EN
The aim of this essay is to discuss the border dispute between emerging Czechoslovakia and Poland over the northern part of Zips, a multietnic region in the north of the late Kingdom of Hungary, and the role it played within a broader scope of tensions between Prague and Warsaw at the Paris Peace Conference. This controversy is a good example as to how the diplomacy of Versailles attempted to face problems of East Central Europe being rebuilt. The Entente Powers hoped to reconcile the clash by negotiating with the contestants over expert proposals and, later, with the help of plebiscite. A fight of national identities, which spread over the borderland in question, caused the failure of such an approach. The Powers, apparently tired of mediating in avail and affected by more complex geopolitical interests, met a partitioning decision. It was far from comforting anyone involved. Calls for revision of the border line about to be established served then as an easy-occurring instrument to severe Czechoslovak-Polish relations. The design of the author was to combine three different perspectives – diplomatic, inner and local – in attempt to demonstrate complexities of the topic.