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Title: Juraj Slávik papers,
Date (inclusive): 1918-1968
Collection number: 76087
Creator:
Slávik, Juraj, 1890-
Extent:
54 manuscript boxes, 5 envelopes, 3 microfilm reels
(23.5 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Correspondence, speeches and writings, reports, dispatches, memoranda, telegrams, clippings, and photographs, relating to
Czechoslovak relations with Poland and the United States, political developments in Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovak emigration
and émigrés, and anti-Communist movements in the United States.
Languages:
Czech,
Slovak,
and English.
Collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], Juraj Slávik papers, [Box no.], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1976.
Also available on microfilm (51 reels).
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
| 1890 January 28 | Born in Dobrá Niva, Slovakia |
| 1910-1911 | Ecole de Droit, Paris |
| 1911 | College de France, Paris |
| 1913 | Received his law degree from the University of Budapest |
| 1918 | Secretary of the Slovak National Council, Bratislava |
| 1926 | Minister of Agriculture and of the Unification of Laws (appointed by Jan Masaryk) |
| 1929-1932 | Minister of the Interior |
| 1929-1935 | Member of Parliament |
| 1936 February 1 - 1939 March 15 | Ambassador to Poland |
| 1939 summer | Went on lecture tour in the United States for three months (started liberation movement along with Beneš) |
| 1939 July | Went back to Poland to help Czechoslovak soldiers, officers, and airmen escape from Hitler-occupied Czechoslovakia |
| 1939 September | Left for France after the war started |
| 1939-1940 | Member of the Czechoslovak National Committee in Paris |
| 1940 June | Left Paris for London |
| 1940-1945 | Minister of the Interior and Minister of Education, Government-in-Exile, London |
| Broadcast via BBC to Hitler-occupied Czechoslovakia | |
| 1945 May | Returned to Czechoslovakia |
| 1945 June - 1946 June | Worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs |
| 1946 June - 1948 March | Ambassador to the United States |
| 1946-1947 | Accompanied Jan Masaryk to the Paris Peace Conference |
| Member of the Czechoslovak Delegation to the United Nations | |
| 1948 March 3 | Resigned his post as ambassador in protest against the coup d'état in Czechoslovakia ("I have decided to fight for Czechoslovak democracy") |
| 1949 | Member of the Executive Board and Chairman of the Social-Aid Committee of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia |
| 1954? | Chairman of the Cultural Committee of the Assembly of Captive European Nations |
| 1969 May | Died, Washington, D.C. |
The Juraj Slávik papers were acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives from his wife, Gita Slávik, in two installments.
The first, which arrived in May 1976, included material relating to Slávik's government service in Poland and the United States,
Czechoslovak emigration and emigres, and anti-communist movements in the U.S. The second installment arrived in July 1978
and consisted of correspondence, personal documents, photographs, and microfilm relating to Slávik's service as a statesman,
and his memoirs.
The bulk of the collection consists of Slávik's speeches and writings, namely his numerous lectures in Great Britain during
World War II, his patriotic radio speeches broadcast to Czechoslovakia by the BBC for the London-based Czechoslovak government-in-exile
during World War II, as well as his writings on the history of Slovakia and its role within Czechoslovakia (see, in the speeches
and writings file, "Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic," "Slovensko až do dneška," and "Protectorate Slovakia").
Of great importance are Slávik's memoirs entitled "Moja pamať - živá kniha (My Memory - A Living Book), which were published
as a series of articles in
New Yorkský Denník during the years 1955-1957. They explain the events that contributed to the downfall of Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938
and 1939, describe the beginning of the Czechoslovak exile movement in 1939 and 1940, the creation and activities of the Czechoslovak
National Committee in Paris, and the deeds and fate of the Czechoslovak provisional government in London in 1940-1945.
Of special note in the career file are Slávik's numerous dispatches and reports from the Czechoslovak Legation in Warsaw to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, shedding some light on Czechoslovakia's relations with Poland before World War
II. Also interesting in that series are materials relating to the peace settlement at the end of World War II and population
transfers (see Ambassador to the United States in the career file).
Of great importance are also documents on Czechoslovak emigration and emigres, and anti-communist movements in the U.S. (see
Member, Council of Free Czechoslovakia in the career file).
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the repository's online public access catalog.
Anti-communist movements--United States.
Communism.
Czechs in foreign countries.
World War, 1939-1945.
World War, 1939-1945--Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia--Foreign relations--Poland.
Czechoslovakia--Foreign relations--United States.
Czechoslovakia--History--1938-1945.
Czechoslovakia--History--Coup d'état, 1948.
Czechoslovakia--Politics and government.
Poland.
Poland--Foreign relations--Czechoslovakia.
United States--Foreign relations.
United States--Foreign relations--Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia. Ministerstvo zahranicnich veci.
Statesmen--Czechoslovakia.
Diplomats--Czechoslovakia.