” who, in evaluating Slovak history, especially the Slovak state, were the middle way between the “glorifying works” of exiled Slovak historians like Milan Stanislav Ďurica and František Vnuk and the “strongly negative work” of Slovak historians still active in the communist regime, such as Ivan Kamenec and Dušan Kováč .

Reception and controversy

Lacko was originally a renowned historian in Slovakia. Lacko's work also received international attention. The German historian Tatjana Tönsmeyer (2011) writes in her review of Lacko's 2008 monograph on the Slovak National Uprising:

However, the internal Slovak disputes about the status and tradition of the state of the war years for the Slovak self-image continue and come to a head in the debate about the 'national' uprising. Another contribution to this debate is to be presented here by a younger Slovak historian, who has already emerged with several works, especially on the military history of the Slovak state, as well as with several well-known source editions, including situation reports from the security agencies from January to August 1944 Martin Lacko has now presented an easily readable book for a larger audience, which is attractively designed with selected images. Compared to earlier presentations, it is also positive that aspects that have previously been less discussed are also taken into account. Not only are the various groups involved in the resistance presented in detail, but everyday life in the insurrectionary area is also discussed, for example, and it is impressively demonstrated that at the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945 Slovakia was also included in the history of violence, which mainly came from many regions of Eastern Europe is known under German occupation.

The picture of the uprising drawn by Lacko is much more multifaceted than earlier representations, but Tönsmeyer critically expresses an astonishment with regard to the results of international research that Lacko did not take into account, as well as the "historical-political intention" pursued by him in Tönsmeyer's opinion . Lacko constructs an image of history for Slovak society, for which he claims “truth”, offers above all military “heroes” and hopes that his readership will take a positive view of the Slovak statehood. The German historian Martin Zückert also comments on Lacko's monograph on the Slovak National Uprising . In his essay (2011) on the Slovak resistance to the Tiso regime, Zückert assigns Lacko's work to those representations that “critically assessed the role of the partisans and the Soviet Union” and which recently caused controversy in Slovakia. The Czech historian Lenka Šindelářová (2013) writes about Lacko's account of the history of Slovakia from 1939 to 1945, which was also published in 2008, that Lacko's work and that of Ivan Kamenec and Ján Korček in particular have proven to be helpful for an overall picture of developments in the Slovak state .

In 2014, a controversy over Lacko broke out in Slovakia. The nationalist Slovak website www.29august1944.sk, which criticized the Slovak national uprising against the National Socialists and the Slovak collaborative regime as “anti-national treason”, named Martin Lacko as one of the historians who supported it. Since then he has been cited as a "controversial historian" in the Slovak media.

At the end of October 2015, against the backdrop of the ongoing election campaign for the 2016 parliamentary elections , Lacko signed a declaration in support of Marian Kotleba’s right-wing extremist party . At the beginning of September 2016, Lacko was dismissed as an employee of the “Institute of Remembrance of the Nation” (Slovak: Ústav pamäti národa , ÚPN), which investigates the crimes of the National Socialists and the Communists in Slovakia. In 2017 it was announced that Lacko is now officially working as an assistant for the MP Natália Grausová from the Kotleba party.

Work (selection)

Document collections

  • Zrod Slovenského štátu v kronikách slovenskej armády [= The Birth of the Slovak State in the Chronicles of the Slovak Army]. Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2010, ISBN 978-80-89335-19-0 .
  • Dotyky s boľševizmom. Documenty spravodajstva slovenskej armády 1940–1941 [= contact with Bolshevism. Documents of the Intelligence Service of the Slovak Army 1940–1941]. Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2009, ISBN 978-80-89335-11-4 .
  • Proti Poľsku. Odraz ťaženia roku 1939 v denníkoch a kronikáck slovenskej armády [= against Poland. Effects of the campaign in 1939 in the diaries and chronicles of the Slovak army]. Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2007, ISBN 978-80-89335-00-8 .

Monographs

  • Slovenskí generáli 1939–1945 [= Slovak generals 1939–1945]. Ottovo nakladatelství, Prague 2013, ISBN 978-80-7451-246-9 . (in cooperation with Peter Jašek and Branislav Kinčok)
  • Dwuramienny krzyż w cieniu swastyki. Republika Słowacka 1939–1945 [= The double cross in the shadow of the swastika. The Slovak Republic 1939–1945]. EL-Press, Lublin 2012, ISBN 83-86869-32-1 . (Polish)
  • Slovenské národné povstanie 1944 [The Slovak National Uprising 1944]. Slovart, Bratislava 2008, ISBN 978-80-8085-575-8 .
  • Slovenská republika 1939–1945 [The Slovak Republic 1939–1945]. Perfect, Bratislava 2008, ISBN 978-80-8046-408-0 .
  • Dezercie a zajatia príslušníkov zaisťovacej divízie v ZSSR v rokoch 1942–1943 [desertions and imprisonment of members of the security division in the USSR in 1942–1943]. Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2007, ISBN 978-80-969699-4-4 .

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Šimovec: History Martin Lacko: Šanca, že sa nájde Smoradov hrob, je mizivá. In: www.sme.sk, April 3, 2010, accessed on April 7, 2015. (Slovak)
  2. ↑ a b Review by Tatjana Tönsmeyer, published in: Bohemia , vol. 51 (2011), p. 529f, on Martin Lacko: Slovenské národné povstanie 1944 [The Slovak National Uprising 1944]. Slovart, Bratislava 2008. ( online )
  3. ↑ Martin Zückert: Slovakia: Resistance against the Tiso regime and National Socialist domination. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Hrsg.): Handbook on Resistance to National Socialism and Fascism in Europe 1933/39 to 1945. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011, p. 250f.
  4. ↑ Lenka Šindelářová: Final of the extermination: The Einsatzgruppe H in Slovakia 1944/45. Darmstadt 2013, p. 16.
  5. ↑ Soňa Pacherová, Jana Trebulová: SNP ako sprisahanie? Samozvaným historikom sa zaoberá polícia. In: www.pravda.sk, July 21, 2014, accessed April 7, 2015.
  6. ↑ Martin Krno: Verejnoprávna televízia ukázala ľudácke usmievavé Slovensko. In: www.pravda.sk, September 4, 2014, accessed April 7, 2015. (Slovak)
  7. ↑ Dušan Mikušovič: Šéf ÚPN nevie, čo s historikom, ktorý otvorene agituje za Kotlebovu stranu . In: dennikn.sk, December 17, 2015, accessed on December 22, 2015, 02:32 am. (Slovak)
  8. ↑ Nation's Memory Institute sacks historian Lacko . In: spectator.sme.sk, September 5, 2016, accessed on September 10, 2016, 9:24 pm. (Slovak)
  9. ↑ Z ÚPN ho vyhodili, history Martin Lacko už oficiálne pracuje pre ĽSNS . In: Aktuell.sk, April 3, 2017, accessed on January 21, 2019, 12:26 am. (Slovak)
personal data
SURNAME Lacko, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovak historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1976
PLACE OF BIRTH Piešťany