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56 CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH
Czecho-Slovaks
The Czecho-Slovaks were the pioneers of the Slavs in Europe,
forming a bulwark against the German onslaughts toward the east. It
has been said that the Czecho-Slovaks made possible the rise and
development of Poland, and it was the latter, together with Lithuania,
that stopped the Teutonic movement in the direction of Russia, preventing
the formation between the Dnieper and the Rhine of a huge German
empire.
The Czech-Slovaks penetrated into the very heart of Europe, establishing
themselves in the geographical center of the continent. The
Czechs and the Slovaks are one and the same race, but were early divided
by their conquerors. The first inhabiting Bohemia, Moravia and some
sections of Silesia, were incorporated with Austria. The second, living
in so-called Slovakia, were subjugated by the Magyars and became part
of Hungary. United, the land of the Czecho-Slovaks is bounded on the
north by Germany and Poland; on the west by Germany; on the south
by Austria and Hungary, and on the east by Ukraine. Geographically,
then, the Czecho-Slovaks formed the very backbone of the disrupted
Dual Monarchy. Numerically, they were far from being a negligible
quantity, as there are about seven and a half million Czechs and three
million Slovaks. Economically, Bohemia was the most developed and
productive part of Austria, yielding five times as much coal as the rest
of the State, twice as many agricultural products, and bearing sixtythree
per cent, of Austria's taxation.
The history of the Czechs goes back almost to the beginning of
the Christian era. Nearly two thousand years ago their forefathers
waged bitter warfare against the Teutons. They established their
supremacy after several centuries of struggle, and already in the
seventh century Bohemia emerges as a consolidated nation.. .
On the Galician battlefield, in July, 1917, the foundation was really
laid for the Czecho-Slovak Republic...
On October 18, 1918, Czecho-Slovakia declared its independence
and on November 14 a National Assembly met in Prague and proclaimed
the establishment of a Czecho-Slovak Republic. From Isaac Don Levine's
"The Resurrected Nations."
Jugoslavs
Jugoslavia is the land of the Southern Slavs. The word "jug" in
Slavic means "south." The Jugoslavs and the Southern Slavs are therefore
synonymous terms. Racially the Jugoslavs include the Bulgars,
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Politically, however, the Bulgars have
dissociated themselves from the Southern Slavs. Jugoslavia in its
current usage is therefore primarily a political term, applied to the
territory inhabited by Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.