Semantic Spat Pits German Against Slovak

What is in a name?" asked Shakespeare. "That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet."


This is not, apparently, an opinion shared by the German Embassy in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. A rather unpleasant row has broken out this summer between Germany and Slovakia over how the official name of the German state should be translated into Slovak.


It seems, at a superficial level, a quite absurd dispute. However, one should not forget that the former Czechoslovakia, a state dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in January 1993, is a place where politicians almost came to blows over whether to insert a hyphen in the name of their country and call it "Czecho-Slovakia." It was a bizarre controversy but, in its own peculiar central European way, extremely serious.


The latest spat revolves around the fact that Slovakia's authorities decided last year to stop referring to Germany as the "Federal Republic of Germany." Instead, they started calling it the "German Federal Republic." Does it matter? Well, yes, it does. To my knowledge, no country in the world except Slovakia calls Germany the "German Federal Republic." Everyone else seems happy with the "Federal Republic of Germany."


The point is that the "German Federal Republic" is the term that was used in communist Eastern Europe, before the end of the Cold War, to describe West Germany, a supremely democratic country. The communists used this term as a way of suggesting there was a certain moral equality between West Germany and Communist-governed East Germany, whose official name was the "German Democratic Republic." East Germany, by the way, was a supremely undemocratic country.


Not surprisingly, diplomats representing the united German state in Bratislava do not take kindly to the Slovak decision to use a term that harks back to the Cold War. But here is the twist. The Slovaks say they have made the change purely because the "Federal Republic of Germany" is a term that cannot be translated into Slovak without sounding grammatically incorrect. It all hinges on the vowel ending prompted by the use of the genitive case in that final word "Germany."


Now, I do not wish to sidetrack readers with an exposition on the subtleties of how to use the genitive case in Slavic languages. But this I will say. Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs and all other Slavic-speaking peoples bar the Slovaks do not seem to have a problem with calling Germany the "Federal Republic of Germany." Indeed, the Slovaks themselves did not appear to wrestle greatly with this problem until a year ago. Clearly, the decision to call Germany the "German Federal Republic" was politically motivated.


So what is it all about? It is about the fact that Germany, like other European Union countries, has grave doubts over whether Slovakia is going to become a liberal democratic state. It would be nice to think of Slovakia as the equal of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, but unfortunately the record since 1989 does not fully bear this out.


Slovakia has responded to these doubts by picking a fight with Germany over language. If Germany criticizes us, the Slovaks say, then we will stop calling Germany by its proper name. But the Slovaks should think again. Germany is big and well-liked. Slovakia is small and not so well-liked. It is easy to see who is going to win.