« The nation will not be distributed by decadent plutocracy! »

The United States has held a specific place in the life of Slovak society long before they became a global player in international relations. In the past, the stories of « America », as a distant country behind the Atlantic among people spoke, in the past evoked mostly positive associations. Until it two non -democratic regimes, ruling in Slovakia in 1938 – 1945 and 1948 – 1989.

At the end of the 19th century America was building a reputation for a dynamic prosperous country in Europe. After the Civil War between the North and the South and the short period of reconstruction, the epoch of Gilded Age and the progressive era (Progressive Era) started to start the US conversion into economic superpower.

Working opportunities open thanks to the so -called second industrial revolution attracted millions of immigrants to the ocean, including about 1.5 million economic migrants from Hungary. It is estimated that until the outbreak of the First World War, over 600,000 of this number was Slovaks. They have been temporarily or permanently settled primarily in industrial areas (States of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Ohio), where diaspora communities have gradually emerged.

Although the US after the Great War by the laws of 1921 and 1924 limited the influx of mass migration, nor could the introduced quotas could interrupt the ties of American Slovaks with their homeland, which became part of the newly established Czechoslovak Republic in October 1918. They worked on the multi -layer level. At the same time, communication channels with family and friends shaped the American image in Slovakia.

US reflection in Slovakia before falling into the German sphere of influence

The largest part of the Slovaks settled in America permanently. Despite the difficult working conditions (Slovaks often worked in coal mines, factories or construction sites) and demanding adaptation in the new environment (foreign language and culture) generally in the reflections of the new homeland dominated pluses above minuses. Perhaps that is why the bold prerequisites of the chairman of the Slovak League in America Albert Mamatey, who expected to re -migate 100,000 Slovaks from the USA after the establishment of Czechoslovakia (only more than 31,000) returned from the USA (in 1919-1930).

Since Czechoslovakia was not satisfactorily dealing with a difficult social issue, the trend of emigration to the US and other overseas states also continued on the basis of positive references from relatives. In the range of 1924 to 1935, Slovakia left 85,298 people in this direction, most of the most of all countries of the First Republic (Moravia and Silesia 14 359, Carpathian Rus 10 926 and Bohemia 9 004).

US President Woodrow Wilson in the New York port of July 8, 1919 after his return from peace negotiations in Paris. It was his 14-point plan that significantly helped Slovakia as part of Czechoslovakia for the first time on the map of Europe. (Source: Wikimedia.org)

Slovak intelligence at home realized that despite the negative demographic influences, leaving for America was a single way out of the desperate situation for many families. Therefore, the depopulation of Slovakia did not attribute to the US, but to the parent states of emigrants, Hungary and later Czechoslovakia. On the contrary, the cultural and political elite in Slovakia in the interwar period kept relatively cordial attitudes to America.

Leaders across the political spectrum recognized that without the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, Czechoslovakia, to which most parties were reported, did not arise in 1918. As a sign of gratitude even in the expatriate and legionary environment just after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, it was considered to rename this American President Metropolis of Slovakia – former Prešporok, later (since March 1919 I officially) Bratislava.

But not only the right to self -determination to the small nation of the extinct monarchy, promoted by Wilson’s program of the so -called. Fourteen points, bearing merit on the positive image of the US in Slovakia of the 20th and 30s. Slovak autonomists, led by people, also looked at America as a friendly country. Two program documents – Cleveland (October 22, 1915) and the Pittsburgh Agreement (May 30, 1918) were adopted on her land, from which they derived their key political requirements. Slovakia and America also bridged the expatriate associations and organizations that massively supported autonomists. On the one hand, morally and, which is important, also financially.

The Poster of 1918, which called on American Slovaks and other US citizens for a collection for Czechoslovak legionnaires. (Source: Wikimedia.org)

When the chairman of the Hlinka Slovak People’s Party Andrej Hlinka needed to get a financial injection for his popular opposition movement, he directed it to America in 1926 in 1926. He appreciated generous support from compatriots. It was literally vital for HSLS. Gifts from American Slovaks helped the party to survive economically, as the « government trough » remained in the coalition (January 1927 – October 1929) for people with the exception of less than three years). This is one of the reasons why Hlinka of the US was singing in his newspaper articles as « free land » or « the free land of Great America ».

The American line finally closed Hlinka’s political life. Despite the advanced illness, he collected the remnants of forces and during a visit to the Slovak League delegation in America in Slovakia with an increased copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in June 1938 he last performed in public with a speech on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the signing of this document, whose content during Hlinka’s life did not enter into practice.

« If we, dear brothers American, did not have who we should? (…) you did not leave us and did not betray us. You are with us in one front IV these most critical times. Thank you on behalf of the nation.

Diploma of the Slovak League in America to compatriots who contributed financially to the liberation of Slovakia, issued in Pittsburgh in March 1919 (Source: Wikimedia.org)

Hlinka’s overall friendly relationship with America was reflected in the opinions of party colleagues. The cult personality of the HSLS was not polemis – Hlinka determined the line. In the horizon of his life, which died out on August 16, 1938, there was no current or individual voices of the US programmatical voices among the people. The White House didn’t even give a reason. Americans, only slowly smashing from the Great Depression, were still involved only selectively in European political affairs at that time.

The concentration to excite the paralyzed economy through the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as persistent isolationism in the field of international relations, leaning on Monroe’s doctrine, pushed the US direct engagement on the old continent outside the priority package. Where objectively not to feel the essential presence of a foreign state, there is hard to arise negative emotions towards it.

Andrej Hlinka liked to turn to American compatriots and the US as a free country (source: wikimedia.org)

Creep forward: Cooking of subliminal anti -Americanism

However, the lower degree of priorization of European development did not mean that Americans would completely lose interest in Europe or, in particular, rampage in its center caused by Nazi expansion.

At the turn of 1938/1939, the US Department of Foreign Affairs, through its in Czechoslovakia, obtained relatively detailed reports of the events in the decomposing state. The reports of the Ambassador to Prague Wilbur J. Carr, as well as the reports of his Secretary George F. Kennan, broken up an overview of Washington on what is happening in this corner of Europe and participated in co -forming the attitude of the US administration to the space after the events of March 1939.

Kennan, later star of American diplomacy with a fundamental impact on the creation of US foreign policy strategies during Cold Warhe noticed the decline of democracy, growing anti -Semitism, voluntary self -examination of Slovakia into German guardianship and the low level of competence of political collenitures since October 1938, resulting from their inexperience.

The newly formed Slovak state, which he visited and intelligently monitored until the attack on Poland, allegorically resembled the dog on the leash. Slovakia, as Kennan wrote, enjoyed a certain degree of freedom, but only as his gentleman allowed him – if he tries to run out of the route, he will pull it back.

The autonomist movement led by the HSLS enjoyed the support of the management of the Slovak League in America, whose delegation brought a copy of the human “Magny Charter” to Bratislava in June 1938, a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement. (Source: Slovak National Archive (SNA), f. Slovak Press Office (STK))

This can be deduced that the US administration has not received March events in Central Europe with understanding. The dismissive opinion was expressed by the Memorandum of the Summer Welles State Department of March 17, 1939, which was literally described by the breakage of Czecho-Slovakia as « arbitrary injustice ». Despite the efforts of Slovak diplomats in European countries that the Slovak state recognized, it was not changed.

The axiom of Roosevelt’s administration was adamant: if the US does not recognize the disintegration of Czechoslovakia, even geographical neoplasms in its territory cannot recognize. American diplomacy considered the development to be temporary, clearly supported the later Czechoslovak exile government and allowed Czechoslovak ambassador Vladimir Hurban to remain in Washington as a diplomatic representative of the state that continued to exist in its perception.