History of Slovakia
Encyclopedia : H : HI : HIS : History of Slovakia
| This article is part of the Slovak history series. |
| Samo's Empire |
| Principality of Nitra |
| Great Moravia |
| Kingdom of Hungary |
| Royal Hungary |
| History of Czechoslovakia |
This article discusses the history of Slovakia and of the Slovaks.
Prehistory
Carbon-dating puts the oldest surviving archeological artifacts from Slovakia — found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom —- at 270,000 BCE, in the Early Paleolithic era. These ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia.Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era (200,000 - 80,000 BCE) come from the Prévôt cave near Bojnice and from other nearby sites. Artifacts have emerged which date to the Paleolithic stage, including the famous cast of a Neanderthal cranium (c. 200,000 BCE), discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia.
Archaeologists have found pre-historic Homo sapiens skeletons in the region, as well as numerous objects and vestiges of the Gravettian culture, principally in the river valleys of Nitra, Hron, Ipeľ, Váh and as far as the city of Žilina, and near the foot of the Vihorlat, Inovec and Tríbec mountains and the Myjava Mountains. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone (22 800 BCE), the Venus of Moravany — found in the 1940s during archaelogical research at Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina, and Radošinare. These findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe.
From an archeological standpoint, the discovery of different instruments and objects made of pottery — in several archeological digs and burial places scattered across Slovakia, and (even more surprisingly) in the northern regions at relatively high altitudes — give evidence of human habitation in the Neolithic period. The pottery of Želiezovce, that of Gemer and of the Massif Bukové hory has characteristics of remarkable modelling and delicate linear decoration, revealing the first attempts at coloring. These shapes reveal a developed aesthetic sense.
Slovakia also features several formerly-inhabited caves. For example, humans inhabited the famous Domica cave, almost 6000 meters long, to a depth of 700 meters. This cave offers one of the biggest Neolithic deposits in Europe. The same tribes who created the pottery from the Massif Bukové hory inhabited it continuously for more than 800 years.
The transition to the Neolithic era in Central Europe featured the development of agriculture and the clearing of pastures, the first smelting of metals at the local level, the "Retz" style pottery and also fluted pottery. During the 'fluted-pottery' era people built several fortified sites, and some vestiges of these remain today, especially in high-altitude areas. Pits surround the most well-known of these sites at Nitriansky Hrádok. Starting in the Neolithic era, the geographic location of present-day Slovakia hosted a dense trade-network for goods such as shells, amber, jewels and weapons. As a result, it became an important crossroads in the system of European trade routes.
The Bronze Age in Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BCE. To this there period belongs the well-known funeral culture of the Carpathians and that of the middle Danube. During the later Neolithic Age a considerable growth in cultural regions took place in Slovakia. This phenomenon had links to a significant growth in local copper-manufacturing, especially in central Slovakia and north-west Slovakia. This metal became a permanent source of enrichment for the local population. After the disappearance of the Čakany and Velatice civilizations, the Lusatian people expanded the building of strong and complex fortifications, with the appearance of large permanent buildings and administrative centers, and substantial growth in trades and in agricultural technologies.
The richness and the diversity of tombs increased considerably. The inhabitants of the area manufactured arms, shields, jewelry, dishes and statues. The arrival of community tribes from Thrace disrupted the people of Calenderberg, who lived in the hamlets located in the plain (Sered), and also in the fortresses located on the summits (Smolenice, Molpír). The local power of the "Princes" of Hallstatt disappeared in Slovakia during the last period of the Iron Age after the battles that took place between the Scytho-Thracian people and the Celtic tribes, who advanced from the south towards the north, following the Slovakian rivers. The victory of the Celts marked the beginning of the late Iron Age in the region. Their occupation then disappeared with the Germanic incursions, the victory of Dacia near the Nezider Lake and the expansion of the Roman Empire.
The Roman epoch began in Slovakia in 6 CE, inaugurated by the arrival of Roman legions on this territory that led to a war against the Marcomanni and Quadi tribes. The Romans and their armies occupied only a thin strip of the right bank of the Danube and a very small part of south-western Slovakia. Only in 174 CE did the emperor Marcus Aurelius penetrate deeper into the river valleys of Vah, Nitra and Hron. On the banks of the Hron he wrote his philosophical work Meditations.
In 179 CE, a Roman legion engraved on the rock of the Trenčín Castle: Laugaritio, the Roman inscription marking the furthest northern point of their presence in this part of Europe.
The Slavs
Roman and German historical theory suggests that the settlement of Central and Western Europe by the Slavs only began in the sixth century CE. However, certain elements attest to the fact that by the beginning of the sixth century, a Slav population had begun to occupy vast territories extending from the Vistula, the Dniestr and the Danube, including present-day Slovakia, Pannonia and Karantania.The most recent archeological and historical knowledge has led to the development of a theory holding that Slav tribes emerged on this territory thousands of years BCE#redirect , evolving from sedentary indigenous peoples in the midst of Celtic and Germanic tribal movements. Greek and Roman texts also provide possible evidence of an older Slavic presence in the area.
The first reference to the Slavs — Vénèdes — appears in a work by Herodotus of Halicarnassus dated 400 BCE. The designation Vénètes or Vénedès occurred widely: it still occurs today in places of contact between Western Europeans and Slavs situated on the territory of present-day Austria.
Mention of the Slav presence also comes in the writings of Pliny the Elder (79 CE) and of Tacitus Cornelius (55-116 CE). The first designation of the Slavs in the Latin form Souveni appears in the writings of Claudius Ptolemaeus in 160 CE. The Slavs of the middle Danube before the 8th century, who lived on the present-day territories of Slovakia, of north and west Hungary, Moravia, Pannonia, Austria and Slovenia, used this name in the form Sloveni (*Slověne). Slovaks and Slovenians, who come from the ethnic group Sloveni, continue to use the name.
Recent research has discovered evidence of the co-existence of the Slavs and the Celtic tribes in the region of Liptov in northern Slovakia, near the area of Liptovská Mara. Investigators discovered six Celto-Slav colonies and the site of a castle with a sanctuary in its center, used for Celtic and Slav rites. Stone fortifications surrounded the castle.#redirect Slav tribes also coexisted with the Germanic Quadi, according to the latest findings of the Czech archeologist J. Poulík.
In the second and third centuries CE the Huns began to leave the Central Asian steppes. They crossed the Danube in 377 CE and occupied Pannonia, which they used for 75 years as their base for launching looting-raids into Western Europe. In 451, under the command of Attila, they crossed the Rhine and laid Gaul to waste; then crossed even the Pyrenees, devastating the countryside of Catalonia. However, Attila's death in 453 brought about the disappearance of the Hun tribe. In 568 a proto-Mongol tribe, the Avars, conducted their own invasion into the Middle Danube region.
The realm of King Samo
The Slavs of the Danube suffered heavy human and material losses by containing two large invasions by Asian tribes, thereby playing an essential role in forming a shield that inhibited nomadic Asian tribes from carrying out their invasions and violent raids in Western Europe.
At the end of the ninth century, another nomadic tribe, the Magyars arrived in the Pannonian Plain.
The era of Great Moravia
The first recorded mention of Slavic princes near Pannonia goes back to 803 CE. In 805, the presence of Prince Vratislav, Lord of Bratislava Castle, signifies the arrival of the second historic Slav in the Middle Danube. An anonymous Bavarian geographic work Descriptio Civitatum et Regionum ad septentrionalem plagam Danubiti mentions in 817 the existence of 30 castles on the territory of the Principality of Nitra and of 11 castles on the territory of the Moravian principality. In 822, emissaries sent by the Slavs visited Emperor Louis the Pious at the Imperial Diet of Frankfurt and in 828, the Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated the Church of the court of Prince Pribina in Nitra. The first mention of the subject of the Christianization of the Slavs on the Middle Danube goes back to the seventh century, to the epoch of the bishop Saint Amand, an apostle of the Belgians. After his mission, travelling Irish and Scottish missionaries arrived to the region of High Nitra.
In 833 an important political event took place in this region. Prince Mojmír I from the Moravian principality and his army attacked the Principality of Nitra, conquering it and setting up in a relatively vast territory a united Slav State. The Empire unified the Slavs of Nitra and Moravia. Historiographers refer to the principality of Mojmír as Great Moravia, a name used for the first time by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII around 950 (i.e. after its disappearance).
Prince Pribina, after fleeing Nitra, became the Lord of the Slavs, occupying Transdanubian Pannonia. He founded the principality of Balaton, had castles and churches built, and obtained remarkable results in his efforts to convert the region to Christianity. After his death in 861 his son Koceľ, who ruled the principality of Balaton until 876, continued his father's work.
The Frankish clergy led efforts to convert the empire of Mojmír to Christianity, as attested by the Ecclesiastical Assembly of 852 at Mohuc and in the reports by the Ecclesiastical Missions of Salzburg. But the rich deposits of iron, silver and copper also served as strong attractions to the rulers of the Frankish empire. For this reason Louis II the German (804 - 878) and his armies invaded the area, stripping Mojmír I of his crown, and entrusting (846) the government to Mojmir's son, Rastislav.
Prince Rastislav stood out as an efficient and wise ruler. To put an end to the aggression of the Eastern Franks, he attempted, starting in 853, to establish an alliance with the Bulgars. He resisted several military attacks by the Franks and, in 855, challenged the huge army of King Louis the Pious at Devín and, in 857, even conquered Duke Carloman and established, in 857, a peace treaty with him.
Rastislav realised the importance of Christianity for the Slavs, and in 861 asked the Pope in Rome to send a Bishop to his kingdom. His request fell on deaf ears in Rome and, so, in 862, he asked the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to send him a Bishop and teachers of religion. The famous letter from Rastislav I to Emperor Michael III began with these words: " ...We, the Slavs, a simple people, have no-one to teach us the truth..." The Emperor agreed to his request and sent Rastislav two apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, born in the city of Salonika (today Thessalonika).
Even before leaving the Byzantine Empire, Cyril and Methodius had created the "first" Slavic alphabet, the glagolitic, and had translated several religious works into the Slavon language (ancient Slav).
- Addition (20030915): Latest research reveals that ancient Slavs had their own alphabet - Slavic runes called Runice (Runica/Runitsa), Znaky, Certy y Rezy ("Cherty y Rezy" - "Strokes and Cuts") and later, Vlasovice (Vlesovitsa). The Cyrillic system ("Cyrillitsa") invented in the 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius took as its basis a combination of the Greek alphabet and the Slavic runes. Pagans continued to use Vlesovitsa, while Christians used Cyrillitsa. In the course of stamping out paganism, the Christians destroyed every document that contained Runic instead of the Cyrillic writing, usually along with its owner. They did this so effectively that (according to most sources) the ancient Slavic peoples appeared to have no written language at all. In this way nearly all records of the rituals, temples and idols/gods of the ancient Slavs come from the very people sent to destroy that culture.
- the first Slav alphabet
- the first translations into the Slav language - the Slavon (ancient Slav) in 862
- the first large Slav school (863)
- the first translations and first literary, philosophical and legal works in the language of the Subdanubian Slavs - Slavon (863 - 886)
- the establishment of the Slavon language as the liturgical language (867), the first liturgical Slav language after Hebrew, Latin and Greek
- the first Slav Bishop - Cyril (Constantine) (868)
- the first legate of the Holy See for the Slav countries - Methodius (869)
- the first archdiocese in the Slav countries - Bishop Methodius (869). (Note that Prague did not become an archdiocese until 1344.)
Important events during the period of the Kingdom of Svätopluk:
- 874 Occupation of the Vistule Basin by Svätopluk
- 882 Occupation of the territory of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic, excluding Moravia)
- 883 Invasion and Occupation of Pannonia
- 889 Occupation of the territory of the Lusatian Serbs
- 890 Treaty with Arnoul, confirmation of the sovereignty of Svätopluk I in Bohemia
- 892 Driving back of the common attack by the Frankish, Alaman and Bavarian armies and the Magyar tribes
- 893 Driving back of the attack by the armies of Arnoul, and upon his request, the signing of a peace treaty with Svätopluk
- 894 Death of King Svätopluk I, peace for the Slavs with the Bavarians, first invasion by the Magyars into the Transdanubian region.
In 897, Mojmír II tried once again to conquer the territory of Bohemia, but failed, and in 898, a struggle for the throne broke out between King Mojmír II and his brother, Svätopluk II. Mojmír II fought off the attack by the Bavarian armies (joined also by military troops of the small Czech lords) and he had Svätopluk II imprisoned.
In 899, the Bavarians once again attacked the Slavs and liberated Svätopluk II. In 900, Mojmír once more fought off attacks from the Czech and Bavarian armies.
In that same year the Pope reconfirmed the archdiocese and the three dioceses in the Slav Empire in Slovakia. In western Slovakia, the Latin rite from then on would start to replace the young Church Slavonic Byzantine Rite brought by Saint Cyril. In 901, Louis IV the Younger and Mojmír II reached a peace agreement in Ratisbonne.
In 902 and at the beginning of 906 Mojmír II twice pushed back attacks from the Magyar armies which resulted in their fleeing. However, during their next raid in the South, both Mojmír II and Svätopluk II were killed, and the Magyars pillaged the southern Slovak regions. Thus began the progressive disappearance of the independent Slav state, and chronicles of that period describing the battle of the Bavarians against the Magyars on July 4, 907 make no mention of any participation by Slav armies.
Kingdom of Hungary
The Ugrian tribes of the Hungarians who occupied the plains between the Tisza river and the Danube after the break-up of the Slav empire progressively imposed their authority on the Slav tribes located nearby. At the same time, they began to adopt the lifestyle of the Slavs. Thus they built cities, got involved in agriculture and the trades, practised the Christian religion and organized themselves into a state.In spite of that, hordes of Hungarian cavalry each year conducted raids to pillage the German territories. Such invasions continued until the Battle of Augsburg on the Lech River in 955, when Otto, King of the Germans completely destroyed the Magyar military troops and forced the Magyar nomadic tribes to give up their aggressive and pillaging lifestyle. The territory of the present-day Slovakia became progressively integrated, until the end of the 11th century, into the developing multinational Hungarian state (in Slavic languages called Uhorsko, Slavic languages distinguish past Hungary (Uhorsko) and present Hungary called Maďarsko). Until 1106, the Slav territories kept a special status in the principality — Tertia pars Regni ("the Third part of the Kingdom") — with Nitra as its capital. The first successor to the throne and the future Sovereign of the Hungarian throne always ruled the area, and successive such rulers showed a good deal of independence from the central authority. They even had the right to mint their own coins.
In 997 the head of the old Magyars, Geza, died, and the question of his succession arose. War broke out between his son Vajko (the future St. Stephen I) and the Head of the "Comitat", the pagan Koppány. Vajko had to seek refuge in Slav territories: he organized the Christian warriors and, with their help, defeated his pagan opponents. Vajko, baptised later, mounted the throne of Hungary in 1000 as Stephen I. Pope Sylvester II gave him the title of King and a crown — thus he became the first King of Hungary.
In this developing state, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Hungarians not only went back to the principal elements of the organization of the former Empire of the Slav State during the period of Svätopluk I, but also brought into their language most of the old Slav words connected to the organization of the State and the hierarchy, the judicial system, the Church and religion, agriculture, the trades, social relations, etc. Most of these words continue in use today in Hungarian and their ancient Slav form has hardly changed.
With the setting up of the Hungarian state, the territory of Moravia became detached from the other former Great Moravian territories, and after a complicated historical evolution, it became part of the present-day Czech Republic. The Slovak territories remained, in the early days of the Hungarian Kingdom, the object of frequent and long battles between Hungary and the rulers of neighboring countries. For example, in 1001 Boleslaw I of Poland captured Slovakia, which remained Polish until 1030, when the southern parts became part of the Kingdom of Hungary again. The northern parts of Slovalkia split into independent Slovak mini-principalities again until the last of them became gradually incorporated in the Kingdom of Hungary by around 1300.
The invasions of the Tatars from 1241 to 1243 compounded the human and material losses resulting from previous struggles. Massive exterminations of populations and famines characterized the Tatar invasions. This resulted in the Hungarian lords calling in German colonists, who contributed largely not only in the development of cities, but also in the development of mining, the metallurgical industry and trade — not only in Hungary, but also throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
Slovakia, rich in raw materials and fairly economically developed, remained until the beginning of the Modern Era the largest producer of silver and the second-largest producer of gold in Europe. Until the Turkish expansion, Slovakia formed the richest and most developed area of Hungary.
Precisely for that reason the Hungarian monarchs granted the first royal privileges to Slovakian cities — Trnava (Tyrnau, Nagyszombat) probably in 1238, Zvolen (Altsohl, Zólyon), Krupina (Karpfen, Korpona), Starý Tekov (Teckoff, Óbarcs) in 1240, Nitra (Neutra, Nyitra), Košice (Kaschau, Kassa) in 1248, Banská Štiavnica (Schemnitz, Selmecbánya) in 1255, Banská Bystrica (Neusohl, Besztercebánya) in 1255, Gelnica (Göllnitz, Gölnicbánya) in 1270, Pressburg (Pozsony, today: Bratislava) probably in 1291, Prešov (Epuries, Eperyes, Fragopolis) in 1299 etc. The Privilegum pro Slavis by Žilina (Sillein, Zsolna), dated 1381, attests notably to the participation of the Slovaks in public affairs: here King Louis I gave the Slovaks half of the seats on the Municipal Councils.
The Ottoman incursion
The catastrophic collapse ([Disputed statementdisputed]—see [Suleiman I the Magnificent's battle-hardened Janissaries at the Battle of Mohács in 1526 brought about the reduction of the Kingdom of Hungary to the territory of what was called Royal Hungary, while the remaining former Hungarian territories became part either of the Ottoman Empire or of Transylvania. The Ottoman Empire occupied, without the least resistance,([Disputed statementdisputed]—see [Transylvania became a Turkish protectorate vassal and a base which gave birth to all the anti-Habsburg revolts led by the nobility of the Kingdom of Hungary during the period 1604 to 1711. The third part of the Kingdom, on present-day territory of Slovakia (except for the southern central regions), northwestern present-day Hungary, northern Croatia and Burgenland, resisted Turkish occupation and became, in 1526, a direct part of the Habsburg Monarchy under the name "Royal Hungary". Formally, the Austrian sovereign took over the function of king of "Royal Hungary". The modern-day capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, then called Pressburg in German and Pozsony in Hungarian, became, for the period between 1536 to 1784/1848 the capital and the coronation city of "Royal Hungary". From 1526 to 1830, nineteen Habsburg sovereigns went through coronation ceremonies as Kings and Queens of Hungary in St. Martin's Cathedral. Due to the Turkish invasion, Slovakia became, for almost two centuries, the principal battleground of the Turkish wars,([Disputed statementdisputed]—see [Disputed statementdisputed]—see [Disputed statementdisputed]—see [Disputed statementdisputed]—see [1686, Buda, which later became Budapest, became the capital of Hungary. However, even during difficult historic periods, in spite of considerable human and material losses, and without having their own state, the Slovakian people succeeded in keeping their vitality, their language and their culture in order to continue to develop them. It aided the survival of the Slovaks that the greatest loss of life occurred in the areas populated more heavily by ethnic Hungarians. They began the era of Lights full of hope and ready to assume their role in the national renaissance, ready to lead their struggle for the rebirth of their own state.The Slovak national movement
During the 18th century a Slovak national movement emerged with the aim of fostering a sense of national identity among the Slovak people. Advanced mainly by Slovak religious leaders, the movement grew during the 19th century. The codification of a Slovak literary language by Anton Bernolák in the 1780s and the reform of this language by Ľudovít Štúr in the following century provided a key focus of nationalism. Hungarian control remained strict, however, and a large Slovak movement did not emerge until the 20th century.
In the revolution of 1848-49 the Slovaks took the side of the Austrians in order to promote their separation from the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austrian monarchy, but they did not achieve this aim. In 1850, with the division of the Kingdom of Hungary into five military districts or provinces, two of them had administrative centres in the territory of present day Slovakia: the Military District of Bratislava (Administrative centre: Bratislava) and the Military District of Košice (Administrative centre: Košice). The Hungarian authorities abolished both provinces in 1860.
In 1867 the Habsburg domains in central Europe underwent a constitutional transformation into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Slovak lands remained part of the Transleithania, the Hungarian domain.
New signs of national and political life appeared only at the very end of the 19th century. Slovaks became aware that they needed to ally themselves with others in their struggle. One result of this awareness, the Congress of Oppressed Peoples of Hungary, held in Budapest in 1895, alarmed the government. In their struggle Slovaks received a great deal of help from the Czechs. In 1896, the concept of Czecho-Slovak Mutuality was established in Prague to strengthen Czecho-Slovak cooperation and support Slovakia. At the beginning of the 20th century, growing democratization of political and social life threatened to overwhelm the monarchy. The call for universal suffrage became the main rallying cry. In Hungary only 5 percent of inhabitants could vote. Slovaks saw in the trend towards representative democracy a possibility of easing ethnic oppression and a break-through into renewed political activity.
The Slovak political camp, at the beginning of the century, split into different factions. The leaders of the Slovak National Party based in Martin, expected the international situation to change in the Slovaks' favor, and they put great store by Russia. The Catholic faction of Slovak politicians led by Father Andrej Hlinka focused on small undertakings among the Slovak public and, shortly before the war, established a political party named the Slovak People's Party. The liberal intelligentsia rallying around the journal Hlas ("Voice"), followed a similar political path, but attached more importance to Czecho-Slovak cooperation. An independent Social Democratic Party emerged in 1905.
The Slovaks achieved some results. One of the greatest of these occurred with the election success in 1906, when, despite continued oppression, seven Slovaks managed to get seats in the Assembly. This success alarmed the government, and increased its oppressive measures. For example, it passed a new education act known as the Apponyi Act, named after education minister Count Albert Apponyi. This crowned the Magyarization process. The new act stipulated four years of compulsory schooling, with teaching only in Hungarian. The reign of terror claimed the lives of 15 Slovaks — killed during consecration of a new church at Černová near Ružomberok. The local inhabitants wanted the popular priest and patriot Andrej Hlinka to consecrate their new church. But the Hungarian authorities decreed that their own nominee should perform the consecration. Police put down the public uproar with guns. All this added to Slovak estrangement from and resistance to Hungarian rule.
Czechoslovakia
The formation of Czechoslovakia
After the outbreak of World War I the Slovak cause took firmer shape in resistance and in determination to leave the Dual Monarchy and to form an independent republic with the Czechs. The decision originated amongst people of Slovak descent in foreign countries. Slovaks in the United States of America, an especially numerous group, formed a sizable organization. These, and other organizations in Russia and in neutral countries, backed the idea of a Czecho-Slovak republic. Slovaks strongly supported this move.
The most important Slovak representative at this time, Milan Rastislav Štefánik, a French citizen of Slovak origin, served as a French general and as leading representative of the Czecho-Slovak National Council based in Paris. He made a decisive contribution to the success of the Czecho-Slovak cause. Political representatives at home, including representatives of all political persuasions, after some hesitation, gave their support to the activities of Masaryk and Štefánik.
During the war the Hungarian authorities increased harassment of Slovaks, which hindered the nationalist campaign among the inhabitants of the Slovak lands. Despite stringent censorship, news of moves abroad towards the establishment of a Czech-Slovak state got through to Slovakia and met with much satisfaction.
During World War I (1914 - 1918) Czechs, Slovaks, and other national groups of Austria-Hungary gained much support from Czechs and Slovaks living abroad in campaigning for an independent state. In the turbulent final year of the war, sporadic protest actions took place in Slovakia - politicians held a secret meeting at Liptovský Mikuláš on May 1, 1918. Finally the Prague National Committee proclaimed an independent republic of Czechoslovakia on 28 October, and, two days later, the Slovak National Council at Martin acceded to the Prague proclamation. The new republic included the Czech lands (Bohemia and Moravia), a small part of Silesia, and Slovakia; within these boundaries there remained areas inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Hungarians. The new state set up a parliamentary democratic government and established a capital in the Czech city of Prague.
Despite the formation of a short-lived Slovak Soviet Republic, the situation stabilised in late 1919.
Slovaks, whom the Czechs outnumbered, differed in many important ways from their Czech neighbors. Slovakia had a more agrarian and less developed economy than the Czech lands, and the majority of Slovaks practised Catholicism while the Czechs had less likelihood of adhering to established religions. The Slovak people had generally less education and less experience with self-government than the Czechs. These disparities, compounded by centralized governmental control from Prague, produced discontent among Slovaks with the structure of the new state.
Although Czechoslovakia, alone among the only east-central European countries, remained a parliamentary democracy from 1918 to 1938, it continued to face minority problems, the most important of which concerned the country's large German population. A significant part of the new Slovak political establishment sought autonomy for Slovakia. The movement toward autonomy built up gradually from the 1920s until it culminated in independence in 1939.
In the period between the two world wars, the Czechoslovak government attempted to industrialize Slovakia. These efforts did not meet with success. however, due in part to the Great Depression, the worldwide economic slump of the 1930s. Slovak resentment over perceived economic and political domination by the Czechs led to increasing dissatisfaction with the republic and growing support for ideas of independence. Many Slovaks joined with Father Andrej Hlinka and Father Jozef Tiso in calls for equality between Czechs and Slovaks and for greater autonomy for Slovakia.
The breakup of Czechoslovakia, 1938 - 1939
In September 1938, France, United Kingdom and Nazi Germany concluded the Munich Agreement, which forced Czechoslovakia to cede the predominantly German region known as the Sudetenland to Germany. In November, by the first Vienna Award, Italy and Germany impelled Czechoslovakia (later Slovakia) to cede Hungarian-inhabited Southern Slovakia to Hungary, in spite of pro-German official declarations of Czech and Slovak leaders made in October. Then on March 14, 1939, Slovakia declared its independence and became a nominally independent state in Central Europe under Nazi German control (for more details on the years 1938-1939 see Jozef Tiso).Jozef Tiso became Prime Minister of the new German-fostered Slovak Republic on 14 March 1939. One day later Nazi Germany invaded what remained (after the Munich agreement) of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and established a German protectorate there. On the same day, the Carpatho-Ukraine (Kárpátalja) declared its independence, but Hungary immediately invaded and annexed it. Then on March 23 Hungary invaded from the Carpatho-Ukraine and occupied some (additional) parts of Slovakia.
World War II
Nominally-independent Slovakia went through the early years of the Second World War in relative peace as an Axis ally, aiding Germany in her war efforts against Poland and the Soviet Union, though somewhat symbolically.
On August 29, 1944, 60,000 Slovak troops, guerilla forces and members of the general population, organized by the underground opposition, rose up against the Nazis coming to occupy the country in what became known as the Slovak National Uprising. Although ultimately quelled by the superior Nazi forces, this act of resistance became an important historical milestone for the Slovaks. Failing militarily due to incorrect timing, it allowed Slovakia to come out of World War II not as a defeated country, but as one which had contributed to the Allied victory. At the close of World War II, Soviet troops (backed by the Romanian army) overran all of Slovakia, Moravia, and much of Bohemia.
Czechoslovakia after World War II
The Czechs and Slovaks held elections in 1946. In Slovakia, the Democratic Party won the elections (62%), but the Czechoslovak Communist Party won in the Czech Republic, thus winning 38% of the total vote in Czechoslovakia, and eventually seized power in February 1948, making the country effectively a satellite state of the USSR.
Strict Communist control characterized the next four decades, interrupted only briefly in the so-called Prague Spring of 1968 after Alexander Dubček (a Slovak) became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Dubček proposed political, social, and economic reforms in his effort to make "socialism with a human face" a reality. Concern among other Warsaw Pact governments that Dubček had gone too far led to the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, by Soviet, Hungarian, Bulgarian, East German, and Polish troops. Another Slovak, Gustáv Husák, replaced Dubček as Communist Party leader in April 1969.
The 1970s and 1980s became known as the period of "normalization", in which the apologists for the 1968 Soviet invasion prevented as best they could any opposition to their conservative régime. Political, social, and economic life stagnated. Because the reform movement had had its center in Prague, Slovakia experienced "normalization" less harshly than the Czech lands. In fact, the Slovak Republic saw comparatively high economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s relative to the Czech Republic (and mostly ongoingly from 1994 till today).
The 1970s also saw the development of a dissident movement, especially in the Czech Republic. On January l, 1977, more than 250 human-rights activists signed a manifesto called Charter 77, which criticized the Czechoslovak government for failing to meet its human-rights obligations.
On November 17, 1989, a series of public protests known as the "Velvet Revolution" began and led to the downfall of Communist Party rule in Czechoslovakia. A transition government formed in December 1989, and the first free elections in Czechoslovakia since 1948 took place in June 1990. In 1992, negotiations on the new federal constitution deadlocked over the issue of Slovak autonomy. In the latter half of 1992, agreement emerged to dissolve Czechoslovakia peacefully. On January 1, 1993, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic each simultaneously and peacefully proclaimed their existence. Both states attained immediate recognition from the United States of America and from their European neighbors.
In the days following the "Velvet Revolution," Charter 77 and other groups united to become the Civic Forum, an umbrella-group championing bureaucratic reform and civil liberties. Its leader, the playwright and former dissident Václav Havel won election as President of Czechoslovakia in December 1989. The Slovak counterpart of the Civic Forum, Public Against Violence, expressed the same ideals.
In the June 1990 elections, Civic Forum and Public Against Violence won landslide victories. Civic Forum and Public Against Violence found, however, that although they had successfully completed their primary objective — the overthrow of the communist régime — they proved less effective as governing parties. In the 1992 elections, a spectrum of new parties replaced both Civic Forum and Public Against Violence.
| Czecho-Slovakia or Czechoslovakia (1918 - 1939; 1945 - 1992) | |||||||
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Austria-Hungary (until 1918) (Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Silesia, northern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia) |
Czecho-Slovak/Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) (1918-1938) |
County Sudetenland + other German terrirories (1938-1945) |
Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) (1945-1960) |
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) (1960-1990) Czech Socialist Republic Slovak Socialist Republic |
Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (ČSFR) (1990-1992) Czech Republic Slovak Republic |
Czech Republic (since 1993) |
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Czecho-Slovak Republic (ČSR) incl. autonomous Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ukraine (1938-1939) |
Protectorate (1939-1945)
WWII Slovak Republic
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(further) "Highland territories" of Hungary (1939-1945) |
part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1945/1946-1991) |
Zakarpats'ka oblast' of Ukraine (from 1991) |
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| nazism |
1948-1989 a satellite of the Soviet Union |
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Independent Slovakia
In elections held in June 1992, Václav Klaus's Civic Democratic Party won in the Czech lands on a platform of economic reform, and Vladimír Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) emerged as the leading party in Slovakia, basing its appeal on the fairness of Slovak demands for autonomy. Mečiar and Klaus negotiated the agreement to divide Czechoslovakia, and Mečiar's party — the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) — ruled Slovakia for most of its first five years as an independent state, except for a 9-month period in 1994 after a vote of no-confidence, during which a reformist government under Prime Minister Jozef Moravčík operated.
The first president of newly-independent Slovakia, Michal Kováč, promised to make Slovakia "the Switzerland of Eastern Europe". The first prime minister, Vladimír Mečiar, had served as the prime minister of the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia since 1992.
Rudolf Schuster won election as president in 1999. Vladimír Mečiar's semi-authoritarian government allegedly breached democratic norms and the rule of law before its replacement after the parliamentary elections of 1998 by a coalition led by Mikuláš Dzurinda.
The first Dzurinda government made numerous political and economic reforms that enabled Slovakia to enter the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), close virtually all chapters in European Union (EU) negotiations, and make itself a strong candidate for NATO accession. However, the popularity of the governing parties declined sharply, and several new parties that earned relatively high levels of support in public opinion-polls appeared on the political scene. Mečiar remained the leader (in opposition) of the HZDS, which continued to receive the support of 20% or more of the population during the first Dzurinda government.
In the September 2002 parliamentary election, a last-minute surge in support for Prime Minister Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) gave him a mandate for a second term. He formed a government with three other center-right parties: the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK), the Christian Democrats (KDH) and the Alliance of New Citizens (ANO). The coalition won a narrow (three-seat) majority in the parliament. The government strongly supports NATO and EU integration and has stated that it will continue the democratic and free market-oriented reforms begun by the first Dzurinda government. The new coalition has as its main priorities the gaining of NATO and EU invitations, attracting foreign investment, and reforming social services such as the health-care system. Vladimír Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which received about 27% of the vote in 1998 (almost 900,000 votes) received only 19.5% (about 560,000 votes) in 2002 and again went into opposition, unable to find coalition partners. The opposition comprises the HZDS, Smer (the party of the young politician Róbert Fico), and the Communists, who obtained about 6% of the popular vote.
Initially, Slovakia experienced more difficulty than the Czech Republic in developing a modern market economy. Slovakia joined NATO on March 29 2004 and the EU on May 1 2004.
See also
- List of rulers of Slovakia
- History of Bratislava
- History of Czechoslovakia
- *Slovaks in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938)
- *Slovaks in Czechoslovakia (1960-1990)
- Arpads, the rulers of Slovakia between 10th and 13th century
- Kingdom of Hungary, History of Austria, History of the Czech lands, History of Europe
- History of the Slovak language
External links and references
- [History of Slovakia at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs website]
- [Overview from slovakia.org]
- [Another overview]
- [Brief description at the U.S. Department of State website]
- [History of the Slovak national movement]
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