WORLD : You Can Call It Czech or You Can Call It Slovak and Be Right
Czechoslovakia’s Parliament changed the country’s official name for the second time in three weeks today.
The country will now be known as The Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, a compromise designed to end months of argument between Czechoslovakia’s two constituent parts.
A debate began early this year to find a name more appropriate in the post-Communist era than the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It degenerated into “The Great Hyphen Debate” as Slovaks insisted their national identity could be properly reflected only in a name that formally divided them from Bohemians and Moravians.
Weary deputies voted March 29 for two versions of a new name. Czechoslovakia would be called The Czechoslovak Federative Republic in the Czech lands and The Czecho-Slovak Federative Republic in Slovakia.
Slovak nationalists were still not satisfied, and thousands demonstrated in the regional capital Bratislava. Slovak parliamentarians have accepted the new version.
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