Formation of Czechoslovakia: an artificial state?

Abstract

The study focuses on the dynamics of the formation of the inde- pendent Czechoslovak Republic in the context of the Great War and the immediately following post-war period. Emphasis is placed on identifying the concepts on which Czechoslova- kia’s territorial claims to the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian and German empire were based and their formative influence on the subsequent political and economic orientation of the new state formation in the web of newly constructed rela- tions in the Versailles-era geographic and geopolitical config- uration of the wider Central European area. An important context for this paper is that the period under study represents a paradigmatic shift for Central Europe with the dramatic disintegration of integrated state entities into a number of independent states in accordance with the right to self-determination of nations advocated by American president Woodrow Wilson. In connection with the right to self-determination, the author of the article mentions that the Czechoslovak state was granted this right in full, despite some fabrications concerning the concept of a Czechoslovak nation of two “branches” speaking the Czechoslovak language and Edvard Beneš’s “inaccuracies” about the number and other socio-geographical character- istics of the German population in the territory claimed by Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference. Moreover, it was rather peculiar that the new state with a republican order insisted on the historical raison d’etre, i.e. on the full consid- eration of the historical rights of the Crown of the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Czech lands, and conversely, on the break- ing of the millennial union of Slovakia with the Crown of St. Stephen’s lands on the basis of the natural right of the “imagined” Czechoslovak nation to its state. Last but not least, the paper addresses the question of whether this fragmentation, or Balkanisation in the contemporary sense of the term, helped to stabilize the overall post-war situation in Central Europe, or whether it created a rather undesirable and dangerous power vacuum in this vital area for European security. In this context, the paper elucidates the genesis of the idea of state independence from the declaration of loyalty to Emperor Charles I by the domestic political representation during the war to the leaning towards the position of the Czech emigre and the disintegration of the century-old union of territories of the Habsburg monarchy after the final reversal of the war events in the summer of 1918. The author of the study also raises the question of whether this programme was implemented with the consent of the Diets of particular crown lands or German popula- tion prior to the proclamation or after the proclamation of inde- pendent Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1918, or only through the unelected Czechoslovak National Committee or the Revolutionary National Assembly from Prague. The question of the role of the emperor, or his dethronement, as well as Czechoslovakia’s attitude to the continuity of Austro-Hungarian statehood in contrast to the reception of the Austro-Hungarian legal order, is also considered. The author of the study also emphasizes the fact that Czechoslovakia, like other successor states, was emerging in a completely new reality and that Czechoslovakia in particular lacked the essential element of statehood, sovereignty, in much of the territory it claimed, especially in the German-speaking border areas and Slovakia; therefore, trade and political relations played a key role in this situation as one of the main surrogate instruments of state sovereignty. The article also deals with the use of the more robust resource and industrial base and the privileged position of a member of the Entente to promote Czechoslovak political interests with neighbouring states, especially Austria, particularly in the context of the recognition of Czechoslovak control over the parts of Czech lands inhabited by the German-speaking population that had come under Czechoslovak administration before the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Some attention is also paid to the complicated issue of Teschen (Cieszyn) in the context of relations with Poland.