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 the general public was able to learn about objective historical truth of the 1930s and 1940s, this period began to be celebrated and HSLS representatives and Slovak government officials of the period began to be glorified. Exile historians such as František Vnuk or Milan S. Ďurica played a pivotal part in the process. In the 1990s, František Vnuk was a full professor of church history at Roman Catholic Theological Faculty in Bratislava. Cardinal Ján Chryzostom Korec made an impression that he sympathized with the wartime Slovak State and its president, which was apparent from his views and public statements already in the early 1990s. In July 1990, he personally attended unveiling of Tiso’s commemorative plaque in Bánovce nad Bebravou. Tiso’s sympathizers viewed public statements by Cardinal Korec as unambiguous endorsement and moral support of their activities, this despite the Vatican’s reservations with respect to Tiso’s presidency that were historically documented by correspondence of Bursius, papal nuncio posted in Bratislava. In view of Ján Chryzostom Korec’s moral authority that resulted from his long-term persecution by the communist regime and his strongly anticommunist profile, the process of relativizing the regime of the wartime Slovak State began even before all facts about it could be openly presented and objectively evaluated. The efforts by communist historiography to use President Tiso’s occupational background for the purpose of anti-church propaganda gradually became counterproductive.8 The expedient evaluation Jozef Tiso’s political activity from the outset of his long political career and presenting him exclusively in the negative light has led to equally expedient endeavour to portray him as the martyr of Czech centralism or even rising communism. In recent years, the endeavour to amalgamate national and Christian principles was led by Ján Sokol, Tmava Archbishop emeritus. Besides attending political rallies organized by Slovenská pospolitosť, a political party that has been banned in the meantime on account of its racist background, Sokol repeatedly made excusatory comments on Jozef Tiso for broadcast as well as print media. It was Sokol’s public statements that stirred public opinion the most. During the Christmas season of 2006 he spoke for TA3 news television, recollecting the times of plenty in Slovakia during World War II. Sokol attributed the fact that the Slovaks “lived on a reasonable level” to good work of President Jozef Tiso. His tactless overlooking of deportations created a furore on the part of civil society leaders. Others interpreted it as moral endorsement of national populism tendencies from the highest places. 225
