Milan Rastislav Štefánik a Maurice Janin
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Everyone in Slovakia knows Milan Rastislav Stefanik. On the other hand, the French general Maurice Janin is unknown in Slovakia. If we follow closely Stefanik's life story during the First World War, we will find that without knowing what this French general meant for Stefanik, for his military and diplomatic career, our knowledge of Stefanik remains incomplete and often very inaccurate. Stefanik and Janin were very different as people. Stefanik a restless ball of nerves, constantly oscillating from one difficult task to another. Janin calm, a generation older, prudent and rather slow. And yet a close and deep friendship developed between these different men. A friendship the like of which we do not know many in history. A friendship that continued even after Stefanik's death. Janin, who knew Stefanik intimately, defended his memory against attempts to portray his character in a negative sense and to diminish his merits. Slovak historical scholarship owes much to Maurice Janin. This book, which brings together everything Janin wrote about Stefanik, in addition to the introductory essay, and the documents Janin collected, is an attempt to repay at least part of this debt. We do not have to agree with everything Janin has written about Stefanik and his death. However, we should take his testimony seriously. He was the man who knew Stefanik best of all his contemporaries.
