"Nelze-li zachovati dosavadní hranici..." : K účasti českých vedcov pri riešení československo-poľského územného sporu o Oravu a Spiš v rokoch 1918-1920

The territorial conflict over Orava and Spiš gained crucial importance after the First World War, even though it was a less important aspect of Czechoslovakia and Poland’s negotiations over the question of Cieszyn Silesia. This study discusses the genesis of the problem and the content of analyses by Czech scholars writing on the Orava-Spiš territorial issue, which they had addressed under the auspices of the Office for Preparations for the Peace Conference and from within the corps of expert advisors to the Czechoslovak delegation in Paris. Papers by Viktor Dvorský, Lubor Niederle, Karel Chotek, and Adolf Černý, from the fields of geography, ethnography, and linguistics drew upon research and methodological standpoints from the period before the founding of Czechoslovakia. During the final diplomatic negotiations for demarcating the Czechoslovak-Polish borders in July 1920, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edvard Beneš supported his position on the question of Orava and Spiš with the military-strategic perspective of the geographer V. Dvorský.