Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

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Part of a series on the
History of Czechoslovakia
Coat of arms of Czechoslovakia
Origins 1918
First Republic 1918–1938
2nd Republic / Occupation 1938–1945
Third Republic 1945–1948
Communist era 1948–1989
Velvet Revolution 1989
Dissolution 1993




Czechoslovakia between 1968 (Constitutional Law of Federation) and 1989 (Velvet Revolution).
The modern Czech Republic.
The modern Slovak Republic.

Czechoslovakia was created with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. In 1917, a meeting took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the future Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and other Czech and Slovak representatives signed the Pittsburgh Agreement which promised a common state consisting of two equal nations, Slovakia and Czechia. Soon after, the philosophy of Edvard Beneš pushed for greater unity and a single nation.




By 1991, the Czech Republic's GDP per capita was some 20% higher than Slovakia's, but its long-run GDP growth was lower.[citation needed] Transfer payments from the Czech budget to Slovakia, which had been the rule in the past, were stopped in January 1991.

Many Czechs and Slovaks desired the continued existence of a federal Czechoslovakia. Some major Slovak parties, however, advocated a looser form of co-existence[citation needed] and the Slovak National Party complete independence and sovereignty. In the next years, political parties re-emerged, but Czech parties had little or no presence in Slovakia, and vice versa. In order to have a functional state, the government demanded continued control from Prague, while Slovaks continued to ask for decentralization.[1]


The goal of negotiations switched to achieving a peaceful division. On 13 November, the Federal Assembly passed Constitution Act 541 which settled the division of property between the Czech lands and Slovakia.[3] With Constitution Act 542, passed on 25 November, they agreed to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of 31 December 1992.[3]


Reasons for the division[edit]

Many different reasons are given for the split of Czechoslovakia, but debates around the reason for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia centre around inevitability[clarification needed] versus events that occurred between the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the end of the joined state in 1992.[4]

The people who argue inevitability point to the stereotypes between the two nations, problems with the shared state during communism, the success of the communist state in Czech lands and its failure in the Slovak lands which still resulted in the adoption of communism, because the Czechs had a bigger say in the running of the state than Slovaks, and the 1968 constitution that had a minority veto.[5] There were other more subtle differences, such as religion; most Czechs are atheist and/or irreligious, whereas most Slovaks are Catholics.

The people who argue events between 1989 and 1992 point to international factors such as the breakaway of the Soviet satellite nations, the lack of unified media between the Czech and Slovak republic, and most importantly the actions of the political leaders of the two nations.[6]

Legal aspects[edit]

National symbols[edit]

Since the Coat of arms of Czechoslovakia was a composition of historic geographic areas forming the country, each republic simply kept its own symbol – the Czechs the lion and the Slovaks the double cross. The same principle was applied to the two-part bilingual Czechoslovak national anthem that comprised two separate pieces of music, the Czech stanza Kde domov můj? and the Slovak stanza Nad Tatrou sa blýska. Disputes occurred only with respect to the Czechoslovak national flag. During the 1992 negotiations about the details of dissolution of Czechoslovakia, on demand made by Vladimír Mečiar and Václav Klaus, a clause forbidding use of state symbols of Czechoslovakia by successor states was inserted into the Constitutional Law about the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia.[7]




Division of national property[edit]


Currency division[edit]


On 1 January 2009 Slovakia adopted the Euro as its currency with the exchange rate of 30.126 SK/€, and the €2 commemorative coin for 2009, Slovakia's first one, featured the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in remembrance of the common struggle of the Czechoslovakian people for democracy.[11] By the virtue of fate, the welcoming speech on the behalf of the European Union on the occasion of Slovakia's entry to the Eurozone was delivered by Mirek Topolánek, the prime minister of the then EU presiding country, the Czech Republic, naturally in his native language while other guest speakers used English. The Czech Republic continues to use the Czech koruna, or crown.

International law[edit]

Neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia sought recognition as the sole successor state to Czechoslovakia. This can be contrasted to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, where the Russian Federation was recognized as successor state to not only the RSFSR but the USSR itself. Therefore, Czechoslovakia's membership in the UN ceased upon dissolution of the country, but on 19 January 1993 the Czech and Slovak Republics were admitted to the UN as new and separate states.









Slovak legislation allowed dual citizenship until 2010 when Slovakia abolished the possibility of dual citizenship.[12] Only a handful of people have exercised this right; however, the significance of this is lessened by both nations' membership in the EU as the freedom of movement for workers policy guarantees EU citizens the right to work and live anywhere in the Union. In the case of movement between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this policy took effect from 2004.


Under the current European regulations, citizens of either country are entitled to the diplomatic protection of any other EU country and, therefore, the Czech and Slovak Republics have been considering merging their embassies together with nations of the Visegrád Group in order to reduce costs.[13]

Roma people[edit]


The Slovak government did not want to grant citizenship to non-residents. Significant numbers of Roma living in Czech orphanages did not have their legal status clarified, and were released from care as adult non-citizens without any right to work or live in the Czech Republic.[15] Under pressure from the European Union, the Czech government made amendments to its nationality law in 1999 and 2003 which effectively solved the problem; however, compensation has not been provided to those rendered stateless in 1992.[14]

Language contacts[edit]


On Slovak state TV, it is common to have daily at least one newscast from the Czech Republic in prime time news. Furthermore, many TV programmes on Slovak TV channels are still dubbed into Czech, some films in cinemas are subtitled in Czech and there are far more Czech-language books and periodicals on the market than before the dissolution. The major boost for the language interchange has come from private TV channel providers like CS Link (Czech Republic) and Sky Link (Slovakia) that offer Slovak channels in the Czech Republic and vice versa. Additionally, several channels, regardless of their national origin, offer programs both in Czech and Slovak (CSFilm, TV Barrandov) or even mix like TV Nova's Nova Sport coverage of the English Premier League. New impulses to mutual contacts coming via TV are also common shows like the Intelligence Test of Nations, Czechoslovakia's Got Talent[16] broadcast by PRIMA and TV JOJ, and Czecho-Slovak SuperStar, the latter being the first international edition of the Pop Idol song contest broadcast by TV Nova and Markíza, which also organized a joint version of MasterChef in 2012. Also, the New Year's Eve Program for 2009 was prepared and broadcast jointly by ČT and STV and for 2010 by the Czech TV PRIMA and the Slovak TV JOJ, this time even including the singing of the Czechoslovak national anthem.

Young Slovak people still have the same knowledge (if not better) of the Czech language as their predecessors. Even today, in Slovakia, Czech may be used automatically in all judicial proceedings, plus all documents written in Czech are acknowledged by Slovak authorities, and vice versa. Further, the Slovak Official Language Act passed in 2009 did reconfirm the right of Czechs to use their language in all official communication when dealing with Slovak authorities (however, the Act explicitly limited the use of Czech in Slovakia only to persons with Czech as their mother tongue). The same is true about using the Slovak language in the Czech Republic owing to the Administration Procedure Act of 2004.[17] Gustáv Slamečka, Slovak citizen who was the Czech transport minister (2009 - 2010), used the Slovak language exclusively in his official communication.

The upward trend in the language contacts demonstrates that Czechs and Slovaks do not regard each other as foreigners. The interview surveys from 2010 showed that the majority of the population of Prague (Czechs) still considers the division of the country a mistake;[18] similarly, the general representative survey in Slovakia (from 2008)[19] showed that society is still divided in opinion on the dissolution: 47% favouring the dissolution, while 44% considering it as a mistake.

For the language comparison see differences between Slovak and Czech languages.


At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1993 in Falun, Sweden, the ski jumping team competed as a combined Czech Republic-Slovakia team in the team large hill event, winning a silver. The team had been selected prior to the dissolution. Jaroslav Sakala won two medals in the individual hill events for the Czech Republic at those games along with his silver in the team event.

The official break-up occurred right in the middle of the 1993 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, which also took place in Sweden. The team representing Czechoslovakia was called "Czech-Slovak" starting on 1 January.

In their qualifying section for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the Czechoslovakia national football team competed under the name RCS which stood for "Representation of Czechs and Slovaks". It was after this that the teams were then officially split up into Czech Republic and Slovakia. The team failed to qualify after they could only draw their final match against Belgium, a match they needed to win to qualify.

The mutual encounters between national teams especially in ice hockey, traditionally the successful sport, and football, where Czechs and Slovaks compete against each other regularly in the World and European Championship Qualifications is followed by the majority of the population, and the number of players and coaches active in the other republic is endless. Several sports did or do feature a common league, and the discussions about having a common football or ice hockey league continue.[20] For example, Martin Lipták, a Slovak handball coach led successfully the Czech national team in EHF 2010 Handball European Championship in Austria.[21] A Slovak Team under his coaching, Tatran Prešov, won the Czech national league in 2008 and 2009.[22] A Czech ice hockey trainer Vladimír Vůjtek led the Slovak national team to winning silver medals at 2012 IIHF World Championship, having beaten the Czech ice hockey team in the semifinals.


The two successor states continued to use the country code +42 until 28 February 1997, when this was replaced by two separate codes: +420 for the Czech Republic and +421 for Slovakia. Since then, telephone calls between the two countries have required international dialing.


After a transition period of roughly four years, during which the relations between the states could be characterized as a "post-divorce trauma", the present relations between Czechs and Slovaks, as many people[who?] point out, are probably better than they have ever been.



Following the death of the last Czechoslovak president Václav Havel on 18 December 2011, both the Czech and the Slovak Republics observed the day of national mourning. During the funeral mass in Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral prayers were recited in an equal ratio in the Czech and the Slovak Language.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Skalnik Leff, Carol (1997). The Czech and Slovak Republics. Nation versus state. Westview Press. pp. 129–139. ISBN 0-8133-2922-1. 
  2. ^ Kamm, Henry. "At Fork in Road, Czechoslovaks Fret", New York Times, dateline 9 October 1992. Retrieved 1 January 2009.
  3. ^ a b Mrak, Mojmir (1999). Succession of States. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 978-90-411-1145-6. 
  4. ^ Innes, Abby (2001). Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye. Yale University Press. 
  5. ^ Kraus, Michael (2000). "International Forces and Factors". Irreconcilable Differences? Explaining Czechoslovakia’s Dissolution. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 
  6. ^ Musil, Jiri (1995). The End of Czechoslovakia. Oxford University Press Inc. 
  9. ^ Treaty between the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic on Common Borders (1996)- published in Slovakia under Announcement 274/1997 Z.z.
  10. ^ "The Significance of Stamps Used on Bank Notes". Thecurrencycollector.com. Retrieved 2013-11-19. 
  11. ^ "Pamätné mince 2 € – 2009". Ecb.int. Retrieved 2013-11-19. 
  12. ^ "Country Report: Slovakia". EUDO Citizen Observatory. January 2013. Retrieved 12 June 2013. 
  13. ^ "V4 wants common embassies". Noviny.joj.sk. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  14. ^ a b Dedić, Jasminka. Roma and Stateless. European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
  15. ^ The manufactured troubles of L'udovit Gorej, Roma Rights Quarterly, Summer 1997
  16. ^ "Úvod | Česko Slovensko má Talent". Csmatalent.sk. 30 November 2010. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  17. ^ "500/2004 Coll. ACT of 24th June 2004 Code of Administrative Procedure". Ducr.cz. Retrieved 2013-11-19. 
  18. ^ "Rozdelenie Československa: Čo hovorí pražská ulica?". Tv.sme.sk. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  19. ^ "Slovaks have not come to terms with the breakup". Hnonline.sk. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  20. ^ "Česi i Slováci chcú spoločnú futbalovú ligu. Prekážok je ešte veľa". sport.pravda.sk. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2012. 
  21. ^ "Martin Lipták trénerom hádzanárov Česka". Sportky.topky.sk. 18 July 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  22. ^ pdrbjak. "Tatran Prešov Web Page". Tatranpresov.sk. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  23. ^ "Spoločné vyhlásenie - zasadnutie vlád Slovenskej republiky a Českej republiky". Vlada.gov.sk. Retrieved 2013-11-19. 
  24. ^ "15th ACR Contingent in KFOR". Army.cz. Retrieved 2013-11-19. 


  • Innes, Abby (2001), Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven: Yale University Press).
  • Rupnik, Jacques (2001), "Divorce à l’amiable ou guerre de sécession? (Tchécoslovaquie-Yougoslavie)," Transeuropéennes no. 19/20.
  • Wehrlé, Frédéric (1994), Le Divorce Tchéco-Slovaque: Vie et mort de la Tchécoslovaquie 1918–1992 (Paris: L’Harmattan).
  • Paal Sigurd Hilde, "Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia." Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Jun. 1999): 647–665.


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