After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948

by Felak, James Ramon

• ISBN13: 9780822961376
• ISBN10: 0822961377
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-28
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

After Hitler, Before Stalinexamines the crucial postwar period in Slovakia, following Nazi occupation and ending with the Communist coup of February1948. Centering his work around the major political role of the Catholic Church and its leaders, James Ramon Felak offers a fascinating study of the interrelationship of Slovak Catholics, Democrats, and Communists. He provides an in-depth examination of Communist policies toward Catholics and their strategies to court Catholic voters, and he chronicles the variety of political stances Catholics maintained during Slovakia's political turmoil. Felak opens by providing a background on pre-war and wartime Slovak politics, notably the rise of Slovak Catholic nationalism and Slovakia's alignment with Nazi Germany during World War II. He then describes the union formed in the famed "April Agreement" of 1946 between the Democratic Party and Catholics that guaranteed a landslide victory for the Democrats and insured a position for Catholics in the new regime. Felak views other major political events of the period, including: the 1947 Czechoslovak war crimes trial of Father Jozef Tiso; education policy; the treatment of the Hungarian minority; the trumped-up "anti-state conspiracy" movement led by police in the Fall of 1947; and the subsequent Communist putsch. Through extensive research in Slovak national archives, including those of the Democratic and Communist parties, After Hitler, Before Stalin assembles a comprehensive study of the predominant political forces and events of this tumultuous period and the complex motivations behind them.

Author Biography

James Ramon Felak is associate professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the author of At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938, and coeditor of Nations and Nationalisms in East-Central Europe, 1806-1948.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Setting the Stage: From Liberation to the April Agreement	p. 1
Bringing Home the Lion: The Democratic Party's Electoral Victory	p. 47
Dealing with the Past: The Trial of Jozef Tiso	p. 86
Conspiracies: Plots against the State and the Democrats	p. 125
Continuing Crisis: From the October Putsch to the February Coup	p. 169
Notes	p. 205
Selected Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 249
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