Austrian-Slovak Society
The Austro-Slovak is a private and non-profit association in Austria, which aims to promote international understanding and cultural exchange between the two neighboring countries Austria and Slovakia .
The origins of the association lie in the Austrian-Czechoslovak Association , which was founded in Vienna in 1928. There was already a Vienna-Pressburg friendship committee beforehand . The newspaper The Neighbor was published as a newspaper .
After Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938, the association was dissolved, but was re-established in 1946, when the then Minister of Commerce Eduard Heinl became president. The successor was the actress Maria Eis .
The communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia severely impaired joint event activities. In the years after the Austrian State Treaty , however, the cultural exchange with events and trips could be improved somewhat. Wolfgang Heinz was the president at the time. In the following years it was the former Finance Minister Franz Korinek (1968–1977) and Herbert Koller (1977–1985), the general director of VOEST . With the end of the Prague Spring , these relationships were also severely hindered and could only be strengthened again in the 1980s.
The Linz architect Artur Perotti became president in 1985 . In 1988, before the fall of the Iron Curtain , Leopold Maderthaner set up a separate economic section within the association.
After the Velvet Revolution , the activities could be greatly expanded, such as a joint television campaign between Licht ins Dunkel of ORF and the corresponding campaign Account of Hope in Slovakia.
After the division of Czechoslovakia, the association was transformed into the Austrian-Slovak Society through a change in the statutes , while the Austrian-Czech Society was re-established.
Board
The current board consists of:
- Werner Fasslabend as President
- Hannes Androsch as Vice President
- Maximilian Pammer , former ambassador as executive vice-president
- Elena Penzes-Strobel, as general secretary - the native Slovak was already general secretary in the ÖTG