LADISLAV NOVOMESKÝ A SLOVENSKÁ KULTURNÍ OBEC V PROPAGANDISTICKÉ KAMPANI PROTI TZV. BURŽOAZNÍMU NACIONALISMU NA JAŘE 1951

In spring 1950 the poet and commissioner for education Ladislav Novomeský was tactically accused of so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalism. Under the influence of Soviet advisers in the State Security Service, the accusation of ideological deviation was reclassified as a criminal offence and Novomeský ended up in prison together with other functionaries in February 1951. After their arrest, a propagandist campaign was unleashed against so-called bourgeois nationalism. The leadership of the Communist Party of Slovakia combined it with purges of the Slovak intelligentsia. Novomeský became one of the victims. Communist intellectuals were included on the initiative of politicians and party apparatchiks. Their speeches and articles sharply condemned Novomeský’s poetry, his literary views, expert work and activities in the fields of education and culture. For a number of years, the campaign damaged Czech – Slovak relations and the development of the Slovak political and cultural spheres. It marked Novomeský’s life, since his conviction became the basis for the charges against him in the trial of so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalists in 1954.