Why did czechoslovakia separate

But Slovak politicians did not see this. Czechoslovakia in Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain When we go back to the actual foundation of Czechoslovakia in , was it predominantly a Czech project?

It was also a project of the Slovak elites, or at least part of them, as well. Under the circumstances which occurred during WWI, a joint state was the optimal solution for both nations because all other solutions were either impractical or very problematic. Also, for Slovakia, Czechoslovakia was a big project of social and economic modernization.

And regarding the idea behind the state: Slovaks needed to cooperate with Czechs against the Hungarian pressure. So after the Velvet revolution, the idea of Czechoslovak statehood suddenly became empty and any attempts to find new ideas for the common statehood simply failed. Why was that? Why was the relation between Czechs and Slovaks and their political elites so weak by that time?

Most of the people in both republics would of course prefer to preserve it in one way or another. But when it failed, it was not seen as a tragedy. That would suggest that the Slovaks never really felt comfortable as part of the federation. Of course, Slovaks raised some requirements during each of the international crises.

But of course the Slovak political representation always had its own interest. That was a crucial moment because a new political and administrative elite was established which was not always inevitably connected with the pro-Nazi regime. And the restoration of Czechoslovakia after this short experience was seen as a step back; it was considered a re-provincialization of the country.

In the s, the Slovak representatives then used the opportunity and established their own state again. Not in the sense that they would be oppressed in some way, that was not the case.

From the years to , Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. Hitler claimed that the invasion was necessary in order to protect the ethnic German populations that were living in Czechoslovakia. In what was widely considered an act of appeasement, the Munich Agreement was signed, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland.

The Sudetenland was known for its ethnic German residents. Although the Munich Agreement was created by Germany, France, the United States, and Italy, as a way of maintaining peace, it was widely looked back on as a great failure. German troops completely took over Bohemia, and forced a protectorate state over Slovakia. In January , Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, said the formation of the Czech and Slovak republics "demonstrate that once the popular will is determined constitutional discussions can be concluded in good time".

While the Scottish government plans to hold an independence referendum, in the former Czechoslovakia the people were not consulted. Many Slovaks thought the state was too Prague-centric and many Czechs thought they were subsidising Slovakia. In neither country was there a popular majority for independence. The split was agreed by the Czech and Slovak prime ministers, Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar, following elections in Agonising talks to find the central European equivalent of 'devolution max' or some other accommodation between the two nations failed.

They decided on dissolution over the heads of the public and the president, Vaclav Havel, whose Velvet Revolution overthrew communism. Slovakia's deputy prime minister, Miroslav Lajack, said: "I wouldn't advertise it as a model. Every case is different". It was swift, smooth and amicable when compared with the ugly conflict in the neighbouring Balkans but that doesn't mean there were no disagreements.

Munitions were moved back and forward across the border for a couple of years and it took nearly a decade to resolve a row about Slovakia's gold reserves in Czech banks. We always said we were Bohemian not Czech. In my neighborhood we were mostly descendants of various Eastern European countries, so this was a matter of pride.

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