Dušan Škvarna

Poles in Slovak journalism and politics from the 1830s to the 1860s

This paper sheds light on the perception of the Polish people, Polish politics, and their issues in Slovak journalism between 1830 and 1872. On the whole, the views were limited by the social opinions voiced by Slovak nationalists as well as by their interests and the general weakness of their National Movement. Slovak nationalists refused to accept political concepts that, on the one hand, supported the creation of nation states (by “large”nations such as Poland), and on the other hand, called for the assimilation of “small”nations living within them. This would spell the end of the Slavs and Romanians settled in Hungary, as Hungary would reform into one single national Hungarian state. Among all Austro-Slavs, the fear of “Magyarisation”contributed to the most intense and widespread Slavic solidarity and Russophilia in the Slovak-speaking environment. It also determined the difficult approach to the Polish issues. The Slovak nationalists sympathised with the Polish fate, however, at the same time, they had difficulties with accepting the Poland-Russia conflict. That is why we can find quite varied opinions of Poles and Polish issues. Idealising the Poles, Polonophilia, sympathising with Poles as regards their problems, careful and neutral views of those problems, efforts to limit the Poland-Russia conflict, and critical views of Poles were all entwined. For example, pro-Polish sympathies dominated in the Slovak National Movement in the 1830s, whereas in the 1840s the sympathies shifted towards Russia, despite the fact that some nationalists supported the Poles and their Uprising in Halych. The real Slovak-Polish co-operation can be seen particularly during the revolution in 1848–1849. Out of the Slovak political ideology emerged the Pan-Slavic work Slovanstvo a svet budúcnosti [Slavdom and the world of the future] by Ľ. Štúr, which combined the Slav perspective with the connections to Russia. The Polish issues were mainly present in the 1860s. During that time, the more conservative political wing, “Stará škola”[The Old School], was looking for support in the imperial Vienna, showing strong Russophilism and critical attitude to the Polish uprising. In contrast, the more liberal political line, “Nová škola”[The New School], striving for co-operation with Hungarian political parties, showed understanding for the Polish aversion and was critical of the imperial Russia. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the Slovak politics and culture considerably weakened. The interest in glossing over the problems of the northern neighbour also declined. The Polish issues re-entered Slovak journalism again after the 1890s in connection with analysing new geo-political affairs on the continent and polarisation of the European superpowers.