Colonial Czechoslovakia? Overseas and Internal Colonization in the Interwar Czechoslovak Republic

Abstract

This essay contributes to the recent discussions on the history of marginal-colonial cultures situated on the fringes of the Empire. Focusing on interwar Czechoslovakia, the essay discusses how to productively think about the coloniality of this land-locked country. In particular, it looks at the entanglements and reverberations between the overseas colonial ambitions and projects of internal colonization in the eastern part of the republic, namely in Subcarpathian Ruthenia. It argues that the internal colonization shared the same objectives and rationalities with Czechoslovak and other countries’ colonial projects overseas and that it also emulated earlier imperial forms of rule. Instead of trying to put the case into some ready-made category, I suggest making use of the governmentality studies perspective. The essay demonstrates that the contingent nature of the Czechoslovak colonizing projects in Ruthenia could be best unpacked using the concept of colonial governmentality, respectively of security apparatuses, and points out questions that may orient future research on the Czechoslovak internal colonization.