Budovanie kultu Jozefa Tisa* ANTON HRUBOŇ Building up the Cult of Jozef Tiso ABSTRACT: A politician and the irst Slovak president, Jozef Tiso, is among the most discussed igures in the Slovak national history and the views of his political activities vary. The wide variability of the relection of Tiso‘s political activities oscillates from uncritical demonization through professionally balanced views to the eulogizing and apologetic perception of his career and the steps he took in the position of a profes- sional politician between 1938 and 1945. The paper deals with the latter interpretation, analysing the process of building up the cult of Jozef Tiso in the Slovak political culture, from its origin up to the present. In the chronological order, it pays attention to the indi- vidual aspects of the image of the „national genius“ and the „irst-class statesman“ with the noble human qualities created by the propaganda apparatus of the Ludak regime, and subsequently, after Tiso‘s execution in April 1947, to the image of a martyr created and formed by the pro-Ludak émigrés and the adherents of this ideological line in Slovakia after 1989. The study analyzes the issue in a wider European context against the background of the concept of sacralised policy, using Tiso’s example to point to its similarities with other „New Europe“ leaders as well as to Slovak speciics. The paper also describes the current forms of practising Tiso’s cult, framed by some old-timers’ nostalgia for the wartime Slovak State and the deliberate legendizing Tiso’s person for the purposes of political instrumentalization. Keywords: Slovak State, Jozef Tiso, Cult, Hlinka‘s Slovak People‘s Party, Martyrdom, Political religion „Beneš dal zavraždiť / nedávno nám Tisu / ktorý pre Slovákov / žiadal plnú misu. Tiso ako martýr / pošiel z toho sveta / Jeho duch slovenský / vôkol nás však lieta.“ (Slovenský martýr, 30. 5. 1947, s. 17) Poprava Jozefa Tisa dňa 18. apríla 1947 na Slovensku nevyvolala vážnejšie politické otrasy, 1 no nezaobišla sa bez odozvy. Trest smrti povrazom, vykonaný na bývalom prezidentovi Slovenskej republiky, umŕtvil J. Tisa ako osobu a politika, no zároveň dal bezprostredný impulz pre rozvoj Tisovho kultu, prežívajúceho ešte z obdobia samostatného slovenského štátu, resp. pre jeho obrodenie v novej podobe. Popra- vený J. Tiso sa v očiach priaznivcov ľudáckeho režimu stal symbolickým nositeľom slovenskej štátnej samostatnosti, za ktorú sa oplatí prinášať najväčšie obete a sakra- 1 * Štúdia je výstupom projektu VEGA č. 1/0655/17 Prienik ideí fašizmu do politickej kultúry Slovenska v 20. – 40. rokoch 20. storočia, ich etablovanie a variácie v kontexte európskeho vývoja. 1 SYRNÝ, Marek. Slovenskí demokrati ´44 – 48. Banská Bystrica : Múzeum SNP, 2010, s. 286 – 287. Štúdie, články | Studies, Aricles Kultúrne dejiny / Cultural History, Volume 8, Issue 2, pp. 213-239 © Verbum 2017 |213|