Hodža in his own words…

In the interests of giving a clearer understanding of the man whom I briefly introduced in my last blog post, I am here presenting some direct quotes from the Slovak distributist journalist and statesman. Most of these (not all) come from the Slovak Academy of Sciences volume edited by Miroslav Pekník.

… on the need for self-respect among the peasantry. There’s something a little rich about this, of course. Hodža was not a peasant himself, but a gymnasium-educated journalist and publicist who gravitated to his similarly-educated fellows. But regardless of his personal proclivities, Hodža has a solid point to make. The coöperatives and farmers’ unions he championed were meant, as much for the self-respect and political agency of the peasants who joined them, as they were for direct material advancement:

Why do the higher-class gentlemen regard the peasant farmer as something lower or baser? The peasant farmer is oppressed because he can be oppressed. This is not the case elsewhere. In Bohemia? In Moravia? There, the peasant farmer is master! You see, politics for the people begins with the peasant smock. In this, only in this is our fault, that we are unable to respect ourselves and that we are unable to win respect from others. (1905)

… on the shortcomings of Slovak nationalist politics, and their shameful collusion with capitalism and profiteering, industrial agriculture:

The previous programmes of the national party were excessively one-sided. The national questions are their alpha and omega. Church and school only here and there. Our programmes treat the essential ingredients of public life with lordly indifference. It is entirely natural that none of them has been viable… To capitalism and to those in power everything was and is free, but nobody gave a helping hand to the poor and weak. Our people are free from serfdom, but find themselves in the claws of capitalism. [Our populace] has barely come to life and now the latifundia and loss-making factories are beginning to stifle it! (1905)

… and again. Here he is, undoubtedly thinking of the Rusins and other smaller minorities inside the first Czechoslovak Republic:

Recognition of national individualities led to undervaluing or wiping out of [other] national individualities. Chauvinism, self-deception and suppression of others arose. The nationality idea as a means to a higher aim became an aim in itself. National egoism suppressed humanitarian ideals: and behold, nationalism. Since nationality already became the aim, all other aims vanished, as did the principles of social equality and social justice desired by all humanity… (1930)

… at the same time, though, he was no advocate of globalism or any kind of fan of artificial schemes to unite people under an artificial bureaucratic higher authority. As ill-disposed as he was to ‘aggressive’ nationalism and ‘chauvinism’ that saw no ends beyond themselves, he was even less well-disposed to schemes that would rob smaller nations, like the Slovaks, of their hard-won dignity. As he put it:

Nationality cannot be drowned in humanism, because precisely this way, the treasure of humanity would vanish. (1930)

… on the impossibility of political and œconomic ‘free-market’ liberalism among the Slovaks:

Political liberalism is actually a mere opposition against the ruling conservatism, since as soon as it achieves power, it conserves itself. Economic liberalism, based on arbitrary trade and industry in our country, has no conditions whatsoever among us! (1930)

… on the Uniate clergy. For a bit of context, the kobłyna was an in-kind tax which entitled the Uniate priest to a certain percentage of the peasant’s agricultural produce like grain or wood; and the rokowyna was essentially a corvée. The peasant was obligated to labour, unpaid, for the Uniate priest, either in the fields or transporting goods. The Uniate clergy, first with the blessings of the Polish and later with those of the Austro-Hungarian government, had taken full advantage of these privileges, gorging themselves on the lifeblood of the poor. Here is Hodža, speaking on the occasion of the Maramoroš-Siget Process that unjustly imprisoned and imposed crushing fines on Fr Alexis Kabalyuk and 93 of his flock:

There, in Transcarpathia, the Greek Catholic Church is completely subordinated to the government; nearly all Greek Catholic priests have been Magyarised and cooperate with the government officials. For long years, the people have patiently tolerated it all (the kobłyna and rokowyna levies)… (1913)

… on the Rusin peasantry in general:

The Rusins are a starving nation. They suffer hunger as they have nothing to eat; they starve mentally, and suffer as no other nation in Europe. As soon as they are born, they are sucked dry by the [Uniate] priest and the likhvar [loan shark], both of whom are supported by the [Austro-Hungarian] government. They have the worst land to cultivate. Out of a hundred people, five or maybe ten can read… (1916)

Keep in mind that Hodža was not a Russophile. Being as he was a critic of national chauvinism, he was not an ally of Kramář’s national-conservatives; nor did he believe as Beneš did that the Czechoslovak nation had proximate interests in common with the Soviet Union. As he himself put it:

We are situated between millstones (Germany and Russia) and if we do not hasten to become millstones ourselves, we will be ground into powder! (1934)

His sympathy with the Rusins, and his distaste for the Uniate clergy and their feudal abuses of the peasantry, had nothing to do with the cultural politics of the time – and everything to do with his agrarian-distributist sympathy (however distant and professional in nature) for the impoverished and indebted. Hodža, though allowing that Russian Orthodox priests did not treat the Rusins with such cruelty, was even slightly sceptical of the pro-Russian sentiments which were, at that time, understandably growing among the Rusins:

[Such sentiments] may strengthen the Rusins in religion, but can give them no strength in the struggle for their daily bread or in the struggle against usury, pro-Magyar [Uniate] priests, notaries, officials or the whole lordly clique. (1914)

Hodža’s own attitudes toward religion generally were… flexible. He himself was a Lutheran, a pastor’s son, but he spoke highly of the ‘Christian idea’, the ‘altruistic’ and ‘humanitarian’ impulse that gravitated toward the goals of meeting people in their most ‘vital needs’ in ways which were seemingly filtered through Hegel and Feuerbach. This rather attenuated understanding of Christianity led him to consider the churches – in most cases – as needed bulwarks against the dehumanising and distorting effects of the various ideologies.