Suchergebnisse

Th e paper analyzes the course of the process of historical research of the personality of Andrej Hlinka. One of the most signifi cant fi gures of the Slovak history in general became the subject of interest of the Slovak historians only gradually, slowly and with big diffi culties. Nevertheless, historians´ opinions which have been formed in particular period connections refl ect specifi - cally and typically the peripeties of the development of the Slovak national issue and phases of interest (disinterest) of historiography in this personality, and they represent a unique source of the view of collective historical memory of the national community, of the formally desired and naturally formed development of the community´s notion of the values of its own past.No historical monograph on Hlinka was published in 1939-1989. However, important references, period evaluations and observations can be found in synthetically oriented works of the following historians: František Hrušovský, František Bokes, Július Mésároš and Ľubomír Lipták and others. Th e personality of Hlinka was either suppressed or evaluated one-sidedly negatively. Th e year 1968 brought a certain change in this direction and revaluation of Hlinka's personality. Th e period of normalization in 70s and 80s created a larger space to remember Hlinka's personality, however, its interpretation was again shift ed towards negative side. The social and political change aft er 1989 and current state of research corroborate natural comeback of the personality in its environment, however, they also mirror a disproportion between spontaneously preserved "heritage of (the Slovak) historical memory" (heritage of the memory of majority of the national community, respectively) and institutionally created "memory of the heritage".

The present paper maps the portrayal of Andrej Hlinka within the Protestant milieu during his lifetime. It also tries to answer the question of Hlinka's position in the hierarchy of symbols which were and are relevant for the formation of the Slovak Protestants' identity. Nowadays, ambivalent or expressly negative att itudes towards Hlinka prevail within the Lutheran community, however, similar att itudes prevailed also during the interwar and aft er-war periods.In 1902 at the regional forum, A. Hlinka did not support the rights of the Slovak language which represented a major att ribute of the national identity of Slovaks. Hlinka's att itude was then reminded in the Lutheran milieu in the situations when an idealized and mythologized portrayal of Hlinka as an uncompromising fi ghter for the national rights spread in particular via offi cial propaganda. In fact, it served as a de-legitimizing instrument of Hlinka cult. During the existence of the Slovak State (1938/1939 – 1945) Slovak Protestants were massively confronted with the phenomenon of Hlinka and denied this historical fi gure in the position of the most signifi cant national symbol. At the religious celebration of the national hero General Milan Rastislav Štefánik in May 1939, General Bishop of the Protestant Church Vladimír Pavel Čobrda compared both personages – Hlinka and Štefánik – and refused the symbolic governmental policy and propaganda which tried to make believe the whole society including Lutherans that Hlinka was a positive social example. He called Štefánik the greatest Slovak who became the symbol of antifascist resistance.