Tempo Exterior nº 5 segunda época - xullo/decembro 2002

The Nation Apotheosized: The Moravian People

Joseph M. Rostinsky

In the contemporary constalletion of Central European states, Moravia has been completely obliterated as an independent historical entity. Needless to say that it does, indeed, exist, though officially it is not recognized as a distinct ethnic territory. As many other European countries, Moravia, too, has her own glorious past. The only difference being that the children in Moravian schools are not allowed to learn it. Moravia also has its characteristic culture and mythology which seem to constitute the very foundation of nation. Yet, the Moravian nation has been denied its own existence both in the former Czechoslovakia and in her bequeathed present remnant, in the Czech Republic. As might be expected in the European power cauldron, the denial of Moravia’s existence is exclusively political. For under the present circumstances she has been treated in the Czech state as the undesirable “other.” The incessant abrogation of Moravia’s historical rights and privileges coincides with the post-bellum birth of Czechoslovakia in 1918 when the national aspirations of the Moravians were sacrificed on the behalf of the Slavic unity opposed to the German and Hungarian autocratic ambitions. Yet, even in the framework of the newly coined Czechoslovak nation, the Moravians in Europe were able to preserve a modicum of their cultural and economic independence within the administrative system of the republic’s autonomous lands. The Land of Moravia and Silesia as administrative unit could and did promote to some extent the idiosyncratic character of the Moravian people as being contrastive, albeit historically related to the proper Czechs (Bohemians). The truly dark age in the history of Moravia begins with the advent of the communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia in 1948. It stands not only for the period of class hatred and the dictatorship of the Czech political elite, but also for the blatant disregard and repression of historical memory. Cultural institutions supporting the national consciousness of the Moravian people were gradually disbanded and forbidden to operate. The anti-Moravian sentiment in the socialist Czechoslovakia intensified to almost genocidal proportions after the Soviet-led invasion in 1968. The Czech and Slovak communists took advantage of the political stalemate and equally divided all the spoils between themselves. Czechoslovakia was ominously federalized. As a result, the Moravians and their land were treated as colonial subjects and a dumping yard for the industrial waste from Bohemia and Slovakia. It was no other than the famous Czech dissident Vaclav Benda who keenly recognized and described the anti-Moravian policy of the Czechoslovak socialist government in his article, entitled “Christianity and Politics Again: Following the Velehrad Pilgrimage” (samizdat Stredni Evropa/Central Europe; Prague: November, 1985, pp.27-28): ”It is the Moravians who could truly despair in this republic (Czechoslovakia), since their national rights have been continuously violated by the Czechs, and have been betrayed by the Slovaks at the decisive moment of their own national history.” It was also no other than the first post-communist government of the Czechoslovak dissidents that made all sorts of promises as to the revival of the Moravian administrative indepedence. None of those promises were ever kept. On the contrary, since 1993 the Czech Republic has embarked on the policy of Czech nationalism and cultural and economic centralization, reminiscent of the old communist authoritative model. Once again, the demand of the Moravian people to be treated as an equal partner in the common state was ridiculed, misrepresented in the official public media, and finally suppressed at the level of silent resistance. During the turbulent times in Central Europe, it became customary for the Moravians to leave their native land in search for better living conditions. The Moravian exodus to the United States of America in the second half of the nineteenth century marks also the beginning of the Moravian national self-assertion. Being mostly farmers by profession, the Moravians tended to settle in the new State of Texas where the land was abundant and readily available. Moreover, the vast majority of the Moravians professed to be Catholic. As a result, the Moravian newcomers created their own communities within which they managed to preserve their language and culture. The Moravian villages and towns spread from Brownsville and Galveston all the way north to Ennis and Dallas. At present the Moravian Texan population approaches one million. Their language is the third most spoken tongue in Texas, following English and Spanish. To enumerate all the achievements of the Moravian people settled in the United States would take volumes to complete. The Moravians have become successful businessmen, scholars and scientists, as well as entertainers. They have become prosperous and also nostalgic. The land of their ancestors has become a frequent destination of their travels. There in the rolling hills of Moravia, the American Moravians were looking for their forlorn roots, for their remaining relatives who could remember something from the past, forgotten a long time ago in America. The Czechoslovak socialist government understood this homecoming sentiment of the American Moravians, and designed several official institutions which were to cater to the immigrants “yearning to experience their forefathers” heritage. The first step in the communist propaganda was to convince the American Moravians that they and their ancestors had always been actually Czech. It was imperative to convince the Moravian people that any claims as to some kind of Moravian nationality would be a mere historical aberration. There were only Czechs and Slovaks constituting Czechoslovakia, that was the official explanation. To the very detriment of the Moravian national course, some of the leaders of the Moravian Texans were gullible enough to believe the communist propaganda, and became rather instrumental in proselytizing the idea of the Moravians being Czech. The argument of those who kept rejecting the Moravian national consciousness in favor of the Czech national awareness was based on the language issue. Since there is no officially codified Moravian language, and since the vast majority of the Moravians speaks only regional dialects (although they do appear in the old and present literature under the technical term of “Moravianisms”), related to the Czech literary language, the Moravian national consciousness was dismissed as an expression of extreme nationalism. None of the defenders of the language criterion seemed to mind the fact that the English speaking Americans could hardly be classified as English or British, for that matter, that the Americans constituted a distinct nation, albeit linguistically related to the English people. The overzealous propagandists of the Czech national course among the Moravian Texans ignored the fact that the present descendents of the Moravian immigrants referred to themselves as Moravians (“Moravci”) and not Czech or Bohemians who the “other” Texans called in a pejorative way as “Bohonks”. In order to distinguish themselves from the bad image of the Czech “Bohonks”, the Moravian Texans insisted on being referred to as Moravians, though they well knew that the word “Moravian” had one more significant religious connotation. The Moravian Brethern appeared in the United States in the seventeenth century. Being of the protestant persuasion, the Moravian Brethern arrived in America together with the German and Dutch colonists. They settled in the Carolinas, in Pennsylvania, and later in other states of the Union. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, they established one of the earliest American colleges, Moravian University (1742). They brought with them the wealth of the European musical tradition, and the tolerance of different religious denominations. They pioneered in the Carolinas the American tobacco manufactures (Winston-Salem in North Carolina), and the production of crackers and cookies. The Hutterites from Moravia also moved to the United States in search of religious freedom. And so did the Pietists and Anabaptists who had settled first in Moravia only to be expelled from their new homes and forced to immigrate. Moravia and her people, located at the crossroads of Europe, have always been inclined to accept different nationals into their midst. It comes therefore as no suprise that the true Moravians are an amazing mixture of ethnic characteristics: Slav, Romans, Celts, Germans, Jews, they all left their imprint on the Moravian soil and spirit. The fact that the Moravians communicate in Slavic dialects does not by itself mean that the people ultimately adhere to their Slavic heritage neglecting all the other possible traits in their character. On the contrary, a number of Moravian families are aware of their historical background. And yet, they claim to be above all else Moravians. The Romantic notion of the nation, based on the parameters of linguistic uniqueness, has been abandoned some time ago. It is therefore all the more surprising that some political figures in the Czech Republic still adhere to the proto-Romantic and Stalinist concept of the nation as an ethnic group with a distinct national language. Suffice it to say that the language is not a primary criterion of the present model of nationhood. It is precisely this model on which the Moravians in Europe and in America ought to base their demands. Once this is accomplished, the Moravian Americans as well as their European Moravians will be able to replace the historical misnomer of being classified as Czechs by their true identity as being Moravians. Joseph M. Rostinsky (Universidade de Tokai, Tokio).

Instituto Galego de Análise e Documentación Internacional www.igadi.org ÚLTIMA REVISIÓN: 09/03/2003