Na východ od Česka alebo ako porovnávať náboženstvo v Česku a na Slovensku

Religious Minority as a Source of National and State Identity: The Case of Slovakia

“…Before 1918, various more liberal laws had applied in the Kingdom of Hungary but not in the Austrian part of the monarchy. The confirmation and expansion of the validity of Austrian legislation into Slovakia actually strengthened the position of the Catholic Church in many areas where there was no strong influence before, in spite of the intentions of Czech elites to accomplish the opposite (Tížik, 2011: 46). The Catholic-Lutheran confessional dualism that had been established in the second part of the nineteenth century was carried on in the first decade of the Czechoslovak Republic by the Slovak National Party (SNS), which was continuously excluded from the centre of political life and replaced by the primarily Catholic and autonomist Slovak People’s Party (HSL'S) of Andrej Hlinka (Roguĺová, 2013).…”

“…At that time, new banknotes were introduced. L'udovít Štúr’s likeness was used on one of these new banknotes (50 Crowns), and he thus became a symbol of Slovakia again (Tížik, 2011). In this same short period of socialist restoration in Czechoslovakia, acts such as the reconstruction of the Štefánik monument at Bradlo Hill and the naming of October 28th as the date of the founding of Czechoslovakia hearkened back to the foundation of the First Czechoslovak Republic and established it as a significant moment in the history of the nation.…”

“…Catholicism in particular became a strong part of Slovak national identity during this period, for despite the heavy drive toward atheism and political secularization that had characterized the preceding decades, the country had retained its traditional value system. Religion also managed to endure as the foundational element of the Slovakian cultural and value system due to the legitimacy it had acquired by its opposition to the totalitarian regime, mostly in the form of an underground Church (Tížik, 2007, 2011). Political Catholicism emerged again in the political system already in the period of post-revolutionary federation in the form of the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH, Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie ) political party.…”

“…Sztompka (2007: 10–22) claims that the images and symbols that comprise “an iconosphere” are believed to be not only relevant and independent objects of cognition, but also the means by which to recognize something else—specifically the life of a society and the transformation thereof. The study of the iconosphere enables one to analyze texts without words, such as street names, anniversaries, and statues of leaders, but also the iconography used on coins and banknotes (Tížik, 2011: 300), in order to understand the construction of national identity as something that is shaped using the construction of signs.…”

“…Second, it signals a shift away from a religiously neutral character and toward a Christian—specifically, Catholic—character. Tížik (2011) identifies practical examples of the Catholicization of the State that resulted from the adoption of this treaty: (1) The institutionalization of Catholic holidays by their incorporation into the system of bank holidays; (2) the obligation of the State to finance Catholic education; and (3) the acknowledgement of the Treaty as the basis for further contracts between the Slovak Republic and the Holy See.…”