Slovakia is still looking for an enemy, we lack a spiritual program (video + text)
František Mikloško, in an interview that took place on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Slovak Republic, describes the dilemmas he faced during the creation of an independent Slovakia. You will learn why he claims that Slovakia is still internally divided, and why we lack a positive unifying idea that we name when looking for an enemy.
František Mikloško also evaluates how we developed politically during the 30 years of independence and why we lacked several positive leaders in the political spectrum during this period. He also reflects on the story of the development of Slovakia in the artistic and intellectual field and, of course, a large part of the assessment of the role of the church in the period of freedom.
You can have the interview in its full form to listen or look at TV Attitude.
When the Slovak Republic was established 30 years ago, you were there personally, and the KDH was not a supporter of dividing the common state with the Czechs. How do you remember the dilemmas that you must have needed today at that time?
First of all, we need to sell that we are commemorating two anniversaries. The anniversary of the division of the common state and the anniversary of the creation of independent Slovakia.
While in the Czech Republic they rather commemorate the 30th anniversary of the partition, they mourn and still celebrate October 28, when Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918. They claim this statehood, which has its roots far back in the past, in the Czech Kingdom.
In my opinion, we don’t even know exactly what we are celebrating. Some people are wondering how and why we split up. First of all, however, we remember January 1, 1993, when the Slovak Republic was established.
I am convinced that this event is a manifestation of the internal progress of the Slovak nation, because it was in this environment that the nation developed its own statehood, gaining the feeling that it is a self-confident part of the European whole.
On the other hand, it is also true that we will not celebrate the establishment of the Slovak Republic that much, we will not spontaneously stop on the first of January and say to ourselves that this is an important moment. However, it is also our characteristic: we don’t tend to celebrate national events very much.
So what are your personal memories of the creation of Slovakia?
For two years, I was the head of the delegation that discussed the future form of the state. We tried to find some way to redistribute the competences so that the two nations would feel good about it. This was a Slovak demand, because the Czechs took Czechoslovakia as their own, as one whole, and did not feel the need to emancipate themselves.
However, efforts to redistribute competencies did not lead anywhere. Despite the fact that public opinion polls showed that Slovaks do not want to express themselves, I perceived an internal tendency in Slovakia towards independence.
In the end, it happened very quickly. The republic split in half a year. You need to take two moments to do it. After the declaration of sovereignty, President Václav Havel resigned. Havel was a follower of the Czechoslovak Republic.
The Hungarian president Árpád Göncz once told me that he was in the revolution in 1956, he received a life sentence for it, and he is a world-famous writer and translator, Lech Wałęsa is the founder of the famous Solidarność and is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, but the West, as a representative of the entire post-communist space, chose Václav Havel.
However, the West did not choose Havel because it knew his excellent texts, but also because Czechoslovakia was perceived as a possible model for the entire region. It also resulted from the legacy of Masaryk’s Czechoslovak Republic, which existed at a time when authoritarian regimes ruled in Hungary or Poland.
Václav Havel, who came from an old Prague family, did not want to be involved in the division of Czechoslovakia, and when it had to happen, he left it to others.
The division of Czechoslovakia was not a simple matter, united Czechoslovakia was not only a cultural and social force but also a great political force – apart from Poland and during the division of Yugoslavia, it was the largest state in the region.
In the end, however, the split happened quite quickly.
Yes, and it is somewhat interesting, but not so surprising, because that is how Slovak history developed. In October 1918, the majority of Slovakians did not even know that we already belonged to Czechoslovakia, and if there had been a referendum, who knows how it would have turned out.
On the fourteenth of March 1939, Tiso came from Hitler and told the parliament that either an independent state would be created or we would be divided between Poland and Hungary. Overnight I decided that a Slovak state would be created.
So it seems that it is some regularity of our history that politicians have to decide about us, that people are not clear enough about what they want. Politicians decide and people adapt.
Do you consider the fact that there was no referendum on the division of Czechoslovakia a problem?
The referendum did not solve anything, it only caused even more chaos in the country. The fact that it was not, however, has one very serious consequence. If the referendum were to take place with the result, people would feel more responsible for the new state, because they had a personal say on its creation. This is how we transferred from communism the feeling that “those above” make decisions about us and we live our own lives.
But there is one more key thing. When the vote on the declaration of sovereignty took place on July 17, 1992, the HZDS and the SNS thought that we would vote by name. That was very incorrect, because in the live television broadcast we had to individually state whether we were for or against the sovereignty of Slovakia.
They wanted to create public pressure on the members of the team.
Yes, and at the same time they want to put us on the social ladder, point the finger at us and say that these people were against the country. This then reminds us for decades and continues to this day.
However, those who founded the state at that time did not realize that at that moment they were also dividing Slovakia – into loyal Slovaks and enemies of the Slovak Republic. This is an even more crucial moment in the development since January 1, 993: the country was divided and we were pushed into the camp of Slovakia’s enemies by the then government outfit.
This is also why January 1 is not spontaneously celebrated in Slovakia as the moment from which we finally live the way we want. Until now, the society has kept the memory of hostility. After the vote on the declaration of sovereignty, it became clear. When Ján Čarnogurský was leaving the parliament, he physically told him and Vladimír Mečiar: Let them go into the past.
The Slovak Republic was founded on this, and until now it is a huge problem to find something that unites us, so that this republic is our common work.
What do you say today to people who blame you for being against an independent Slovakia?
I tell them that today I would vote the same in that situation and there is nothing anti-Slovak about it. I have lived here all my life, I like Slovakia, it never occurred to me that I should go somewhere else, and I think that I work selflessly for Slovakia.
However, it must be remembered that at that time we, Czechs and Slovaks, were friends. Dissent friends. We had a common goal in the struggle with the regime, we suffered a lot because of it, especially the Czech dissidents, after the fall of the regime we wanted to build democracy together. I was full of freedom at that time, but I did not realize that at that moment I was already growing up a national trend.
I need to be consistent and continuously continue my cooperation with the Czechs, with whom I do not have the slightest problem.
The fact that the nationalists then pushed us out is rather their problem, because when in normal countries such as Belgium or Canada, a referendum on the independence of a territory does not pass, such people who were against it continue to function as usual.
But another thing happened. In November 1989, independent intellectuals, conservationists, and we, my Christians, took responsibility. Both the communists and the people who were running ahead of communism and waiting to see how it would turn out, suddenly found themselves on the sidelines in terms of power.
We divided the functions. A year and a half before November 1989, I was unemployed and suddenly I was the highest constitutional official in the Slovak Republic, the chairman of the Slovak National Council. A revolution has such consequences, those involved then deal the cards.
The other side is best characterized by the communist writer Vladimír Mináč, who said: As a communist I failed in life, as a Slovak I stand on the threshold of a new future. This statement shows that the communists very quickly found a way to push us out. They quickly labeled us Czechoslovaks, Freemasons… They pushed us into treason, but there was also a power struggle behind it. They found a rhetoric with which they forced us out, they tried to make sure that we could not even claim that we took a risk in November 1989.
Are the fundamental problems of the current united Slovakia with the team, which people with which motivations founded an independent Slovakia, as one of the well-known ideas of Masaryk?
In addition to this idea, there is another thing intertwined. During the communist period, we knew that the communists were our enemy. In principle, the whole society knew this, even the party members had to have such discipline that they knew that even in the party they were not completely free. So we had an enemy.
In November 1989, we suddenly lost an enemy. Having an enemy is difficult, but he doesn’t have many, because in freedom you have to use who you are, you have to fill your creativity, with plans and ideals, with cooperation. I saw how quickly the shock of freedom replaced the need to have an enemy.
The Hungarians were the first “on the run” – the language law from the Matica slovakian workshop means that Hungarians must speak only Slovak here. 80 percent of Slovaks agreed with this. We have established this in the parliament at the cost of big matches.
Then came the turn of the Czechs – let’s rule ourselves, Prague was enough, they threw eggs at Havel. Then this problem was solved, the republic was established, but also the next period was when we were looking for an enemy in order to be united.
And today we have it again. We have Brussels, America, we lack something positive that would unite us. The existential problem of the Slovak Republic, even after 30 years of existence, lies in the fact that we do not have a spiritual doctrine of the state. We cannot tell ourselves who we are, what we want to develop and what we want to impress the world with.
However, we Slovaks have charisma, and it was best presented to us by Pope Francis. All his speeches during his visit to Slovakia included our spiritual program. He named us as Middle Earth, where benevolent people move who do not want to have an enemy. At the same time, the Pope said to cross our beautiful mountains and open up to the world. Be free, be creative and have a dialogue, the Pope said. And he said that Slovakia is poetry.
In the next part of the interview, you will learn:
You can listen to the entire interview with František Miklošek in the form podcast or look at TV Attitude.