Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Miroslav Kocúr: For God and Nation: Christian National Populism
For God and Nation: Christian National Populism nment (minister of health care). For many years, Tiso was politically active within the FISCS party where he did not hold irrelevant posts; on the contrary, he was in the centre of its actions to such an extent that he was able to shape the political reality and put his personal stamp onto it. In 1941, the HSĽS Publishing House in Bratislava published a book by senior lecturer Štefan Polakovič called Tisová náuka [Tiso’s Teachings]. In its six chapters symptomatically titled Nation - State - Party - Religion - Social Issue - National Socialism, the author summed up the doctrine of the president of the wartime Slovak Republic. He lets Jozef Tiso speak while he merely interconnects and edits his texts into particular chapters. The book has this to say regarding the issue of Slovak nationalism: “This nationalism loves its own but must not hate other’s, this nationalism builds its own but does not destroy other’s and strengthens its own without disassembling the whole.”4 In view of the period and the context, we should perhaps let Jozef Tiso speak for himself: “A nation must take precedence over all personal relations and cravings. We must realize this truth and spread it like a seed that will take roots in every Slovak soul.”5 In the shadow of the Third Reich, Tiso’s apparent ambition was to build a Christian state on national and social foundations. “We are building Slovakia of the people in compliance with guidelines of national socialism ... We do so not only out of grateful affection for the Great German Empire and its magnanimous Führer Adolf Hitler but out of well-understood interest in our national and state life ... In line with national socialism, we do not subscribe to state totalitarianism but national totalitarianism.”6 National Socialism was supposed to become a barrier against “godless” socialism as well as against liberal-Marxist but also capitalist ideology. Therefore, this socialism would be Christian and would be based on “love for one’s own, willingness to work and sacrifice for the ideal”. Unfortunately, these seemingly noble ideals began to accentuate a false fortissimo that foreshadowed a fatal finale for many Slovak citizens. The doom of this endeavour was adumbrated by efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable: “On the first glimpse it seems as if Catholicism and nationalism represented two opposite poles that can never level out or meet. And yet, nationalism finds its culmination point in Catholicism.” 7 SIovaI< CatIhoIíc HiERARchy aincI Some Concrete Causes Over the past 20 years, the most vocal advocate of churches’ demands in the Slovak Republic was the Roman Catholic Church, the most influential religious community in the country both numerically and historically. Other religious communities merely copied and - based on their own specifics -223
