AUC Studia Territorialia (Acta Universitatis Carolinae Studia Territorialia) is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on Area Studies. It covers political, economic, social, and cultural affairs of North America, Europe, and post-Soviet Eurasia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The journal was founded in 2001; currently, it appears biannually, both electronically and in print. It publishes original scholarly articles, book reviews, conference reports and research notes. The journal is a publication of the Institute of International Studies at Charles University’s Faculty of Social Sciences.
AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA, Vol 16 No 1 (2016), 44–63
Das mehrsprachige Abgeordnetenhaus der Tschechoslowakei in seiner parlamentarischen Praxis 1920–1938
[The Multilingual Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia in its Parliamentary Practice, 1920–1938]
Benjamin Conrad
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363231.2017.2
published online: 19. 06. 2017
abstract
In addition to the two official languages of Czech and Slovak, German, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish were allowed to be spoken as secondary languages in the lower house of Czechoslovakia’s parliament in 1920 in order to increase the acceptance of the new republic by the deputies of all national minorities. By swearing the oath in one of these languages, a deputy obtained the right to use this language in parliament. This article examines in which situations and how often members of parliament of minority descent took advantage of this right, regardless of their political convictions. The paper finds that although minority deputies, especially Hungarian or Polish ones, intensively took advantage of their right to participate in the debates in their languages, the use of German among German-speaking deputies progressively declined over the 1930s. This corresponded to the growing self-disintegration of Germans, especially after 1935.
keywords: Czechoslovakia; Czechoslovak-German relations; 1918–1938; national minorities; language policy; parliament
148 x 210 mm
periodicity: 2 x per year
print price: 180 czk
ISSN: 1213-4449
E-ISSN: 2336-3231
