Results found: 2

Search results

Search:
in the keywords: Czechoslovak diplomacy

Sort By:

Limit search:

Zpráva Jiřího S. Hájka o jeho diplomatické aktivitě po 21. srpnu 1968

100%

Dejmek J.

Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)

2016

vol. 24

issue 2

265-284

This materials provides a commented printing of a previously unpublished secret report by ČSSR Minister for Foreign Affairs during the Prague Spring period of 1968, Jiří S Hájek, who prepared it for the needs of the ministry heads (and also party circles) following his return to Prague from his dramatic trip to New York and Geneva after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Warsaw Pact. When the invasion occurred on 21 August, Hájek was in Yugoslavia on a holiday, as were three other members of O Černík’s government. Following the occupation, and also thanks to the anti-occupation stance of the Central Committee and most of the Prague government, he travelled via Vienna to New York where the UN Security Council had been convened. Here, as early as 21 August, the ČSSR’s provisional delegate to the UN, J Mužík, had spoken out against the occupation. Upon his arrival in New York on 24 August, Minister Hájek supported this stance, thus significantly helping to dismantle the Soviet lies that it was the Czechoslovak government which had invited the armies of the Warsaw Pact to its country. At the same time, however, he stressed that the ČSSR would remain an ally of the USSR. In subsequent days, Hájek no longer pursued further discussions of the Czechoslovak cause in the Council; on the contrary, in the spirit of the instructions of President L Svoboda (who was at the time holding negotiations with Brezhnev on dealing with the crisis further) he left New York and travelled to Geneva for UN negotiations on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. From there, he returned to Prague at the beginning of September.

Československý konzulát v Kyjevě objektem zájmu NKVD v letech 1936-1938

59%

Dvořák J., Chlebina A.

Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)

2023

vol. 30

issue 2

493-523

The article aims to map the counterintelligence activities of the authorities of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del - NKVD) of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the Consulate General of the Czechoslovak Republic in Kyiv, which existed between June 1936 and April 1938. The authors make primary use of recently declassified documents from Ukrainian security archives and diplomatic reports of Consul General Rudolf Brabec (1884-1955). They first outline earlier Czechoslovak diplomatic representations in Soviet Ukraine and point out that their functioning was of particular importance for the newly established state, especially because of the existence of a large Czech minority there. The re-establishment of a diplomatic office in Ukraine after almost ten years took place after the establishment of official diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in 1934 and the opening of its embassy in Moscow. Czechoslovak diplomacy considered this step a success, but quickly sobered up. As the authors document, the Czechoslovak consulate almost immediately became an object of interest for the Soviet security forces and, after a few months (like other embassies in Ukraine) a central lightning rod for the then Stalinist regime's growing fears of foreign threats. Even before the "Great Terror" began, the consulate was the target of sophisticated actions by the Ukrainian NKVD authorities in an effort to control and gradually paralyse its activities, which eventually contributed to its closure. The authors show a clear connection between the measures taken against the Kyiv consulate and the repression of the Czech minority in Ukraine, which claimed many innocent victims in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Refine search results

1 Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)

1 Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)

1 Chlebina A.

1 Dejmek J.

1 Dvořák J.

1 2023

1 2016

Search results

Zpráva Jiřího S. Hájka o jeho diplomatické aktivitě po 21. srpnu 1968

Československý konzulát v Kyjevě objektem zájmu NKVD v letech 1936-1938