Memorandum of the Slovak Nation

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A plaque commemorating the memorandum in Martin

The Memorandum of the Slovak Nation ( Slovak Memorandum národa slovenského ) was a document adopted on June 6th and 7th, 1861 at the Slovak National Assembly in Martin , then Upper Hungarian, now Slovakian , which included constitutional, political and cultural requirements of the Slovaks . The main author was Štefan Marko Daxner .

The memorandum essentially required school and cultural autonomy. Some of the requirements included:

  • Establishment of a law faculty
  • Foundation of the Matica slovenská cultural institute
  • Establishment of an institute for Slovak language and literature at the University of Pest
  • Possibility of teaching school lessons in Slovak
  • Possibility to publish Slovak (agricultural) economic journals
  • Possibility of establishing Slovak business associations

The aim was not to separate Upper Hungary, which was mostly populated by the Slovaks, from the Kingdom of Hungary, as was the case, for example, during the revolution of 1848/49, but to establish a kind of autonomy. So an "Upper Hungarian (s) Slovak region / district" (Slovak Hornouhorské slovenské okolie ) should be founded. This should include the following counties: Arwa , Liptau , Sharosh , Sohl , Trenčín , Turz and Zips . Slovak parts of multilingual counties should emerge as new counties in the district or be incorporated into the neighboring Slovak counties. These are the following counties: Abaúj , Persch , Gemer and Kleinhont , Hont , Neutra , Neograd , Pressburg , Semplin and Torna .

These requirements were presented to the Hungarian state parliament, but met with a rejection of the Hungarian political circles: therefore the memorandum was not approved. A campaign against the memorandum was also started by these circles in order to discredit the authors of the document and show that the Slovak people were indifferent to the memorandum. Various cities in the proposed "district", including Neusohl (Banská Bystrica in Slovak), which was to become the seat of this district, expressed "loyalty to the Hungarian homeland". After the failure of this project, the authors turned to the Imperial Court in Vienna, where they further specified the requirements. This document, proposed on December 12, 1861, is known as the Vienna Memorandum (Slovak Viedenské memorandum ).

Despite the unsuccessful result, the memorandum of the Slovak nation remained the program basis of Slovak politicians in the Kingdom of Hungary, such as for the Slovak National Party founded in 1871, until the end of the First World War and the subsequent incorporation of Slovakia into Czechoslovakia .

On the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the memorandum, the National Bank of Slovakia issued collector coins worth 10 euros in 2011 .

source

  • Dušan Kováč et al .: Kronika Slovenska 1 . Fortuna Print, Bratislava 1998. ISBN 80-7153-174-X .

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