What do you think was the main cause in the split in the CSFR? Could the split have been avoided? CSFR was divided into two separate independent countries: The Czech Republic and Slovak Republic on 1.1.1993. This split was caused because of three reasons: historical, political and economical. Below I will try to discuss all of those reasons. We should first say what federation is: it’s a common state which consists of two or more equal nations. And word equal is most important for Czechoslovakia and its problems. Firstly, we should think about historical reasons. In history of Czechs and Slovaks we could see that those two countries were never actually together in one state. Under the Austria-Hungary, Czechs were more under Austrians and Slovaks under Hungarians. But we should start from the beginning. During the tenth century there was the Great Moravia, which included Slovakia and Moravia. Later they conquered Czech, too, but only for 100 years. Then the Great Moravia under the pressure of Hungarians and Franks diminished. After then the Czech state emerged and in 11th century Moravia joined. After this time Czechs and Slovaks never had their own state until establishment of CSR in 1918. Even under the Austria-Hungary, Czech state was more advanced then Slovakia. Czech had about 75% of all industrial output of Austria-Hungary and Slovakia was mostly agricultural. That was one of the most important aspects in the future of CS(S)R. During the revolution in 1848-9, Czech political representation called upon rearrangement of Austria-Hungary into a liberal-constitutional state, which would ensure free development to all nations including Slavs. But the revolution was a failure and soon after new pressure on Czechs and Slovaks emerged. The Czech and Slovak political representatives estimated that a new ruler of Austria-Hungary will be more generous to Slavic nations. But year 1914 changed everything. The throne successor Frantisek Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. In the beginning of war Czech and Slovak bourgeoisie (not people) supported it, because they feared the militaristic Austria-Hungary. But in year 1917 when it was clear that Austria-Hungary can’t win, the idea of breaking Austria-Hungary and creating their own state was more and more common in Czech and Slovakia. On 28.10.1918, CSR was founded by Czech representatives and on 30.10.1918 by Slovakian representatives. But from the very beginning, Slovaks (people) always thought that Slovakia is not equal to Czech. Which was partly true, because Czech was more advanced and had more inhabitants. In 1919 Czechs had even to declare exceptional condition in Slovakia. Then national government had to make a constitutional deed, which was supposed to tighten the Czechoslovak unity in the common state. So, we can see from the facts above, that establishment of Czechoslovakia wasn’t so friendly as we were told by communist officials later on. During communism era, national conflicts were repressed by the central Russian government and no divisions were allowed. But even during those times, Czechoslovakia was a very rare type of a country. There was no official mention about Slovaks as a sovereign nation. Communists tried to compensate this fact by founding for example KSS which actually was part of KSÈ. They also gave important federal functions to Slovaks. Communists though that this will compensate the fact that Slovaks didn’t actually have their own nation, Slovakia. But it didn’t help at all and it even deepened this problem. We should look closer at the Czechoslovakia during communism. Actually it was not a true federation, because all central government was in Czech, all important functions of the state were in Czech and Slovaks actually were not equal nation (state). During year 1967 Slovakian officials critiqued asymmetrical assortment of power in Czechoslovakia. Because of this critique, government passed new laws which adjusted relations between CSR and SSR. CSR and SSR joined together as national state formations into the higher federational state – CSSR. Those should be the historical reasons of split. Same importance in th...