Gefeierte und Verdammte

Der Slowakische Nationalaufstand 1944 als nationaler Erinnerungsort

Authors

  • Miroslav Michela

Keywords:

lieu de mémoire, Slovak National Uprising, 1944, military resistance, Tiso regime, Nazi Germany, communists, Czechoslovak historiography

Abstract

The Slovak National Uprising in 1944 was an important act of military resistance against the collaboration of the Tiso regime with Nazi Germany. It was initiated by members of the Civic movement and to a lesser extent by the Communists, and was eventually brutally crushed by the SS, the Wehrmacht, and pro-Nazi Slovak forces. The insurrection is hardly remembered outside of Slovakia although it became an important lieu de mémoire for Slovak nation-building. Nevertheless, academic studies as well as public history and remembrance of the event was and still is highly controversial. The reason for these disputes are manifold. They are rooted on the one hand in the entrenched hegemonic Communist reading, which created a partisan myth around the uprising while minimising the role of the Civic resistance, and on the other hand in the different representations and interpretations in Czech, Czechoslovak, and Slovak historiographies, which in their respective orientations and ideologies attribute different functions to the uprising. Slovak ultra-nationalist narratives also play their role, seeing the revolt as an international conspiracy against independent Slovakia to re-establish a centralist Czechoslovak Republic. In different periods and power constellations – 1945, 1945–1948, 1948–1968, 1968/1969, after 1969 and 1989 – these various inter- pretations prevailed or stood at stake, and the fighters of the uprising were either “celebrated” or “cursed”.

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Published

2019-08-01

How to Cite

Michela, Miroslav. 2019. “Gefeierte Und Verdammte: Der Slowakische Nationalaufstand 1944 Als Nationaler Erinnerungsort”. S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 4 (1):78-92. https://simon-ojs.vwi.ac.at/index.php/simon/article/view/91.