Československo, štát, ktorý bol predchodcom dnešnej Českej republiky a Slovenskej republiky, trval len 74 rokov, čo je doba priemerného ľudského života. Za tieto roky zakúsilo demokraciu, fašistickú diktatúru, nacistickú okupáciu, komunizmus, sovietsku okupáciu a nakoniec znova demokraciu.
Z tejto mozaiky - výsledku archívneho výskumu - Mary Heimann oživuje problematickú existenciu Československa, počnúc medzinárodnými machináciami (international machinations), ktoré viedli k jeho zrodu po 1. svetovej vojne až po mierový rozpad v r. 1993. Protirečí obyklému západnému pohľadu na Československo ako na statočný malý štát, ktorý mal smolu na susedov a ktorý bol obetovaný Hitlerovi a neskôr Stalinovi.
Miesto toho autorka rozpovie neočakávaný a oveľa zaujímavejší príbeh o štáte, ktorý bol nielen obeťou, ale aj aktérom netolerantného nacionalizmu.
Obzvlášť prekvapí jej argumentácia, že českí a slovenskí predstavitelia sú spolu s dohodovými mocnosťami spoluzodpovední nielen za Mníchov, ale aj za prenasledovanie Židov a Rómov cez vojnu a rovnako aj za povojnové brutálne vyháňanie Nemcov a Maďarov z krajiny. Zodpovednosť nesú podľa autorky za zlyhanie pražskej jari i za nasledujúci odpudivý normalizačný režim.
Autorka v skutočnosti stručne, fundovane a pútavo napísala politické dejiny Československa.
Kniha samozrejme nebola prioritne písaná pre stredoeurópskeho čitateľa, obsahuje mnohé zjednodušenia a nájdu sa i faktické nepresnosti. Aj tak však prekvapuje ostrým pohľadom vo veciach, ktoré slovenská historiografia dodnes nevie správne "uchopiť". Hneď v úvode napríklad konštatuje, že "český a slovenský šovinizmus boli podstatnými príčinami nestability, ktorá viedla k Mníchovu".
Tiež jej nerobí problém rozpoznať a klasifikovať také "rébusy", ako bola tzv. reslovakizácia, alebo premenovanie Parkanu na Štúrovo. Nachádza dokonca priliehavý výraz pre povojnové etnické čistky, keď ich nazýva práve etnickými čistkami. Uvádzame v originále (str. 163-164):
The Western powers, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm, had proved willing to go along with the principle of collective guilt in the case of 'the Germans' (even if this meant Germans who had never set foot in the Reich) since 'the Germans' were also hated at home. They were not willing to consent so easily to the wholesale transfer of Hungarian-speakers, who were not associated in the public mind with any particular atrocities and seemed to have been rather less 'collaborationist' than the majority of Czechs and Slovaks. The National Front's determination to rid Slovakia of its ethnic Hungarians (Magyars) had therefore to be handled differently. Instead of a straight expulsion - and in line with the same logic that had prevailed in Slovakia under the Tiso regime - 73,000 Slovaks were moved from Hungary to Slovakia in exchange for 74,000 Magyars, who were moved from Slovakia to Hungary. A further 44,000 ethnic Hungarians were forcibly resettled in the border regions of Bohemia and Moravia that had been vacated by expelled Germans; additional arrangements were made to 'repatriate' ethnic Slovaks living in Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria.[67] The rest were to be dealt with by a special 'Re-Slovakization Commission' {Reslovakiyačná komisia) established in Bratislava. A series of strong measures, it informed the central government in Prague - including die removal of Hungarian-speakers from
a whole range of jobs and the confiscation of their property - would need to be taken in order adequately to 're-Slovakize' southern Slovakia, which, as a consequence of the Vienna Arbitration Award, had been in Hungary for the past six years. The Commission stressed the vital importance of what it called die 'absolute purification' of municipal and district National Committees, tax offices, financial offices, post offices, courts and the police, together with banks and insurance companies.[68] In addition to those Hungarian-speakers who lost their jobs, property or liberty in the supposed interests of 'state security', Slovak historian Elena Mannova reports that a further 326,697 Hungarian-speakers were 're-Slovakized' (in other words, prevented from being allowed to work or vote until they agreed to declare themselves 'Slovak' rather than 'Hungarian').[69] Eugen Steiner, a Jewish member of the Slovak Communist Party, was struck by how insistent the Slovak minister of foreign affairs, Vladimir Clementis - although supposed in theory to be free, as a Communist internationalist, of national chauvinism - was 'on the Hungarian issue' and how 'vehemently' he fought 'for the annexation of three Hungarian villages on the right bank of the Danube',[70] which led to the 're-Slovakization' even of 'purely Hungarian' towns and villages. These were then given provocatively Slovak nationalist names, so that Parkany, for example, became 'Sturovo' and Gyalla was renamed 'Hurbanovo'.[71] Steiner also noticed how Gustav Husak, the leader of the Slovak Communist Party (KSS), deliberately avoided following the Czechoslovak Communist Party's example of appointing Jews to high posts on the grounds that to do so would make the Slovak branch of the party 'appear to be Jew-ridden' and therefore 'an easy target for hostile allegations, such as those which had been made earlier by Hlinka Party propaganda'.[72]
Fifty years before the term 'ethnic cleansing' was coined, semi-democratic Czechoslovakia - through a combination of border changes, legal discrimination, imprisonment, forced transfers, exterminations and expulsions - had rid itself of so many ethnic minorities that its claim to be a 'national' state of the Czechs and the Slovaks became plausible for the first time since its creation in 1918—20.
Mary Heinmann, Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. Yale University Press, 2009
2012-01-14 13:29:21 Pavol Rusnák
Česi majú výhrady ...
http://www.fronta.cz/kniha/heimann-czechoslovakia-the-state-that-failed
Oto Psenak 
12-01-11 
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