Legal Aspects of the Position of Slovakia in the Newly Established Czechoslovakia in Vratislav Kalousek’s Interpretation

The following text examines the topic of unifying territories with disparate legal traditions as exemplified by Czechoslovakia during the first years of its existence and interpreted by Vratislav Kalousek (1883–1936), an unjustly forgotten clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, a lawyer and a contributor to inter-war legal magazines. He analyzed how the Czechoslovak law –drafted by the Czechoslovak officials of the Cisleithanian tradition –was implemented in the newly acquired lands, namely in Slovakia and in Carpathian Ruthenia. Vratislav Kalousek perceived the foundation of Czechoslovakia, based on uniting lands with a different history, as well as cultural, social and legal traditions, as a situation in which it was necessary to act swiftly, instead of slowing the process down with emphasis on accuracy typical for legal theory.