Andrej Hlinka

Andrej Hlinka ( born September 27, 1864 in Černová, now part of Ružomberok; † August 16, 1938 in Ružomberok ), a Slovak politician and Catholic priest, one of the most important Slovak personalities of the First Czechoslovak Republic, the founder and until his death was Chairman the Slovak people's Party (1913-1938), from 1924 papal chamberlain and in 1927 apostolic prothonotary.

Life

Andrej Hlinka was born on 27 September 1864 as one of nine children of a family in Černová rafters. There he attended elementary school and then from 1877-1880 a Piarist school in Ružomberok, where he definitely decided to become a priest's office. 1881-1883 studied at the Hlinka higher secondary school in Levoča. In 1883 he was admitted as a cleric at the seminary of the Spis Chapter, where he completed his theological studies in 1889, and then worked as a pastor in several cities, most recently in Ružomberok.

Early on, he began his political activities in the Christian Democratic People's Party ( Ludova strana ), which was headed by Count Zichy. When the party abandoned the principle of national tolerance and the propagated by the Hungarian state power Magyarization Slovakia joined, Hlinka resigned from her and became one of the main spokesmen of the Slovak People's Party (Slovenská Ludova strana ). In 1897 he became editor of the magazine " People News " ( Ludove noviny ), founded in 1906, the Slovak People's Bank ( Ludova banka ) and 1910, the Slovak publishing cooperative in Bratislava.

In 1907, he was sentenced as a result of the massacre of Černová total to 2 years and 9 months in prison. There he discussed with the later Hungarian communist leader Béla Kun and was also active as an author and translator of religious writings. After Hlinka was declared innocent by the Holy See, the Hungarian authorities had him finally release her.

In 1918, Andrej Hlinka became a member of the newly formed Slovak National Council and initially supported the ideology of the unified Czechoslovak nation, of which he, however, soon turned away. In the same year the new Slovak People's Party, whose chairman he was created. As such, he went with a delegation of his party in the summer of 1919, to Paris, to be submitted to the Peace Conference, the demands of the People's Party after substantial autonomy for his homeland. After his return he was interned by the Czech authorities on charges of treason for 7 months in Bohemia.

In 1924 he was appointed papal chamberlain and in 1927 the prothonotary. In 1925 his party " Hlinka's Slovak People's Party " took the name ( Hlinkova Slovenská Ludova strana, HSĽS ), and until his death Hlinka was its chairman, chief ideologue and chief representative. From 1918 to 1938 he was leader of the HSĽS Group in Parliament.

After a serious illness Andrej Hlinka died on 16 August 1938 in his birthplace Černová. His body was first buried in the cemetery in Ružomberok and solemnly transferred to the mausoleum on 31 October 1938. Before the invasion of the Red Army in 1945, his body was taken to an unknown location until today.

Ideology

As a Slovak nationalist Andrej Hlinka sat in the Kingdom of Hungary for exempting the Slovaks of the Magyar rule and for a common state with the " Czech brother people" one. The definitive secession of Slovakia from the Kingdom of Hungary in 1918, he commented on his famous sentence:

" The thousand -year marriage with the Magyars did not succeed! "

His ideology was characterized by patriotism / nationalism, clericalism and anti-communism. As a Catholic priest, he had a difficult relationship particularly to the Social Democrats. At its election victory in Czechoslovakia in 1920 Hlinka was announced:

"I 'm going to work 24 hours a day until the Slovakia Slovakia converts from a red to a white Christian and Slovakia. "

Some authors think that he was also an anti-Semite, others think that he was quite the opposite even been friendly to Jews; as he spoke, for example, in August 1936 during a conversation with the vice chairman of the Jewish party, Matej Weiner, as follows:

"I am not an enemy of the Jews, the political party whose leader I am, is not anti -Semitic. Anti-Semitism is not our program. As a Catholic priest I am aware of the great moral, religious and historical significance of Judaism for the entire civilized world, particularly for Christianity. "

On the day of Hlinka's death on 16 August 1938, the Jewish newspaper Bratislava Židovské noviny wrote about Hlinka:

" ... The relationship between him and the Jews was sincere and heartfelt. He valued his Jewish fellow citizens and as pastor, he proclaimed religious tolerance. "

According to an article, however, SZ- inflammatory slogans against Jews, Hungarians and Czechs are narrated by Hlinka. Others are of the opinion that he was influenced even as representative of the rights of fascism. As the main representative of the Slovak autonomists Hlinka rejected vehemently the propagated from Prague's central government Czechoslovakism and centralism in the state administration, whose result was a dominance of Czech in Slovakia. Nevertheless, he remained by his own admission always a staunch Pan-Slavist.

Under the slogan "national autonomy" demanded the recognition of the Slovak Hlinka (not just the Czechoslovak ) nation and languages, Slovak should be declared the sole official language of Slovakia. In addition Hlinka called for Slovakia own legislative parliament in Bratislava as well as a ministry for Slovak Affairs in Prague. During a Slovakian Youth Congress in 1932, he stated that he wanted to pursue the Slovak thing " even at the cost of the Republic". According to the historian Jörg K. Hoensch Nevertheless to doubt that an adherence Hlinka in a joint Czech- Slovak state until his death hardly because this statement Hlinka faced to 1938, numerous statements and actions showing an affirmation of Czechoslovakia as a state.

Until his death fought Andrej Hlinka and his party for an ethnically defined (not international law ) autonomy of Slovakia, as she had been promised the Slovaks of President Masaryk in Pittsburgh Agreement. Many have been reports that he and his party, however, have pursued an anti-state policy, which aimed at a Slovak cleavage from the Czechoslovak state. The fact is that never formulated the Slovak People's Party until the end of the First Republic of secession in its party program. Also quotes from Hlinka as

"Our homeland, the Republic of Czechs and Slovaks, we are to tell no promises and benefits at any price. "

Speak against efforts to secession. And had received as Hlinka in the spring of 1938, a visit from a Sudeten German delegation Karl Hermann Frank, nothing concrete was agreed over a break-up of Czechoslovakia. Hlinka criticized the persecution of Christians in Nazi Germany and commented on Hitler, he was a "cultural beast". The Chairman of the allies of the People's Party in the so-called autonomy - block Slovak National Party, Martin Rázus, expressed in the Czechoslovak parliament follows from the ratio of Slovak autonomy parties to the state as a whole:

" We love this country, we are ready to sacrifice our lives [ ... ] We do not want the autonomy of the Republic of smashed [ ... ] We stand behind this state, we are going to defend him, but we request that you together with us arrange the conditions so that we can feel in that State at home Slovaks. "

Reception in the contemporary history

Assessment in Slovakia

In Slovakia, the charismatic and confident Hlinka in the interwar period has become a national icon. During a demonstration of Slovak autonomists he declared enthusiastically:

"I am here not only Andrej Hlinka, I am the people. "

From his political critics and opponents him an exaggerated self-confidence was always blamed, which would be expressed among other things in the renaming of the Slovak Hlinka's Slovak People's Party People's Party in 1925.

As Hlinka's party after his death with his former deputy Jozef Tiso in Slovakia in 1938 took over power and this explained under the pressure of the Third Reich on March 14, 1939 independent, Hlinka was a cult figure of the new regime: one named after him Order and created two mass organizations that bore his name, the Hlinka Guard ( Hlinkova garda ), an imitation of the SS, and the Hlinka Youth ( Hlinkova Mládež ), an imitation of the Hitler Youth.

The Hlinka Guard was involved, among others, the persecution of Jews in Slovakia.

After Czechoslovakia was renewed in 1945 and the Communists came to power in 1948, Hlinka was considered one of the greatest criminals of Slovak history because of his anti-communism and nationalism. From an embossed in Slovakia in 1939 coin ( 5 crowns) with his portrait (number 5.101 million ) were in 1947 2,000,000 remelted by the Bank of Czechoslovakia.

After the Velvet Revolution (1989 ) changed in many parts of the predominantly Catholic Slovak public's negative image that was Hlinka attributed by then. The 1991 appeared Slovak National Biography calls him "one of the most significant personalities in modern Slovak history, a nationalistic Christian politician and representative of Slovak autonomic efforts ". He was depicted on the 1000 crown banknote of today's Slovakia.

From the Slovak National Party (SNS) was 2007 requires that Andrej Hlinka is declared the "Father of the Fatherland".

At least since January 1, 2008, at which a unanimously passed by the Slovak Parliament Act on the merits of Andrej Hlinka came into force, Hlinka is officially rehabilitated in Slovakia. In the text of the law says literally:

" Andrej Hlinka has special merits to it, which has become a state- forming nation, the Slovak nation. In recognition of the outstanding contribution Andrej Hlinka (NR SR) in the building of the National Council of the Slovak Republic a bust Hlinka and a plaque attached, where the text is cited: Andrej Hlinka merits of the Slovak nation and the Slovak Republic. "

Assessing international

Outside of Slovakia, the person Hlinka is quite considered critical, some scientists such as the renowned historian and expert on Eastern Europe Leonid Luks denote Hlinka even as a " Catholic fascists ", while others are of the view Hlinka himself had indeed been a fascist, but other avowed fascists such as Vojtech Tuka decided promoted and integrated into his party.

The problem also appears the anti-Semitic character of his party, which had its roots in the indigenous Catholic anti-Semitism and he tacitly tolerated as party chairman. Especially in Marxist historiography Hlinka appears as the " personification of darkness, of mysticism, of conservatism, bigotry, demagoguery, and the inconsistency of Klerofaschismus ".

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