József Kiss: Slovakia’s Place and Role in Milan Hodža’s Geopolitical Concepcion (1. part)
The study’s starting point is Milan Hodža’s geopolitical conception that was accomplished in 1931 – by defining the territory between Germany and Russia from geographical, economic, civilisational and power point of view. Hodža’s conception became the subject of political analyses at the beginning of the 90’s, but as a certain result of his geopolitical ideas. His views gradually crystallized that had its historical grading. This study intends to capture some of the components of Hodža’s conception, to follow its development, and to illustrate its socio-political circumstances from historical point of view – according to Hodža’s writings.
The reason for examining Hodža’s geopolitical thinking is that his conceptions, which he considered to have geopolitical context, are connected with Middle European importance mainly from the point of view of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. That proposition was emphasised that the geopolitical basis of having this role was Slovakia – from the communicational function of the Duna river’s flowing – was in fact in harmony with the Czechoslovak arguments during the creation of the borders of the new country. And these were accepted political and publicistical changes between the two world wars in Czechoslovakia. Alhtough, in the case of Milan Hodža, they were always present in such connection where internal policy motives interwaved with international relations. Consequently, the thesis by Milan Hodža gained real conception creating dimension by mixing into the chain of ideas touching Czech-Slovak relationships. The study analyses: in what extent dis Hodža’s argumentation have geopolitical criteria, and how did his analyses gain characteristic features of real geopolitical conceptions.
Hodža looked for Slovakia’s place in connection with the intermediating mission between West and East of Middle Europe – between the coordinates of comprehensive geopolitical conceptions that were present in his lectures and articles in the summer of 1931.
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