HRUBOŇ, Anton. Pioneers of Clerical Fascism? Mythical Language of Revolutionary Political Catholicism in Slovakia and Visions of a "New Nation". Clerical fascism is among the vaguest and most corrupted terms in the political lexicon. As a result of abuse by the Communist regime for political purposes, it became an ideological label and insult after 1948. The present study attempts to revive this devalued term over the background of an analysis of the political language and ideology of Rodobrana, considered the first fascist movement in Slovakia (1923Slovakia ( -1929. The study defines clerofascist ideology as a system of opinions, ideas and worldviews, functionally combining clericalism and fascism into a coherent worldview. The presented case study proves that, although clerical fascism has never formed the basis of any European regime, several variously significant political movements, including the Slovak Rodobrana, met its definition criteria. After outlining the methodology and general continental European context of the issue, the study analyses the forms of militarization of Catholicism in Slovakia after 1918, the formation of the concept of mystical ultra-nation, as well as the Rodobrana's vision of establishing a new religious community. The paper pays special attention to the work performed by the myth of purity in the political language of the Rodobrana, the political instrumentalization of Christ and his sacred blood in the context of creating the "revived nation".
Despite its official Catholic nature, Jozef Tiso’s Slovak State apparatus adopted not only the teachings of the eugenic movement but also the racial-hygiene ideology of National Socialist Germany, which it gradually implemented into its political culture. This study presents how eugenic and racial-hygiene thinking was introduced into the structures of Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana (HSĽS; Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party), the self-governing party of independent Slovakia during the Second World War, against the backdrop of developmental trends in Europe. What is emphasized here is the gradual formation of the racial paradigm in the spirit of a eugenic and racial-hygiene framework, as well as the formation of a ‘pure Aryan Slovak nation’ cult, physically and mentally contrasting with racially-hygienically ‘unclean and degenerate’ Jews and Roma.
Slovak minority has been co-creating a multicultural character of contemporary Serbia since the first half of the 18th century. The Slovaks living in former Yugoslavia as an integral part of the Yugoslav society also had to experience the turbulent events at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s. After the Axis invasion and destruction of Yugoslavia in April 1941 the Slovak community, historically settled in Bačka, Banat and Srem, was divided into three countries/occupational zones. Slovaks living in Srem became the citizens of independent Croatia, Slovaks living in Bačka became the citizens of the Hungarian Kingdom and Slovaks from Banat lived in territories under direct German occupation. The paper portrays main features of this minority’s political and cultural life in wartime Yugoslavia and its territories under foreign occupation, core problems of existence within changing regimes and the attitude of the Slovak minority towards the Slovak State (Slovak Republic) established on 14 March 1939 with an emphasis on religiously motivated conflicts between the mostly Lutheran Slovak minority in Yugoslavia and the Catholic regime of Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (the ruling and only allowed political party in the Slovak State/Republic).
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