Mark Cornwall, Robert John Weston Evans, eds.. in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918-1948. Proceedings of the British Academy 140. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. xv + 258 pp. $99.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-726391-4.

Reviewed by Andrea Orzof

Published on HABSBURG (March, 2010)

Commissioned by John C. Swanson (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)

After the annus mirabilis of 1989, Czechoslo‐ volume represents some of the best new thought vak president and former dissident Václav Havel on Czechoslovakia and its neighbors, by younger spoke often of wanting to “return” Czechoslovakia and senior historians alike. “to Europe.” Other eastern European leaders used The book also highlights a relatively neglect‐ similar phrasing. What exactly it meant depended ed era, from the end of the Great War to the early on speaker and context, but the general implica‐ years of the Cold War. During this period, Czecho‐ tion was romantic, along the lines of Milan Kun‐ played an outsized role in European in‐ dera’s “kidnapped Occident”: the countries behind ternational afairs. Between the world wars, it the Iron Curtain would return to their rightful was generally understood--by its own citizens and places in a prosperous, diverse, tolerant, unifed by foreign observers--to be the linchpin of the in‐ Europe.[1] The illusions have faded these last terwar peace, and thus was the foremost target twenty years. We understand Europe’s complexi‐ for those wishing to dismantle that peace. Its in‐ ties, both historical and contemporary, in ways we dustrial capacity and relatively docile population could not then. This edited volume refects the helped extend its power through‐ end of some Cold War mythologies; most of the es‐ out the continent. And between 1945 and 1948, says here view the frst thirty years of Czechoslo‐ Czechoslovakia was the test case for Soviet toler‐ vakia’s existence evenhandedly, balancing prom‐ ance. If the Soviets allowed plurality in Czechoslo‐ ise and problems. The book does not quite man‐ vakia, Western observers hypothesized, the rest of age to return the historical Czechoslovakia to Eu‐ the Eastern Bloc would get similar treatment; if rope, as its title seems to promise. Most of its the Soviets shut down Czechoslovak eforts to cre‐ chapters are rooted in a careful study of ate a national path to socialism, then the rest of Czechoslovak (as usual, meaning mainly Czech) the bloc had no chance.[2] themes, events, and peoples. Nevertheless, this H-Net Reviews

The essays here present relatively new schol‐ individually. Debates over these laws revealed arship or summarize the state of the feld. Jan that Czech elites still believed that “[a]t home, the Rychlík notes the conficts punctuating Czech-Slo‐ Czech nation was a family, not a collection of indi‐ vak relations between the two world wars. Slovak vidual citizens” (p. 56). Women’s issues were usu‐ insistence on a federalized, semi-autonomous ally resolved in traditionalist ways, reinforcing space for Slovak political and cultural develop‐ the paterfamilias’s power and reifying the role of ment led to decades of arguments with the the mother as caregiver. Family was the ultimate Czechs, who mouthed “Czechoslovakism” but sel‐ source of Czech national identity and therefore dom practiced it. In the 1930s, increasingly wide‐ occupied special territory outside the liberal spread acknowledgement of Czech and Slovak ideals which underlay Czech democracy, Feinberg separateness meant the First Republic had a grave concludes. The author does not address a further, problem: it had to address Slovak ideas about self- seemingly related inequality--Czech treatment of determination, and made the state’s continued ex‐ the non-“Czechoslovak” nationalities--but this per‐ istence contingent on Slovak goodwill and the ceptive piece, drawing on her 2006 book, still lev‐ electoral fortunes of the HSL or Lud’ak party. els an important critique. Eagle Glassheim’s deft essay, adapted from his In his essay on the interwar writings by Czech 2005 monograph on the same topic, asks why Bo‐ veterans of the First World War, Robert Pynsent hemian nobles were attracted to fascism, and notes that “Czech legionary literature sufers from fnds the answer in the Bohemian nobility’s “am‐ an excess of fat.” His “attempt at a lipid count” (p. bivalent, selective embrace of modernism” (p. 88) is a lively treatment of the works of Rudolf 28)--an acceptance of capitalism paired with a dis‐ Medek and Josef Kopta, two central Legionnaire taste for modern cultural trends and political authors. (Pynsent grants Kopta grudging respect ideas, which left them uneasy with parliamentary by deeming him one of the “least trivial” Legion‐ democracy’s compromises and majority rule. In naire writers [p. 63]; Medek receives no such the 1930s, noble polemicists critiqued the modern praise.) Pynsent’s incisive, observant piece mainly state as all-encompassing, and contrasted it with a examines themes and myths within Legionnaire nostalgic image of the feudal order which had literature, particularly of the Legionnaires them‐ granted its estates autonomy. In order to remake selves as liberators and models for a constructive what they saw as the new era’s moral and politi‐ Czechoslovak morality, despite the violence of cal failings, Glassheim argues, they called for an their imagery. Unsurprisingly, this literature authoritarian, noble-dominated “democracy of es‐ echoes standard Czech nationalist tropes: Legion‐ tates” (pp. 36-38). naires were modern-day Taborites, redeeming the Melissa Feinberg’s chapter presents gender as defeat of White Mountain in 1620; their homeland a test of the First Republic’s dedication to the was an “island” of civilized rationality in contrast democratic values it claimed to embody. It was to the Bolshevik chaos. Yet antisemitism pervaded surprisingly easy, she reports, for Czech politi‐ the pages of Legionnaire literature, and, Pynsent cians to decide to grant women the vote. But argues, is integral to its violent representations of granting women equality in other realms of life-- Czechness. Medek depicts Jews as greedy, devious, in education, for example, or citizenship law with physically bizarre (grossly obese or extremely regard to marriage, or employment practices-- thin), nocturnal, and flthy. The Czech cultural proved much harder. The general constitutional elite did not read Medek; nonetheless he con‐ support for women’s rights did not translate di‐ frmed “a prejudice in a large proportion of his rectly into policy; each old law had to be changed semi-educated readership.... The fact that Medek’s writing had little infuence on the Czechoslovak

2 H-Net Reviews elite does not make it salubrious. One must be Mark Cornwall’s “A Leap Into Ice-Cold Water” grateful that he was such an incompetent writer” tries to correct the previously Czech-centric histo‐ (p. 87). This reader is grateful that Pynsent is riography on Konrad Henlein and the Sude‐ more than competent himself. tendeutsche Partei (SdP) by emphasizing Catherine Albrecht argues that economic is‐ Czechoslovak-German fears and frustrations, the sues in the interwar Sudetenland did not break First Republic’s shortcomings in its nationalities’ predictably along national lines. She describes en‐ eyes, and the importance of 1918 as a radical shift ergetically diverse opinions within Czech and Ger‐ in the central European ethnic hierarchy. Corn‐ man “defense associations” in the borderland, wall describes German-nationalist organizations noting their varied reactions to Czechoslovak gov‐ and social groups, ranging from cultural organiza‐ ernmental policy and concerns about nationalist tions to Henlein’s Kameradschaftsbund, as being infuence on that policy. The associations’ com‐ isolated from or opposed to the Czechoslovak Re‐ plaints tended to be exaggerated: “shrill” reports public, but not inevitably Nazi. Cornwall argues on borderland minority relations (p. 94). The gov‐ that “Czech tactics did much to push the SdP [and ernment distrusted them, dismissing their com‐ Czech-German society generally] in a fully pan- mentary as frivolous, based on personal antago‐ German and Nazi direction” (p. 136), and discuss‐ nisms and internal squabbling. Yet German citi‐ es the various moments when the Czechoslovak zens viewed the Czech defense associations as government might have achieved an understand‐ representing and infuencing ofcial policy. That ing with Henlein. While this essay tries too hard supposed infuence was interpreted as a deliber‐ to exonerate the SdP movement and condemn the ate efort to harm German interests, particularly Czechoslovak government--Cornwall himself con‐ with regard to land reform and responses to the cludes that for both the government and the SdP Depression. “compromise was almost impossible” (p. 141)--the approach outlined here is intriguing for its explo‐ R. J. W. Evans explores the triangular problem ration of opportunities abandoned and roads not of mutual perception among the Czechs, Hungari‐ taken. ans, and , focusing mainly on high politics, Publicistik, and to a lesser extent belles-lettres Vít Smetana’s essay on British policy toward and the mass media. The relationship he de‐ Czechoslovakia during the fateful years just be‐ scribes is one of mutual use, opposition, and sus‐ fore and after the Second World War provides a picion. The Czechs mythologized the detailed chronological narrative of this important as feudal and retrograde, and themselves as relationship. Like Keith Robbins’s fnal essay in heartfelt democrats; the Hungarians viewed the this volume, Smetana discusses the ambiguity of Czechs as rapacious parvenus full of democratic “the lessons of Munich,” which can bolster both cant yet more than willing to deprive ethnic Mag‐ interventionist and isolationist approaches. That yars in Slovakia of their civil rights. Both viewed is, the current interpretation of Munich seems to Slovaks as simpler and more primitive, though be to never knuckle under to an aggressive tyrant, the Czechs did not go as far as the Hungarian but at the time Munich illustrated the folly of ex‐ term tótok (slave) and were more willing to con‐ tensive, unrealistic international commitments sider ideas of Slovak particularity. Throughout the and the humiliation of not being able to follow frst half of the twentieth century, as the reality of through on them. Smetana also notes British em‐ the Hungarian-Slovak-Czech relationships shifted, pathy for the Czechoslovaks when the Soviets mutual perceptions lagged behind, remaining rel‐ forced them to withdraw from Marshall Plan par‐ atively static. ticipation.

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Tatjana Tönsmeyer’s work complicates the (p. 202). Sokol was efectively Stalinized by the older notion of Slovakia as Nazi Germany’s pup‐ end of 1948. pet state. She highlights the ways Slovaks attempt‐ Jiří Kocian’s piece on Czech-Slovak relations ed to learn as much as they could from the Ger‐ from 1944 to 1948 recounts political relations be‐ mans while preventing Nazi meddling in issues tween the two regions’ political administrations, considered crucial to Slovak national interests. focusing on high politics and organizational be‐ When Nazi and Slovak concerns jibed, Slovak pol‐ havior rather than individual actions or decisions. icy followed Nazi dictates, for example with re‐ Like that of Jan Rychlik, Kocian’s essay summa‐ gard to . But Tönsmeyer’s story is rizes scholarship on this relationship and under‐ not one of simple Slovak obedience. She notes as scores one of the book’s leitmotifs: the fundamen‐ well the efect of internal Slovak political disputes tal distrust and lack of mutual understanding be‐ between and Vojtěch Tuka on Slovak- tween the Czechs and the state’s other nationali‐ Nazi relations: Tuka advocated an integral Slovak ties, such as the Slovaks and Germans. At no point more akin to Nazi ideology, while were the Czechs ever willing to fundamentally al‐ Tiso’s more traditional Slovak nationalism held ter the Czechoslovak state idea, which amounted anti-Semitic views which were somewhat less fa‐ in practice to rhetorical devotion to the ideals of natical or exterminationist. national equality while maintaining Czech domi‐ Mark Dimond’s ambitious essay on Sokol and nation. begins with the implicit antag‐ Zdeněk Radvanovský’s essay on the expulsion onism between Sokol’s nineteenth-century found‐ of the Germans from Czechoslovakia presents an ing fathers: Miroslav Tyrš’s Czech nationalism, old-fashioned Czech-nationalist perspective on based on national confict and competition, and this event, describing the Nazi invasion of March Jindřich Fügner’s hope that Sokol could transcend 1939 as the end of “the century-old struggle of a older divisions to become an inclusive, classless, Czech nation to preserve its freedom” (p. 218). His all-national organization. Tyršian integral nation‐ essay does not problematize the Czechoslovak na‐ alism dominated Sokol’s development, but was tional idea or grant legitimacy to Sudeten German mitigated by Tomáš Masaryk, who participated in complaints about the interwar : rather, Sokol slety (organized public gymnastic exhibi‐ he concludes that “alliance with the Nazi regime tions). Masaryk’s well-known eforts to position ... disqualifed the Sudeten Germans as potential himself as the emblem of the Czechoslovak idea partners in any future state arrangement” (p. and Czech nationhood were complemented by 219). His essay justifes the “transfers” by contex‐ Sokol’s desire to claim him as its own. Interwar tualizing them with regard to other population Sokol espoused politically moderate, if anti-Ger‐ transfers and highlights Allied participation, man, Czech nationalism. The war’s aftermath seemingly an efort to exculpate the Czechs by in‐ weakened Sokol in unexpected ways: the expul‐ voking other participants. He also discusses Nazi sion of the country’s Germans and the general wartime barbarity, implicitly praising the expul‐ fear of excessive nationalism removed the organi‐ sions’ efciency and humaneness by comparison. zation’s traditional raisons d’etre, and the Slovak In all, Radvanovský writes, “this was not just an Sokol desired greater autonomy. After July 1947, outburst of irrational anger but a measure which, when Stalin barred Czechoslovakia from partici‐ on the basis of Czech recent experience and Czech pating in the Marshall Plan, the Sokol moved from future hopes, could be justifed and rationally ex‐ a policy of “socializing democracy” to defending plained” (p. 225). Edvard Beneš would have democratic ideals that now seemed under threat agreed entirely, but Czech-, German-, and English-

4 H-Net Reviews language historiography have long disputed the ster its hold on the nation-state; Germans, Jews, points stated here as self-evident.[3] and Hungarians could never be full members of The book ends with Keith Robbins’s thought‐ that community” (p. 108). This emphasis repre‐ ful, semi-autobiographical piece, in which he con‐ sents an important and salutary shift away from templates Munich as a historical turning point for Cold War moralizing about Czechoslovakia as a Britain’s relationship to Europe throughout the democratic exemplar towards a historiography twentieth century. Robbins studied at Oxford with driven by archival analysis and exemplifed by the iconoclastic A. J. P. Taylor, who viewed Munich other recent work.[4] Historians are no longer try‐ as an afterefect of Versailles, which he saw as un‐ ing to make Czechoslovakia a hero on the histori‐ just and shortsighted. Taylor understood Munich cal stage. as a triumph of solid British realism rather than a Two critiques of this generally excellent vol‐ manifestation of cowardice, and wrote in 1957 ume are intended mainly as encouragement for that anyone supporting German reunifcation future researchers of the Czech lands, Slovakia, necessarily supported the . By and the region. The contributions here demon‐ the end of his scholarly career, Taylor had come strate how little we know of political Alltags‐ to see Munich as the last historical moment in geschichte in Czechoslovakia and east-central Eu‐ which international afairs would be controlled rope generally. Most of these essays focus on high by Europe, and the culmination of twenty years of politics and political organizations; scholars still demonizing or ignoring the reality of the Soviet know relatively little about the political world of presence. In his 1968 book Munich 1938 Robbins the ordinary First Republic citizen. Also, many presented Munich from an explicitly post-imperi‐ pieces here fail to incorporate even a paragraph al perspective in which Munich’s lessons were in‐ about the “nationalist and fascist Europe” of the ternally paradoxical: on the one hand to confront book’s title. The historical argument for Czecho‐ dictatorship wherever it was found, but on the slovakia’s signifcance rests in part on its place in other, pace Taylor, that global empires had to em‐ a problematic international order, not just in 1938 ploy realism rather than moralism when crafting or 1948 but from the moment of its birth. A com‐ foreign policy. Now, Robbins concludes, he inter‐ parative international context seems to deserve prets Munich as a moment of internal torment in more importance than it receives here. As we be‐ which Great Britain could not decide whether to gin to understand more about Czechoslovak histo‐ act as a European power or as a global one. ry in all its complexity, we need to know more Throughout, almost every author emphasizes about its place in a complex Europe as well. the signifcance of the interwar First Republic’s Notes refusal to treat its non-Czech/oslovak nationalities [1]. Milan Kundera, “Un Occident kidnappé ou as fully equal citizens--pace R. J. W. Evans’s lap‐ la tragedie de l'Europe centrale,” Le Debat 27 (No‐ idary comments that Czechoslovakism was a “de‐ vember 1983): 1-22. bilitating fction” (p. 2), that the First Republic [2]. Igor Lukes, “Ein nachrichtendienstliches needed “to place more weight on the unitary Versagen. Die Amerikaner und die kommunistis‐ ‘Czechoslovak’ idea than it could bear” (p. 114)-- che Machtergreifung in der Tschechoslowakei and the concomitant defects in its democratic 1948,” Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 54, no. practice. Catherine Albrecht ofers another useful 2 (2007): 201-236, and “The Czechoslovak Special summary when she writes that “the Czech nation Services and Their American Adversary during formed a unitary community which had the right the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. to pursue economic and cultural policies to bol‐ 1 (2007): 3-28.

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[3]. This is a large and growing literature in Cambridge University Press, 2005); Mary Czech, German, and English: what follows is just a Heimann, Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed sampling. Tomáš Staněk and Detlef Brandes have (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009); Peter done important work in this area: Staněk’s frst Heumos, ed., Heimat und Exil. book was Odsun Nemců z Československa Emigration und Rückwanderung, Vertreibung und 1945-1947 (Praha: Naše vojsko, 1991); more re‐ Integration in der Geschichte der Tsche‐ cently he has focused on concentration camps and choslowakei. Vorträge der Tagungen des Col‐ prisons in the Czech lands during and after the legium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee vom 20. bis 22. war, cf. Internierung und Zwangsarbeit. Das November 1992 und 19. bis 21. November 1993 Lagersystem in den böhmischen Ländern (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2001); Pieter 1945-1948 (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2007); Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Detlef Brandes, Der Weg zur Vertreibung, Language Frontiers of Imperial (Cam‐ 1938-1945: Pläne und Entscheidungen zum bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); "Transfer" der Deutschen aus der Tsche‐ Michal Kopeček, ed., Past in the Making. Histori‐ choslowakei und aus Polen (München: R. Olden‐ cal Revisionism in Central Europe after 1989 (Bu‐ bourg, 2001). Also see Richard G. Plaschka, ed., dapest and New York: Central European Universi‐ Nationale Frage und Vertreibung in der Tsche‐ ty Press, 2008); Andrea Orzof, Battle for the Cas‐ choslowakei und Ungarn 1938-1948: Aktuelle tle: The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe (New Forschungen (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Jan Rataj, O Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997); Philipp autoritatívní národní stát (Prague: Karolinum, Ther and Ana Siljak, Redrawing Nations: Ethnic 1997); Ivan Šedivý, Češi, české země a Velká válka Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948 (Lan‐ 1914–1918 (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, ham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2001); Philipp 2001); Veronika Sušová, “Být dobrým občanem: Ther and Jürgen Danyel, eds., Nach der Vertrei‐ občanská výchova a politicko-socializační process bung: Geschichte und Gegenwart einer kontrover‐ v předlitavských učebnicích v letech 1875–1918,” sen Erinnerung (: Metropol, 2005); Pertti in Petr Koura and Jan Randák, eds., Hrdinství a Ahonen, After the Expulsion: West Germany and zbabělost v české politické kultuře (Prague: Eastern Europe, 1945-1990 (Oxford and New York: Dokořán, 2008): 83-99; Nancy M. Wingfeld, Flag Oxford University Press, 2003); Pertti Ahonen, Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Gustavo Corni, Jerzy Kochanowski, Rainer Became Czech (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universi‐ Schulze, Tamás Stark, and Barbara Stelzl-Marx, ty Press, 2007); Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: Na‐ eds., People on the Move: Forced Population tional Indiference and the Battle for Children in Movements in Europe in the Second World War the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948 (Ithaca, NY: Cor‐ and its Aftermath (Oxford: Berg Publishers, nell University Press, 2008).

0 0 2008). 0 6 [4]. Another incomplete list, focusing on Eng‐ lish-language historiography: Feinberg and Glassheim, as described earlier in the review; also see Peter Bugge, especially “Czech Democracy 1918-1938: Paragon or Parody?” Bohemia 47, no. 1 (2006-2007): 3-28; many articles and edited vol‐ umes by Mark Cornwall; Benjamin Frommer, Na‐ tional Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collab‐ orators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (New York:

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Citation: Andrea Orzof. Review of Cornwall, Mark; Evans, Robert John Weston, eds. Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918-1948. HABSBURG, H-Net Reviews. March, 2010.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26400

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