PARLAMENTNÍ VOLBY A AKTIVITA ČESKOSLOVENSKÉ STRANY LIDOVÉ V POLITICKÉM ŽIVOTĚ PRVNÍ ČESKOSLOVENSKÉ REPUBLIKY V REFLEXI PŘEDSTAVITELŮ SVATÉHO STOLCE

The study deals with the reports on the parliamentary elections by the Vatican diplomats in Czechoslovakia in the period of the First Republic (1918–1938). This represents a valuable source of knowledge of the multi-layered activity of the Apostolic Nuncio in Prague, who regularly sent his detailed reports to the Secretary of State of the Holy See - in the 1920s, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. The study deals with every parliamentary election that took place during the inter-war period (April 1920, November 1925, October 1929 and May 1935). Their results are compared in relation to both the expectations of the representatives of the Holy See and the political and religious reality in Czechoslovakia, considering each election to be a phenomenon that cannot be comprehensively studied without knowledge of the Vatican archives. The text is primarily based on the Historical Archive of the State Secretariat of the Holy See in the Vatican and abundant Czech literature.