History of Slovakia

This article discusses the history of the territory of Slovakia and of the Slovaks.

Prehistory

Palaeolithic

Radiocarbon dating puts the oldest surviving archaeological 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. The most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium (c. 200,000 BCE), discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia.

Archaeologists have found prehistoric 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 Tribeč mountains, as well as in the Myjava Mountains. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone (22 800 BCE), the famous Venus of Moravany. The statue was found in the 1940s in 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.

Neolithic

Discovery of tools and pottery in several archaeological digs and burial places scattered across Slovakia, surprisingly including northern regions at relatively high altitudes, gives evidence of human habitation in the Neolithic period. The pottery found in Želiezovce, Gemer, and the Bukové hory massif is characterized by remarkable modeling and delicate linear decoration. It also reveals the first attempts at coloring. This deliberate adornment shows a developed aesthetic sense of the Neolithic craftsmen.

Important archaeological discoveries have been made in 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 tribes who created the pottery from the Massif Bukové hory inhabited Domica 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. 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 hub in the system of European trade routes.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age in Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BCE. Major cultural, economic, and political development can be attributed to the significant growth in production of copper, especially in central Slovakia (for example in Špania Dolina) and north-west Slovakia. Copper became a stable source of prosperity for the local population. After the disappearance of the Čakany and Velatice cultures, the Lusatian people expanded building of strong and complex fortifications, with the large permanent buildings and administrative centers. Excavations of Lusatian hill-forts document the substantial development of trade and agriculture at that period.

The richness and the diversity of tombs increased considerably. The inhabitants of the area manufactured arms, shields, jewelry, dishes, and statues. The arrival of tribes from Thrace disrupted the people of the Calenderberg culture, who lived in the hamlets located on the plain (Sereď), and also in the hill forts located on the summits (Smolenice, Molpír). The local power of the "Princes" of the Hallstatt culture disappeared in Slovakia during the last period of the Iron Age after strife between the Scytho-Thracian people and the Celtic tribes, who advanced from the south towards the north, following the Slovak rivers.

Iron Age and the Roman era

A Celtic coin minted in Bratislava and its replica on a modern 5-koruna coin.

The victory of the Celts marked the beginning of the late Iron Age in the region. Two major Celtic tribes living in Slovakia were Cotini and Boii. Cotini were probably identical or made significant part of so-called Púchov culture. The Celts built large oppida in Bratislava and Liptov (the Havránok shrine). Silver coins with the names of Celtic kings, the so-called Biatecs, represent the first known use of writing in Slovakia. Celtic dominance disappeared with the Germanic incursions, the victory of Dacia over the Boii near the Neusiedler See, 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 Kingdom of Vannius, a barbarian kingdom founded by the Quadi, existed in western and central Slovakia from 20 to 50 AD. 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 (Celemantia, Gerulata, Devín Castle). Only in 174 CE did the emperor Marcus Aurelius penetrate deeper into the river valleys of Váh, 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 the ancient name of Trenčín (Laugaritio), marking the furthest northern point of their presence in this part of Europe.

The Slavs

The majority of mainstream historians suggest 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.

Based on their interpretation of recent archeological and literal sources, a minority of historians and linguists has developed an alternative theory holding that Slav tribes emerged on this territory thousands of years BCE, evolving from sedentary indigenous peoples in the midst of Celtic and Germanic tribal movements. The best known proponent has been the Russian Slavic and Hungarian linguist Oleg Nikolayevitch Trubatchov, the main editor of the monumental Ethymological Dictionary of Slavic languages, who wrote a detailed book on this theory. Also, Greek and Roman texts provide possible evidence of an older Slavic presence in the area. For example they content that 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. Slav tribes also coexisted with the Germanic Quadi, according to the latest findings of the Czech archeologist J. Poulík.

The two competing theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Contemporary scholarship in general has moved away from the idea of monolithic nations and the Urheimat debates of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and its focus of interest is that of a process of ethnogenesis, regarding competing Urheimat scenarios as false dichotomies.

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 empire of King Samo

Main article: Samo

The remnants of the Slavic population settled in the Middle Danube and they were unified by King Samo, after a successful Slavic insurrection against the Avar Khaganate in 623. In 631, Samo defeated the Frankish army of King Dagobert I at the Battle of Wogastisburg. Samo's Empire, the first known political formation of Slavs, disappeared after the death of its founder in 665. The Avar supremacy over southern Slovakia lasted until 803 - the year when Charlemagne, helped by the Slavs living north of the Danube (in the nucleus of the future Principality of Nitra), defeated the Avars, who eventually became assimilated into the local Slavic populations.

The era of Great Moravia

Main article: Great Moravia

Central Europe in the 9th century. Eastern Francia in blue, Bulgaria in orange, Great Moravia under Rastislav (870) in green. The green line marks the borders of Great Moravia under Svatopluk I (894).

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).

Cyril and Methodius arrived in Rastislav's principality accompanied by a large group of scholars. They founded, using as a model the Academy of Constantinople, the first academy in Slovakia. They further developed writing in the Slav language, into which translators re-worked other religious texts and in which originated several literary works, poems and judicial acts (the Proglas Poem, the work "Warnings to Lords, a judicial Code for the common people", etc...) The work of Cyril and Methodius includes:

• 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.)

From 869 to 871 the intrigues and military attacks led by the Eastern Franks against the principality of the Slavs intensified. After the Franks captured Rastislav and he lost his sight (870), and after the large anti-Germanic insurrection of Slavomír, Svätopluk, Rastislav's nephew, acceded to the throne of the principality as Svätopluk I. From 872 to 876 Svätopluk conquered the armies of Louis several times and kept his independence. In 880, Pope John VIII, by the act Industriae tuae, crowned Svätopluk King and gave his kingdom the protection of the Holy See.

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.

The death of King Svätopluk brought about the progressive disintegration of the largest Central European empire and its eventual disappearance due to the incessant invasions of the allied Bavarian armies and the Magyars. However, the first act which led to the disintegration of the Empire was caused by the Slav Dukes of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) in 895, which detached itself from the Empire of Svätopluk and asked Emperor Arnoul of Ratisbonne for his protection against the Slavs.

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

From the beginning of the 10th century, the Ugrian tribes of the Magyars (Hungarians), progressively imposed their authority on the Slav tribes. At the same time, they began to adopt the lifestyle of the Slavs and Germans, who had been already practicing Christianity and had lived a settled life.

During this transitional period, the Magyars frequently conducted raids to surrounding territories. Such activities continued until the Battle of Augsburg on the Lech River in 955, when Otto, King of the Germans disastrously destroyed the troops of the Horka. As a direct result the Árpád's tribe started to impose their authority over other Magyar tribes in Transdanubia. The territory of the present-day Slovakia became progressively integrated into the developing Principality of Hungary in the early 10th century.

In 997 the head of the old Magyars, Geza, died, and the question of his succession arose. War broke out between his son Vajk and the Head of the "Comitat", the pagan Koppány. That time, Vajk was the ruler of the Nitrian Principality. He established good relations with Slavic nobles and with their contribution, defeated his pagan opponents. Vajko was later baptized and in 1000AD, crowned as Stephen I, the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II´s order.

The Kingdom of Hungary integrated elements of the former Great Moravian state organization. The counter influence of Magyar and Slavic languages began. The Magyars adapted numerous Slavic words, connected to various fields of life, from state organization to agriculture and social relations. An estimated 9.36% of word roots have Slavic origin in the modern Magyar language.

Slovakia as part of Poland in 1003

The Mongol invasion led to construction of mighty stone castles, such as Spiš Castle

The Slovak habited lands remained, in the early days of the Kingdom, the object of frequent and long battles between the Kingdom of Hungary and the rulers of neighboring countries. In 1001 Boleslaw I of Poland captured part of the region, which remained Polish until 1030. The northern lands split into independent Slovak mini-principalities 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. Following the invasion, the king of Hungary was 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.

The territory of present-day Slovakia, rich in raw materials and economically developed, remained until the beginning of the Modern Era, the largest producer of silver and the second-largest producer of gold in Europe. During the following centuries, it was one of the richest and most developed region of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Precisely for that reason the monarchs granted the first royal privileges the following cities in Slovakia: Trnava (Nagyszombat) and Banská Štiavnica probably in 1238; Zvolen, Krupina, and Starý Tekov before 1241; Nitra (Nyitra) and Košice (Kassa) in 1248; Banská Bystrica (Besztercebánya) in 1255; Gelnica in 1270; Bratislava (Pozsony) probably in 1291; Prešov (Eperjes) in 1299.

When the first ruling dynasty of the Kingdom, the Árpáds died out (1301), struggle broke out for the succession of the Hungarian crown. During this anarchic period, the central power weakened and various local oligarchies ruled the lands. From the late 1290s, Matthew Csák the self-titled "Lord of the Váh and the Tatras" was the de facto ruler of much of the territories of present-day Slovakia, from his seat at Trenčín.

After his defeat at the Battle of Rozhanovce in 1312, by the newly elected Hungarian king Charles Robert from the Angevine dynasty, Csák's influence started to decline. He died in 1321 in Trenčín.

The Privilegium pro Slavis, dated to 1381, attests notably to nation-building in the wealthy towns: King Louis I gave the Slovaks half of the seats in the municipal council of Žilina, previously dominated by the local Germans.

The Ottoman incursion

St. Martin's Concathedral in Bratislava was the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary for three centuries

The catastrophic defeat of the Hungarian armies from Suleiman I ("the Magnificent") in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, and the conquest of Buda in 1541 by the Turks, 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 the territorial center (roughly corresponding to present-day Hungary) of the former Kingdom of Hungary, and set up a Turkish provinces there (see Ottoman Hungary). 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 subsequently became 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". After the conquest of Buda in 1541 by the Turks, 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, "Royal Hungary" and the southern regions under Turkish control, became, for almost two centuries, the principal battleground of the Turkish wars, and the region paid dearly for the defense of the Habsburg Monarchy (and, moreover, of the rest of Europe) against Turkish expansion. The territory paid not only with the blood and the goods of its population, but also by losing practically all of its natural riches, especially gold and silver, which went to pay for the costly and difficult combats of an endemic war.

After the ousting of the Turks from Buda 1686 (which later became Budapest), it became again 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 language and their culture. The survival of the Slovaks was aided by the fact that the greatest loss of life were in the areas populated more heavily by Hungarians, and some empty regions could be occupied. They began the era of age of Enlightenment full of hope and ready to assume their role in the national renaissance, ready to lead their struggle for the birth of their own state.

The Slovak national movement

During the 18th century a Slovak national movement emerged, partially inspired by the broader pan slavic movement 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. At the same time, the movement was divided along the confessional lines and various groups had different views on everything from quotidian strategy to linguistics. Even though the Hungarian control remained strict and the movement was constrained by the official policy of magyarization, the modern ethnic laws in Hungary enabled Slovaks quite a freedom.

The first codification of a Slovak literary language by Anton Bernolák in the 1780s was based on the dialect from western Slovakia. It was supported by mainly Roman Catholic intellectuals, with the center in Trnava. The Lutheran intellectuals continued to use a Slovakized form of the Czech language. Especially Ján Kollár and Pavel Jozef Šafárik were adherents of pan-Slavic concepts that stressed the unity of all Slavic peoples. They considered Czechs and Slovaks members of a single nation and they attempted to draw the languages closer together.

In the 1840s, the Protestants split as Ľudovít Štúr developed a literal language based on the dialect from central Slovakia. His followers stressed the separate identity of the Slovak nation and uniqueness of its language. Štúr's version was finally approved by both the Catholics and the Lutherans in 1847 and, after several reforms, it remains the official Slovak language.

File:Slovakia1850 02.png

Map of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1850, showing the two military districts which had administrative centres in the territory of present day Slovakia

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. The Slovak National Council launched a military campaign and it managed to organize administration on the liberated territories. However, the Slovak troops were later disbanded by the court in Vienna. In 1850, with the division of the Kingdom of Hungary into five military districts or provinces, two of them had administrative centers in the territory of present day Slovakia: the Military District of Bratislava and the Military District of Košice. The Hungarian authorities, with strong pressure from Vienna, abolished both provinces in 1860.

Martin became the foremost center of the Slovak national movement with foundation of the nationwide cultural association Matica slovenská (1863), the Slovak National Museum, and the Slovak National Party (1871). The heyday of the movement came to the sudden end after 1867, when 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, dominated by Hungary. Matica was dissolved by force in 1875 and other Slovak institutions (including schools) shared the same fate.

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 Roman 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.

Map of the federalization of Austria-Hungary planned by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, with Slovakia as one of the member states

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. Magyarization achieved its climax with a new education act known as the Apponyi Act, named after education minister Count Albert Apponyi. The new act stipulated four years of compulsory schooling with teaching only in Hungarian. The oppression claimed the lives of 15 Slovaks — killed during consecration of a new church at Černová near Ružomberok (see Černová tragedy). The local inhabitants wanted the popular priest and patriotic politician Andrej Hlinka to consecrate their new church. But the Hungarian authorities decreed that their own nominee should perform the consecration. Gendarmes put down the public uproar with guns, killing a total of 15 Slovak protesters. All this added to Slovak estrangement from and resistance to Hungarian rule.

Before the outbreak of World War I, the idea of Slovak autonomy became part of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's plan of federalization of the monarchy, developed with help of the Slovak journalist and politician Milan Hodža. This last realistic attempt to tie Slovakia to Austria-Hungary was abandoned because of the Archduke's assassination, which in turn triggered World War I.

Czechoslovakia

The formation of Czechoslovakia

Main articles: Origins of Czechoslovakia and First Republic of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia in 1928

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, Beneš 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.

At the end of the war Austria-Hungary dissolved. 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 half million Hungarians. The new state set up a parliamentary democratic government and established a capital in the Czech city of Prague.

Despite military skirmishes with the Hungarian troops and the incursion of Hungarian communists resulting in a formation of a short-lived Slovak Soviet Republic, the situation stabilised in late 1919, but in fact officially it was proclaimed in Versailles Pact in 1920. This pact dictated new borders, and did not truly follow ethnic majorities, which later caused tension between Czechoslovakia and Nazi Germany (Silezia) and Hungary (Southern part of Slovakia, Sub-Carpathian Rus). The Sub-Carpathian Rus region is one evidence that the Versailles Pact was not trying to build peace but punishing the states which lost the first war.

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 which was ousted from the country to Germany. 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, this is mostly because economic ties were mostly to connected to Hungary and the new system was difficult to launch. 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 Jozef Tiso in calls for equality between Czechs and Slovaks and for greater autonomy for Slovakia.

Towards autonomy of Slovakia, 1938 - 1939

Territorial losses in 1938-39

In September 1938, France, Italy, 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 compelled Czechoslovakia (later Slovakia) to cede primarily Hungarian-inhabited Southern Slovakia to Hungary. They did this in spite of pro-German official declarations of Czech and Slovak leaders made in October.

On 14 March, 1939, the Slovak Republic declared its independence and became a nominally independent state in Central Europe under Nazi German control of foreign policy and, increasingly, also some aspects of domestic policy. Jozef Tiso became Prime Minister and later President of the new state.

On 15 March, Nazi Germany invaded what remained of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia after the Munich agreement. The Germans established a protectorate over them which was known as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On the same day, the Carpatho-Ukraine declared its independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine. But Hungary immediately invaded and annexed the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine. On March 23, Hungary then occupied some additional parts of Slovakia. This caused the brief Slovak-Hungarian War.

World War II

Main articles: Slovak Republic (WWII) and Slovak National Uprising

independent Slovakia in 1941

The nominally-independent Slovak Republic went through the early years of the war in relative peace. As an Axis ally, the country took part in the wars against Poland and the Soviet Union. Although its contribution was symbolic in the German war efforts, the number of troops involved (approx. 45,000 in the Soviet campaign) was rather significant in proportion to the population (2.6 million in 1940).

Soon after independence, under the authoritarian government of Jozef Tiso initiated a series of measures aimed against the 90,000 Jews in the country. The Hlinka's Guard began to attack Jews, and the "Jewish Code" was passed in September 1941. Resembling the Nuremberg Laws, the Code required that Jews wear a yellow armband, and were banned from intermarriage and many jobs. Between March and October 1942, the state deported approximately 57,000 Jews to the German-occupied part of Poland, where almost all of them were killed. The deportation of the remaining 24,000 was stopped after the Papal Nuncio informed the Slovak president that the German authorities were killing the Jews deported from Slovakia. However, 12,600 more Jews were deported by the German forces occupying Slovakia after the Slovak National Uprising in 1944. Around a half of them were killed in concentration camps. Some 10,000 Slovak Jews survived hidden by local people and 6,000–7,000 got official protection from the Slovak authorities.

On 29 August, 1944, 60,000 Slovak troops and 18,000 partisans, organized by various underground groups and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, rose up against the Nazis. The insurrection later became known as the Slovak National Uprising. Slovakia was devastated by the fierce German counter-offensive and occupation, but the guerrilla warfare continued even after the end of organized resistance. Although ultimately quelled by the German forces, the uprising was an important historical reference point for the Slovak people. It allowed them to end the war as a nation which had contributed to the Allied victory.

Later in 1944 the Soviet attacks intensified. Hence the Red Army, helped by Romanian troops, gradually routed out the German army from Slovak territory. On 4 April 1945, Soviet troops marched into the capital city of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava.

Czechoslovakia after World War II

Main article: History of Czechoslovakia

The victorious Powers restored Czechoslovakia in 1945 in the wake of World War II, albeit without the province of Ruthenia, which Prague ceded to the Soviet Union. The Beneš decrees, adopted as a result of the events of the war, led to disenfranchisement and persecution of the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia. (The affected Hungarians regained Czechoslovak citizenship in 1948.)

Alexander Dubček.

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 part of the 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 Soviet Union.

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.

Czechoslovakia 1969-1990

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 1, 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.

Independent Slovakia

Map of 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 — 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 accession to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 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 Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK), the Christian Democrats (KDH) and the Alliance of the New Citizen (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 - 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 and populist 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. Slovakia was, on October 10, 2005, for the first time elected to a two-year term on the UN Security Council (for 2006-2007).

The latest elections took place on 17 June, 2006, where leftist Smer won elections with 29.14% (around 670 000 votes) of the popular vote and formed coalition with Slota's Slovak National Party and Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. Their opposition is comprised from the former ruling parties: the SDKÚ, the SMK and the KDH.

See also

• List of rulers of Slovakia
• History of the Slovak language
• History of Bratislava
• History of Czechoslovakia
  • Slovaks in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938)
  • Slovaks in Czechoslovakia (1960-1990)
• Kingdom of Hungary, History of Hungary, History of Austria, History of the Czech lands

External links

• History of Slovakia at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs website
• Detailed Slovak history timeline until 1714
• Overview from slovakia.org
• Brief description at the U.S. Department of State website
• History of the Slovak national movement