MOCKO, Martin: First federalisation, then democratisation?

of the slogan of the Slovak federalists "First federalisation, then democratisation" often appears. On the contrary, many federalists of the period denied the existence of such a slogan. The study cites and examines the different variations of claims of such a slogan. It then examines their veracity through a systematic analysis of all statements about the relationship between federalization and democratization in the newspaper Pravda and the magazine Kultúrny život in the period from February (when talk of federalization began) to the end of April 1968. It shows that this slogan was not propagated; on the contrary, federalists overwhelmingly understood federalization as a part of democratization. Explicitly, the slogan appeared only once and in a different context than it was later interpreted. A landmark event was the conference of the Slovak Writers' Union, where the slogan in question appeared in the context of a dispute in the intellectual community as an interpretation of the at titudes and a rebuke of the Slovak federalists by their critics. From there it was later taken up as if it were an authentic slogan proclaimed by the federalists. In the final chapter, the study considers the dispute between the 'federalisers' and the 'democratisers' in a broader political context, with overlaps into later periods up to the present day.