Memorandum k návrhu na rozšíření působnosti zákona tzv. lex Perek při přípravě národnostního statutu
Memorandum on a Proposal for Widening the Scope of the Effect of the So-calles Lex Perek when Drafting a National Statute

Summary/Abstract: At the time of a politically uneasy situation in the year 1938, when the Czech government was dealing with, among other things, drafting the National Statute, the Silesian League for the Raising of Public Awareness in Český Těšín (Slezská Matice osvěty lidové v Českém Těšíně) and the League of Opava (Matice opavská) reacted to the situation by presenting to the government quite a comprehensive document formulated as Memorandum on the proposal for implementing the ‘Lex Perek’ in the territory of the former land of Silesia. In this document, representatives of prominent, Czech-oriented Silesian societies stipulated their objections to the possible broadening of the effect of ‘Lex Perek’ to the territory of Silesia within the framework of the National Statute. The danger they saw in the potential applicability of said law was that it might lead to the worsening of the situation in education to the detriment of Czech schools in the territory of the Czechoslovakian part of Silesia, as well as in the fact that it would open a new mechanism for the escalation of Czech-German and Czech-Polish conflicts in the field of education, the fight for attracting children to a Czech, German or Polish school. In connection therewith, the drafters of the memorandum described separately the education circumstances in the Teschen Region (Těšínsko), Hlučín Region and Opava Region. Whether the respective governmental bodies dealt with the memorandum is unknown; evidence for this is missing from the collection of extant archive material. It is likely that the memorandum was filed away. In the end of the paper, there are examples of the refusing attitude of the Ministry of Education and the National Awareness towards Polish demands put forward in the field of education in 1938. The appendix contains a text called “Demands of the Polish nation in Czechoslovakia”, which, was delivered by Karel Jung, a Deputy of the Land Assembly, in Brno in 1936.

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