Abstract
The dispute between Czecho-Slovakia1 and Poland over the valley of Javorina,2 a small area in the Slovak High Tatra Mountains, tested their strained relations in the first half of the 1920s. Official relations remained uneasy throughout the entire interwar period and suffered from a lack of understanding on both sides. Czecho-Slovak and Polish interwar foreign policy initiatives were at odds from the beginning and the territorial disputes intensified their rivalry. France needed a strong Poland, a barrier against communism and extremism. Prague and Warsaw competed for a principe organisateur in the east of Europe and each sought to deny its antagonist a leading role.3
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Notes
Piotr S. Wandycz, The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 1926–1936 (Princeton University Press, 1988), 3; “Politique du Chef de l’État,” A. de Panafieu, Warsaw, tel. no. 280, 15 November 1920, AD/MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Pologne, vol. 71, 234–5;
M. B. Biskupski, “Marceli Handelsman (1882–1945),” in Peter Brock, John D. Stanley, and Piotr J. Wróbel, eds, Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War (University of Toronto Press, 2006), 368. Biskupski wrote that the Polish historian Handelsman had posited Poland as the historical principe organisateur in the east of Europe before the partitions, a position to which it was returning after 1918. Biskupski mentioned the traditional Polish desire to deny Prague a leading role in the region, if only in historical conceptualization (ibid.).
Marek K. Kamiński and Michał J. Zacharias, Polityka zagraniczna Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1918–1939 [Foreign Policy of the Polish Republic 1918–1939] (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo LTW, 1998), 57.
Stanislaw Kutrzeba, Nasza polityka zagraniczna (Kraków: Gebethner i Wolf, 1923), 66–8, 70–1; “Chef de la Mission militaire française Général Mittelhauser à M. Ministre de la Guerre,” Prague, tel. no. 290/2, 18 January 1921, AD/ MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Tchéco-Slovaquie, vol. 58, 19–20; Cienciala, From Versailles to Locarno, 28; “Question de Teschen,” Ministre à M. de Barante, Chargé d’affaires à Varsovie, Paris, tel. no. 24, 15 January 1921, AD/MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Pologne, vol. 58, 16–17; Piotr Łossowski, “Kształtowanie się państwa polskiego i walka o granice (listopad 1918–czerwiec 1921) [“Forming the Polish State and a War for the Borders (November 1918–June 1921)”], in Historia dyplomacji polskiej 4 , 173.
“Analyse-Question de Teschen,” MAE, Paris, Tel. Nos. 25, 26 and 27, 7 January 1921, AD/MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Pologne, vol. 58, 5–6; “C.A. 100 (VII) — Résolution. Question de Teschen,” 7 January 1921, AD/MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Pologne, vol. 58, 7; “Projet de modification de la ligne frontière dans la région d’Orawa et Spisz,” Commission polonaise pour la délimitation de la frontière polono-tchécoslovaque, Cieszyn, 8 March 1921, AD/MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Pologne, vol. 58, 60–7; Zieliñski, “Spisz i Orawa w latach 1918–1945,” 110. The Morské oko (Morskie Oko) dispute, which ended in 1902, foreshadowed the Javorina dispute. Osvald Balzer, who represented Galicia, stated that the decision did not completely satisfy Polish territorial claims. Cesarz, Polska a Liga Narodów, 131. For the 1902 dispute, see Oswald Balzer, O Morskie Oko. Wywód praw polskich przed sqdem polubownym w Gradcu, Z planem sytuacyjnym [Over the Morské oko: Explanation of Polish Rights before the Tribunal in Graz] (Lwów: By the author, 1906).
Envoy Sapieha to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 29 September 1922, No. P. 1165, AAN, Ambasada RP w Londyne, t. 324, 22; Aide-Mémoire. Polish Legation, 26 October 1922, No. P.1295, AAN, Ambasada RP w Londyne, t. 324, 25; Schimitzek, Drogi i bezdroža minionej epoki, 51. Uffler confirmed that Beneš knew and agreed with a delimitation proposal adopted by the Delimitation Commission. Masaryk and Kramář categorically opposed it. Dabrowski, Polish Delegation at the Peace Conference, Paris, 13 January 1923, No. 37/23, AAN, Ambasada RP w Londyne, t. 325, 7–8. Hlinka, leader of the HSL’S, criticized negotiations over Javorina without him and his party. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, “Slovakia in Interwar Central European Relations,” in Studi in onore di Milan S. Ďurica, ed. Jozef M. Rydlo (Rome: Instituto Slovaco, Univerzitná knižnica, 1995), 222.
The Permanent Court of International Justice, Question of Jaworzina, Advisory Opinion, 1923 P.C.I.J. (ser. B) No. 8 (Dec. 6) (Leyden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1923), 57; “Avis de la Cour permanente de Justice internationale,” Ch. Benoist (Ministre aux Pays-Bas), The Hague, tel. no. 122, 6 December 1923, AD/ MAE, Z-Europe 1918–29, Tchéco-Slovaquie, vol. 61, 32–3; Cesarz, Polska a Liga Narodów, 122. For description of the deliberations in The Hague see S. Schimitzek, Drogi i bezdroža minionej epoki. Wspomnienia z lat pracy w MSZ (1920–39) [Roads and Dead Ends of the Past Era: Recollections on the Work at the MFA] (Warsaw: Interpress, 1976).
Ladislav Deák, Zápas o strednú Európu 1933–1938. Politicko-diplomatické vzťahy [Struggle for Central Europe 1933–1938: Political and Diplomatic Relations] (Bratislava: Veda, 1986), 71, 78, 83; Jozef Beck, Final Report, 28, 36, 51. Documents on German Foreign Policy (hereafter DGFP), C-II, 128–30, 144–6, 148–9, 312–14; as quoted in Deák, Zápas o strednú Európu 1933–1938, 77. The HSL’S deputies consistently argued that Slovakia was a determining factor for Central European stability. Kirschbaum, “Slovakia in Interwar Central European Relations,” 216. For more on the Third Europe, see Milica Majeriková, “Politika tretej Európy” [“Third Europe Policy”], chap. in Vojna o Spiš. Spiš v politike Poľska v medzivojnovom období v kontexte česko-slovensko– poľských vzťahov, 71–91.
“Polish-Czech Relations in 1935–1937,” Report of Lt.-Col. BJ.Kwieciński to the Register Office at the Ministry of Defence, 2 February 1940, London, in Sławomir M. Nowinowski, ed., Stosunki polsko-chechosłowackie 1932–1939 w relacjach dyplomatów II Rzeczypospolitej [Polish-Czecho-Slovak Relations 1932–1939: In the Reports of the Diplomats of the Second Republic] (Łódž: Ibidem, 2006), 25; SPCS 18–39, 2; Henryk Wereszycki, “Beck and the Cieszyn Question,” in History of Poland, 2nd edn, 600; “Cooperation of Polish Organizations with the Matica slovenská,” Consul Łaciński to the Polish Envoy, Bratislava, 12 May 1935, R.15/C/4, AAN, Ambasada RP w Pradze, t. 61, 13–14; Łaciński to posel, Prague, 5 July 1935, No. 15/C/8. Slovak Polytechnic, AAN, Ambasada RP w Pradze, t. 61, 27.
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Jesenský, M. (2014). Rapprochement through Javorina?. In: The Slovak-Polish Border, 1918–1947. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137449641_5
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