Fascist-Axis Slovakia’s spiritual Polis Politicus: transformation of Ružomberok to the ‘capital of the movement’ under the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party Rule (1938–1945)

ABSTRACT

After the events of autumn 1938, the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana; HSĽS) engaged in mythmaking to legitimize its regime in people's eyes. This included making a legend about the ‘capital of the movement’, a city linked to the party’s political struggle leading to ‘ultimate victory’. Ružomberok was naturally chosen, where chairman Andrej Hlinka lived and worked as a priest, and the party’s influential Ružomberok group came from. Using a creative destruction lens, this study follows the transformation of Ružomberok’s image from a provincial, politically insignificant town to the Slovak State’s spiritual metropolis and fascist Neueuropa’s progressive model city. We focus on the dynamics of reshaping: from initial plans, unimplemented reconstruction projects to politically motivated interventions in the public space to remodel Ružomberok corresponding to the new national ideology into a polis politicus highlighting the new aesthetics and values. Finally, we analyse political iconoclasm’s specific manifestations based on examples of political interference in architecture. We also reflect on the collapse of the old, ‘decadent’ to the construction of the new, ‘progressive’ on a societal level as targeted attempts by political elites to prove their system’s vitality through modernization compared to its predecessors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 David Clay Large, Where Ghosts Walked. Munich’s Road to the Third Reich (New York/London: Norton, 1997). ISBN 039303836X. As Large states, Munich’s city council had a new city coat of arms created wherein a traditional Bavarian lion was substituted by an eagle with a Hakenkreuz in its claws. In Munich’s Sternereckerbräu, the original seat of the NSDAP headquarters, a party’s museum was founded and served as a memorial site for remembering ‘where it all began’.

2 Roger Griffin, Fascism. An Introduction to Comparative Fascist Studies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), p. 46. ISBN 978-1-5095-2068-8.

3 Aristotle Kallis, ‘Transnational Fascism. The Fascist New Order, Violence, and Creative Destruction’ in Arno Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (eds) Fascism Without Borders. Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945 (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019), p. 41. ISBN 978-1-78920-058-4. However, it should be noted, that the ideologically driven transformation of public space is not exclusively a fascist practice or a feature typical for authoritarian/totalitarian regimes only. Even democratic regimes like the one in interwar Czechoslovakia fostered the idea of ‘optimization’ of urban area according its own ideological and value preferences.

4 Patrícia Fogelová and Martin Pekár, Disciplinované mesto. Zásahy politiky do verejného priestoru na Slovensku 1938–1945 (Košice: Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach, 2021), p. 17–33. ISBN 978-80-8152-977-1; see also: P. Fogelová, ‘“To Work – To Sacrifice – To Die”. The Cult of Military Martyrs and Its Manifestation in Slovakia during the Years 1938 – 1945’, Hungarian Historical Review, 11:1 (2022), pp. 205-234. DOI 10.38145/2022.1.205.

5 See: Walter Siebel and Jan Wehrheim, ‘Öffentlichkeit und Privatheit in den überwachten Stadt’, disP – The Planning Review, 39:4 (2003), p. 4. Other authors (e. g. Miroslav Palárik, Alena Mikulášová, Martin Hetényi, and Róbert Arpáš) have focused on the microhistorical aspects of the HSĽS regime interventions into urban space illustrated on a model city of Nitra. Another useful monograph Vojnová Bratislava 1939–1945 [The Wartime Bratislava 1939–1945] by Peter Szalay, Michal Bogár, Katarína Haberlandová, Nina Bartošová, and Laura Krišteková tries to grasp the semantics of interventions and urban planning of the HSĽS regime in the capital through changes in architecture. Conceptually, however, it focuses more on decoding the dynamics of the transformations of the metropolis itself, supported by a rich visual appendix, than on the ideological aspects of these metamorphoses. See: Miroslav Palárik, Alena Mikulášová, Martin Hetényi and Róbert Arpáš, The City and Region Against the Backdrop of Totalitarianism: Images from the Life in the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Illustrated by the City of Nitra and Its Surroundings (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018), p. 280. ISBN 978-3-631-74581-6; Peter Szalay, Michal Bogár, Katarína Haberlandová, Nina Bartošová and Laura Krišteková, Vojnová Bratislava 1939–1945 (Bratislava: Marenčin PT, 2019), p. 334. ISBN 978-80-569-0131-1.

6 Aristotle Kallis, The Third Rome 1922–1945. The Making of the Fascist Capital (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 45. ISBN 978-1-349-32918-2.

7 Š. Mach, ‘Pochodujeme v Hlinkovom duchu’ [We are Matching in the Spirit of Hlinka], Liptov, 29 September 1939, p. 1.

8 J. Helko, ‘Zostaneme verní odkazu Andreja Hlinku [We Will Remain Loyal to Andrej Hlinka’s Legacy]’ in František Bielik and Štefan Borovský (eds) Andrej Hlinka a jeho miesto v slovenských dejinách (Bratislava: DaVel – Mestský úrad v Ružomberku, 1991), p. 9. ISBN 80-900931-0-8.

9 Ružomberok: Monografia mesta (Banská Bystrica: Harmony, 2009), p. 88. ISBN 978-80-89151-22-6.

10 According to the first census in Czechoslovakia (1921), Ružomberok was surpassed in size by Bratislava (93,189), Košice (52,898), Nitra (19,118), Nové Zámky (19,023), Komárno (17,750), Trnava (17,745), and Prešov (17,577). Xénia Šuchová, ‘Prílohy I – Obyvateľstvo’ in Marián Zemko and Valerián Bystrický (eds) Slovensko v Československu (1918–1939) (Bratislava: VEDA, 2004), pp. 522–523. ISBN 80-224-0795-X.

11 The party entered Czechoslovak politics with this original name, confirmed at the ‘renewal convention’ held on 19 December 1918 in Žilina. It was then changed to HSĽS before the 1925 general elections.

12 Ružomberok: Monografia mesta, p. 103–104; J. Mlynárik, ‘Robotnícke hnutie’ in Zdenko Hochmuth (ed) Ružomberok: Historicko-vlastivedná monografia (Banská Bystrica: Stredoslovenské vydavateľstvo, 1969), pp. 150–152.

13 Emil Kufčák, ‘Protifašistický odboj v Liptove v rokoch 1938–1944’ in Anton Droppa (ed) Protifašistický odboj a oslobodenie Liptova (Martin: Osveta, 1984), p. 12.

14 Archive of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising Banská Bystrica (Archív Múzea Slovenského národného povstania Banská Bystrica, A MSNP), fond (f.) VIII, box 3, no. 3/71. Reports on activities of the communist movement in Ružomberok. See also: Stanislav V. Chytka (ed) Ružomberská vzbura 1939 (Ružomberok: Okresný výbor Slovenského zväzu protifašistických bojovníkov – Mesto Ružomberok, 2000), p. 82. ISBN 80-968005-2-3.

15 Ružomberok: Monografia mesta, p. 105.

16 Ibid., p. 133.

17 The term ‘Castle’ (Hrad) had been used in the era of interwar Czechoslovakia as a political terminus technicus for a political line around the President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his followers. ‘Hrad’ represented an official Czechoslovak politics and state’s ideological doctrine. See Andrea Orzoff, Battle for the Castle. The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914–1948 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 57–94.

18 Anton Mederly, ‘Andrej Hlinka a Ružomberok [Andrej Hlinka and Ružomberok]’, Slovák, 29 October 1939, p. 17.

19 I. Baka, ‘Mechanizmus, ciele a metódy pôsobenia ľudáckej propagandy v rokoch 1938 – 1939’, Historický časopis, 51:2 (2003), p. 277. ISSN 0018-2575; also: Róbert Arpáš, Autonómia: víťazstvo alebo prehra? Vyvrcholenie politického zápasu HSĽS o autonómiu Slovenska. (Bratislava: VEDA, 2011), pp. 168-169. ISBN 978-80-224-1190-5.

20 Miroslav Fabricius and Katarína Hradská (eds), Jozef Tiso. Prejavy a články (1938–1944) (Bratislava: AEPress, 2007), document (doc.) 7, p. 15. ISBN 80-88880-46-7.

21 Baka, Mechanizmus, ciele a metódy, p. 287.

22 See for example: Roman Holec, Andrej Hlinka: Otec národa? (Bratislava: Marenčin PT, 2019), pp. 254-270. ISBN 978-80-569-0440-4.

23 ‘Hlavný veliteľ HG Šaňo Mach pri hrobe Andreja Hlinku [Hlinka Guard Head Commander Šaňo Mach at the Grave of Andrej Hlinka]’, Liptov, 1 June 1939, p. 1.

24 See also: Dušan Kováč, Bratislava 1939–1945: Mier a vojna v meste (Bratislava: Marenčin PT, 2006), p. 189. ISBN 80-89218-29-6.

25 The Černová massacre was a shooting in Andrej Hlinka’s birthplace that happened on 27 October 1907. Due to its brutality, it later acquired a label ‘Bloody Sunday’. Shooting of gendarmeries into a crowd, resulting in the death of 15 people and tens wounded, started after the locals gathered at the road leading to Černová refused to let in a Catholic priest Martin Pazúrik with his escort to consecrate a newly built church and insisted on Hlinka doing so (Hlinka was at that time imprisoned and not allowed to perform his priestly duties). The massacre evoked international pushback. It compromised the Hungarian government in the eyes of a foreign audience and served as a proof of its intolerant policy against non-Hungarian minorities.

26 Fogelová, Pekár, Disciplinované mesto, p. 148, 150.

27 ibid.

28 ‘Čo je so Sochou slobody v Ružomberku? [What’s Up With the Statue of Liberty in Ružomberok?]’, Liptov, 23 June 1939, p. 3.

29 Contrary to reality, the HSĽS propaganda considered Hlinka a pioneer of the idea of Slovak state independence. The special issue of party’s daily Slovák even published an inch caption on 15 March 1939 stating ‘Hlinka’s dream becomes a reality: Slovak State!’; See Slovák, 15 March 1939, p. 1. However, Hlinka never had independence in his political programme and only spoke about it hypothetically.

30 ‘Difficult beginning’, which the author of article discusses, refers to the Little War when Slovakia, shortly after declaring independence on 14 March 1939, was attacked by the Hungarian Army from the southeast. The conflict ended on the request of German diplomacy.

31 K. Jano, ‘Čo sa urobí so sochou slobody v Ružomberku? [What Is Planned to be Done with the Statue of Liberty in Ružomberok?]’, Liptov, 11 August 1939, p. 3.

32 The ‘Masaryk–Beneš regime’ was a pejorative label used by an opposition against the ‘Hrad’ circle, expressing their negative attitude to politics and values promoted by the first Czechoslovak president and his close fellows who together symbolized the interwar pro-Western democracy.

33 Jano. Čo sa urobí so sochou slobody, p. 3.

34 V. Ihriský, ‘A. Hlinka vo výtvarnom umení slovenskom [A. Hlinka in the Slovak Fine Arts]’, Gardista, 2 December 1939, pp. 5-6.

35 Mederly, Andrej Hlinka a Ružomberok, p. 18.

36 ‘Vláda postaví pamätník A. Hlinku [The Government Will Build a Memorial of A. Hlinka]’, Liptov, 20 October 1939, p. 1.

37 ‘Národný pamätník Andreja Hlinku [A National Memorial of Andrej Hlinka]’, Tatranský Slovák, 17 May 1941, p. 1.

38 ‘Votívny chrám národa v Ružomberku [A Votive Temple of Nation in Ružomberok]’, Slovák, 24 May 1941, p. 2.

39 ‘Telesné pozostatky Andreja Hlinku na nové miesto [The Body Remains of Andrej Hlinka to a New Place]’, Liptov, 25 May 1939, p. 1.

40 Ks-ský, ‘Ružomberské mausoleum [The Mausoleum of Ružomberok]’, Gardista, 28 October 1939, p. 10.

41 ‘Druhý deň ružomberských slávností [A Second Day of Celebrations in Ružomberok]’, Slovák, 1 November 1939, p. 3.

42 Ks-ský, Ružomberské mausoleum, p. 10.

43 Telesné pozostatky Andreja Hlinku, p. 1; ‘Andrej Hlinka do novej krypty [Andrej Hlinka to a New Crypt]’, Liptov, 14 July 1939, pp. 1–2; ‘6. októbra budú slávnostne prenesené telesné pozostatky Andreja Hlinku [Body Remains of Andrej Hlinka will Be Ceremonially Reburied on 6 October]’, Liptov, 4 July 1939, p. 1. The dates contained political symbolics: 16 August 1939 was the 75th anniversary of Hlinka’s birthday and 6 October 1939 an anniversary of the declaration of autonomy for Slovakia from the previous year which was Hlinka’s long-term goal after 1918.

44 ‘Zvečnelý Vodca Hlinka uložený v mauzoleu [The Eternal Leader Buried in the Mausoleum]’, Liptov, 4 November 1939, p. 1.

45 J. Aren, ‘Veľký ‘grave man’ Andrej Hlinka [A Great ‘Grave Man’ Andrej Hlinka]’, Slovák, 29 October 1939, p. 5.

46 Aren, Veľký ‘grave man’, p. 6.

47 Martin Ciel, Film a politika. Ideológia a propaganda v slovenskom filme 1939–1989 (Bratislava: Vlna/Drewo a srd, 2017), p. 31. ISBN 978-80-89550-28-9.

48 ‘Prvé posolstvo prvého prezidenta Slovenskej republiky [The First Message of the first President of Slovak Republic]’, Gardista, 4 November 1939, p. 15.

49 ‘Vodcovo slovo odznelo [The Leader Has Spoken]’, Slovák, 4 November 1939, p. 3.

50 R. Strieženec, ‘Otec vlasti vo svojom večnom príbytku [The Father of Motherland in His Eternal Abode]’, Gardista, 11 November 1939, p. 7.

51 Druhý deň ružomberských slávností, p. 3.

52 ‘Prvé smernice pre národný pohreb Andreja Hlinku [First Guidelines for the National Funeral of Andrej Hlinka]’, Slovák, 19 August 1938, p. 1.

53 Gardista, 13 November 1940, p. 1.

54 On 30 October 1918, a Martin Declaration (Martinská deklarácia), also called a Declaration of the Slovak Nation (Deklarácia slovenského národa), was adopted in an assembly of notable Slovak politicians and activists of the Slovak national movement in the historic city of Turčiansky Svätý Martin. Notwithstanding the events in Prague two days before, the Declaration expressed the will of 108 delegates across the political spectrum to incorporate Slovakia into Czechoslovak Republic. The HSĽS commemorated this event as a kick-off point of their twenty-year struggle for autonomy.

55 ‘Hold Slovenska prvému gardistovi Andrejovi Hlinkovi [Slovakia’s Tribute to the First Guardsman Andrej Hlinka]’, Slovák, 31 October 1940, p. 3.

56 ‘Fakľová štafeta k hrobu Andreja Hlinku [A Torch Relay to the Grave of Andrej Hlinka]’, Liptov, 19 October 1940, p. 1.

57 ‘Pri hrobe Andreja Hlinku stála čestná stráž [A Permanent Guard of Honour at the Grave of Andrej Hlinka]’, Liptov, 26 October 1940, p. 1; ‘Stráž pri hrobe Andreja Hlinku [A Guard at the Grave of Andrej Hlinka]’ Liptov, 5 January 1941, p. 1.

58 Faguľa, Andrej Hlinka, p. 174.

59 In the war against the Soviet Union, the Slovak Army’s losses were as follows: 1,235 dead, 2,243 missing, 3,198 wounded, and 294 captured. Tomáš Klubert, Slovenská armáda v druhej svetovej vojne (Bratislava: Perfekt – Ústav pamäti národa, 2016), p. 210.

60 DP was a party organizing the German minority in Slovakia from 1938 to 1945. The party was led by Volksgruppenführer Franz Karmasin and rooted in the Karpathendeutsche Partei (founded in 1929), a latter fellow political ‘sister’ of Konrad Henlein’s Sudetendeutsche Partei in Czechoslovakia. In the late 1930s the DP fully adopted National Socialism and became Hitler’s tool in control of the ‘protected’ Slovak State.

61 M. Hrdina, ‘Slovenský štát a architektúra’ in Katarína Bajcurová, Petra Hanáková, and Bohunka Koklesová (eds) Sen x skutočnosť. Umenie & propaganda 1939–1945 (Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 2017), p. 142. ISBN 978-80-8059-208-0.

62 ‘Pietná slávnosť v Ružomberku [A Reverent Ceremony in Ružomberok]’, Gardista, 8 August 1943, p. 3.

63 Hrdina, Slovenský štát a architektúra, p. 148; P. Kralčák, ‘Pracovný zbor Národnej obrany vo svetle jeho hospodárskych výsledkov (1941–1944)’, Vojenská história, 17:4 (2013), p. 40. ISSN 1335-3314.

64 ‘Píšu sa novodobé slovenské dejiny [A Modern History of Slovakia Is Being Written]’, Slovák, 10 August 1943, p. 3.

65 ‘Pplk. E. Budinský. K výročiu jeho smrti [Lt Col E. Budinský. To an Anniversary of His Death]’, Gardista, 8 August 1943, p. 3.

66 Military Historical Archive Bratislava (Vojenský historický archív Bratislava), f. Ministry of National Defence – confidential files (Ministerstvo národnej obrany – dôv.), box 394, no. 181, 1943, signature 80 3/1–80 3/3. Program of unveiling the Mound of Lt Col Budinský, 8 August 1943.

67 ‘Pracovať – obetovať – zomierať [To Work – to Sacrifice – To Die]’, Slovák, 10 August 1943, p. 1.

68 Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism. The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 224. ISBN 978-1-4039-8783-9.

69 Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864–1926), (S. l.: S. n., 1934), pp. 238–239.

70 ‘Ružomberok investoval 29,000.000 Ks [Ružomberok Has Invested 29 Million Slovak Crowns]’, Liptov, 1 January 1940, p. 3.

71 ‘Rozpočet mesta Ružomberok [A Budget of the City of Ružomberok]’, Liptov, 11 January 1941, p. 1.

72 ‘Ružomberok sa okrášľuje [Ružomberok Beautifies Itself]’, Gardista, 3 August 1944, p. 5.

73 ‘Ružomberok, centrum turistiky [Ružomberok, a Centre of Tourism]’, Tatranský Slovák, 12 August 1944, p. 3.

74 ‘Podnikavosťou napred [By Entrepreneurship Ahead]’, Liptov, 1 December 1939, p. 1.

75 K. Janas, ‘Boj o župné sídla na Slovensku (1939–1940)’, Historické rozhľady II (2005), pp. 179-180. ISBN 80-89034-86-1.

76 ‘Oslavy 52. narodenín Vodcu A. Hitlera [Celebration of the 52th Birthday of the Leader A. Hitler]’, Tatranský Slovák, 26 April 1941, p. 2.

77 J. Ferenčík, ‘Nepriateľ kresťanstva [An Enemy of Christianity]’, Tatranský Slovák, 28 June 1941, p. 1.

78 Tatranský Slovák, 2 August 1941, p. 1.

79 ‘Likvidácia židovských podnikov v Tatranskej župe [A Liquidation of the Jewish Enterprises in the Tatra Region]’, Tatranský Slovák, 28 February 1942, p. 1.

80 ‘Ešte je čas [There Is Still Time]’, Tatranský Slovák, 16 October 1943, p. 1.

81 Martin Lacko (ed) Situačné hlásenia okresných náčelníkov (január – august 1944) (Trnava: Katedra histórie FF UCM, 2005), p. 122. ISBN 80-89220-01-0. Compare also: Archive of the Security Services Prague (Archiv bezpečnostních složek Praha), 225-1498-4. German situational reports from Slovak districts for 1944.

82 Ružomberok, Monografia mesta, p. 116.

83 Marek Syrný and Marian Uhrin (eds) Situačné hlásenia okresných náčelníkov (september 1944 – február 1945) (Banská Bystrica: Múzeum Slovenského národného povstania, 2012), p. 122. ISBN 978-80-89514-09-0.

84 L. Lipták, ‘Pamätníky a pamäť povstania roku 1944 na Slovensku’, Historický časopis, 43:369 (1995), p. 369. ISSN 0018-2575.

85 In February 1945, shortly before the fall of the HSĽS regime, Slovak Ministers of Interior and National Defence organized a transportation of Hlinka’s corpse from the Mausoleum to Bratislava. It is confirmed that from 1945 to 1960s an embalmed corpse was stored in the crypt of the St Martin’s Cathedral. What happened after remains unclear. Rumours say the corpse might have been cremated by the communist State Security; however, there are no proofs. See: F. Mikloško, ‘Tajomstvo Hlinkovho hrobu [A Secret of Hlinka’s Grave]’ Listy: Časopis pro politickou kulturu a dialog 3 (2001), p. 45, reg. no. 5288; Martin Mózer, ‘Kde leží otec národa? [Where Does the Father of Nation Rest?]’, Slovenský národ, 20 November 1991, p. 6.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract no. APVV-19-0358; and the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic under grant number 003UMB-4/2022.

Notes on contributors

Anton Hruboň

Anton Hruboň Historian and associate professor in Political Science at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (Slovak Republic). In his research he focuses on historical and contemporary varieties of fascism, political radicalism, nationalism, and war studies with special focus on Central Europe. An author of 13 books, more than 80 journal articles and conference proceedings. A former visiting postdoc and research fellow at the Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, Collegium Carolinum – Research Institute for the Czech lands and Slovakia in Munich, Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna, and the Memorial of the Shoah in Paris.