Martin Declaration

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The Tatra Bank building where the 'Declaration' was signed.

The Martiner declaration , even 'Declaration of the Slovak nation' called, was on 30 October 1918 in St. Martin in the Turz ( sl. Turčiansky Svaty Martin created) document that the accession of Slovakia in a common state with Czechs his Gave consent.

Historical review

On September 26, 1918, the first provisional government of the Czech-Slovak Republic was formed in Paris . On October 28, 1918 - six days before the armistice - there was an overthrow. The Prague National Committee (sl. Pražský národný výbor) - based on the preparations of the Czech politicians in exile Tomáš Garigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš - called the Czechoslovak Republic (Č-SR .) Under the influence of the events of the collapse of the Danube Monarchy on October 28, 1918 ) including Slovakia. The basis of the proclamation was the “First Law on the Establishment of the Czechoslovak State” (sl. “Prvý zákon a manifestačné vyhlásenie o vzniku samostatného československého štátu”) issued by this committee . On the Slovak side, this law was signed by Vavro Šrobár .

However, approval for Slovakia to join the joint state with the Czechs was only given two days later, on October 30, 1918 in St. Martin in der Turz. Here in the Tatra Bank 101 building, self-appointed Slovak representatives - who referred to themselves as the “Slovak National Council” (SNR) - gathered under the leadership of Samuel Zoch and Emil Stodola. Little did the delegates suspect at this point that the Czechoslovak Republic was proclaimed two days earlier in Prague - without their intervention. The delegates decided to found a national council of the Slovak branch of the Czechoslovak nation (sl. "Národná rada slovenskej vetvy jedného československého národa"), whose first chairman was Matúš Dula .

The second point of the conference was the adoption of a declaration by the Slovak people to join a common state with the Czechs. In today's somewhat strange-sounding text, written by Samuel Zoch, it says: The Slovak people are linguistically as well as culturally and historically part of a unified Czech-Slovak people. For this Czech-Slovak people, we also demand the unrestricted right to self-determination on the basis of complete independence.  (German translation by Anton Klipp). That the Slovaks were faced with a fait accompli from Prague was only discovered after the end of the meeting from Milan Hodža , who arrived late in St. Martin. The Martin Declaration had to be revised on Hodža's advice in order to adapt it to the current political situation.

Memorial plaque on the Tatra Bank building in St. Martin in der Turz. German translation of the text: In this building, the Slovak National Council adopted the Declaration of the Slovak People on October 30, 1918, in which the Slovaks gave their consent to the establishment of a Czecho-Slovak Republic.

The eminent Slovak historian, Milan S. Ďurica, wrote the following about the above-mentioned events: The original text (of the declaration, translator's note), as well as the minutes of the meeting 'were lost', which became the subject of later controversial interpretations and even court hearings. 101 people took part in the meeting, 95 of whom were Protestant and 31 people (around 25%, translator's note) came from St. Martin. It is therefore difficult to speak of a representation of the Slovak people here. The Slovak Catholics, who made up 84% of the total population, were only represented by a few outstanding personalities, but these were only an insignificant minority.

The fact that the agreed text (ie approved by the Assembly, author's note) that the following night by Milan Hodža - in a private meeting in the presence of only a few people - casts a significant shadow over the document , such as B. the right of self-determination of the Slovak people, as well as the participation of Slovak representatives in the peace conference, was arbitrarily changed. One of the two undersigned of the declaration text, Karol Medvecký , who was then secretary of the Slovak National Council ( sl.Slovenská národná rada) , even claimed that the document was a forgery and denied that he had made the declaration at hand Form would have signed. (German translation by Anton Klipp).

The declaration gave rise to numerous conflicts between Slovaks and Czechs in the interwar period. The Slovaks felt repeatedly disadvantaged in the common state. At the peace negotiations in Paris , apart from the Entente powers, only Czech politicians sat at the negotiating table on the part of Czechoslovakia. When Andrej Hlinka , the leader of the previously founded Slovak People's Party , wanted to take part in the negotiations in order to demand the autonomy of the Slovaks within the framework of the new Č-SR , as provided for in the Pittsburgh Agreement , he was not admitted to the negotiations. When Hlinka - with the help of Poland - managed to get to Paris anyway, he stood in front of closed doors and was again turned away. His Czech opponents in the negotiating room ensured that he was deported by the French police. After his return home, his opponents ensured that he was publicly denigrated as a Slovak “ nationalist ” and “ separatist ” and that the Czech authorities put him in prison for a few months.

literature

  • Dušan Kováč: Slovensko v Rakúsko-Uhorsku ('Slovakia in Austria-Hungary'), Bratislava 1995 (Slovak).
  • Milan S. Ďurica: Dejiny Slovenska a Slovákov v časovej následnosti faktov dvoch tisícročí, Bratislava 2003, ISBN 80-7114-386-3 . (Slovak)
  • Anton Klipp: Pressburg. New views on an old city. Karpatendeutsches Kulturwerk, Karlsruhe 2010, ISBN 978-3-927020-15-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1951 during the communist dictatorship the place was renamed "Martin".
  2. ↑ The provisional government was proclaimed by the Czech politicians in exile Tomáš Garigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš in Paris: Masaryk appointed himself prime minister and finance minister, and Beneš foreign and interior minister. The Slovak Milan Rastislav Štefánik was appointed Minister of War without his knowledge. Since Štefánik was in Tokyo at the time , he learned about his "appointment" from the newspaper. Štefánik protested about this idiosyncratic approach, as he did not agree with many measures that were taken in Paris. (cited in Milan S. Ďurica: Dejiny Slovenska a Slovákov v časovej následnosti faktov dvoch tisícročí, Bratislava 2003, p. 286; see literature)
  3. ↑ This national committee consisted of 42 members, most of them Czech; except for Šrobár, no Slovaks were represented. No one in Slovakia was aware of the existence of such a committee.      
  4. ↑ Masaryk, Beneš and Štefánik were still abroad at that time, where they published a declaration on the independence of a Czecho-Slovak Republic . 
  5. ^ The chairman of the Slovak National Party, Matúš Dula , invited twelve Slovak politicians to a "private meeting" in Budapest on September 12, 1918 . During this session the Slovak National Council (sl. "Slovenská národná rada") was founded. The National Council was not officially founded in St. Martin in der Turz until October 30, 1918. (quoted from Milan S. Ďurica: Dejiny Slovenska a Slovákov v časovej následnosti faktov dvoch tisícročí, Bratislava 2003, p. 286)
  6. ↑ a b quot. with Anton Klipp: Pressburg ... p. 15ff (bibliography)
  7. ↑ cit. in D. Kováč: “Slovensko v Rakúsko-Uhorsku”, p. 122 f.    
  8. ↑ Quoted in Milan S. Ďurica: Dejiny Slovenska a Slovákov v časovej následnosti faktov dvoch tisícročí, Bratislava 2003, p. 288. f (see literature) 
  9. ↑ The original Slovak text is as follows:           Pôvodný text a zápisnica o priebehu zhromaždenia "sa stratili", čo neskôr bolo predmetom kontroverzných interpretácii, ba i súdných sporov. Na porade sa zišlo 101 účastníkov, z ktorých 95 bolo evanjelického vyznania a 31 z Turč. Sv. Martina, teda je ťažko hovoriť o reprezentácii celého slovenského národa. Slovenských katolíkov, ktorí vtedy predstavovali asi 84% obyvateľstva Slovenska, reprezentovalo niekoľko vynikajúcich osobností, ktoré však tvorili nepatrnú menšinu. Ešte vážnejší tieň na tento document vrhá skutočnosť, že text odhlasovaný účastníkmi porady bol potom v noci zákrokom Dr. Milana Hodžu na súkromnej porade niekoľkých osôb svojvoľne zmenený, a to práve u takých podstatných bodoch, akými bola požiadavka sebaurčovacieho práva slovenského národa a účasť jferen repierovejov. Each z dvoch podpisovateľov uverejneného textu Deklarácie, Karol Medvecký, ktorý bol tajomníkom SNR, vyhlásil uverejnený text za falzifikovanú deklaráciu a poprel, že by ju bol tajomníkom podpí podpí