THE SLOVAK ISSUE IN THE POLITICAL STRATEGY OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL COUNCIL IN 1943 – 1945

Abstract

The article aims to investigate the Slovak question in the political strategy of the Slovak National Council (SNC) at the final stage of the Second World War. The methodological basis of the proposed article is the principles of historicism and objectivity, the application of which involves an unbiased depiction of past events in their historical context. The scientific topicality lies in the systematic analysis of the Slovak question in the activities of the SNC in 1943 – 1945. The author of the article states that the SNC program to resolve the Slovak issue consisted of three main points: recognition of the identity of the Slovak people, return of Slovakia to the Czechoslovak Republic, and regulation of Czech-Slovak relations in the country on an equal footing. The latter de facto provided for the reorganization of the Czechoslovak Republic on a federal basis, which was opposed by President Edvard Beneš and representatives of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. The SNC began a program to resolve the Slovak question during the Slovak National Uprising of 1944, which, although defeated, contributed to Slovakia's liberation from German dependence and its integration into the anti-Hitler coalition. During the Slovak National Uprising, the SNA was transformed into the supreme legislative and executive body in Slovakia, which supporters of unitary Czechoslovakia could no longer ignore. As a result of intense negotiations in Moscow between the SNA delegation and representatives of the Czechoslovak émigré government in March 1945, Slovaks were given the opportunity to join the revived Czechoslovakia as an independent nation. The SNC became its legitimate representative and bearer of state power in Slovakia. Another critical achievement of the SNC was the Czechoslovak relations in the Czechoslovak Republic that the new Czechoslovak government promised to build on the principle of "equal to equal." All these aspects were fixed in the Košice government program of the National Front. The SNC was recognized as the bearer of national sovereignty and state power in Slovakia. In fact, it was a question of building the Czechoslovak Republic on a federal basis, as it presupposed the existence of Slovak national authorities alongside the central ones. At the same time, the program of the National Front government did not define in detail the basic principles of the state and legal system of the Czechoslovak state, which in the future prevented the SNC from maintaining its achievements in the Slovak question.