Slovak nationalist sentiment has been a constant presence in the history of Czechoslovakia, coming to head in the torrent of nationalism that resulted in the dissolution of the Republic on January 1, 1993. James Felak examines a parallel episode in the 1930s with Slovak nationalists achieved autonomy for Slovakia-but "at the price" of the loss of East Central Europe's only parliamentary democracy and the strengthening of Nazi power.

James Ramon Felak is Newman Center Term Professor in Catholic Christianity at the University of Washington and the author of At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938 and After Hitler, Before Stalin: Catholics, Communists, and Democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948.