Slovakia in History

Contents......Page 6
Figures......Page 9
Maps......Page 11
Notes on contributors......Page 12
Acknowledgements......Page 18
I......Page 22
II......Page 23
III......Page 24
IV......Page 25
V......Page 26
VII......Page 28
VIII......Page 30
2 The Duchy of Nitra......Page 36
Pribina's duchy......Page 37
Great Moravia and Nitra......Page 38
The rise of the Hungarian state......Page 39
King Stephen I the Saint......Page 42
The Duchy of Nitra under the rule of King Stephen's successors......Page 44
Before and after Great Moravia......Page 51
The Poznans and the Hunts......Page 54
The Poznan and Hunt lineages......Page 55
The Miškovecs and the Radvan-Bogats......Page 56
Lower nobility......Page 57
The origin and development of towns......Page 59
Definition and concept of a town......Page 62
Town unions and associations......Page 65
Urban society......Page 68
The ethnic composition of towns......Page 71
The defence of the country and towns......Page 72
5 Renaissance and humanist tendencies in Slovakia......Page 75
The first currents of Renaissance and humanistic thought......Page 77
New currents at the beginning of the sixteenth century......Page 80
Education......Page 81
Legal and political thought......Page 82
Melanchthon and Erasmus......Page 84
The Slovak language and Baroque Slavism......Page 86
New trends in art and literature......Page 88
The natural sciences......Page 89
6 The period of religious disturbances in Slovakia......Page 92
The expansion of the Reformation......Page 93
Re-Catholicisation and uprisings of the Hungarian nobility against the Habsburgs......Page 94
Struggles in Hungary after the Peace of Westphalia......Page 98
Protestant and Catholic schools......Page 101
The impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation on cultural life......Page 104
7 The Enlightenment and the beginnings of the modern Slovak nation......Page 108
The Enlightenment as the starting point of the national movement......Page 109
The language question: the dilemma of two versions of written Slovak......Page 114
Inventing a national history......Page 116
The social background of the national movement......Page 119
8 Slovak Slavism and Panslavism......Page 122
Slovaks as 'Slavs' within the Kingdom of Hungary......Page 123
The Slavic world and Slavdom as represented in Slovak literary texts from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries......Page 125
Slavic reciprocity according to Kollár and Šafárik......Page 129
Štúr's notion of Slavdom......Page 132
Russian 'messianism'
 before the First World War......Page 138
Conclusion......Page 139
9 The Slovak political programme: from Hungarian patriotism to the Czecho-Slovak state......Page 141
Proto-political phase of Slovak nationalism......Page 142
Catholics and Protestants......Page 144
The first political programme......Page 145
The Memorandum of the Slovak Nation......Page 148
A gradual estrangement from the Hungarian state......Page 150
The new programme: the Czecho-Slovak state......Page 154
10 Slovakia in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1938......Page 158
The incorporation of Slovakia into the Czechoslovak state......Page 161
Political differentiation......Page 164
The economic situation......Page 168
Educational and cultural progress......Page 172
Political crisis in the second half of the 1930s......Page 174
How Slovakia became the focus of Germany's Central European policy......Page 178
Slovak autonomy......Page 180
The emergence of an authoritarian regime......Page 182
Anti-Jewish and anti-Czech measures......Page 184
Territorial changes......Page 186
The weakness of the opposition parties......Page 188
Institutionalisation of the authoritarian regime......Page 190
The constitutional issue: two approaches......Page 191
Pressure from Germany......Page 192
The final liquidation of Czecho-Slovakia......Page 194
The regime......Page 196
The German satellite......Page 201
Internal politics......Page 203
The economy......Page 207
The Jewish question......Page 209
Demise......Page 212
International aspects of the Slovak question......Page 214
The resistance movement during the Second World War......Page 221
14 The Slovak National Uprising:  the most dramatic moment in the nation's history......Page 227
The uprising and Allied military-political strategy......Page 229
The insurgency takes shape on the ground......Page 231
The Soviet attitude to the insurgency plans......Page 233
German military intervention and the response of the Slovak resistance......Page 237
The stabilisation of the insurgent front......Page 240
Insurgent Slovakia......Page 241
The Slovak National Council and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London......Page 243
The de facto occupation of Slovakia......Page 248
The Czechoslovak political system in the period 1945–1948......Page 250
The international aspect of the Slovak question......Page 252
The Czech–Slovak relationship in the restored state......Page 253
The Moscow talks of March 1945 and the Košice Government Programme......Page 255
The First and Second Prague Agreements......Page 257
Parliamentary elections of 1946 and the Third Prague Agreement......Page 258
Communist campaigns against the Democratic Party......Page 262
The road to the Communist takeover......Page 265
16 Czechoslovakism in Slovak history......Page 268
Antecedents Czechoslovak reciprocity......Page 269
Czechoslovakism and war-time propaganda......Page 270
Official Czechoslovakism......Page 272
Czechoslovakism in official documents......Page 273
A struggle over national identity......Page 278
From Munich to Kosice: sealing the fate of Czechoslovakism......Page 284
Post-Communist reinterpretation......Page 288
17 The Magyar minority in Slovakia before and after the Second World War......Page 290
18 The establishment of totalitarianism in Slovakia after the February coup of 1948 and the culmination of mass persecution, 1948–1953......Page 305
The first attempts at de-Stalinisation......Page 320
Alexander DubĊek as head of the Communist Party of Slovakia......Page 322
The struggle for Slovak emancipation......Page 323
An economic and social crisis......Page 328
The cultural elite as a driving force behind democratisation......Page 330
The beginning of the reforms......Page 332
Soviet tanks – the end of the democratisation process......Page 334
Slovakia's role in the social reforms......Page 336
The limitations on the federalisation of the state......Page 337
The origins of the Constitutional Act on the formation of a Czecho-Slovak federation......Page 338
Problems with the federalisation of the state......Page 339
21 August 1968 and the end of democratic conditions......Page 342
The Constitutional Act on the Czecho-Slovak federation......Page 344
The implementation of the federative system......Page 345
'Normalisation'
 of the Czecho-Slovak state......Page 347
The economic sphere......Page 351
The cultural sphere......Page 358
Control of the media......Page 360
After 1968......Page 367
22 The fall of communism and the establishment of an independent Slovakia......Page 372
The era of 'normalisation'......Page 373
Opposition to the neo-Stalinist regime......Page 380
New dynamics in society in the second half of the 1980s......Page 382
The collapse of the Communist regime......Page 384
On the road to the 'velvet divorce'......Page 385
I......Page 391
II......Page 393
III......Page 395
IV......Page 397
V......Page 399
VI......Page 402
VII......Page 405
VIII......Page 407
IX......Page 409
Index......Page 412