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Proquest Dissertations u Ottawa L'Universit6 canadienne Canada's university FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES 1= FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES u Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'University eaiiadienne Canada's university Juraj Hocman AUTEUR DE LA THESE / AUTHOR OF THESIS Ph.D. (History) GRADE/DEGREE Department of History FACULTE, ECOLE, DEPARTEMENT / FACULTY, SCHOOL, DEPARTMENT Slovakia from the Downfall of Communism to its Accession into the European Union, 1989-2004: The Re-Emergence of Political Parties and Democratic Institutions TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Mark Stolarik DIRECTEUR (DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS SUPERVISOR CO-DIRECTEUR (CO-DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE/THESIS CO-SUPERVISOR Carol Skalnik Leff (University of Eda Kranakis Illinois) Sylvie Perrier Vasilis Vourkoutiotis Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies SLOVAKIA FROM THE DOWNFALL OF COMMUNISM TO ITS ACCESSION INTO Ti|E EUROPEAN UNION, 1989-2004: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS by JURAJ HOCMAN Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in History Faculty of Arts Department of History University of Ottawa © Juraj Hocman, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliothgque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'6dition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-65570-2 Our file Notre r6f6mnce ISBN: 978-0-494-65570-2 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accord§ une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conform&ment a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie priv&e, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada 11 ABSTRACT "Slovakia from the Downfall of Communism to its Accession into the European Union, 1989-2004: the Re-Emergence of Political Parties and Democratic Institutions." Juraj Hocman, Professor Marian Mark Stolarik, August 2009 Department of History University of Ottawa Throughout the 1990s, several observers of the post-communist transformation in East Central Europe viewed the Slovaks as a non-historic nation hastily modernized during the communist era. Since it had been mostly invisible in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Slovak history appeared as ruptured and fragmented. Following the fall of the communist regime and the creation of the independent Slovak Republic, the country's image was primarily associated with radical nationalism, intolerance towards its minorities and an unstable domestic political scene. These were seen as major reasons for the detour in Slovakia's transformation to democracy in the mid-1990s. In the 2000s, western scholars re-examined the earlier interpretations of Slovak history that had stressed the compliance of Slovak society with Communism and its missing tradition in the state and institution-building processes. They came to the conclusion that stereotypes in the interpretations of Slovakia's transformation in the 1990s stemmed from unfamiliarity with the facts and preconceived methodological approaches. This dissertation examines Slovakia's evolution from the downfall of Communism (1989) to the accession of the independent Slovak Republic (1993) into the European Union (2004) from a broader historical perspective. It challenges the assumptions of political inexperience and passivity of Slovak society as major hindrances in the more recent phase of its evolution. It argues that the building of the Slovak political nation had iii started in Austria-Hungary and continued in Czechoslovakia under all its regimes. As a result, Slovak political parties and institutions as the main carriers of democratic transformation did not emerge in the early 1990s in a political and institutional vacuum. After the creation of the independent Slovak Republic, the focus of Slovak political elites switched from national emancipation to integration with the EU. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, the political parties in opposition, supported by the non- governmental sector and western democracies, defeated an illiberal regime ruling over Slovakia. In spite of the alleged historical deficits of Slovak society, this change was seen by many as a result of its sudden awakening. This dissertation suggests that Slovakia's transformation from a post-communist state to a democratic one, marked by the country's accession into the EU, can be better understood as a continuation of the processes that had begun in the mid-1960s, rather than as a result of the change of government in 1998. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank my supervisor Professor Marian Mark Stolarik, the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the Department of History, University of Ottawa, for access to his personal archives and library, for his help with my bibliography and valuable advice during the writing of the dissertation. Our discussions on the place of Slovaks in the history of East Central Europe led me to the decision to examine Slovakia's transition from Communism to democracy and to its accession into the European Union. Since a major part of my research was done from May to August of 2007 at the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, within the framework of the National Program of the Slovak Republic supervised by the Slovak Academic International Agency (S.A.I.A.), I am grateful to all of them for this excellent opportunity. At the Institute I discussed relevant parts of my project with Dr. Jozef Zatkuliak, an authority on federalism in Czechoslovakia, and with Dr. Stanislav Sikora and Dr. Miroslav Londak, experts on the political and economic history of Slovakia in the 1960s. Discussions with Dr. Dusan Kovac and Dr. Elena Londakova made me even more aware of the importance of key moments in the evolution of Slovak society, distant and recent. In my research I could always rely upon the support of Dr. Slavomir Michalek, the Director of the Historical Institute, and the friendly advice of his colleagues. Dr. Juraj Marusiak from the Institute of Political Science of the Slovak Academy of Sciences helped me to navigate through the bulk of the literature published in the Slovak and Czech Republics over the last couple of years. Professor Slavomir IV Ondrejovic, the Director of the Linguistic Institute of Eudovit Stur in Bratislava shared his views on the ethno-linguistic evolution of the Slovaks; for the way it is interpreted in this study I am solely to blame. I can still recall inspiring debates with Dr. Viktor Krupa, the retired Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, on interdisciplinary contexts of Slovak history linked to language and identity. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic was generous in allowing me to search documents in its Diplomatic Archives. Ambassador Vasil Grivna, the Director General of the Ministry's Section for Slovaks living abroad, and Dr. Otto Koci, the Director of the Diplomatic Archives, provided me with all the help I needed. In the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava, I studied documents related to the period from 1918 to 1948, for the records of Slovak political parties from the 1990s onward have not yet been made accessible for research. I am very thankful to Margaret and Pauline Ridzon for having received the Adela and John Ridzon Memorial Scholarship over the past four years. The Department of History at the University of Ottawa awarded me the Gaston Heon Research Scholarship, thus contributing to the possibility of my fieldwork in Slovakia. I also wish to thank the interviewees who shared with me their recollections of the events examined. The Aspen Institute in Washington has kindly granted me permission to quote from the internet article by Ruth Hoogland DeHoog and Luba Racanska dedicated to the democratization, civil society and non-profit organizations in the Czech and Slovak Republics. There are not enough words for expressing my gratitude to my wife Dagmar, who spent
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