Augustín Marián Húska

Augustín Marián Húska
Member of the National Council
In office 23 June 1992 – 15 October 2002
Personal details
Born	(1929-11-09)9 November 1929 Hubová, Czechoslovakia
Died	1 November 2016(2016-11-01) (aged 86)
Political party	Movement for a Democratic Slovakia
Education	University of Economics in Bratislava

Augustín Marián Húska (9 September 1929 – 1 November 2016) was a Slovak politician. He served as the minister of privatization from 1990 to 1991 and as a deputy of the Federal Assembly (1990–1992) and of the National Council of Slovakia (1992–2002).

Biography

Early life

Augustín Marián Húska was born on 9 September 1929 in the village of Hubová, nearby the town of Ružomberok.^[1] His father was an official of the fascist militia Hlinka Guard, who served as the mayor of Hubová during the World War II and took over a hotel in the village of Ľubochňa that had been confiscated from a Jewish family.^[2]

Húska studied at the University of Economics in Bratislava graduating in 1959. Following graduation, he was a researcher at the Institute for the Economics and Organization of the Construction Trade and, from 1990, at the University of Economics.^[3]

Political career

After the Velvet Revolution, Húska served as a deputy for the Public Against Violence movement, which he abandoned along with Vladimír Mečiar. For the rest of his political career, Húska was a leading politician of Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), serving as the minister of privatization (1999–1991), a deputy of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly (1990–1992) and, following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, as a deputy the National Council of Slovakia (1992–2002). Following the 2002 Slovak parliamentary election, Húska retired from public life.^[3]

During the era of Mečiar's authoritative rule, Húska was amongst his inner circle of loyalists, being one of the few people who were allowed to go on a first name basis with Mečiar.^[2] Some analysts consider him to be the "ideologue" of HZDS at the time of its formation.^[4] Húska staunchly defended Mečiar's regime from Western European critique of its poor human rights record, by arguing that the "newly heathen" Europe was prejudiced against Slovakia due to its Christian heritage.^[5] He also argued for a delayed entry of Slovakia to the European Union, although the membership was not on the table for Slovakia during Mečiar's reign in any case.^[6]

Húska, alongside another Slovak economist Hvezdoň Kočtúch, advocated for a gradual economic transformation away from the state-led economy to free market. His vision was at odds with the "Big Bang" approach to transformation championed by most of the Czech politicians at the time, as well as the Slovak reformists such as Ivan Mikloš.^[7]

Húska was a part of the Slovak delegation negotiating the dissolution of Czechoslovakia with the Czech government representatives at the Villa Tugendhat. Nonetheless, he was excluded from the talks following a request from the Czech side. According to testimony of Mečiar, it was the Czech prime minister Václav Klaus who demanded the exclusion of Húska, whom he found annoying due to Húska's habit of speaking in long, complex sentences.^[8] Another explanation of the Czech demand to exclude Húska from the talks made by a member of the Czech delegation Tomáš Ježek, who attributed it to Húska's opposition to the free market economy.^[9]

Death

Húska died on 1 November 2016 at the age of 86.^[8]

References

1. "Zomrel významný politik Mečiarovej éry Augustín Marián Húska". Pravda.sk (in Slovak). 2016-11-02. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
2. Kern, Miro (2016-11-02). "Zomrel Mečiarov ekonóm Augustín Marián Húska". Denník N (in Slovak). Retrieved 2024-06-12.
3. "Vo veku 87 rokov zomrel expolitik Augustín Marián Húska". domov.sme.sk (in Slovak). Retrieved 2024-06-12.
4. Fisher, Sharon (2006), Fisher, Sharon (ed.), "Structuring the Ideology of the New State", Political Change in Post-Communist Slovakia and Croatia: From Nationalist to Europeanist, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 55–81, doi:10.1057/9780230600881_3, ISBN 978-0-230-60088-1, retrieved 2024-06-13
5. Gruber, Simon (2009). "The Apostles to the Slavs versus the Velvet Revolution. The Use of History in the Struggle for Democracy in Slovakia during the 1990s". JEIH Journal of European Integration History. 15 (2): 149–164. doi:10.5771/0947-9511-2009-2-149.
6. Krause, Kevin Deegan (2002), "The ambivalent influence of the European Union on democratization in Slovakia", The European Union & Democratization, Routledge, doi:10.4324/9780203458464-3/ambivalent-influence-european-union-democratization-slovakia-kevin-deegan-krause (inactive 1 November 2024), ISBN 978-0-203-45846-4, retrieved 2024-06-13
7. Balík, Stanislav; Hloušek, Vít; Kopeček, Lubomír; Holzer, Jan; Pšeja, Pavel; Roberts, Andrew Lawrence (2017-07-17). Czech Politics: From West to East and Back Again. Verlag Barbara Budrich. p. 103. ISBN 978-3-8474-0974-8.
8. "HZDS' Augustín Marián Húska has died". spectator.sme.sk. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
9. Budování kapitalismu v Čechách : rozhovory s Tomášem Ježkem (in Czech).