The First Book about the Czechoslovak Republic in the USSR: “The Modern Czecho-Slovakia” by Pavel N. Mostovenko

The article dwells upon the book “The Modern Czecho-Slovakia” by Pavel N. Mostovenko — the Soviet representative in Prague from June, 1921 till February, 1923. The author of the article supposes that Mostovenko began to work on this book immediately after his return from Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1923 following his fresh impressions and having all the necessary materials. All the chapters of this book embraced a wide range of problems: a brief history of Czechia, the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic, its social and economic development, the financial system, the constitution of 1920 and the functioning of the state machinery, the leading political parties, the relations among different ethnic groups, home and foreign policy. In the USSR Mostovenko’s book was the first attempt at interpreting the history of the Czechoslovak Republic from the point of view of the communist ideology. At the same time, the author of the article states that in Mostovenko’s book quite a few aspects of the development of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1920s are interpreted in a way different from the documents of Comintern and the Soviet press of that period. The author of the article proves that Mostovenko on the basis of the analysis of the international relations in Central Europe after World War I predicted that in case of an essential breach of the balances of powers in the Versailles system of international relations, Czechoslovakia would became its first victim and neither France nor the allies in the Little Entente would help it. Exactly this happened in 1938.