The Czechoslovak Republic originated in a time which was characterized by Hugh Seton-Watson as "President Wilson's Age". It was assumed then that states would embody nations and that the people of each state would create a nation. The accepted conviction was that in the golden age of self-determination every nation would have its state⁽⁸¹⁾. These postulates and their multiple interpretations were destined to be projected into the foundations of the Czechoslovak state and the justification of its existence. This state, too, was constituted on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination, and it was built up as a unitary national state. Czechoslovakia as a nation state was favorably accepted by its western allies, above all due to strategic and political interests and aims of their own.

CZECHOSLOVAKISM: WHEN A STATE SHOULD BE A NATION

The Problem of Nation and State

Czechoslovakia, nevertheless, was not a national state, even when it acted as such on the international political level. The proclamation of a unitary political and, in this case, also ethnic nation was inevitable. Otherwise, it would have to be admitted that a multinational state, or a state with minorities, had arisen. The justification of the existence of such a state would be very complicated according to international law--especially the inclusion of more than 3 million Germans. Hence, since its origin, the conception of a unified nation has served the basic justification of the new unitary state on international and internal levels. Paradoxically, even this multinational state should become a "shining manifestation of the triumph of nationalism at the end of the World War I"⁽⁸²⁾. The doctrine of the unitary state/nation was not only state-creating, but could not be abandoned de iure, lest the existence of this new state be rendered fundamentally problematic.

Every state has to build upon a constructive, state-creating idea of itself in order to possess a deeply motivating justification of its own existence and continuity. Every such idea, however, becomes a basis for a state ideology through this very "functionality". However, ideology has also the specific feature of not being only a set of certain ideas, but above all the expression of a certain world view, the expression of concrete interests and aims--while at the same time veiling and mystifying them. This is a view of the world in a distorting mirror, whose victims are its authors themselves. Such an "ideologization" process took place in the formation of the foundations of the Czechoslovak state: its state-creating idea issued from the conception of a unified Czechoslovak nation which should have been anchored in a sense of spiritual and cultural mutuality and cooperation of Czechs and Slovaks.

Although the Czechoslovak idea should have been the originating idea of the new state, it had not been explicitly formulated before the state. As O.V. Johnson pointed out, the creation of the new state had not been accompanied by a clear delineation of the term "Czechoslovak", even though the idea of the common Czechoslovak nation had been discussed before World War I by T.G. Masaryk and his followers. Some interpreted it as a description of the given phenomenon, i.e., Czechoslovakia as a unitary nation state; others considered it a prescription for a linguistic-national unity which was under construction⁽⁸³⁾.

As a specific ideological phenomenon, Czechoslovakism wanted to build upon the tradition of mutual relations between the Czechs and Slovaks. The elements upon which Czechoslovakism wanted to build its own justification were: (a) the traditional feeling of mutual closeness deeply felt by the Slovak Protestants, (b) and the inevitability of cooperation after the break down of Austria-Hungary as the only way to preserve national existence. However, neither Czecho-Slovak solidarity nor common statehood as the result of a purposive decision of both national representations should or could really suffice as the basis for the Czechoslovak national unifying efforts.

It should be noted that the friendly relations between Czechs and Slovaks were, in the Slovak mind, a part of the conception of a higher Slavic whole and solidarity. D. Rapant, too, called attention to this important circumstance when he wrote "the principle of the Czecho-Slovak integration programme is not Czechoslovak but Slavic"⁽⁸⁴⁾.

On the other hand, the decisive step of the Slovaks at the rise of the common state in 1918 usually is not sufficiently appreciated; when they voluntarily united their own sovereignty with that of the Czechs, the Slovaks saw in this step the only real possibility to realize their own political will. Slovak representatives saw in the act of declaring the Czecho-Slovak state-political union a logical step on the way to the Slovak national and political emancipation.

The common state should be a space for the assertion of the Slovak nation as a partner with equal rights in a common life with the Czech nation and other nationalities. Soon after the creation of the Czechoslovak state, mutual cooperation became questionable due to the unwillingness of Czech policy to work on the principle of equal with equal, as supposed by the Cleveland and Pittsburgh agreements. The possibility of cooperation on equal terms was put aside by the tendentious activity of Czech politicians and supported by the loyalty of their Slovak seconds. The idea of a common state was deformed by politicians, including those from Slovakia, in their keen endeavor to stabilize the new state along the lines of the ideology of Czechoslovakism, which should be justified by a conception of Czechoslovak national unity.

Hoda: A Language Response

This conception stemmed from the traditional linguistic and cultural idea of the nation that had begun here in the time of National Awakening: Jungmann on the Czech side, Kollár on the Slovak side. From this tradition, nation was seen as a linguistic-cultural community, its primary sign being the language and national culture being its organizing principle. Nation as an organic whole should manifest its own specificity in its own national popular culture and language. As an objectively given entity, nation was considered a logical, inevitable result of the process of self-consciousness, a manifestation of the "Spirit of nation." This notion had been diffused in the region under the influence of German Romanticism.

One of the sources of the Czechoslovak national concept was this traditionalist concept of nation. Substantial differences between the Czechs and Slovaks were denied on its basis and the partisans of the construct tried to testify to their original linguistic and literary unity by piling up learned arguments.

Hence, the Slovak national emancipation movement appeared, from the point of Czechoslovak unity, as a voluntarism inspired by Hegelian idealism with a political orientation toward so-called Hungarism. The decisive step in the development of the Slovak national identity--the codification of literary Slovak--appeared, thus, as a wilful decision "to break-up the Czechoslovak language unity."⁽⁸⁵⁾

Language continued to be considered an identifying sign of the nation. It is characteristic that not the Czechoslovak nation, but the Czechoslovak language as state and official language was legislatively anchored in the Constitution of the first Czechoslovak Republic in 1920. On the other hand, positivistic scholars, confronted with the historical fact of the existence of a Slovak literary language and literature, tried to support Czechoslovak unity in history and literature by scientific argumentation (mainly A. Praák and V. Chaloupecký, professors at Bratislava University). They spoke of two branches and languages and, hence, had also to accentuate the spiritual and cultural attributes of the unified Czechoslovak nation.

Hoda and further "Czechoslovakists" only apparently overcame the narrow language frame within the concept of a unitary Czechoslovak nationality by considering the rise of a literary Slovak language as an historical fact (according to them, Slovak rose by a separation from the common literary language). Milan Hoda did not see independent literary Slovak as an essential step on the way to Slovak national emancipation and national identity formation, but only a "purely linguistic creation."⁽⁸⁶⁾ He supported his point of view by attributing nearly unconditional validity to the principle "of our organic coherence with Czech spiritual life." In this view, one of the main points of the Slovak national emancipation movement--the codification of the Slovak literary language--appeared as a fatal act on the politically motivated road to the Czecho-Slovak "separation". Hoda saw, in the independence of the Slovak language (as an "external" expression of the Slovak national individuality) "a matter of political purposefulness" and in the Czecho-Slovak "split", not an internal necessity, but a political intention (. túr's Slovak was a "politicum hungaricum".)

The conception of Czechoslovak national unity should be a synthesis of a linguistic cultural sense of nation with its self-conception as a voluntarily formed self-conscious civic community. In this concept, nation was a politically-conscious, active community of citizens, whose organizing principle was its political institutions and whose integrating factor was a political idea and, above all, an elaborated group-consciousness. This reflected the element of active co-creation by a nation as a national and political community, surpassing the narrow borders of ethnic wholes delimitated by language and culture. Such a comprehension of nation did not have, however, a sufficiently strong basis in Slovak tradition.

Anton tefánek: A Scientific Response

An attempt to form the above synthesis can be found in the writings of the sociologist Anton tefánek who devoted extraordinary attention to these problems. From the beginning of the 20s he expressed his opinion on the Czecho-Slovak question in several articles and studies discussing what he called "homoethnology" from the scientific sociological point of view.

tefánek endorsed a multidimensional grasp of nation, considering it an historically-shaped phenomenon. In his concept, nation is an organic whole, a "collective organism" with a dynamic rather than static character; it is a permanently developing "organism". He saw the development of nations as leading "in a concentrating or dissolving direction" and paid special attention, mainly from a sociological view point, to the problem of "association and isolation", to the historical process of "national integration, disintegration and reintegration."

Social development takes place in "differentiation and integration, which are conditioned by the tendency of ideal harmony, socialization and individualization."⁽⁸⁷⁾ tefánek stressed the negativism of isolation and pointed out that unifying, "acculturating, assimilating" forces acted against individualizing efforts. He saw the basic developmental tendency of human society to be a successive accumulation of social units into larger wholes. The process of social integration, which has a natural and spontaneous (but not rational) character, is valid for nations, as well.

He stressed the will in the formation of social structures and, hence, endorsed the voluntarist concept of nation mainly from the aspect of the will to national unity. The nation-building process as an integrating one is initiated by the will and group-consciousness: a feeling of community coherence or in-group feelings represent one of the central ideas of tefánek's sociological conception. Cooperation, acculturation, congeniality (or syngenesis), and consciousness of community should help to overcome isolation, particularity, and a sense of tribe, just as romantic emotional nationalism which stresses the diversity of languages. tefánek recognized stress upon language as an objective sign of a nation, but he assumed that overcoming language differences would bring a solution to the difficulties of the separation of related wholes. Thus, for him, Czechoslovak bilingualism was the way to overcome isolation.

He constructed his formulation of the Czechoslovak national ideal of unity upon the conviction that development aimed at greater social wholes by an associative universalistic "instinct", whereas, nationalism expressed an individualizing instinct. His ideal of unity was based, also, on an internal articulation and a certain "gradation of national wholes", and upon group-consciousness in the presupposition that the unitive process was spontaneous. Similarly, like others who held this position, he stressed that it was founded on rational, scientific knowledge; the thesis of the integration of smaller social units into the larger ones being among the fundamental theses of his social theory. He would not found it on sentimentality, regionalism and particularism, without scientific explanations by rational knowledge--he ascribed this to those who preached Slovak national distinctiveness. Yet his own nearly systematic effort to justify this idea in a scientific way conflicts with his own criticism of tendentious science and his effort to demythologize the concept of nation. All the same, he made an essential contribution to the theoretical construction of the concept of a fictitious Czechoslovak nation.

He advocated an active "evolutionist view", according to which the Czechoslovak nation was an organism in formation. He examined the possibilities of this "aggregate" and justified the legitimacy of this artificial construction in a series of papers. tefánek wanted to approach the problems of nation and nationalism scientifically from a sociological point of view and, simultaneously, to find a solution for the "Czechoslovak problem". For him, these were the themes of his studies of . túr's philosophy: Slovak autonomism and conservativism, as well as the problem "of isolation and association in the national sense," etc. He was convinced his own activities were promoting objective development toward a Czecho-Slovak "synthesis" or "integration".

He was partly aware of the deficiencies "of the new creation of Czechoslovak nationalism" and conceded that it was "too rational configuration, practical and utilitarian, with nearly no traditions in its present form." Yet, he was convinced that it already existed and "were it not to exist, we must create it and graft it into the hearts of future generations."⁽⁸⁸⁾

According to tefánek, the Czechs and Slovaks are one nation from a sociological, historical, linguistic, and ethnographic point of view, the historical continuity of which "was only seemingly interrupted". Social development in the direction of integration should be a basis for Czecho-Slovak efforts at unity. As a political body a nation has to crystallize "naturally into a unitary ethnic whole and this must be our ideal for future centuries." According to tefánek, "apart from the purely tribal Slovak nationalism, we must love, cultivate and create Czechoslovak nationalism, i.e., the organic synthesis of all the elements of Czech and Slovak national culture."⁽⁸⁹⁾

tefánek tried hard to motivate the conception of Czecho-Slovak national unity on the basis of his own interpretation of tendencies toward social development and, thus, to promote the formation of a Czechoslovak state. In this spirit, he was an active participant in the political events of the pre-Munich Republic. "The idea of Czecho-Slovak national unity became the basis of our new state. This is its raison d'etre, which contains everything required as a basis for the national Czecho-Slovak state. The moment we become estranged from this, the disintegration, including that of the state, will follow" he proclaimed by the Parliament in the Prague.⁽⁹⁰⁾

Actual social development, however, showed that in practice the attempt to promote the Czechoslovak idea as a higher integrative principle of the new state had no success. Like the theory of a unified Czechoslovak nation, it remained an unsuccessful attempt to synthesize two conceptions of nation: one linguistic-cultural, the other state-political. Besides, as Jan Patoka showed, the tragedy of the Czechoslovak state was "a tragedy of democratism not being thought to the end", because it failed to raise elemental democratism to a supranational state idea by placing it above the narrow linguistic nationalism of individual nationalities.⁽⁹¹⁾

Svätopluk túr: An Unanswered Response

Other representatives of the intelligentsia, grouped around the revue Prúdy (1922-1938), also defended the conception of the unitary Czechoslovak nation. Svätopluk túr acknowledged Masaryk's philosophy and stressed its ideas regarding the problems of nation reflected in his collected lectures: Národní filosofie doby novjí (National Philosophy of Recent Times, 1904). The objective characteristics of a nation, according to Masaryk, are language, state, and the political, economic, and social situation, along with the personal components of spiritual culture, above all morality. For túr, these surpass national borders and point in a properly universal dimension.

He saw language as an important component of nation, not only as a means but also as a "rare instrument with many strings." Correspondingly, speech is "the expression and content of our soul in its totality."⁽⁹²⁾ As such, language overcomes national barriers and the sphere of the interest of a nation. Upon superficial examination, language appears to be a primary sign of nationality, but this would be to regard it abstractly, for, with the help of language, we also attain universal aims.⁽⁹³⁾ Other spheres, such as art, science and philosophy, are also an expression of tendencies towards universalism. They, too, are expressions of permanently transcending the borders of a nation and have a human basis. He wrote, "If art can perhaps be national in a certain case, science and philosophy must always be universal without fail, because they loose their scientific character the moment we make them national."⁽⁹⁴⁾

First of all, morality stands above nations and nationalities as a "firm, all-human, unitive force." túr stressed that "ethics is decidedly antinational, because it is all-human". Morality cannot take on a national standpoint, because this standpoint always contains an element of "national egoism." "Ethics must not know differentiation by nation differentiations; it is the highest, most comprehensive human value, a universal value that most powerfully breaks the borders and manacles of nationality today."⁽⁹⁵⁾

By stressing the ethical standpoint, túr wanted to show a possible way to harmonize national and moral principles on the basis of universal humanism. "If we work out ethics as a criterion of human life and its highest values, we come necessarily to the negation of nationality differences as values and toward the unity of the whole of mankind."⁽⁹⁶⁾ He moved, however, on a level of ideas, postulates and projects, but not of genuine life conditions, thus rejecting Radl's view of the phenomenon of nation as socially conditioned. He rightly criticized the romantic nationalism of the nineteenth century and its new variants, but did not comprehend the consequences of the modernization processes taking place in Slovak society and in the dynamics by which the modern Slovak nation or nationality was formed. Hence he sharply rejected contemporary Slovak nationalism and political autonomist, describing it as Romantism based upon a destructive dogmatic tendency.

For him, the soil for national activism and the "content of our new life" were the spiritual spheres of art, science and ethics. Nationality "must be lived honestly to the very foundations!" Pathetically, he proclaimed and invoked the birth of a new nationality issuing from a sense of the unity of the human race, and of the fate of all mankind. It is no longer thinkable that a "nationality would not be suffused with universal human ideals;" chaos and disharmony should be overcome in a grandiose synthesis. In such a hope, he pronounced the conviction that "there are no longer borders between nationalism and universalism; they merge together and cover each other in a mighty initial agreement on a new, painfully conquered harmony and unity of the whole world."⁽⁹⁷⁾ He postulated a principle of wholeness and synthesis for this sphere. That is why he stressed several times that "the question for us today--with all of its seriousness--is the synthesis of individualism and collectivism, of nationalism and universalism."⁽⁹⁸⁾

From his global view of modern development, túr believed that the dusk of Romanticism and the platitudes of rationalicism had been surmounted by a "new European spirit." "We realize fully that we have to carry to completion the process of democratization which English empiricism inaugurated early in the eighteenth century and find a synthesis between reason and sentiment, between nationality and humanity."⁽⁹⁹⁾

According to túr, in the Czechoslovak Republic, national language and cultural preservation should no longer be considered morally significant patriotic deeds. Speech and art could be diverted from their mission of national awakening and inspiration; culture should find itself new ways to develop. It is important to absorb the modern European spirit and, at the same time, to express "the genius of the race."

We feel that the year 1918 has not merely brought us national freedom, but also has laid upon us the duty of recasting all our national ideals and interests in a European mould. . . We must emerge from behind our narrow national frontiers and become conscious members of the European commonwealth.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

In spite of the fact that túr felt very intensively the disharmony of contemporary contradictions, he did not succeed in overcoming the abstract character of his own humanism. As a variant of secularized humanism it refused to strike root in the transcendent; in this, he was estranged from Masaryk and his synergism. túr turned away from the real contradictions and referred to the ideality of what should be. Such a humanism can be appreciated for its purity and appeal: the formation of a modern democratic society as an open pluralistic community is inseparable from its foundations in universal human values. Their validity and moral force, however, must be projected to the level of concrete relations and the real life of individuals and of the national community.

As a nation, Slovaks and Slovak society were creatively engaged at that time not only in cultural and spiritual manifestations of their own capabilities, but also in the development of political institutions. Slovaks entered a new stage in the dynamics of the modernization process and were challenged to form a developed national and civic community. This community had to create new value structures, open to human values and, simultaneously, to create the specific forms of these within their own national culture.

The intelligentsia, working in terms of Czechoslovakism (tefánek, túr), seemed to underestimate this challenge. Their attempt at a new creation of a higher Czechoslovak national whole was not successful. The postulate of universal humanism, not having been artificial, projected into the topical needs of the national community, had not to justify the construction of an artificial "Czechoslovak nation"; in the end, they served the ideological aims of Czechoslovakism.

Supporters of Czechoslovakism proclaimed the need to fulfill this ideology. Although at heart most of them were just as good Slovaks as were the partisans of Slovak nationalism, the idea of Czechoslovak nationality rendered questionable the identity of a distinct Slovak nationality and undermined the possibilities for success of the Slovak national-emancipation movement.

A SLOVAK STATE

Liberal and democratic ideals often have been associated with Czechoslovak statehood and with the "state-forming" idea of a Czecho-Slovak national unity. Consequently, a rejection of all the components of the official ideology of the pre-Munich republic arose in the opposing Slovak national group. At the end of the 30s, after Munich and the rise of the Slovak State, liberalism and democracy were rejected together with that part of the intelligentsia which was its supporter and propagandist.

With the rise of the Slovak state the national idea was perverted into a state-creating ideology. The rejection of Czechoslovakism and political autonomy required a positive national programme. The Slovak State, defining itself as a national state, needed an idea warranting its existence and political identity. But a state ideology or doctrine had to be constructed on other foundations than the ideology of the pre-Munich republic, since democracy had been rejected along with Masaryk's formulation of the humanistic ideal as the bearer of the idea of the Czechoslovak state.

Nationalism Absolutized

In order to avoid the one-sidedness of individualism and of étatism the basis of this ideology was an absolutized idea of totality. The totality of the nation (not the state!) and concentration upon the principle of unity were to be the leading motifs of the organization of social life and of political practice. The Party should be the exclusive representative of the Slovak nation and the bearer of Slovak nationalism, or, as J. Tiso had already written in the 30s, "one nation, one party, one leader for a unified progress of all forces in the service of one nation."⁽¹⁰¹⁾

The function of state-creating ideology had to be fulfilled by a nationalism associated with the ideals of Christianity. The ideologist of the Slovak State, . Polakovi, often paraphrasing statements of the "Leader of the Nation", J. Tiso, proposed that nationalism was an organic component of the Christian worldview. He saw the natural mission and sense of the Slovak State as able to offer a model of Christian nationalism.⁽¹⁰²⁾

The declared linkage of the national idea with Christianity was projected in the effort to provide this nationalism with a transcendental dimension. The vision was that of service to the whole, the nation, with an aim that projected into the transcendent. Such a Christian totalitarianism could no longer put the nation or state at the centre, but an "everlasting person" and, by its intermediary, God. To eliminate the negative totalitarian elements, this perspective had to be based on the Christian tradition of the Slovak nation and provide an authoritative socio-political system.

The Slovak intelligentsia, raised in the atmosphere of the liberal-democratic regime, was confronted in the 30s with an official form of Czechoslovak nationality, as well as with the task of forming a distinct Slovak nationality and its manifestation in politics and ideology. As a consequence of the unsolved Slovak question, a noticeable group opposed the policy of the Prague centralism and the ideology of Czechoslovakism. Nevertheless, because they accepted the ideas of democracy and humanity, they did not enter "into the service of the leadership of the New Slovakia" at the time of the Slovak state.⁽¹⁰³⁾

The part of the intelligentsia which did acknowledge the regime of the Slovak State was confronted with the task of formulating the problems of nation and nationalism on a theoretical level. Along with studies and papers by several authors, such as . Polakovi, M. Chladný-Hano, A. Jurovský, et al., special attention was paid to all those problems by the representatives of the Slovak philosophical community in the workshop of Matica Slovenska's Philosophical Department held in Nitra on June 5, 1943.

Several interpretations of the notion of "nationalism" are encountered in this discussion. A. Jurovský, a psychologist, defined nationalism as an ideology, i.e., a practical, personal, lived philosophy of an individual determining his views and activities, his relation to the nation, his thinking, feeling and willing in relation to the "given facts of nation", in various spheres of social life. A.J. urjanský, a Neo-Thomist, stressed the ethical aspect, understanding nationalism as a multiform activity arising from the love of nation. A. Hirner, a sociologist, defined it as a matter of principles of sociability occurring at two psychological levels: subconscious experience, inclinations, and feelings, including mottos and the passive reception of practical consequences; and conscious regulation, programmes, points of view, feelings and activities in favor of the nation. J. Dieka, a philosopher, saw that nationalism is a summary of the tendencies a nation evokes in us as a value. He distinguished between a natural and a totalitarian or extreme nationalism. Thus the nation was considered a sociological, actual, empirically-given fact; nationalism was seen as a reality we experience above all psychologically.

The leitmotif of the discussion was the questions of the relation between nationalism and Christianity, between the national idea and humanism. Representatives of the more or less official Christian philosophy were obliged to formulate their relation to nationalism as an ideology, as well as to humanism as a universal human idea. They tried to bridge and harmonize the contradictions with love of nation linked with Christianity, which was universal and consequently supranational. But they did not reject national values which also were a work of the Creator and a form of implementing Christian love of neighbor. The religious philosopher, A.J. urjanský, considered this to be the main object of nationalism ("národovectva") as active love of nation.

The question: "faith or nation?" was replied to in various ways. Some considered religion a higher value than nation or nationality, which some were willing to "sacrifice" for religion. A. Hirner insisted that this was the case of "adjoined values." urjanský, seeing religion as a higher value than nation, wrote: "The Christian worldview includes natural national values, too, but it does not destroy them. On the contrary, it puts them on a higher basis, giving them a supranatural objective within the whole of human life" ⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

The participants in the discussion stressed the non-contradiction between nationalism "as an ideology" and Christianity as a world outlook, considering nationalism or "národovectvo' as love of nation to complement the more universal love in Christianity. Such a distinction and supplementary relation, no matter how understandable and justified, did not examine the actual problem of the relation of nationalism and humanism.

Extreme Nationalism Relativized

If this problem became a topic at a theoretical level, it was still more pressing at the level of practice with regard to the relation between nationalism as a state ideology and democracy. The contradiction reappeared repeatedly in the political and social practice of the authoritarian Slovak regime. This appeared in its tendencies towards: (a) a national chauvinism, e.g., the justified criticism of Czechoslovakism became an extreme rejection of all that was Czech; (b) an exclusive monopoly of ideas and a related intolerance, e.g., rejection of Masaryk's realism, while the positivism, relativism and skepticism of modern thinking and science, as well as nonreligious tendencies in thought were pushed to the margin; and (c) strengthening the authoritative counterdemocratic mode of government, e.g., not only were liberalism and individualism rejected but a principle of authoritative leadership was constituted against any pluralism in the exercise of power. Threats to nationalism were seen in such ideologies as liberalism, socialism and Communism which menaced the Christian worldview, whereas the promotion of nationalism as a state ideology was seen to support that worldview. All these factors contributed to the intensification of trends towards totalitarian nationalism, which depended upon a supposed superiority of the values of the nation and state.

J. Dieka challenged the absolutizing of the nation as the highest value, examining it from the point of view of ontology and value theory. The value of the nation, like all else, is determined by its relation to the absolute value as the highest norm. The value hierarchy ranks from individual to nation, then to mankind, and finally to the Absolute. Hence, the nation is not the highest value, and nationalism should be surpassed, for humanity is a broader basis of human community. "We, therefore, consider the struggle against humanity equally antichristian as the struggle against a natural nationalism"⁽¹⁰⁵⁾. If Jurovsky classified the idea of pure humanity as "abstract" and, consequently, gave preference to nationalism over humanity, urjanský showed that the idea of being human is a higher value than that of nation. Mankind can reach this "through the historical reality of national differentiation."⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ Other authors, too, objected to the exaggeration of the national over the human, though convinced that a moderate nationalism is a natural component of a Christian worldview, and, thus, was ethically possible, useful and even necessary.

However, in implementing the national idea in practical life they were even confronted with the question of morality and obligation at a time when, under the aegis of national ideology, humanitarian principles and Christian humanism were being restricted in political practice. The question arose whether and how it was possible to overcome the contradictions between the maxims of humanism included in Christianity and the egoistic particularism connected in thought and deed with nationalism.

It was pointed out by A. Hirner that to a certain degree nationalism was a sort of egoism. It is a socializing factor which makes the individual a part of a larger whole, but it is limited by its own interests, often opposed to those of other national groups. Nationalism depends upon the specificity and individuality of a nation and, thus, inevitably arrives "at the experience of foreignness in contrast to all that is not nationally homogenous". That is why a humanitarian "arbitrator" is necessary in order for national individuals to be brought into line. "It is only natural that this cannot be the hegemony of one nation, even if strong."⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

National egoism is a phenomenon which accompanies totalitarian nationalism and is not far from chauvinism and racial hatred, noted J. Dieka. All participants in the discussion rejected this kind of nationalism as the sole exclusive norm of human social practice. It examines the relation of individual and society only "sub specie nationalitatis", pursuing the welfare exclusively of its own nation. It attributes to the nation a special historical mission and a privileged status among nations, which puts the nation into incessant conflict with the ethical principles of true humanity. The rejection of a totalitarian view of nationalism reflected the conviction in the meeting that extreme nationalism was fundamentally incompatible with a Christian worldview.

CONCLUSION

The open articulation of critical reservations at the time when the international and domestic political situation was controlled by totalitarian leaders had particular significance. The official ideology in practice set about synthesizing nationalism and totalitarianism. But one should not underestimate the efforts of a part of the intelligentsia to harmonize the ideas of nationality and humanity. This manifests not only a "colorful totality", but especially further rifts in the "leaky totalitarianism"⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ of the ruling regime.

A tendency towards totalitarianism is inherent in extreme forms of nationalism. Nevertheless, there is now, once again, a need to seek ways to harmonize, on the one hand, high regard for national uniqueness, the values of a nation and its culture, and, on the other hand, universal human ideas, norms and values. The idea of nationality has become once again one of the decisive factors of our history. It provides a feeling of solidarity between individual and group, active participation in political life, and closer creative cultural contacts, allowing at the same time for both distinctiveness and unity.

Nationality, however, must not be conceived as an absolute value, the center and source of all human activity and life. Its horizon needs to broaden to include supranational, universal human interests and values, cultural and spiritual ideas aimed at strengthening the liberty and dignity of man, and better and more humane relations between peoples.

The Insitute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences,

Bratislava