Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia - for many who are far distant from these nations, it’s
not always clear what the difference between the three is or when each came to be. Once divided,
temporarily united, then divided once more, and still to this day, the Czech and Slovak
people remain brotherly Slavic nations with strong ties and similar cultures. But if that’s the case,
then what exactly happened? Why did Czechoslovakia fall apart?...
Czechoslovakia was birthed in 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire neared its demise
and some of its provinces decided to unite in response to their vastly similar cultures,
languages, and people. Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia formed the new nation and at first,
seemed to get on quite well. Czechoslovakia was initially a parliamentary democracy under
President Masaryk and quickly became one of the more stable and industrially advanced of
the Eastern European nations, but this would be challenged just before the outbreak of the
second world war. As the German Fuhrer began his campaign of expansion throughout Europe,
at the end of the 1930s, the regions of Bohemia and Moravia fell to the Germans. Slovakia would
eventually be occupied by Germany in a matter of years as well, but this period of instability
would only last a short while before the Soviet Union sent troops in to “liberate” Czechoslovakia
during World War Two. Soviet involvement would soon catapult the communist party
within Czechoslovakia to the top of the totem pole and pushed through a 1948 coup d’etat that would
lead to the founding of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic as the communists took over the nation…
This era of Czechoslovakia’s existence would sadly be plagued by troubles no less. One of
the most well-known challenges that the newfound socialist republic would face
came in the 1960s and became known as the Prague Spring. This period represented a
time of what appeared to many to be promising reforms, though none were too drastic. Still,
when the reformist Alexander Dubcek rose to power, he aimed to create something called “communism
with a face” and began passing a series of reforms both politically and economically,
with one of the most important being the increased freedoms of speech. While this pleased
many Czechoslovak citizens, it had a starkly contrasting effect on the nearby Soviet Union.
The Prague Spring came to a violent end on August 20, 1968, as 600,000
Warsaw Pact troops, led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia. Dubcek was ripped from
power as a result of the attack and under his pro-Soviet replacement, Gustav Husak,
the progressive reforms were immediately repealed. The following decades would keep the Czechoslovak
republic under a repressive communist regime, and this was a ticking time bomb…
As communism came under attack throughout the East and the Berlin Wall came crashing down,
the citizens of Czechoslovakia became restless once more. November brought about renewed calls
for demonstration, but due to the overbearing dictatorship they were under, activists were
technically unable to organize such protests. Nevertheless, the communist government was
willing to sanction a demonstration on November 17, 1989, in commemoration of a student that had
been murdered 50 years prior by the occupying Nazi forces. Organized in part by the Socialist Youth
Union, the event was supposed to avoid the city center and remain focused only on the memory of
the martyred student. This, however, isn’t what actually happened. Instead, as more and more
citizens joined the protest having heard of its existence or seeing it on TV, the demonstration
started to shift from being an anti-Nazi movement to an anti-Nazi and anti-communist one.
While the police allowed the first portion of the demonstration to carry on undisturbed,
as the crowd marched their way toward Wenceslas Square, this changed drastically. Banners of
‘Stop Beating Students’ and ‘Freedom’ provided a clear visual alongside the shouts of “Dialogue!”
and “We don’t want the Communist Party” “Forty Years are enough!” that triggered the police
response. Of the 50,000 people present for the demonstration, some say that around 100 were
detained and many were injured with over a dozen being hospitalized as a result of beatings from
police with batons and K9s. Many demonstrators began to flee by this point while others were
forced to go. It’s additionally believed that there was a rumor spread of one student martyr,
although many thought that this was done by a police officer claiming to
be a student and faking his own death to stir the pot. Whatever actually happened,
any goals of emboldening the people to continue standing up to the dictatorship truly worked…
This was the start of the Velvet Revolution. In reaction to the events of November 17,
opponents of the current one-party government became emboldened and energized. The aggressive
responses by the police failed to deter further demonstrations, and instead,
the protests only grew. Only 3 days later, half a million demonstrators showed up at Wenceslas
Square to protest the communist dictatorship. Popular dissident and theater star Vaclav Havel
played a significant role in the revolution as well and is credited with choreographing
one of its more theatrical signature signs of unity in the form of mass jingling of
keys. The underground press expanded as did the public protests over the following week,
but, as described by British author Timothy Garten Ash, the overall movement was “swift,
entirely non-violent, joyful and funny.”
By November 28, the Czechoslovak government accepted its fate. There was no Warsaw Pact
invasion to swoop in and save communism this time, and the people of Czechoslovakia were
simply fed up. The contemporary administration stepped down in favor of a revived multiple-party
system with Vaclav Havel elected as the new and last president of Czechoslovakia…
The following elections in the summer of 1990 saw the communists face a crushing
defeat and the solidification of the new anti-communist government. This,
however, also triggered the period known now as the “Velvet Divorce”.
Having just started the process of democratization,
Czechoslovakia was suddenly facing a newly heightened tension of old:
the divide between Czechs and Slovaks. The discord was peaceful but serious nonetheless,
as both sides disagreed on how to move forward after communism and the differing populations
had long been drifting apart. This would eventually result in the non-violent
separation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic on one end and Slovakia on the other.
Interestingly though, according to opinion polls from the time, it seems that the division
between the Slovak and Czech people was mostly concentrated in the population of those in power,
and lesser so among the average citizens, who often favored the unified nation. Nevertheless,
nationalist sentiments did exist on both sides and the reforms that either side yearned for
didn’t exactly line up with one another. On January 1, 1993, the breakup became official…
In summation though, why did Czechoslovakia split up? What were the final straws?
For starters, as stated earlier, Czechoslovakia was a young nation and had not always been united
as one. The Czech and Slovak people, though similar, were not identical. They had different
cultures, languages, and politics, despite the claim by those in favor of creating Czechoslovakia
that these ethnic and cultural identities were one of a kind. Furthermore, the Czechs generally
outnumbered and overpowered the Slovaks within the union, but they had been the lesser of two evils
as the fellow slavs in opposition to Slovakia’s alternative of eventually being absorbed in some
way into Hungary. The Czechs too had been hoping to pair up with a Slavic neighbor to counteract
the significant ethnic German population within the Czech borders. However, after the deportations
of Germans that followed the second world war, this need was fairly non-existent.
Additionally, after the collapse of the communist government, there was room for
change within Czechoslovakia and a need for reforms. As stated earlier, these reforms
proved a bit problematic as, though similar, the Czech and Slovak people and governments,
in particular, couldn’t agree on how exactly to go about adapting to their new democratic
governments. And it's not that these disagreements were new, but instead,
after the Velvet Revolution, it was just the first time that such discord could
even be expressed. And now, with the threat of Germanization or Hungarianization gone,
such disagreements really had no reason to not be acted upon. Thus, even though no referendum
was held to see if the people themselves were truly in favor of the split or not,
the governments of both halves of Czechoslovakia decided to make Czechoslovakia no more…