the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

Chapter II
important in terms of international law.
The previously dominant nations in
Austria-Hungary (the Germans in the
Austrian part and the Magyars in the
Hungarian part) became minorities in
the new state, thus losing their
supremacy and it was necessary to deal
with their status in the state in terms of
international and constitutional law.
The concept of nation was
understood differently in different
European states (natural nation,
political nation), and differently yet
again in terms of constitutional law in
Czechoslovakia. Thus the
Czechoslovaks were proclaimed the
Staatnation (like the Germans in
Germany, the French in France,
irrespective of linguistic or ethnic
differences). The implication of
recognising the “Czechoslovaks”
as a nation was that Czech was given
constitutional recognition as the
official language in the Czech lands,
and Slovak in Slovakia. The other
groups became minorities in
the new state.
The national composition of the
emergent state was not known precisely.
The statistical records from the period
of the monarchy were based on census
information that did not include the
criterion of nationality. Apart from
The Czechs and Germans and the Birth
of Czechoslovakia
58
national inequalities, the figures were
biased in favour of the Germans by the
census findings because the census
criterion was the language of
communication. Another cause was
religious inequality due to the dominant
position of the Roman Catholic church.
The latter was linked to the ruling
dynasty and the monarchy through the
constitution and in personal ties, and
was therefore hostile towards the
Czech and Slovaks
Germans
Hungarians
Ruthenians
Poles
Even with the Czechs and Slovaks linked as a single Czechoslovak nation, the ethnic
make-up of the Republic was very varied.
republic. T.G.Masaryk described a state
of that kind as a theocracy in contrast to
the western democracies. Although at
that time the Slovak political leadership
in Slovakia and Prague supported the
idea of a united Czechoslovak nation,
there remained differences in the
interpretation of that unity. The
fundamentally different interpretation
of national rights also stemmed from
the fact that the Czech leadership
linked those rights above all with
language and education at all levels of
education. The Catholic majority of
Slovaks chiefly emphasised religious
issues and the status of the Slovak
clergy, particularly due to the previous
persecution of Andrej Hlinka in
Hungary.
A more reliable picture of the
population’s structure at the time the state
was established, based on nationality and