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abstract: 'Shortly after the crucial political changes connected with the events in
November 1989 in Czechoslovakia, some differences in political attitudes
and behavior of the Czech and Slovak population appeared. An increasing
tension in the Czech - Slovak relations finally led to a peaceful
dissociation of the federal Czechoslovakia and to the formation of two
sovereign states at the beginning of 1993. It is no wonder that this
important change caused a serious discussion of social scientists of the
both societies about the societal reasons and consequences of this
unexpected and sudden historical and political phenomenon. The author of
the present study in agreement with Jiri Musil prefers the comparison of
different developments of cultural and social structures in the Czech
lands and Slovakia to somewhat superficial historical and politological
analyses of the split as a unique event.
He disposes at some serious and historically relevant sociological
evidence concerning the development of Czech-Slovak relationships,
namely with the results of some representative Czech and Slovak
sociological surveys, particularly from the years 1967, 1984, 1998,
April 1993 and October 1993. Except the 1984 survey, he personally
participated in all of them.
In the second half of the 1960s, the Czech lands and Slovakia
substantially differed in cultural and social respect. Above all one
could observe big differences concerning the degree od urbanization in
favour of the Czech lands. Slovakia remained then a country with
settlement structure of rural type and with much more traditional way of
life.
A similar lag was characteristic for the structure of economically
active population in respect to industrial branches. In the 1960s, the
Czech lands belonged, according to their pre-war traditions and in the
consequence of the enforced repeated industrialization (for military
needs of the Soviet block in the period of the Cold War), to extensively
industrialized societies, whereas Slovakia was rather a rural-industrial
society where a recently started extensive industrialization went on.
Towards the end of the 1960s the educational level of the Slovak
population was already relatively close to that of the Czech one,
although some distinctions still remained.
At the same time, many important differences lasted in the material
level of household equipment which was relatively better in the Czech
lands. On the other hand, in consequence of the redistributive economic
system, the average earnings were already nearly equal.
In autumn 1967, on the very eve of the political crisis which signalized
the outburst of events known as Prague Spring 1968, a large sociological
survey of a representative sample of adult males dealing with social
stratification and mobility was carried out by the Czech and Slovak
sociologists in cooperation with the State Statistical Office. Its
results were published two years later, unfortunately already after the
Warsaw Pact Intervention which led to the defeat of the reform attempt
connected with the Prague Spring. A special chapter in this book was
written by a group of Slovak sociologists headed by R. Rosko. The
authors proved that the social status distribution in Slovakia was in
the late 1960s significantly lower in the average than the analogical
distribution in the Czech lands. It was caused by small differences in
the participation of individuals in management, in the level of work
complexity typical for the occupational structures in question, and in
the distribution of earnings; by more remarkable differences in level of
education and material equipment of households; and by large differences
concerning average income per capita, standards of consumption and
cultural level of the life-style. In general, these findings
demonstrated a still lasting deep cultural and social inequality of the
Czech and Slovak part of the country. This social unbalance was
multiplied by the consequences of the anti-Slovak political repressions
in the late 1940s and in the 1950s and of the `''constitutional reform''''
from 1960 which brought suppression of the Slovak autonomy in favour of
the centralized bureaucratic Prague administration. All these
circumstances stimulated a high dissatisfaction of the relatively
younger population of Slovakia living in conditions of a rapid
demographic development, progress of urbanization and industrialization.
It was important for the specific character of the social and political
reform movement in 1968 on the Slovak territory which finally caused one
of the few real successes of the Prague Spring - the constitutional act
declaring federalization of the Czechoslovak Republic.
In the practical politics of the `''normalization'''' regime installed by
the Soviet intervention in August 1968, the originally intended
federative arrangement was `''via facti'''' replaced by a new version of
the totalitarian and bureaucratic centralism. However, this time the
political regime was in a sense more favourable for Slovakia. The Slovak
Communist leaders gained for more better and in some respect even
decisive positions in the Prague central administration of the country
than any time before. Some changes in this respect occurred only in the
late 1980s. In consequence of all this, the process of the secondary
redistribution of the GDP in favor of Slovakia not only continued but
even intensified in the 1970s and 1980s. Simultaneously, political
oppressions concerning hundreds of thousands of participants in the
Prague Spring events were in this period sensibly weaker in Slovakia
than in the Czech lands. Thus, paradoxically, the `''normalization
regime'''' brought some advantages for Slovakia as compared with the past.
Some evidence for this can be find in the data collected by Czech
sociologists in the sociological survey on `''class and social
structure'''' in 1984, i.e. shortly before the beginning of the Soviet
`''perestroika''''. A recent secondary analysis of this data shows
therefore a cultural and social situation typical for the normalization
system on the top point of its development. It is not very surprising
that thanks to the permanent operation of the redistributive mechanisms
during fifteen years after the final defeat of the Prague Spring the
cultural and social characteristics of the Czech and Slovak adult
populations were mutually much closer in 1984 than in 1967. There
remained practically no differences in work complexity and in average
earnings. The quality of housing was approximately the same. The
households were telephonized in very close percentages. People were
equally active in professional studying and in political activities (in
official politics, of course). In some respects small differences in
favour of the Czech population still existed. This is true as far as the
global educational level, the percentage of managers and some items of
the households equipment are concerned. In their leisure, Czech
population was more frequently engaged in typically urban cultural
activities. The Slovak population lived in a substantially higher
percentage in their own private houses, in more rooms per family and in
better environment than the Czech did. They had in more cases gardens or
other land at their disposal and devoted themselves more frequently to
domestic agricultural work. They also were more active in social
contacts, in visiting relatives, neighbours and friends.
Still slightly better economic position of the households in the Czech
lands - caused partly by lower average number of the more aged Czech
families - expressed itself in somewhat higher evaluation of the
standard of living from the part of the Czech population.
In other words, in the midst of the 1980s, the cultural and social
characteristics of the Slovak population were already close to the Czech
standards but some lag in this respect still existed. Anyway, the Czech
lands represented the stagnating part of the federation, while Slovakia
was the progressing one.
The beginning of the Soviet perestroika signalized the Czech population
that a new historical crisis of the Soviet-type societies was coming.
Feelings of dissatisfaction with the stagnation of the Czech lands
combined with political frustration of the citizens of an occupied
country gradually grew up, particularly when some difficulties
concerning standard of living emerged in the second half of the 1980s. A
certain dissappointment caused by the unwillingness of the Gorbatchev''s
leadership to revise the Soviet official attitude to the events of 1968
also played an important role. The Slovak population living still under
the protection of current redistributive processes and under a little
better political conditions did not feel these changes as intensively as
the Czech did. It is no wonder that these specificities influenced the
subjective evaluations of the economic, social, political and cultural
situation in the country. In the public opinion polls from the second
half of the 1980s, the degree of satisfaction of the Slovak population
concerning nearly all questions asked then was significantly higher than
that of the Czech citizens. Gradually, as the crisis of 1989 was coming
nearer, the evaluations were less and less favourable for the regime in
both republics. However, the Czech criticism grew more rapidly than the
criticism of the population in Slovakia.
The `''Velvet Revolution'''' of 1989 was initiated mainly by the Czech
dissidents and the politically active part of the Czech people. It found
an active response also in analogical groups in Slovakia. However, in
the course of the year 1990, when the outline of the radical economic
reform was prepared by the Federal Government and the first practical
steps of it were undertaken, a new shift in the structure of value
orientations occurred. Of crucial significance was above all the
declaration of President Havel demanding the liquidation of the arms
producing industry, strongly developed particularly in Slovakia, and the
first measures to its realization.
The author of the study disposes at representative data from the survey
on social transformation (autumn 1991) confronting the objective status
positions of the adult population with their subjective attitudes. As
far as the objective characteristics are concerned, the results of the
survey on social transformation were summoned by the author in 1992 as
follows:
`''We discussed systematically all the relevant partial dimensions of the
social position (status)...In all of these dimensions we could record
only two significant signals of larger social differences. The first of
them is a better standard of housing and a bigger amount of family
fortunes in Slovakia (relativized, of course, by higher numerousness of
families...). The second is a more often declaration of the subjective
feelings of a worse market and especially financial attainability of
consumption goods and services in Slovakia as well. In behind of this
statement is hidden a more significant factor of a lower income per
capita, connected with the already mentioned higher number of family
members, and a different perception of the reality, influenced by the
difference of social dynamics in the both republics. In no case,
however, it is possible to speak about two fundamentally different
status hierarchies with an essentially distinct context corresponding to
two different phases of the civilization and cultural development.''''
In other words, the cultural and social processes typical of the 1970s
and 1980s, namely the stagnation and the beginning of an absolute
decline in the Czech Republic and the continuing (although also limited
by the character of the totalitarian and anti-meritocratic social system
common for both of the two parts of the Federation) relative progress in
Slovakia led to a nearly full equalization of the social unbalance which
had been observed in 1967.
On the other hand, the data from 1991 revealed a deep discrepancy
between the balanced objective data and large differences of the
subjective perception of the social situation. In principle, the
evaluation both of the past and of the future transformation processes
was much more favourable in the Czech than in the Slovak Republic.
The most apparent differences in evaluation between the two republics
could be found in the fields of standard of living and of social
security.
It was quite clear that such deep differences in attitudes could not be
explained by those objective facts that revealed the attained social
equalization of the Czech lands and Slovakia but rather in the
specificities of the recent development of the two societies after the
`''Velvet Revolution''''. Anyway, the contradictory shape of the popular
attitudes became one of the stimuli that helped the victory of more
liberal and pro-federalist rifht-wing political parties in the Czech
Republic and rather anti-federalist political parties and movements in
Slovakia in the elections of 1992. The election victors decided after
relatively short negotiations, without asking people in a referendum, to
dissociate the common state of Czechs and Slovaks. It happened at the
beginning of 1993 in peaceful way and is acknowledged at present as a
matter of fact by majorities of populations in both new states.
It is highly interesting by now to find out what have been the further
destinies of people in both countries as far as the objective positions
and the subjective attitudes are concerned. A substantial contribution
to this kind of knowledge could bring large representative sociological
surveys of about 5000 adult respondents in the Czech and Slovak Republic
that took place in April 1993 as a part of broader comparative survey on
social stratification and mobility in Eastern Europe. The second
important contribution could be drawn from paralel surveys of somewhat
smaller representative samples devoted to the study of beliefs and
behaviour of Czech and Slovak people carried out in autumn 1993.
As far as the objective aspect of the problem is concerned, one can
state that the economically active population of the Czech and Slovak
Republics do not differ in none of the basic social status dimensions
characterizing the individuals. Even the indicators of the so called
status consistency/inconsistency, namely the rank correlations of
education, work complexity and earnings are equal in both republics.
Small differences have been revealed only in two newly studied status
characteristics. The so-called social capital (the degree of development
of purposeful informal social contacts) seems to be somewhat more
developed in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic. On the other hand, the
Czech lands are a little bit more progressing in the development of the
private enterpreneurship. However, the differences are not so deep as to
make the social stratification shape of the two societies fundamentally
dissimilar. Thus the data concerning the social positions of
economically active individuals prove clearly that Slovakia reached
approximately the same level od social and cultural development as the
Czech Republic.
There exist, of course, some not negligible differences concerning
social and cultural characteristics of the families, including their
economically non-active members.
In Slovakia, significantly more respondents declared that they were
living in family houses. The technical equipment of the housing is
somewhat better in the Czech lands, the size of the family flats or
houses and the number of rooms is larger in Slovakia. The material
equipment of the households differs somewhat in some items in favour of
the Czech families, in some others in favour of the Slovak. The average
amount of their family fortunes expressed in financial values seems to
be a little higher in Slovakia. The Czech families are not so numerous
as the relatively younger Slovak families and therefore their average
income per capita is higher. Among the population that has been
questioned in the stratification survey there was substantially less
retired persons in the Slovak Republic. The percentage of unemployed
among the respondents has been, on the contrary, some times higher in
Slovakia. However, the final percentage of economically active was
higher in Slovakia.
All these characteristics are connected with well known differences of
the two countries in the settlement structure and in the structure of
industries and branches in national economy. In the Slovak Republic,
significantly more people are working in agriculture, metallurgy, heavy
industry and energetics, yet also in education, culture ans science; in
the Czech Republic the same goes for other industry, other services,
finance and banking. Also the already mentioned differences in the
demographic structures play their role as well as the differences in the
ethnical structures (large Hungarian and Gipsy minority in Slovakia) and
in confessional structures (substantially more believers, particularly
Roman Catholics but also Evangelics in Slovakia).
If we take into account all the mentioned social and cultural
differences, some of them favourable for the Czech, some for the Slovak
Republic, we cannot notice, of course, that they are in a part derived
from the more rural and traditional past of Slovakia as we analyzed it
in on the basis of 1967 data. However, in the whole the weight of this
kind of differences is not as high that it could change our basic
statement about achieved fundamental cultural and social equality of the
societies in question, which both now belong to the industrial type and
started together a very similar trajectory of the post-communist
transformation.
However, there is one important field where the recently emerged
differences seem to be grave. It is the standard of living of the
households.
In every case, we can present interesting data comparing the evaluation
of family standards of living in the Czech lands and Slovakia in 1988
and in 1993. In spite of the fact that they are somewhat subjectively
coloured, especially as far as the retrospective evaluation is
concerned, they clearly show that the obvious decline of the standard of
living in both republics must have been much steeper in Slovakia. At the
same time, we have here the first evidence proving the big shift of
satisfaction/dissatisfaction attitudes in favour of the Czech lands.
This opens the discussion of the important topic of subjective
perception of the post-communist transformation. The evaluation, based
on new experience, is in both republics somewhat more sceptical than in
1991. At the same time, a remarkable change in the relation of positive
evaluations occurred in favour of the Czech Republic. In this case also
the experience of nine months of Slovak sovereignty evidently plays a
certain role. In most of similar questions one can identify a constant
phenomenon: 20-25\% less of positive and more of negative evaluations in
Slovakia than in the Czech lands.
The discrepancy between the relative equality of general cultural and
social structures in the analyzed countries, on the one hand, and big
differences in the subjective evaluations, on the other, for the first
time revealed in the data from 1991, emerged from the data of 1993 with
an even greater intensity. There are, in principle, three ways how to
interpret this phenomenon.
The first would be to query the first of the premises of our
considerations by arguing that the residues of the traditional rural
cultural and social relations in Slovakia are still alive, particularly
in times of new crucial changes, and hamper the operating of relatively
young and therefore unstable cultural and social relationships. However,
the facts witnessing for basic equality of the present cultural and
social structures are substantial and concern nearly all aspects of the
daily life in both societies, so that it is not so easy to doubt them.
There is a case for another explanation as well, namely for the
assumption that in the stormy atmosphere of radical social changes some
deep cultural and socio-psychological specificities of the nations
concerned emerge, which are responsible for the different reactions to
relatively equal situations. Neither these phenomena and mechanisms,
taken alone, can explain the abruptness and intensity of the change in
attitudes in the Czech lands and in Slovakia. In addition, the cultural
and psychological phenomena are in principle very vague and their
empirical fixation is unusually difficult. One could not notice that
therefore this kind of argumentation has been recently many times abused
by nationalist politicians both in Slovakia and in the Czech lands on
the basis of arbitrary assumptions and statements.
That is why we offer a third hypothesis, interpreting the stated
discrepancy from the angle of the specificities of social and historical
dynamics. It tries to explain the differences in attitudes as rationally
arguable reactions of two neighbouring nations to historically different
combinations of long-term and short-term dynamics.
It is undisputable, that from the fall of the 1930s, Slovakia, a former
agrarian and economically underdeveloped region, moved - with short
breaks only - steadily in the direction to an industrial and relatively
modern society with growing political authority. Although the Slovaks
did not like communism (as the results of the elections in 1946 clearly
showed) and had to be forced to adapt themselves to the state-socialist
system (as the events in 1947 and 1948 prove), paradoxically the peak of
the modernization of their society, bringing hitherto the best living
conditions for the population, has been achieved during the period of
`''normalization'''', i.e. on the top of the development of the
totalitarian and anti-meritocratic (egalitarian) social system in
Czechoslovakia. It is quite clear from this that typical ideologies of
the state socialist era: egalitarianism, state paternalism and
authoritarianism have far deeper roots in Slovakia than in the Czech
Republic.
The social experience of a long-term trajectory of a gradual rise and
emancipation of the Slovak nation clashed at once after 1989 with a
contradictory experience of a rapid decline and deteriorization of the
economic and social conditions, much more intensive than in the Czech
lands. It is no wonder that the Slovak population reacted to the new
situation in a greater extent than the Czech with feelings of
frustration, resignation or even refusal.
The social experience of the Czech nation since the end of the 1930s has
been substatially different. In the rude trajectory of development until
the end of the 1980s, degradation and stagnation of a formerly well
developed Central European land prevailed in general. A short
contradictory wave of a renewed progress in the 1960s finished by a
grave frustration from the defeat of the Prague spring. The Soviet
occupation meant a real lost of national sovereignty for the Czech
nation that never accepted it. After the lost of illusions about the
possibilities of the Soviet `''perestroika'''' and after a certain
deteriorization of the standard of living in the second half of the
1980s, the Czech nation was mentally prepared for a `''return to
Europe''''. The subsequent decline in the first phase of the
post-communist transformation was the slightest one among the Central
and East European countries and the signs of some improvement showed
very early. It is no wonder, again, that most people are relatively more
satisfied with the development until now and more optimistic about the
future than the Slovak population is. It does not mean, of course that
there does not exist a danger of a later desillusion of a part of
society and of some rise of feelings of frustration and resignation in
the future.
It is easy to see that this kind of interpretation of our data is
rational and corresponds the historical facts found out or corroborated
in our surveys. It can explain without distortion of the evident
historical reality most of the seeming paradoxes of the Czech and Slovak
reality and mutual relationships. In a way it gives also some keys to
the explanation of the split of Czechoslovakia and of its unexpected
abruptness and peaceful forms.'
affiliation: MACHONIN, P (Corresponding Author), CZECHOSLOVAK ACAD SCI, INST SOCIOL,
VILSKA 1, CS-11000 PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC.
author: MACHONIN, P
author_list:
- family: MACHONIN
given: P
da: '2023-09-28'
eissn: 1336-8613
files: []
issn: 0049-1225
journal: SOCIOLOGIA
keywords: 'VELVET REVOLUTION; PEACEFUL DISSOCIATION OF THE FEDERAL CZECHOSLOVAKIA;
TRANSFORMATION PROCESSES'
keywords-plus: CZECHOSLOVAKIA
language: Slovak
number: '4'
number-of-cited-references: '15'
pages: 333+
papis_id: 3691e723557b9331d8c334b99baf2c58
ref: Machonin1994sociologicalcomparis
times-cited: '7'
title: TOWARDS SOCIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF CZECH AND SLOVAK SOCIETY
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:A1994QG72500002
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '54'
volume: '26'
web-of-science-categories: Sociology
year: '1994'