Nanwe's Maps and Graphics Thread

[Nanwe]

As with everything else in Czechoslovakia, ethnic differentiation also marked religion. This is nowhere truer than when it came to Protestantism, so these are some maps of the country's main protestant groups:

The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia was the single-largest protestant church in Czechoslovakia, with 2.77% of the country's population being members. The church was doctrinally Lutheran and was a mostly Slovak church. 12.02% of all citizens from Slovakia were members. Despite the name, only 0.22% of all people living in Ruthenia were affiliated.

Within Slovakia, 86.44% of its members were (Czecho-)Slovak, 8.35% were Germans and 5.06% were Hungarian. As a whole, 14.58% of all ethnic Slovaks were members of the church, compared to 21.60% of all Slovak Germans.

Interestingly, members of this group were overrepresented in national politics. Whereas Catholics tended to associate with the pro-autonomy and Catholic Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, Protestant Slovaks usually joined the Czechoslovakist, centralist parties, and as a result, usually Slovak members of the country's main parties were drawn from this community, over-representing them especially in the Council of Ministers. Nearly all the appointed Slovak ministers from 1920 until 1938 were Protestants. The only Slovak Prime Minister of the First Czechoslovak Republic, Milan Hodzva (Agrarian) was indeed a Lutheran.

The Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren is/was the result of the 1919 merger of various Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian Reformed and Lutheran churches. It was the second-largest protestant denomination, at 2.02% of the country's population (2.82% in Bohemia and 2.55% in Moravia-Silesia, negligible elsewhere).

This was a Czech church, 99.75% of all members in Bohemia were Czech; and 99.35% in Moravia-Silesia. As a result, 4.22% of all Bohemian Czechs were members, as were 3.45% of all Moravo-Silesian Czechs.

​

The Reformed Christian Church of Czechoslovakia was created in 1920 as a split from the Reformed Church in Hungary. This church was doctrinally Calvinist (i.e. Reformed) and drew its members mainly from the Hungarians living in eastern Slovakia and particularly in Ruthenia. In this way, it reflected the west-east divide in Hungary itself between Catholics and Calvinists.

4.38% of all Slovaks were members of the church, as were 9.77% of all Ruthenians. Of these, the vast majority were Hungarians (86.74% in Slovakia, 97.22% in Ruthenia) with a small number of ethnic Slovak followers. The Reformed Church was the dominant church among Hungarians in Ruthenia (59.47%), but not in Slovakia, where only 1 in 5 Hungarians were members. Overall, 27.44% of the country's Hungarians were members.

Now it's time for the so-called 'German Evangelicals'. German Evangelicals were the members of the German Evangelical Church in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (DEKiMBS), unlike other German 'evangelical' churches, DEKiMBS was not a merger of Calvinist and Lutheran traditions, but a strictly Lutheran one. The DEKiMBS was created in 1919 as a successor church to the Evangelical Church of Austria, which up until 1918 also contained Czech-speaking Lutherans who would form the Czech Brethren (see above).

German protestantism was weak in Czechoslovakia, with the exception of the district of As, where 56.59% of the population identified as 'German evangelicals'. Otherwise, Germans were the most consistently Catholic group in the country. 4.22% of all Germans in Bohemia were members, as were 2.9% in Moravia-Silesia, and 0.80% and 0.59% in Slovakia and Ruthenia respectively.

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The Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession was a Lutheran church that mostly existed in Silesia, and particularly in easternmost Silesia, in the Czechoslovak part former territories of the Duchy of Teschen during Austrian times, which happened to be ethnically Polish.

The Church barely existed outside Moravia-Silesia, and even there, its presence was mostly limited to two administrative districts. 1.31% of all Moravo-Silesians were members. Of these, the majority (64.47%) were Polish, and about a third were ethnically Czechoslovak. However, only 33% of all the Poles in Moravia-Silesia (and 30.1% nationally) were members of the church, as the majority were Catholics (Poles gotta Pole).

 

[Thande]

From your excellent maps and rundowns, @Nanwe , it strikes me that on the one hand Czechoslovak dissolution looks like a foregone conclusion - and on the other hand, the problem is that you could say the same thing about Belgium at almost any point in the past.

 

[Alex Richards]

From your excellent maps and rundowns, @Nanwe , it strikes me that on the one hand Czechoslovak dissolution looks like a foregone conclusion - and on the other hand, the problem is that you could say the same thing about Belgium at almost any point in the past.

I think Czechoslovakia is doomed to split once you've had an extended period without any form of democratic expression- I can't see a post Prague Spring Czechoslovakia surviving once the Communists are gone.

I think even 'democratic state re-established post WWII' could have survived, and certainly the inter-war republic might well have just kept staggering along.

 

[Nanwe]

From your excellent maps and rundowns, @Nanwe , it strikes me that on the one hand Czechoslovak dissolution looks like a foregone conclusion - and on the other hand, the problem is that you could say the same thing about Belgium at almost any point in the past.

Yeah, it was clearly on the path towards pillarisation à la Belgium. That being said, the country did manage to basically beat all its neighbors in the 20s and 30s in terms of stability, democratic standards and economic development, so clearly they were doing things right.

I think Czechoslovakia is doomed to split once you've had an extended period without any form of democratic expression- I can't see a post Prague Spring Czechoslovakia surviving once the Communists are gone.

I think even 'democratic state re-established post WWII' could have survived, and certainly the inter-war republic might well have just kept staggering along.

I'd tend to agree. In 1990-1994, separation was second-best for both Czechs and Slovaks, with federation and confederation being the preferred constitutional set ups for each country. As no agreement was ever reached, the country broke down. Weird instance of a game theory scenario applied to a whole country.

It didn't help that post-1989 Czechoslovak legislative process was still Communist - aka incredibly democratic and impractical because it had never been used for real. For instance, any law needed the majority of both chambers and both national groups in each chamber.

Post-WWII could have survived together and there was the willingness to do so, as well as the stigma of the WWII collaborating Slovak Republic, but Czech (still Czechoslovakist) and Slovak disagreement over the form of the state would continue. This is the same for a surviving First Republic, I think at some point, devolution in Slovakia and in Ruthenia (as stipulated in the Treaty of St-Germain but subsequently ignored) would need to be implemented.

 

[Nanwe]

So this map came out very dark, but there was little I could do given the stark differences in terms of numbers of Catholics between Ruthenia and the rest of the country.

Roman Catholicism was the dominant, 'unifying' religion of the First Czechoslovak Republic. And I put 'unifying' in quotes, because it was far from that. Indeed, the association of Roman Catholicism with the centuries of Austrian oppression following the Hussite defeat at the battle of White Mountain meant that most Bohemian Czechs (and to a lesser degree Moravian ones) may have been nominally Catholics, but many held laïque or outright anti-clerical lines of thought, and many would switch religions after 1919, becoming Protestants, members of the Czechoslovak Church or just abandoning religion altogether.

Clerical vs. anti-clerical debates dominated the constitutional convention period, when the agrarians, national conservatives and the left parties wanted to impose a secular state and nationalist all religious education. Both the Czechoslovak People's Party and the Slovak People's Party opposed that. Ultimately a compromise was reached whereby the Constitution would just not talk about religion at all, and religious schools were nationalized in the Czech lands and only the non-Slovak ones in Slovakia (coincidentally most of them, but that's due to the pre-WWI Magyarisation policies). The issue of funding for the construction of religious vs. state schools in Slovakia would persist too.

Clerical vs. anticlerical conflicts would continue for the better part of the 1920s over various 'culture war'-style conflicts, for instance over whether to make a public holiday of Jan Hus Day, as most Czechoslovak parties defended, or that of Jan Nepomucký, a saint associated with the Counter-Reformation, defended by the HSLS. The Czechoslovak People's Party stood in the middle, denying Hus religious legitimacy, disliking the cult of Nepomucky but being in favor of Jan Hus' Day on the basis of his symbolism as a national liberator.

Relations with the Church were also fairly tense until the signature of a 'modus vivendi' in 1928.

In terms of demographics, 90.5% of all ethnic Germans were Catholics (90.6% in Bohemia, 94% in Moravia-Silesia, 70.1% in Slovakia, 96.1% in Ruthenia) followed by 74.5% of all ethnic Czechoslovaks (67.6% in Bohemia, 85.1% in Moravia-Silesia, 76.6% in Slovakia, and 66% in Ruthenia), 63.22% of all ethnic Hungarians were also Catholics (71.3% in Slovakia, 22.2% in Ruthenia).

Only 1.56% of all Ruthenians (Ukrainians and Russians are included in this category) were Catholics. 62% of all ethnic Poles were Catholics.

 

[Alex Richards]

The amazing thing about these maps is how much Ruthenia feels bolted on from a completely different country to what the rest gained independence from.

 

[Nanwe]

The amazing thing about these maps is how much Ruthenia feels bolted on from a completely different country to what the rest gained independence from.

Yeah, it was attached last minute due to the fact that Ukraine was Soviet. Funniest part? The attachment of Ruthenia to Czechoslovakia was subject to a referendum - held in the US in which Ruthenian-Americans voted.

Economically and socially too, Ruthenia was extremely different, like the Czech lands were very industrialized and modern, Slovakia was backwards but had industry and commercial agriculture, but Ruthenia was basically a near-feudal society still.

 

[Nanwe]

I think these would the last religious updates, excluding the irreligious ones. As it happens, they reinforce your point @Alex Richards as they really make Ruthenia (and Ruthenian-majority areas in north-eastern Slovakia) stand out.


So this is the map for Greek Catholicism, the dominant religion among ethnic Ruthenians.

In Ruthenia, it was the religion of 49.5% of all inhabitants, and the religion of 73.1% of all ethnic Ruthenians (who made up 91.7% of all its members), and of 12.4% of all ethnic Hungarians.

In Slovakia, 91.8% of all ethnic Ruthenians were members of the Greek Catholic Church, as were 18.4% of the land's ethnic Poles and 4.6% of all ethnic Slovaks. Interestingly, in Slovakia, due to the small number of Ruthenians, 51.4% of the church's members were ethnic Slovaks, Ruthenians were 40.9% of its members.

And here's the map of Eastern Orthodoxy, also a mostly Ruthenian religion, but minority except in two districts. Orthodoxy was favored by the Czechoslovak authorities as it was perceived as dogmatically close to Greek Catholicism but without its philohungarian inclinations. As a result, the number of Orthodoxs grew from below 1% in 1900 to about 15.5% in 1930.

It was also favoured by the small, secular intelligentsia of the region, who were often either Ukrainophile or Russophile. 24.6% of all ethnic Ruthenians in Subcarpathian Ruthenia were members.

As Moscow was the centre of an Atheist regime, the Orthodox Church in Ruthenia was a part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, since 1931.

 

[Nanwe]

Now it's the time for the map of 'non-denominational' or 'irreligious' people according to the 1930 map.

It was largely a Bohemian phenomenon, where over 10% of the people declared no religious affiliation, going as high as 30% in some urban areas of central Bohemia.

In ethnic terms, 89.3% of self-identified 'non-denominational' Bohemians were Czech, as were 91.8% of 'non-denominational' Moravo-Silesians. So irreligiosity was a clear ethnic Czech phenomenon, small in other ethnic groups and equally of very limited presence in Slovakia or Ruthenia.

 

[Nanwe]

So I'm starting to work on the map for the Czechoslovak 1920 election (the only one I have data at the district level) and the amount of parties is ridiculous. No less than 15 parties came first in at least one district.

* Czechoslovak Social Democrats
* Czechoslovak Agrarians
* Czechoslovak National Socialists
* Czechoslovak National Democrats
* Czechoslovak Traders' Party
* German Liberal Party
* Czechoslovak People's Party
* German Social Democrats
* German Electoral Coalition (German Nationalists + German National Socialists)
* German Agrarians
* German Christian Democrats
* Czechoslovak Agrarian splinter party
* Slovak Agrarians & nationalists (they ended up merging with the Agriarians so I might put them under the same color)
* Hungarian-German Christian-Socialists
* Hungarian-German Social Democrats

 

[Alex Richards]

Did the German Social Democrats work with the Czechsolovak SDs? Because this feels like it could be the right time for the Indian style 'electoral alliance+letters' technique.

 

[Nanwe]

Did the German Social Democrats work with the Czechsolovak SDs? Because this feels like it could be the right time for the Indian style 'electoral alliance+letters' technique.

Not until 1926, although their relations were friendlier than between the mainstream right parties of either group, in 1920 the German SDs still argues for German self-determination. Plus they also ran against one another essentially everywhere in the Czech Lands.

The Hungarian-German Social Democrats in Slovakia ended up merging with the Czechoslovak social democrats in 1923, but they also competed in this election against the Czechoslovak SDs.

 

[Alex Richards]

Not until 1926, although their relations were friendlier than between the mainstream right parties of either group, in 1920 the German SDs still argues for German self-determination. Plus they also ran against one another essentially everywhere in the Czech Lands.

The Hungarian-German Social Democrats in Slovakia ended up merging with the Czechoslovak social democrats in 1923, but they also competed in this election against the Czechoslovak SDs.

Maddening.

 

[Nanwe]

Maddening.

Nah, that'd be the electoral system. Three levels of PR with various quotas and a weird threshold system too.

 

[Nanwe]

So mapping the Slovak constituencies is going to take forever, as I need to delve into municipal boundaries' maps and that will take forever. So while I wait for the news of whether I'm hired and I need to move this week to Brussels, let me explain Czechoslovakia's electoral system.

General

Inspired by the electoral systems of Belgium and interwar Germany, the Czechoslovak electoral system featured three levels (skrutinium) of proportional representation that operated in slightly different fashions. The two chambers of the National Assembly, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate were made up of 300 and 150 members, respectively, elected every 6 and every 8 years respectively. In practice, however, both chambers were always elected simultaneously. In practice too, very few of the Chamber's legislatures lasted all 6 years, with elections held in 1920, 1925, 1929 ad 1935, only the 1929-1935 legislature lasted roughly what it was meant to.

Voting was mandatory for every man and woman over 21 but below 70. Overall, the elections can be considered to have been free and fair, with the potential exception of Ruthenia where it isn't unheard for the government authorities to favor anti-Hungarian parties. Indeed, one of the reasons why the election of 1920 wasn't held in Ruthenia until 1924 was precisely because many in Prague feared a Magyarone victory.

Elections were held on two days, on a Sunday for the first round, and a week later for the second and third rounds, although no one voted on these latter rounds. The time span was designed to give the parties time to draft candidate lists for these latter rounds. The party lists were closed lists.

Constituencies (Chamber)

For the election of 1920, the country was divided into a total of 23 constituencies, electing from 6 o 45 deputies. The numbers of seats that were allocated to each constituency was not exactly based on population - although it did play a large role. According to the authors of the electoral law, other factors like the historical under-representation of Czech voters also played a role in the over-representation of, for instance, the Bohemian central plateau, or the under-representation of the Hungarians in Slovakia (grouped into the Nové Zamky and Kosice constituencies). In theory, it was also designed to reflect future demographic trends as the electoral law had no way of automatically re-allocating the seats.

This last, official reason to me appears to be basically false, the Czech Lands had far lower birth rates than Slovakia, not to mention feudal Ruthenia, and on average, it was better represented. The table below shows the ratio of citizen per seat, including both voting age and underage citizens. That is one of the reasons why Ruthenia also shows such a discrepancy with the rest of the country - it was a far younger part of the country.

In 1920, no elections would be held in either the Tesin or the Uzhorod constituencies. In the case of Tesin, because at the time of the election, the territory of the former Duchy of Teschen was disputed between Czechoslovakia and Poland, resulting in a short war that was ended through a League of Nations-mediated settlement and a partition of the territory. For 1925, the Czechoslovak part of Tesin was added to the Moravska Ostrava constituency. Elections in the administrative district of Hlucin (Mor. Ostrava) couldn't be held either due to its disputed status, and as a result, in 1920, the constituency would have elected 13, rather than 14 seats.

1920 was also the only time the Prague constituency existed, as in the successive elections, the constituency was divided into two, Prague A and Prague B, each electing 24 seats each.

In practice, in 1920, only 281 representatives were elected and sat between 1920 and 1924, 290 from 1924 until 1925.

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First Round

The number of theoretically-allocated seats per constituency's main role was limited. They served to calculate the quota of each constituency. This quota was Hare - the number of valid votes casts divided by the number of seats. The resulting number was always rounded down. This number was known as the 'election number'.

In the first round, there were no thresholds for parties to cross, and any party that met the quota would get a seat. This is pretty straightforward. Because of the differences in voters:seats ratio, the election number could vary significantly, from 17,679 in Liptovsky Sväty Mikulas to 27,743 in Kosice.

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All valid votes from each party would thus be allocated on the basis of these quotas. Unallocated seats and votes would pass to the second (and ultimately third rounds). This meant that in practice, each constituency elected less seats than it was theoretically allocated, on average only 66% of all seats were allocated on the first round, with great variation, going from only 50% in Hradec Kralové to 86.67% in Prague.

This would become a significant political issue later on, as the Slovak People's Party resented losing 'Slovak' seats due to the national character of the second and third rounds.

Second Round

All the remaining votes that had not been enough to obtain a seat and all the unallocated seats from the first round were grouped together. The second round was held a week after the first round, giving time to the parties to create candidate lists from candidates who hadn't been elected on the first round from across the country.

The way that the second round operated diverges somewhat from the first round. For starters, the second round was done through a single, national constituency. The second round also featured a threshold - in order to be able to participate in this second allocation of seats, a party would have had to obtain at least one seat on the first round or 20,000 votes in at least one constituency. The United Jewish Party, for instance, had failed to gain any seats in the first round and never obtained more than 11,000 votes in a constituency. As a result, it would not participate.

The quota (electoral number) for the second round was also calculated differently. Instead of taking into account all the valid votes cast, it only took into account the remaining votes of parties that met the threshold and divided it by the number of remaining seats plus one (Hagenbach-Bischoff quota), making it slightly more favorable to larger parties than the Hare quota used on the first round. Like on the first round, the resulting number was rounded down.

In 1920, the electoral number was 20,574 for the Chamber of Deputies. In the second round, there were 83 seats to be allocated, of which 77 were, and the 6 left would be allocated on the third and final round.

The electoral law stipulated that there would be no third round in the - rare - case that all remaining seats had been allocated on the second round.

Third Round

In the case that after applying the second round quota to the remaining seats, there were still unassigned seats, then these were allocated to the parties according to the largest remainder system.

This would thus look something similar to this:

 

[Ares96]

You always know there’s going to be madness in store when a purely-proportional system features multiple rounds of voting.

 

[Nanwe]

You always know there’s going to be madness in store when a purely-proportional system features multiple rounds of voting.

Definitely. Plus, I don't know whether the Czechoslovak system was saner or crazier than the one used for the Reichtag.

 

[Ares96]

Definitely. Plus, I don't know whether the Czechoslovak system was saner or crazier than the one used for the Reichtag.

Well, it doesn’t sound as though the number of seats fluctuated with turnout, so that’s something.

 

[Alex Richards]

Indeed, one of the reasons why the election of 1920 wasn't held in Ruthenia until 1924 was precisely because many in Prague feared a Magyarone victory.

That's morbidly impressive.

 

[Nanwe]

That's morbidly impressive.

The official reasons were that the territory was not secured seeing as how most of it was under Hungarian control in 1919 and 1920, and the situation on the ground was too chaotic, which was true. But the same was true for much of southern Slovakia and the elections were held there.