Zakonšpirované Slovensko 1938 – 1945
Niekoľko úvah nad tvárami neviditeľného spiritus movens ľudáckeho režimu

ANTON HRUBOŇ
Katedra bezpečnostných štúdií, Fakulta politických vied a medzinárodných vzťahov Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici

Conspiracized Slovakia, 1938–1945
A few reflections on the faces of the invisible spiritus movens of the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party’s regime

Abstract: The paradigm of Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (HSĽS) regime, as well as the persecutory measures implemented against fabricated “enemies of the nation” during its reign (October 1938 – April 1945), were based on conspiracy theories. This essay identifies the main ones, pointing out their genesis, intentionality, and ways of operating with them in political practice. The analysis shows that although many conspiracy frames used in wartime Slovakia correlated with narratives in other countries of the fascist Axis, they cannot be considered copypastes of rhetoric popularized mostly by Nazi Germany. The text promotes the idea that the conspiratorial thinking of the HSĽS already formed in the late Habsburg monarchy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the changes in international politics in the 1930s only had an effect on their firmer establishment in the political culture of the party and political preferences of its supporters. The basis of this conspiratorial thinking was the fear of liberalism, of the threat to the Christian faith and the Slovak nation by a group of highly sophisticated interconnected “pests” with destructive intentions. Until 1918, it primarily included the Marxist left, capitalists, freemasons, and liberals in general, and after the creation of Czechoslovakia, Czechs, and Jews to an increased extent. The essay emphasizes that precisely the argumentation of conspiracy theories (“imperialism of Prague against Slovakia/Slovaks”, “Jewish Bolshevism”) provided the legitimizing platform for the repressive policy of the HSĽS regime and authorized violence against entire groups of the population that did not belong to the “ingroup”.

Keywords: conspiracy theories, Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, Slovakia, Jewish Bolshevism, racism, xulture conflict, World War II.