Milan Hodža (1 February 1878 – 27 June 1944) was a Slovak politician and journalist, serving from 1935 to 1938 as the prime minister of Czechoslovakia. As a proponent of regional integration, he was known for his attempts to establish a democratic federation of Central European states.

Early life

Milan Hodža was born in the Lutheran parish of Szucsány, in the

Turóc County Turóc ( Hungarian, historically also spelled ''Túrócz''), , /''comitatus Thurociensis'', ) was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now in north-western Slovakia, where the corresponding Slovak name ...

of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...

(present-day Sučany,

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

). His surname (meaning master or teacher in Turkish) was given to his ancestors at the times of the Ottomans conquest and rule. He studied at gymnasiums in Besztercebánya (today Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) from 1888 to 1890, in Sopron from 1890 to 1894 and in Nagyszeben (today Sibiu,

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

), where he passed graduation exams in 1896, before attending universities in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He started his career as a journalist in Budapest, in 1897. He edited and founded the newspaper ''Slovenský denník'' (1900–1901) and the weekly ''Slovenský týždenník'' (1903–1914). From 1916 to 1918, he was editor of the Austrian press office in Vienna.

Political career until 1918

He was a deputy to the parliament of the

from 1905 to 1910. As a member of the Slovak National Party, the only Slovak party in

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, he became the ideological leader and founder of Slovak

agrarianism Agrarianism is a political and social philosophy that has promoted subsistence agriculture, smallholdings, and egalitarianism, with agrarian political parties normally supporting the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants ag ...

. He was vice-chairman of the Slovak National Party from 1906 to 1914. Since the party did not endorse his agrarian program, he planned to create his own political party, but was prevented by the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Milan Hodža was a close aide of

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I. F ...

, the successor to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones, after the 1910 elections. He proposed to the Archduke a detailed plan to turn the

into a federative monarchy, including a separate Slovak state. The Archduke hoped that federalization would strengthen the ties between the oppressed non- Magyar nations and the monarchy, but his initiative was strongly opposed by the Hungarian political elite. During World War I, Milan Hodža was involved in the preparations for the creation of Czecho-Slovakia. He was a member of the 1918–1919 Slovak National Council and was a signatory of the Declaration of the Slovak Nation, with which the Slovaks officially joined the newly created state of Czechoslovakia in 1918.

First Czechoslovak Republic

After World War I, he became the leader of the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party in Slovakia and as such gained considerable influence over Czechoslovakia's policy in many spheres, influencing the process of land reform, the passing of bills on agrarian tolls, enforced syndicalization, administrative reforms, and the structure and policy of the government. Between the two world wars he was also a key representative of the Czechoslovak and international agrarian movement, as a founding member of the presidium of the International Agrarian Bureau, an institution of European agrarian parties. From 1921, Milan Hodža was a professor of modern history at

Comenius University Comenius University in Bratislava ( sk, Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave) is the largest university in Slovakia, with most of its faculties located in Bratislava. It was founded in 1919, shortly after the creation of Czechoslovakia. It is name ...

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...

. In the interwar period, he helped establish many Slovak newspapers and magazines and retained a strong political and ideological influence on them. His political papers were published in the book ''Články, reči, štúdie 1-6'' (1930–1934; Articles, Speeches, Studies). Hodža sat as a deputy in the Czechoslovak parliament from 1918 to 1938, serving in a number of posts. From 1918 to 1919 he was the Czechoslovak government's representative in Hungary, and also served as state secretary of the Ministry of Interior (1919), Minister for the Unification of Laws and the Organisation of Administration (1919–1920 and 1926–1929), Minister of Agriculture (1922–1926 and 1932–1935), Minister of Education (1926–1929), and

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...

(1935–1936), before eventually becoming the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938. In the 1920s, he was a Czechoslovakist (considering the Czechs and Slovaks to form one nation), which enabled him to reach high posts in Prague. Nevertheless, he had frequent conflicts with Czech politicians as a result of his attempts to take into account the specific needs of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia, which was unusual at that time. Moreover, he planned the creation of a block of anti-Centrist (i.e. anti-Prague) Slovak parties. His views changed somewhat later on; in 1938 he acknowledged the full sovereignty of the Slovaks as a separate nation and in the summer of that year, before Slovakia's autonomy was proclaimed in the autumn, he included in his government programme changes to the centralist structure of Czechoslovakia, using a combination of federal, autonomist and self-administrative ideas. In 1936–1937 he attempted to launch a project of bringing together Czechoslovakia, Austria, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia based on preferential duties - a step towards the unprecedented economic integration of the region. Instead, Hodža's government had to accept the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...

in 1938 and he was forced to resign under pressure.

In exile

After the

in late 1938, he lived in exile in Switzerland, France (1939), Great Britain (1940) and after 1941 in the United States. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he was the co-author of a memorandum on the situation of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia (October 1939), in which he re-iterated his project of 1938. In November 1939, he established the 1939 Slovak National Council in Paris as the supreme body of Slovak resistance, serving as its chairman. The Slovak National Council merged with the Czech National Council to form the Czecho-Slovak National Council in January 1940. This organization (including its Czech members) competed with the

government-in-exile A government in exile (abbreviated as GiE) is a political group that claims to be a country or semi-sovereign state's legitimate government, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile ...

led by

Edvard Beneš Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1945 to 1948. He also led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile 1939 to 194 ...

(a strong Czechoslovakist) in London. The two exile groups were in permanent conflict. When Paris was conquered by the Germans, the British security forces took the members of the Czecho-Slovak National Council into custody, which was an accomplishment of spies working for the Beneš group. Hodža capitulated and he accepted a second-rate post in Beneš's State Council in November 1940. He did not participate in the activities of the State Council however, and left for the US in 1941, where he developed a project for a Central European Federation (published as the book ''Federation in Central Europe'', 1942). Although his plan received attention from American intellectuals and officials at the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

, his plan did not materialize due to the beginning of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

. Milan Hodža held high Czechoslovak, French, Italian, Romanian, Yugoslavian and Polish awards. On 27 June 2002 his remains were reburied in the

National Cemetery in Martin The National Cemetery ( sk, Národný cintorín) in Martin, Slovakia, Martin, Slovakia is the final resting place of many important personalities of Slovak history. The list includes writers, poets, national activists, pedagogues, etc. The reason ...

, in his native Slovakia.

Family

His son was Fedor Hodža (a politician) and he was the nephew of politician and poet Michal Miloslav Hodža.

Works online

''Československý rozkol: príspevky k dejinám slovenčiny''
Turčiansky Svätý Martin: .n. 1920. 424 p. – available at ULB Digital Library.

References

External links

Biography at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
* a book about "divorce" of Slovaks from Hungarians in 1918, in Slovak, written by M. Hodža �
''Slovenský rozchod s Maďarmi roku 1918: dokumentárny výklad o jednaniach Dra Milana Hodžu ako čsl. plnomocníka s Károlyiho maďarskou vládou v listopade a prosinci 1918 o ústup maďarských vojsk zo Slovenska.(Odtisky zo "Slovenského Denníka".)''
Bratislava: Red. Slov. denníka, 1929. 206 p. – available online at UKB's Digital Library * a book about Milan Hodža as a Slovak journalist and Czechoslovak politician �
''Dr. Milan Hodža slovenský novinár a československý státnik, 1878-1928''
Bratislava: .n.

928 Year 928 ( CMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * King Rudolph I loses the support of Herbert II, count of Vermandois, who controls the ...

14 p. – available online at UKB's Digital Library * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hodza, Milan 1878 births 1944 deaths People from Martin District People from the Kingdom of Hungary Slovak Lutherans Slovak National Party (historical) politicians Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants politicians Prime Ministers of Czechoslovakia Foreign ministers of Czechoslovakia Government ministers of Czechoslovakia Members of the Diet of Hungary Members of the Revolutionary National Assembly of Czechoslovakia Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1920–1925) Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1925–1929) Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1929–1935) Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1935–1939) Slovak expatriates in the United States Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Burials at National Cemetery in Martin