ABSTRACT
The Czechoslovak state, although multinational in composition when it was created in 1918, was often considered an example of the successful application of the principle of self-determination that was invoked in re-organizing Central Europe from the ashes of the Habsburg, Romanov and Ottoman empires on the morrow of the Great War. This perception has survived, despite the fact that in a little more than seven decades it faced three major challenges to its existence from a minority nation.1 Within 20 years, in 1938-39, Czechoslovakia was modified and then dismembered for six years as a result of external as well as internal factors; half a century after its creation, in 1968, the country underwent a major constitutional change; and again, in 1990-92, the former socialist federal republic, which had become the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, faced a constitutional challenge which it failed to resolve. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia disappeared and was replaced by the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is now clear that it was a state that knew more conflict than stability in the relations between its constituent nations and national minorities.
