Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States

Ján Lajčiak: The Slovak as a national individuality

JÁN LAJČIAK: THE SLOVAK AS A NATIONAL INDIVIDUALITY Title: Slovák ako národné indivíduum (The Slovak as a national individuality) Originally published: In Slovensko a kultúra, ed. by Samuel Štefan Osuský, Bratislava, Slov. Ev. a v. Theol. Akademia, 1920 Language: Slovak The excerpts used are from the re-edition Ján Lajčiak, Slovensko a kultúra, ed. by Borislav Petrík and Kveta Dašková (Bratislava: Q 111, 1994), pp. 67– 72. About the author Ján Lajčiak [1875, Pribylina (Hun. Pribilina) – 1918 Vyšná Boca (Hun. Királyboca ) near Liptovský Mikuláš (Hun. Liptószentmiklós)]: Lutheran priest, philosopher , theologian, orientalist and translator. He studied theology in Prešov (Hun. Eperjes) and Erlangen between 1898 and 1899. While in Erlangen he also started his studies on philosophy and oriental languages. Between 1900 and 1902, Lajčiak moved to Leipzig, where he attended lectures in Semitic studies and Semitic epigraphy and learned several languages (Syriac, Ethiopian, and Arabic). He received a doctorate for his study entitled Die Plural und Dualendungen am semitischen Nomen . From 1904 until 1905, Lajčiak continued his studies in Paris at the Faculty of Protestant theology at the Sorbonne, where he obtained a second doctorate in theology for his study Ezechiel, sa personne et son enseignement. Upon his return to Slovakia his critical liberal views on society, confessional issues and national life were met with strong opposition among the conservative Slovak national intelligentsia as well as the Church circles. He was ostracized by the Slovak cultural elite. In 1906, he became a priest in the small mountain village of Vyšná Boca, where he served until his death. Here Lajčiak started to work on his unfinished opus magnum, Slovensko a kultúra (Slovakia and culture), a broad sociological analysis of Slovak cultural life. As the author of this book Lajčiak has been appreciated in Slovak expert sociological circles. His philological and philosophical work has been re-evaluated after 1989; nevertheless, Lajčiak as a historical figure is still far from being accepted into a broader Slovak cultural canon. Main works: Die Plural- und Dualendungen am semitischen Nomen [The plural and dual endings in Semitic nouns] (1902); Ezechiel, sa personne et son enseignement (1905); Slovensko a kultúra [Slovakia and culture] (1920). 282 “NATIONAL PROJECTS” AND THEIR REGIONAL FRAMEWORK Context In turn-of-the-century Hungary Magyarization policies towards nonMagyar nationalities reached their climax. Not long after the 1867 AustroHungarian Compromise, the three Slovak-speaking grammar schools, along with the national cultural institution the Matica slovenská, were closed down and became the first victims of the new approach of central Hungarian authorities pursuing the policy of the linguistic unification of the state. The key question of the contemporary Hungarian political discourse became how to turn Hungarian society, with more than half of its population being nonMagyar , into a unified, ‘organic’ nation-state. Subsequently, towards the end of the century the assimilation policies spread to various levels of public and political life. In the realm of education Magyarization culminated in the ‘Apponyi School Law of 1907’ which allowed only one lesson a week in elementary schools for teaching the mother tongue. These measures in education , along with the fact that increasingly only voluntary Magyarization opened the way to a professional career and higher social status in Hungary, led to the so-called denationalizing (odnarodnovanie) of its own cultural elite as feared by Slovak nationalists. The reaction of the major Slovak political force, the National Party, placed greater stress on the implementation of the 1868 Act on Nationalities that, indeed, introduced Hungarian as the only official language but allowed for all other constitutional freedoms for the nationalities . Later, they sought closer cooperation with Romanian, Serb and other non-Magyar political representatives in the Hungarian Diet that led in the end to the creation of the Central Club of the Nationalities Party in 1912. The younger generation of Slovak intellectuals, though critical of the conservative leaders of the Slovak National Party, were looking for other ways to counter the assimilatory pressure of Hungarian modernization and what they felt to be a torpidity of Slovak national life. They proposed various solutions such as social and cultural education among the broader strata of Slovak society , ‘petit work’ and grass-roots national agitation. Another sort of response was a thorough analysis of the nation’s current situation by using the instruments of modern science. One of the best examples in this respect is the unfinished...