Abstract
This paper describes the development of Gustav Husak’s concept for resolving the question of Slovakia and thereupon clashes with political reality. The state-law question of Slovakia played a key role in the political life and career of Gustav Husak.
He significantly influenced this issue that, on the other hand, reciprocally influenced him. He became its embodiment and it brought him both popularity and political rise, but also accusations of nationalism and criminalization.
Husak was from his youth persuasive advocate of equal status Slovaks in Czechoslovakia; he critized the idea Czechoslovakism, which he significantly and legally helped to delegitimize. During the World War II, he was controversially considering the idea of Slovakia as the Federal Republic of the Soviet Union, and also encouraged the restoration of Czechoslovakia on federal constitutional basis.
Husak gradually withdrew from this vision in the postwar era, purposefully agreed with centralization and demolished his previous efforts. Gustav Husak undoubtedly found support among the Slovak nationalists and belonged to the national-oriented Slovak communist, but he ultimately preferred party discipline than promotion of the national program.
Nevertheless, he was imprisoned for his previous opinions and convicted in the 1950s. After Husák rehabilitation in 1963, was also rehabilitated his dream of federation, which thanks to Husák´s contribution became a reality in the end, but also became, as time showed, only a temporary solution in the Czech-Slovak constitutional relation.