The author investigated the growth of interest in the idea of total state which was observable in Polish political thought in the 1930s. This visible development was a consequence of the infi ltration of foreign formulas which appeared in the interwar period in Fascist Italy, National Socialist Germany and, in a different version, in Soviet Russia. The crisis of a liberal democracy, readily apparent in Europe at the time, and internal conditions in the Second Polish Republic, characterized by the existence of numerous national minorities and sharp confl icts of social interests, also induced the search for new constitutional solutions. In light of this situation, there appears a question whether it looked like an idea of a totalitarian regime was to triumph in the Polish Republic? The detailed analysis of the relevant doctrinal enunciations and of the Polish cultural background (Catholicism) has led the author of the article to conclude that some interest in totalism, which peaked at the end of the 1940s, proved to be very superfi cial and ended in an option for a confessional state which was presaged by the “endecja” (National Democracy) project of the “Catholic State of Polish Nation.” Only a tiny nationalist group — so-called Falanga (Phalanx) — adopted a conception of “Catholic totalism” in which the Church and the institution of family were placed beyond the pale of political dominion. Grott states that only the Communist ideology and the ideology of the marginal neo-pagan, and at the same time collectivist, informal group Zadruga included the firm proposal to establish a total regime in Poland. The main reason for this unpopularity of totalism can be found in a fact that Catholicism which constituted one of the main components of the nationalist doctrine in Poland did not tolerate this system, perceiving it as a threat to the religion and the Church. The author also contends that the opinions of historians who accuse the National Democracy of supporting total solutions, lack foundation in scholarly sources and are either a result of the pressure of the Communist propaganda or a consequence of a deficiency of scientific method, the latter being an indispensable element of leading proper interdisciplinary research.
The present literary historical study focuses on reconstructing the outer circumstances of the cultural life in the first half of the 1930s, which had a significant influence on reception of Alexander Matuška´s early work in the Slovak environment. The study consists of two chapters – the first one deals with an attempt at unifying the Slovak cultural environment on the national basis in the name of the slogan by Tido J. Gašpar „Dajme sa dokopy“ („Let´s get together“), the other one presents Slovak polemics concerning the Czech monthly Přítomnost, which Matuška cooperated with in the 1930s. The material resource of the research is provided by selected society and culture magazines, which were used as a platform for the clashes of world views and were the most influential media of the times. (Přítomnost, Slovenské pohľady, Elán, DAV, Pero, Nový svet, LUK etc.). Against a background of the selected polemics over Alexander Matuška, which also involved Tido J. Gašpar and Ferdinand Peroutka, the author of the study takes account of the ideological clashes in the Slovak cultural life of the 1930s. What becomes the centre of attention is the conflict between the Slovak and the Czechoslovak identities and the confrontation between the modern paradigm of Slovak culture and its traditional form, i.e. arguments between the progressive and conservative parts of the Slovak cultural elites. Matuška´s juvenile critical gesture along with the reactions it triggered is thus interpreted as a part of wider discourse structure – intense contemporary discussions on the cultural dimension of the so called „Slovak issue”.
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