When the Czecho-Slovak Republic was established in 1918 it was spelled with the hyphen, but in 1921 the government renamed the country Czechoslovakia. After the collapse of Communist rule at the end of 1989, the Slovaks demanded that the hyphen be reinstated. On 1 January 1993, the country separated into two new states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Czechoslovak parliament, unable to agree on a new official name for the country, compromised yesterday by choosing two.

The president, Vaclav Havel, had warned deputies that the country would become a laughing stock unless it quickly resolved the Great Hyphen Debate.

Deputies rejected various proposals for a name to replace the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in the post-communist era.

Slovak insistence on their national identity being enshrined in a hyphenated form of Czecho-Slovakia led to 12 hours of discussion and backroom discussion before the final formula was agreed.

Now Czechoslovakia will be known as the Czechoslovak Federative Republic in Bohemia and Moravia, while in Slovakia it will be the Czecho-Slovak Federative Republic. The all-important hyphen distinguishes the Czech and Slovak-language versions of the name.

The debate was first reported in the Guardian 65 years earlier:

Czechs and Slovaks: a matter of a hyphen

From a correspondent

24 January 1925

Vienna, January 18

The club of the senators and deputies of the Slovak People’s party in Czecho-Slovakia has sent an open letter to the Austrian Chancellor, Herr Ramek, asking him to withdraw a recent Governmental order according to which the hyphen must no longer be used between the words “Czech” and “Slovak” in the name of the Czecho-Slovak State. The Austrian Government introduced this new order under pressure from the Czecho-Slovak Legation in Vienna.

The memorandum argues that, without prejudice to international customs, the Slovak deputies are entitled to ask this correction from the Austrian Chancellor, as the Peace Treaty of St Germain, in its French, English, and Italian text, speaks only of the “Czecho-Slovak” State or of “Czecho-Slovakia,” and that the Peace Treaty clearly mentions that the Czecho-Slovak State has been constituted by “the peoples of Bohemia” on the one hand and “the peoples of Slovakia” on the other.

Moreover, says the memorandum, the deputies wish to remind the Czechs of the decisions of the Constituent Assembly on October 30, 1918, in Tureiansky St Martin. Here, it declared it was agreed in a secret clause that the existing constitutional relation between Czechs and Slovaks should remain valid for ten years; after the lapse of this period the Slovaks should regain their right of self-determination, and a plebiscite will have to decide if they are to remain in the old relation with the Czechs or if they desire to establish an independent Slovak State.

In face of these facts, the hyphen between the two words is no mere question of orthography, says the memorandum. Accordingly the Slovak deputies beg the Austrian Government not to assist Prague in its endeavour to deprive the Slovaks of all their rights guaranteed by treaties concluded with the Czechs and by the international Peace Treaty.

The memorandum is signed by Father Hlinka as chairman of the Slovak People’s party.