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HISTORY OF SLOVAKIA



From the castle in Bratislava, a symbol of Slovak statehood, it is possible to see with the naked eye the peaks of the Alps, the mountain range which stretches to the south-west up to the shores of the Carpathians, the second mighty mountain range of Europe which ends far to the east, at the plains near the Black Sea. This position of Bratislava and of Slovakia in the middle of Europe, on the border between East and West was and is symbolic.

Indeed, its territory was encroached upon or its fate was jointly shaped by great empires: the Roman and Byzantine Empires, by the Frank Empire in the ninth century, by the Osman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and, in the twentieth century, by Germany and Russia.

In Slovakia, significant European intellectual trends and movements exercised long-term influence: Christianity, the Renaissance and Reformation, nationalism, modern liberalism, socialism and even fascism and communism. The history of Slovakia is, therefore, the history of a European region. It was, to be sure, a region, which did not stand at the center of events nor determine their direction. Yet it did take part in important movements of European and world culture and left its mark upon them. But since Slovakia, except for a very brief period of time, did not exist as an independent state, most people knew little about its role in European history.

It is hoped that this sketch of the history of Slovakia and the Slovaks will provide at least an introduction to their historical development.



PRE-HISTORY



Archaeology has demonstrated the existence of man in the territory of Slovakia from the Middle Paleolithic Era (200,000-35,000 B. C.). Museum in Poprad presents a unique find from G?novce - a travertine casting of the skull of a Neanderthal man. Displayed in the Slovak National Museum in Bratislava is the "Moravian Venus", a fascinating sculpture more than 22,800 years old. In the Bronze Age (1,900-700 B. C.) the territory of Slovakia was a significant European center of bronze production. To this period is ascribed the oldest known stone architecture in Slovakia, the round bastions, walls and houses from the Iron Age (700-500 B. C.), exhibit the influence of Greek civilization from the Black -Sea region and from the Etruscan culture of the south.

The first coins in Slovakia were made by the Celts who entered the region from the west in the fifth century B. C. As they expanded here they encountered the Dacians coming from the southeast. Shortly before the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire spread to the Danube, north of which were settled the Germans who created the first known state on the territory of Slovakia, the Regnum Vannianum. Garrisons were maintained in Slovakia and the Romans built fortresses and settlements. For four centuries, Slovakia was the border between the "civilized" and "barbarian" elements of the Antique, Celtic, Dacian and German cultures. In the era of the migrations of peoples (5-6 century A. D.) the Gauls and the Langobards passed through Slovakia on their way to Northern Italy. From the Danube plains, the nomadic Huns threatened western and southern Europe during the fifth century.



THE GREAT MORAVIAN EMPIRE



The Slavs came to the territory of Slovakia during the fifth century. They lived in a kind of symbiosis with the Avars who come to the same region a bit later. They took part in joint expeditions against the Franks, Langobards, Byzantines even though the Slavs were suppressed by the Avars. Indeed, skirmishes among them provided the occasion for the development of the first important state organization among the western Slavs, the Empire of Samo, who fought against Avars and ruled the territory for thirty-five years. After Samo's death in 658 there are no written documents concerning this state. Only after one and a half centuries the reports reveal the existence of a further state in the region - the principality of Nitra, which was governed by Prince Pribina. At the beginning of the third decade of the ninth century Pribina was expulsed by MojmÃr, a prince from neighboring Moravia. Through this union of the Old Moravian and the Nitra principalities developed Great Moravia.

The Great Moravian Empire encompassed the lands of modern Slovakia and Moravia as well as parts of Hungary and Austria. For a short time the lands of Bohemia, the southern part of Poland and Lusatia, today part of Germany, also belonged to it. Letters, chronicles and archaeological findings provide information concerning Great Moravian stone structures and the flowering of handicrafts, iron and other metal workers as well as glass-makers skilled in various techniques as demonstrated by the remarkable necklaces, earrings, buttons they produced. Great Moravia was an equal partner with its neighbor to the west, the Frankish Empire. They maintained lively commercial and cultural contacts. But military confrontation between them also developed and called forth the attempts of the rulers of the Frankish Empire to extend their sphere of influence to the east. This also influenced the most significant cultural initiative of the era of Great Moravia - the acceptance of Christianity.

Christianity first penetrated the territory of Slovakia from the Frankish Empire already during the era before the emergence of the Great Moravian Empire. In 828 or 829 Prince Pribina had a stone church in Nitra consecrated by the Archbishop of Salzburg. In 863 the brothers Constantine and Method headed a mission to Great Moravia at the invitation of Prince Rastislav who wished to free himself from the influence of the Franks and to strengthen his own independence. They devised the oldest Slavonic alphabet - Hlaholithic and translated liturgical books into Old Church Slavonic. They also established an ecclesiastical organization and founded a theological training center. Pope Hadrian II approved the use of Old Slavonic as a liturgical language and in 870 consecrated Method as an archbishop in Rome. However, after the death of Method, the use of the Slavonic liturgy was terminated in Great Moravia due to the pressure of the Franks and as a result or the decision of Svâtopluk. But Method' s pupils, who were forced into exile in Bulgaria and Macedonia, continued to cultivate the Slavonic liturgy and the old Slavonic language. Later, the old Russian Christian culture was drawn from this spring.

At the beginning of the tenth century, Great Moravia, weakened by wars with its neighbors, fell to the onslaught of the Magyars. Even if it existed only for seventy years, the Great Moravian Empire is still considered to be a most important part of the historical consciousness of the Slovaks. Constantine, canonized under the name Cyril, and Method are considered national saints. Since the era of romanticism, the princes Pribina, MojmÃr, Rastislav and Svâtopluk have been the heroes of epic poems, prose and dramatic works. Many creative artists and musicians have been inspired by their activity.



IN THE MEDIEVAL HUNGARY



After their bitter defeat in the Western Europe, the Magyars, who penetrated the Danube plains during the transition from the ninth to the tenth century, mastered settled life. Exploiting the living tradition of Great Moravia, they created a new state in the Carpathian basin - Hungary. From the Slavic inhabitants they took over methods of cultivating the soil, learned several crafts and, at least in part, the organization of a state. The Ugro-Finnish Hungarian language absorbed many Slovak words connected with agriculture, habitation, spiritual life and state administration. From the reign of St. Stephen of the Arp?d family (997-1038), Hungary was a strong state. At that time, the territory of Slovakia formed a principality bestowed upon younger members of the Arp?d family. By the end of the eleventh century it became, for nearly one thousand years, an integral and the most developed part of Hungary.

During the eleventh through fifteenth centuries the region experienced a time of economic growth and cultural advancement. The amount of arable land increased, the economy improved, as did the crafts, trades and mining. The towns obtained freedoms and privileges from the ruler or from the secular or ecclesiastical authorities. However, the years 1241-1242 were catastrophic for Hungary as Tatar troops plundered and laid waste the country. Following this, the cities grew, numerous castles and roads were built and the pace of settlement in the region quickened. At the invitation of the rulers and the landlords came settlers from abroad, predominantly from Germany. They brought with them new civilizing forces. Some of them were gradually assimilated while others created relatively compact German regions which were preserved down to the twentieth century.

The towns became centers of economic prosperity. Some of them became rich as a result of long-distance trade along the Danube trade route between west and east (Bratislava, Trnava); others, on the trade route between the Black Sea and the Baltic, had contacts with Transylvania and Poland (Ke?marok, Koˆice, Levoča). Especially important for Hungary were the numerous mining towns and villages in Slovakia since mining represented a traditionally important branch of the economy. Its golden age can be traced back to the hegemony of the AnjouÌs in the fourteenth century when precious metals from Slovakia prevailed in the European markets. Silver mining, mainly in the region around Bansk? ‰tiavnica and gold from the Kremnica mines represented about a quarter of the output of these metals from European mines. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Slovakia was again the most important world producer and exporter of copper. From 1335 were struck in Kremnica sought-after golden coins - the Kremnica Ducat. The mint there has operated down to the present as the oldest in Europe.

Economic development established the place for a rich spiritual and artistic life. Even today, the land of Slovakia richly documents medieval, Romanesque rotundas and churches, castles and fortresses as well as jewels of the Gothic churches in Bratislava, Koˆice, Bardejov, Levoča and Preˆov, sculptures of the Madonna, altar panel paintings and wall paintings, exceptionally numerous in Spiˆ and Gemer. It is possible to consider the gothic altar, created by Master Paul for the church of St. James in Levoča, unique among the significant, monuments of gothic art.

The role of education significantly increased in 14. and 15 century. Important cities maintained schools but for university study, however, it was necessary to travel abroad, especially to Italy (Padova, Bologna), to Paris or, after the mid fourteenth century, to Prague and Vienna or, still later, to Krakow. In 1467, a university began instruction in Bratislava, the Academia Istropolitana, founded according to the model of the University of Bologna by King Mathias Corvinus Hunyadi, a propagator of the new ideas of renaissance humanism in Hungary. Even if the university soon closed, its existence nevertheless shows the development of the region, which tried to keep pace with the most civilized regions of Europe. This favorable trend of development was weakened at the end of the fifteenth century by several negative circumstances, especially the expansion of the Osman Empire.



PART OF THE HABSBURG MONARCHY



In the year 1521 a Turkish army conquered Belgrade, which opened the way to Hungary. Five years later they defeated the Hungarian army at Moh?cs and conquered the greater part of the country. Royal Hungary was reduced to Slovakia, part of Croatia and a narrow strip of land lying just to the east of the Austrian border. The Habsburgs, a new dynasty, sat upon the Hungarian throne and incorporated Hungary into their multi-national central European Empire. The significance of Slovakia increased during this period. Along its southern region was drawn a defensive line and the border between the Christian and Islamic worlds. In 1536 Bratislava became the capital city of Hungary. It was the seat of the central administrative offices; there sat the parliament until 1848, and for three centuries the kings of Hungary were crowned there. The seat of the Archbishop of Esztergom, which was occupied by the Turks, was transferred to Trnava. In 1635 a Jesuit university opened in this city. Once again Koˆice became a center for the administration of the eastern part of Hungary and there the ruler also founded a university in 1657.

The proximity of the Turks effected a retardation of the economy. War, cross-boarder raids, pillage, fires, taking captives as hostages or as slaves became the customary way of life in the region for the next 150 years. The cities maintained substantial garrisons of troops. The poorly paid Habsburg mercenaries, among them perhaps members of almost all European peoples, sometimes caused greater damage than did the Turkish enemy or the noble rebels. Life in Hungary during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was complicated by long-term conflicts and struggles for power.

One of the reasons for the defeat of Hungary by the Turks was the reluctance of the nobility to give up a portion of their privileges and to respect the central authority. The Habsburgs, who joined under one scepter Bohemia, the Austrian territory and Hungary, sought to legitimize their authority by citing the need to defend central Europe from the expansion of the Turks. Their policy was often directed towards limiting the privileges of the Hungarian nobility and the independence of the Hungarian state and, at the same time, towards the strengthening of the central Habsburg power. The dissatisfaction of the Hungarian nobility often developed into open opposition and a refusal of allegiance to the Habsburgs. The whole of the seventeenth century was marked by uprisings against the Habsburgs. Their leaders Bocskay (1604-1606), Bethlen (1619-1629), George I. R?k€czi (1643-1645), George II. R?k€czi (1648-1660), Thàkàly (1678-1687) often were aided by the Turks.

In addition to the defense of noble privileges and the resistance to the absolutism these uprisings were caused also by deep religious controversies. The Reformation penetrated Slovakia already during the first half of the 1520 s. Because it also legitimized the secularization of church property, it attracted a greater proportion of the nobility. In Slovakia, the Lutheran movement was most wide-spread while Calvinism spread mostly among the Hungarians. By the end of the sixteenth century an independent Lutheran church was established. In the following century, however, the recatholization movement was so intense that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, only sixteen percent of the Slovak population were Lutherans.

After their defeat at Vienna 1683, the Turkish army was pushed out of Hungary. In 1711 was defeated also the last and biggest uprising of Ferencz II. R?k€czy. The country offered a very sad picture, but in peaceful conditions it was able to recover with remarkable speed. The population growth in Slovakia was so high that Slovaks migrated to the depopulated south of Hungary. The Slovak Diaspora and communities have been preserved up to the present day in northern and southern Hungary, Serbia and Romania. The reforms of Maria Theresa (1740-1780) and those of her son, Joseph II (1780-1790), in the spirit of the Enlightenment, formed the basis of a modern state administration, tax and transportation system, army and schools. Thanks to them, the obligations of the serfs decreased and serfdom was ultimately abolished. The Habsburg court supported the establishment of manufacturing and reformed primary and secondary education. In 1763 Maria Theresa established in Bansk? ‰tiavnica the college for training mining, foundry and forestry specialists, the Mining and Forestry Academy. In 1781, the Edict of Toleration of Joseph II increased the rights of Protestants and actually ended the era of the Counter-Reformation in Hungary.



NATIONAL REVIVAL

AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1848/49



By the end of the eighteenth century even the central European region was affected by the ideas, which were more fully developed during the next century, equality of the citizens and national consciousness. In the public life and culture of Hungary Latin language had maintained a dominant position for a long time. But both of the Enlightenment rulers, Maria Theresa and Joseph II, tried to strengthen the monarchy by implementing the use of the German language. The Hungarian nobility, however, repudiated Joseph II policy and the use of German and tried to replace it with Hungarian. During this period, the majority of the nobility, which ruled the political and public life of Hungary and which spoke various languages and had different ethnic allegiances, began spontaneously to identity themselves with the Hungarian environment. Thanks to the support of the state the Hungarian nationality had good prerequisites for their own national emancipation. But for the Slovaks conditions were not very favorable. Except for the short period of Great Moravia, they lacked their own tradition of statehood, ecclesiastical autonomy and especially the support of the political powers. In the absence of the nobility, the transmitters of their national life were primarily the lesser intellectuals, teachers and clerics, who supported the equality of peoples, equal civic rights and human dignity. In light of the political weakness, the question of the joining of culture and language played a great role in the Slovak national movement. Particular political ambitions and requirements only gradually moved to the foreground. Weak feelings of national unity and a barrier to magyarization, which in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century already resulted in radical expressions, had to be strengthened by the idea of Slavonic solidarity and by patient cultural work.

In 1787 Anton Bernol?k (1762-1813) as the first codified Slovak as a literary language which, however, was utilized only among Catholics. The Lutheran intellectuals continued to employ the Czech language which had been the liturgical language of Slovak evangelicals for more than two centuries. It was the next generation of national revivalists, led by ĽudovÃt ‰t?r (1815-1856) which overcame this division and discord concerning the codification of the Slovak language. ‰t?r's Slovak created the basis of modern standard literary Slovak.

The Slovak national movement developed a mature political and constitutional program only in the spring of 1848. It accepted the ideals of revolution, demanded the abolishment of serfdom, and general suffrage, which would have guaranteed the participation of the nation in the political administration of a federalized Hungary in which Slovaks would have been an autonomous unit. The demands of the Slovaks as well as those of Serbians, Rumanians, Ruthens and the Germans met with the opposition of the leaders of the Hungarian revolution and the Hungarian state. The Slovak and the Hungarian national movements developed into open conflict, which revealed itself most clearly in the unsuccessful September uprising of 1848. During the revolt, however, the Slovak national council (ĽudovÃt ‰t?r, Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Michal Hod?a) developed as the first representative Slovak political body in modern history. During the whole year of 1849, its members endeavored through cooperation with imperial Vienna to effect the separation of Slovakia from Hungary and its incorporation as an autonomous entity within the system of a federal Habsburg monarchy. Despite the fact that this constitutional effort of 1848-1849 was practically without result, the Slovak national movement permanently adopted, up to the year 1918, the idea of an autonomous position of Slovakia within the framework of Hungary. It was best expressed in the Memorandum of the Slovak Nation of 1861.



PERIOD OF NATIONAL OPPRESSION



The rapid changes in civilization, which changed the face of Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century did not pass Slovakia by. Here also was built a network of railways, small workshops and manufactures were transformed into factories, banks and savings societies were established, insurance companies formed and, with the growth in the number of secondary and trade schools, illiteracy declined. Even though this advance was behind that of Western Europe by several decades, it was ahead of developments in many areas in Eastern Europe during the same period.

The social and cultural development on the whole was retarded, however, by the backward political situation in Hungary. This manifested itself in the remnants of serfdom, which was abolished only gradually as, through the non-democratic electoral system, the nobility sought to preserve its privileged position and implemented in Hungary magyarization. Their hands were freed by the Austro-Hungarian "Ausgleich" of 1867, which resolved the constitutional crisis of the monarchy by constructing a dualistic state - Austro-Hungary. The traditional goal of the vast majority of the Hungarian politicians, to turn Hungary into a Hungarian national state, seemed within reach. Nevertheless, since, even in the year 1880 ethnic Magyars made up only 46.6 % of the total population of the country, it was possible to achieve their goal only through great pressure and the systematic de-nationalization of ethnic minorities. For example, from 1867 until1912, the number of primary schools with Slovak as the language of instruction decreased from 2000 to 377. Slovak cultural efforts were blocked and discriminated against by official authorities. In the year 1875 the government closed the only Slovak cultural institution, the Matica slovensk?, and even before that three Slovak secondary schools (gymnasiums). A series of political trials of Slovak patriots took place.

As the century came to a close, Slovak politics, in accordance with European trends, fragmented in several directions: conservative-national, Catholic, agrarian, liberal and social-democratic. What held it together was protection from magyarization. It was also joined to attempts to activate politically the broadest spectrum of the Slovaks, namely the farmers and craftsmen, and therefore proclaimed the need for a general voting right. In 1914, six percent of the inhabitants had a right to vote and so the Slovaks were represented in the parliament by only two representatives, although they made up more than ten percent of the total population of Hungary.

The First World War (1914-1918) did not diminish the chauvinism of the Hungarian government but it did bring to an end the faith of Slovak politicians in the possibility of reforming and democratizing Hungary. It speeded up the change in the orientation of Slovak policy. Before the war, this occurred on the soil of the Hungarian state. But it supported, however, such concepts by which the Slovaks could achieve an autonomous position in a federal Austro-Hungary. In foreign affairs the majority of Slovak politicians expected positive initiatives from Russia. From the beginning of the twentieth century cooperation with Czech political parties, organizations and individuals also increased significantly. The years before World War I saw the maturation of a new generation of politicians who would lead the political life of Slovakia after 1918, namely Milan Hod?a, who belonged among the co-workers of the pretender to the Habsburg throne, Franz Ferdinand, Andrej Hlinka, Vavro ‰rob?r, Ivan D»rer and others.

The first public speeches advocating the formation of a common state for the Slovaks and Czechs were made abroad, in France, England and in the United States of America. From the end of the nineteenth century up to the First World War more than half a million Slovaks emigrated to the United States. In the democratic conditions there they matured and from the distance they realized how unbearable the situation in Hungary was and what was the actual position of the Slovaks there. In 1915 the representatives of the Slovak and Czech ethnic organizations signed the Cleveland Agreement concerning the establishment of a common federal state. The Pittsburgh Agreement, signed in May 1918 by Slovak and Czech emigrants and Tom?ˆ Garrigue Masaryk, proclaimed the autonomous position of Slovakia within a democratic Czecho-Slovak Republic.

The idea of a common state for the Czechs and Slovaks, linguistically closely related nations, had a rational basis. It could diminish the German hold upon the Czech lands and open the way for it to the east and south-east. For the Slovaks it would end forced magyarization and a non-democratic regime so that the development of their culture and national emancipation would become easier and come about more quickly. The representatives of both nations collaborated very closely in the resistance abroad against the Habsburg Monarchy. The Slovak, Milan Rastislav ‰tef?nik, an astronomer and a general in the French Army, was T. G. Masaryk's closest collaborator and the first to initiate a Czecho-Slovak resistance. Many Slovaks fought in the Czecho-Slovak legions in France, Italy and Russia.

By the end of the war, the idea of dissolving the Habsburg Monarchy and the establishment of an independent Czecho-Slovakia was fully supported by the allied powers, the United States, England, France and Italy. In this spirit labored also the domestic resistance. On 28 October 1918 the Czecho-Slovak National Committee in Prague proclaimed the existence of Czecho-Slovakia. On 30 October not yet having received information concerning events in Prague, the Slovak National Council also declared in Martin, its desire to join Slovakia with the Czech lands in one common state. The Czecho-Slovak Republic was one of the many successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its development brought to an end the hundreds years affiliation with Kingdom of Hungary.



IN THE CZECHO-SLOVAKIA BETWEEN THE WARS



The borders of Czecho-Slovak Republic were guaranteed by the international treaties of Versailles, St. Germaine and Trianon of the years 1919-1920. Internally it was established as a parliamentary democracy with a president as head of state (1918-1935 T. G. Masaryk, 1935-1938 Edvard Beneˆ). The democratic government was preserved, in contrast to all of the neighboring states, for twenty years.

The new state was composed of two parts with different histories, cultural traditions, ethnic makeup and level of economic development. The Czechs, living under incomparably better Austrian conditions, were able to develop their own schools, scientific and cultural institutions so that the new state only finalized their emancipation. The Slovaks and, to a greater extent, the Ruthens, did not have such an opportunity in Hungary so that their institutions and political agencies were formed only after 1918. Therefore, the Czech upper-hand and hegemony was clearly evident and felt from the very beginning. It was supported also by the transfer of the bureaucratic and centralistic traditions of imperial Vienna and by the complicated ethnic composition of the Czecho-Slovak Republic.

Czecho-Slovakia had about fifteen million inhabitants, which included only seven million Czechs. There were also other nationalities: about three million Germans, 700,000 Magyars and about 500,000 Ruthens, Jews and Poles. The Czechs formed the majority together with the only 2.2 million Slovaks. This was one of the reasons why Czech policy was to maintain the fiction of a Czechoslovak nation included in the Constitution of 1920.

The autonomous movement, which was represented primarily by the catholic and the evangelical national party held the allegiance of nearly one-third of the voters in Slovakia. But there were also other parties in opposition to the government. The opposition in Slovakia obtained a majority of the votes not only due to demands for autonomy but also as result of economic difficulties which were most clearly exhibited during two economic crises (1921-1923, 1930-1934). The Slovak economy, strongly affected by the breakup of the Hungarian market, was decimated by the competition from more modern Czech enterprises, banks and insurance companies. In the 1920s a number of factories, enterprises and financial institutions in Slovakia were abolished. In 1937 there were as many people employed in the industrial sector in Slovakia as there had been employed in 1913. Widespread unemployment could not be solved either by land reform or by emigration to west European countries or across the sea.

Despite the complicated social and national situation, Slovakia was moving towards a stabile and strong civil society. The left-wing radicalism represented by the communists was limited only to 10-12 percent of the voters, right-wing radicalism was only a marginal manifestation. The stability of the young state was strengthened also by strong concerns in the face of the revisionist demands of Hungary whose governments between the wars sought to reconstitute pre-war Hungary. Slovakia recorded in democratic Czecho-Slovakia evident progress and profit in various areas of life. For the first time it had its own borders, its own capital, Bratislava, it had numerous political agencies, various political parties and representatives in Parliament. There were many interest organizations of entrepreneurs, farmers, small businesses, dozens of central and regional cultural institutions. Among these should be mentioned the Matica slovensk?, a newly established national theater, university, and numerous publishing houses and the press. The language of instruction at schools respected regional requirements.

Rapid positive changes were accomplished due to many Czech clerks, teachers, professors and soldiers. They were active especially in the state administration and institutions. This fact, however, became more and more the subject of dispute because they occupied posts suitable for the growing number of young Slovak intellectuals and they disseminated concepts concerning a Czechoslovak nation which were unacceptable to the Slovaks.

Opposition forces led by Hlinka's People's Party demanded the recognition of the national independence of the Slovaks and the formation of an autonomous Slovakia with its own parliament and government. They considered autonomy to be a tool for strengthening the republic. But the centralist parties, which defended the unitary character of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, considered them separatists. There was, however, no opportunity to test either of these concepts. The Czecho-Slovak government, led from 1935 by a Slovak, Milan Hod?a, was not courageous enough to resolve the Slovak question. In time, a completely different political situation led to the proclamation of Slovak autonomy as the Czecho-Slovak Republic lived through a deep crisis called forth by the agressivity of Hitler' s Germany. As a result of his pressure, on 29 September 1938, a meeting in Munich of the representatives of four powers took place: Germany, Italy, France and England. On the basis of their decree, Czecho-Slovakia was to cede to Germany a large section of its territory in the west, which was inhabited by Germans (the Sudetenland). At the same time Hungary and Poland presented territorial claims against Slovakia. Under the pressure the Government fulfilled the Polish requirements. On 2 November 1938, Germany and Italy awarded, in an arbitration decision in Vienna, one-fifth of the territory of Slovakia and one-quarter of its inhabitants to Hungary. Czecho-Slovakia, dismembered and weakened became in fact a tool in the power interests of Germany.

In such a situation, the Prague government expressed its approval of the autonomy of Slovakia, which was proclaimed on 6 October 1938 in Èilina. After Munich Treaty the democracy in Prague and Bratislava was liquidated. In Slovakia all parties were swallowed up by the People's Party or the government prohibited them. The autonomy of Slovakia was the only thing they wanted, but Hitler however, was looking for an excuse to break up Czechoslovakia. The German Nazis supported the groups within the People's Party, which desired the full independence. On 13 March 1939, during a time of severe disputes between the Prague government and representatives of Slovakia, Hitler invited Jozef Tiso, the president of the Slovak government, to Berlin and presented him with only one alternative: the division of Slovakia between Germany, Hungary and Poland or a proclamation of Slovak independence as a state. On 14 March 1939 the autonomous parliament proclaimed the independence of the Slovak state. The next day the German army marched into Prague.



SLOVAKIA DURING THE WAR



The Slovak Republic (1939-1945) was recognized by more than twenty-five states. But its independence was greatly limited by its strong, economic, military and political dependence on Germany. The political regime of the Slovak state was an authoritarian dictatorship with one party and ideology. Fascist groups, led by Vojtech Tuka, the Prime Minister, supported by organizations of a German minority in Slovakia fought for power and influence in the country. In suppressing the opposition, the regime proceeded very slowly in comparison with the neighboring states. However, this was not true when it came to the Jewish population. The government seized all their property, their civil and human rights. They were sent to concentration camps and from March 1942, they transported to German occupied parts in the East 57 628 Jews from which only few hundreds lived through. From 13 500 transported in period 1944-5 died more than 10 000. Even though the Slovak Republic declared itself to be a Christian state and Tiso was himself a priest, this genocide was not prevented despite the protests of the Church and the Vatican.

Slovakia took part in the war to a lesser extent than the surrounding countries. The prosperity generated by the war abolished unemployment and supplies for the inhabitants were, in wartime conditions, satisfactory. Despite this, there developed, from its very beginning, a strong opposition to the totalitarian regime. At home many "illegal" groups were active. As they did during the First World War, many Slovaks joined Czecho-Slovak army in the Soviet Union. The members of the Slovak army joined the Soviet army in such large numbers that the Germans had to withdraw the Slovak divisions from the Eastern front. By the end of the war there were more Slovaks fighting with the Allies than there were on the German side.

By the end of 1943, the many resistance groups formed illegal Slovak National Council. In cooperation with the Czechoslovak government in exile in London, some capable fighters in the Slovak army prepared an uprising. In the summer of 1944 the partisan groups increased, namely in the mountain areas. The government in Bratislava could not handle the situation and Slovakia was occupied by German troops. On 29 August 1944, the "illegal" military command in Bansk? Bystrica issued the order to start the uprising.

The Slovak National Uprising belongs to the largest armed resistance activities, which took place on the "GermanÓ territory during the World War II. Within two months, nearly sixty thousand soldiers and about eighteen thousand guerrillas were defending a compact region in Central Slovakia against German troops. All of the legislative and governmental power in the territory controlled by the insurgents was assumed by the Slovak National Council and life in the insurgent villages was organized by national committees. A rebel radio and press were also active together with various political parties and trade unions.

According to the original plan, the German army should have been attacked from behind in order to break the Carpathian front and open the way into the Danube basin for the Soviet army. But this did not happen. By the end of October, the Germans conquered Bansk? Bystrica. Part of the rebel army was captured and part of it withdrew and joined the partisans. Their generals J?n Golian and Rudolf Viest, died in German captivity. Slovakia was liberated by fierce fighting by the Soviet, Czecho-Slovak and Rumanian armies in May 1945.

The 1944 uprising represents one of the key events of modern Slovak history. Even though people of different ideas and interest took part in it, a basic idea was common to all of them - to fight against the inhuman system introduced to Europe by Hitler. The uprising also strengthened the national consciousness of the Slovaks. Before this event, Slovakia had been mostly an object of alien interests. But, during the uprising, Slovakia took its own fate into its own hands. The uprising also inhibited the return to the pre-war Prague centralism. It supported the idea of a Czecho-Slovakia in which the Czechs and Slovaks would live as equal nations.



RESTORED CZECHO-SLOVAKIA



The first three post-war years were very dramatic for Slovakia. The territory formerly occupied by Hungary was returned to Slovakia, which was also confirmed by the Paris peace agreement of 1947. As in the Czech lands, the Germans had to leave Slovakia. The agreed exchange of inhabitants between Hungary and Slovakia was not fully realized. Germans and Hungarians were seized the civil rights, schools, the government tried to press Hungarians to became Slovaks. After 1948 the discrimination measures were step by step abolished. The mines, forges, the majority of industry and financial institutions were nationalized. The political system, officially called a peoples democracy, was characterized by very little democracy in practice. A complicated three years struggle between the forces supporting parliamentary democracy and the communists, who called for a regime of the Soviet type, concluded in February 1948 with the defeat of democracy in Czecho-Slovakia. In Slovakia, it culminated even sooner.

In contrast to the Czech lands, where the communists were victorious in the election of 1946, in Slovakia the majority of the inhabitants (62%) supported the Democratic Party. It was in the majority in parliament (the Slovak National Council) and in the Slovak government (Board of Commissioners). In the Autumn of 1947 the joint effort of the Czech and Slovak communists and the Czech anti-Slovak parties to try to limit the autonomy of Slovakia and restore the prewar unitary state culminated in a non parliamentary and anti-constitutional change in the distribution of power in favor of the communists. Terror and provocations by the police, determined the future development of Czecho-Slovakia after February 1948.



STALINIST TOTALITARIANISM



The communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia was the same in all of its basic features with that of Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union and other eastern European countries. The rapidly installed totalitarian regime liquidated non-communist political parties, interest groups and unions. The opposition groups and even potential opponents (namely the farmers, small tradesmen, members of the prohibited political parties and representatives of the Church) were often removed by direct terror: imprisonment, confinement in labor camps, the confiscation of property, expulsion from towns and show trials. Public life, the economy and culture were subordinated to the communist party and Leninist ideology. After a radical nationalization, all spheres of life found themselves in the hands and power of the state, not only large factories and businesses and financial institutions but also small enterprises, lawyers offices, and medical offices. The existence of all of the inhabitants depended completely upon the state.

The radical changes deeply influenced the structures of society, which had been formed over many centuries, as well as its customs and values. Industrialization resulted in a greater mobility of the population. While in 1948 there were 216,000 employed in industry, by 1965 the number was almost 504,000 and in 1985 it had reached 800,000. Others were employed in the transport and building industries, in health sector and schools. A whole scale migration of inhabitants from the villages to the towns occurred hand in hand with an increase in formal education. In 1970, one-third of the population of Slovakia received either secondary or vocational education. The extreme centralism halted any real creative initiative but offered a minimum of social security and a simple standard of living to all. The intellectuals held back in manifestations of disapproval both because of fear of prosecution and because of the evident quantitative growth of education and culture. Strong social and cultural changes resulted after the terror in the 1950s. The next decade witnessed a kind of relaxation and there appeared a few strong groups within the communist party and its non members, which tried to abolish the system or to reform it. This process became known in the history as an attempt of Ïsocialism with human faceÓ.

The struggle to change the system was the same all over the country. But between the development in Czechia and Slovakia there were certain differences. The establishment of a communist dictatorship also resulted in a strong centralism. First it limited the legal power of the Slovak authorities, the Slovak National Council and the Board of Commissioners. After the adoption of the ÏsocialistÓ constitution law of 1960 they were practically liquidated. While the Czech reform movement of the 1960s emphasized the democratization of the system, the Slovak movement joined to this the restoration of the independence of Slovakia and the federalization of Czechoslovakia.



UNFULFILLED FEDERATION AND NORMALISATION



In 1968, parliament passed a constitutional law concerning the federation. Czechoslovakia was changed into a federal state. Alongside the federal authorities were the parliamentary National Councils and Governments of Czechs and Slovaks. The occupation of the country in August 1968 by the troops of the Warsaw Pact nipped the reform policy in the bud. The power was seized by dogmatic communists and Czechoslovakia became in effect a vassal state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Alexander Dubček, the Slovak reform communist and the symbol of the ÏPrague springÓ was replaced in April 1969 by Gust?v Hus?k. Even though he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1954 as a Slovak "nationalist", as the General secretary of the communist party and President of the republic, he joined in preventing the full implementation of the federation.

Under the conditions of a state monopoly of power and the neo-Stalinist communist party the organs of the Slovak Republic had more of a symbolic than a practical significance. They actually had less power, in some cases, than the regional offices, which existed in the unitary Czechoslovak Republic between the wars. It is understandable, therefore, that as in the 1960s, the opposition in Slovakia devoted its attention to national and constitutional questions even during the 1970s and 1980s. In comparison with the 1960s, the criticism of the totalitarian regime was of a more radical character. The dogmatism and the intolerance of the communist party leadership, which limited itself to copying Moscow standpoints and views, affected the life of the country in a negative manner and, paradoxically, suppressed the communist party itself. A great majority of the afflicted followers of the reform movement of 1968 found communism hopeless and accepted the idea of a parliamentary democracy and a market economy. During the last two decades, the younger generations were immune to the ideology of communism. The movement made up of those who believed in the freedom of religion and civil equality, of environmentalists with crucial goals, non-conform artists and scientists.



NOVEMBER 1989



On the end of 80`s the communist dictatorship was in crisis. Downfall of the Soviet Union power enabled weakening of the regime also in its full externally. The waves of demonstrations, protests and in the end the general strike forced the in November 1989 the Government to step back. The opposition groups in Prague united in the ÏObčansk» f€rumÏ, in Bratislava was created ÏVerejnosť proti n?siliuÓ. In six weeks they succeeded to upturn more than 40 years built communist monopoly. The Government of national understanding was built from representatives of opposition groups and communists as well, as Chairman of the Federal Parliament was elected Alexander Dubček, as President of the Republic was elected dissident and drama writer V?clav Havel.

The first free elections in 1990 have shown, that the communists have lost the trust, in Slovakia they received only 13.3 % of votes. The sovereignty of the state was strengthened also by departure of the last Soviet troops in June 1991. The liquidation of the state monopoly on property and economic management started. The citizens received back the after 1948 nationalized enterprises, houses, real estate, shops, workshops, the privatization of the big enterprises started. The discussion on the rights of republican bodies took the politicians three years. In the end many discussions collapsed on too different ideas about future Czecho-Slovakia. The idea of Czech party was close to unitary state, the Slovak idea was about free federation to confederation. So, after Ïvelvet revolutionÓ followed agreement on Ïvelvet divorceÓ. In July 1992 the Slovak National Council adopted Declaration on Slovak Sovereignty, on 1 September was adopted Slovak Constitution, in the end of November the Federal Assembly in Prague voted for cease of the federation. On 1 January 1993 on the world scene appeared new sovereign state - Slovak Republic.



SLOVAK REPUBLIC



Peaceful divorce gave to the little known Slovakia abroad valuable political capital. SR became member of UN, OSCE, IMF, etc. Less satisfactory was development of internal politics and economy, which got into severe crisis. Compared with 1989 in 1993 GDP dropped to 74%, unknown mass unemployment appeared. Slovak industry, producing until than mainly for the Soviet market collapsed. In Slovakia was concentrated also great part of military industry, which lost its traditional markets, too. Opening of the Slovak market to the world economy decimated producers of the textile and electronics. Necessary reorientation on western markets was long and painful.

The restructuring was slowed down also by lack of capital, the foreign investors were hesitating because of the political climate.

From elections in 1992 to 1998 with short few month break was at power the political party of VladimÃr Mečiar Movement for Democratic Slovakia. In contradiction to parliamentary habits the opposition was pushed out from parliamentary committees and from privatization of the state property. The followers of the ruling party became from one day to the another owners of steel works, chemical factories, hotels, spas, agricultural enterprises with thousands of hectares of soil. Corruption and clientelism made the reforms, functioning of the state administration and courts of justice impossible. Because of the lack of democratic principles Slovakia was excluded from list of candidates for EU and NATO. There was threat of international isolation, the lagging behind the dynamic developing neighbors was deepening.

This policy mobilized the opposition, which after elections in 1998 formed government headed by Mikul?ˆ Dzurinda. It was formed by broad coalition of left and right parties. In direct elections was elected President Rudolf Schuster. With great effort the lost years were caught up. The economical reforms made progress, decentralization of the state administration, privatization of banks, insurance companies, telecommunications, large companies. The flow of foreign capital in the country increased. The Government was successful also in break through the isolation of the country. In 2000 Slovakia became member of OECD, again was included in the list of candidates for membership in NATO and European Union. With great effort the lost years were overcome. In spite the elections in September 2002 were won by HZDS, again they did not succeed to form the government. It was formed by Slovak Democratic and Christian Union of Mikul?ˆ Dzurinda together with other three right oriented parties. In the end of 2002 Slovakia received invitation to NATO, few days later the negotiations with European Union were finished.

In present time the country has modern political and economical structures, in human development as followed by United Nations the country was in 1999 on 35 place from 162 followed countries.

Slovak Republic has succeeded to develop good relations with all neighbors, questions of dispute were always solved by patient negotiations. The history is not such a burden for the present and to set the future. With the Czech Republic has Slovakia over the standard relationship, the 10 % Hungarian minority is organic part of the political life and management of the country. Slovakia has also many unsolved complicated economical, social and political problems inherited from the history as well fresh ones. Nontransparent privatization left behind the swamp of corruption and clientelism, long time postponed reforms are burden for the schools, health sector, pensions. Long term and burning is also problem of life of several hundreds thousands of Romas. They were most affected by economical changes, lack of jobs for nonqualified workers. Their fate was always hard, but in the last decade the Roma problem became from social clearly political.

After the velvet revolution the frequent subject of discussion was ÏSlovakia entering EuropeÓ. Even this short draft of Slovak history gives evidence that Slovakia was always part of European culture, civilization, its rises and falls. It was never in front rows, but never too long in the last. Its historical ambition was to be in the leading group, if not on the top, than close. This was the fate and objective of many generations. It is tradition, but also present and future.