Slovakia 1867-1918



Slovakia after the Compromise . What was to become Slovakia in 1918, called Oberungarn (Upper Hungary) in some older maps, had politically been a part of the Hungarian Kingdom for centuries, ever since the Moravian Kingdom had been destroyed in 902. The Slovaks were among the many national minorities living within the Hungarian Kingdom. The territory that was to become Slovakia in 1918 was not clearly separated from the remainder of the Kingdom of Hungary by administrative borders; Upper Hungary was divided in counties (Comitats), some of which included territory of both modern Hungary and modern Slovakia. The territory that was to become Slovakia in 1918 contained a population majority of ethnic Slovaks, as well as ethnic minorities of Hungarians and Germans. The Hungarians did not regard themselves as an ethnic minority, as they identified with the Kingdom of Hungary, and as they, due to the electoral literacy and property qualifications, were overrepresented in the Hungarian diet.
In the days when large parts of Hungary were an Ottoman province, the administrative capital of Hungary had been moved to Bratislava (in German : Pressburg, in Hungarian : Pozsony), just across Vienna. Yet Slovaks were ill-represented on the Hungarian diet meeting in Pozsony.
In 1825-1848 and from 1867, Hungary's parliament gained political a large degree of political autonomy from the Austrian administration in Vienna.

The Emergence of Political Life in Slovakia . The Austro-Hungarian Compromise (1867) sparked the emergence of a number of Slovak publications, such as the Slovak News (1868). A number of communities petitioned the Hungarian diet to permit Slovak language being used in their local administration and in secondary schools. A protestant secondary school, teaching in Slovak, was opened in 1867 in Martin, a Catholic one in Klastor pod Znievom in 1869. The Slovak National Party was established in 1871. In 1868 a General Workers' Socialist Association, the nucleus of a workers' party, had been founded in Pest, as an organization representing the workers of the Kingdom of Hungary irrespective of their nationality; in 1880 the General Workers' Party of Hungary was founded. She was to be a party largely operating outside of the Hungarian diet, as literacy and property qualifications discriminated against her. In 1890 the Social Democratic Party was founded, in 1895 the Catholic Popular Party, in 1903 the Independent Socialist Farmers' Party of Hungary, both open to Hungarians, Slovaks and other nationals.

Slovakia and Magyarization . In 1874 the Hungarian administration came to regard national Slovak organizations as subversive, as Pan-Slavist, and imposed a policy of Magyarization. The secondary schools teaching in Slovak were closed down. Hungarian was to be the exclusive language of administration, jurisdiction and education. Hungary's constitution in the years preceding World War I granted only about 5 % of the adults the right to vote; large groups of the population were excluded from the political process. In 1878 the Slovak National Party, exposed to persecution and expecting election engineering, decided to boycott elections to the Hungarian diet held in August; an action again taken in 1884. In 1879, elementary education in Hungarian language was made compulsory. In 1892, for the first time, workers demonstrated for universal adult manhood suffrage.
In 1894 a law made civil marriage compulsory and contained stipulations regarding mixed-confessional marriages. Freedom of religion was proclaimed. State church policy was used by the Hungarian administration to promote Magyarization.
Slovaks attended the Congress of Non-Magyar Peoples held in Budapest 1895. Representatives suffered persecution by the Hungarian state the following year. In 1898 a law required villages to use only one name (in effect the Hungarian name). Slovak patriots and Social Democrats suffered persecution by state authorities 1898-1909; many of their leaders were sentenced in politically motivated trials. In 1901 the Hungarian authorities relaxed in the persecution of this policy, and the Slovak National Party participated in elections ton the Hungarian diet. In 1905 the Slovak Social Democratic Party broke away from the (Kingdom of Hungary-wide) Social Democratic Party (est. 1890); the Slovak People's Party broke away from the (Kingdom of Hungary-wide) Catholic Popular Party. In 1911 a delegation of the Slovak National Party, in a memorandum, demanded the elementary education in Slovak, the restoration of Matica Slovenska, the transformation of the Kingdom of Hungary into a federation based on ethnicities; the move went unanswered.

The Economy . In 1871 the first match factory in Slovakia was established. In 1872 the guilds were dissolved and the first railway lines in Slovakia taken in operation. In 1873 the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed; the Double Monarchy experienced an economic crisis 1873-1880. In 1881 the Hungarian diet passed a law promoting industrialization. In 1884 Bratislava was the first city in the kingdom to have a telephone network. May 1st 1890 saw mass demonstrations of workers in cities all over the kingdom; the first labour union in Slovakia was founded in the same year. In 1891, sundays were declared public holidays for workers, mandatory health insurance was introduced. A poor harvest in 1892 resulted in famine in Slovakia and resulted in an increase in emigration figures. In 1892 the Crown began to replace the Florin as currency.
During the 19th century, with the process of industrialization and urbanization going on, many Slovaks transmigrated into the urban industrial centers of Budapest, Vienna or Cracow or emigrated into the United States. In relation to the country's population, in Europe the proportion of Slovakia's emigration can only be compared to that of Ireland.

Slovak Culture . In 1875, at the order of Hungary's minister of the interior, Matica Slovenska was dissolved. In 1883 FEMKE was established, with the object to promote Hungarian culture in Upper Hungary (= Slovakia). In 1890 the National Slovak Society, with seat in Pittsburgh, was founded. The Czechoslovak Union, est. 1896 in Prague, from 1908 on held annual meetings of Czechs and Slovaks.

Slovaks and World War I . In World War I, most Slovaks were indifferent to the Austro-Hungarian war effort; many sympathized with the Russians who in fall 1914 occupied much of Slovakia, but were driven out again in the winter of 1914/1915. In Russia and the USA, representatives of Czech and Slovak organizations promoted the concept of a Czecho-Slovak Federation (Cleveland Agreement, Oct. 22nd 1915). In 1918, Slovakia proclaimed it's independence from Hungary and it's incorporation into the new state of Czechoslovakia.






EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Slovakian History, from Slovakia.org
Revolution, Reaction and Constitutional Dualism, Chapter 8 of the History of Slovakia by Prof. Jozef Komornik, Univ. Bratislava
Articles from the Encyclopedia of the Revolutions of 1848 : Slovak Peasant Revolt, Slovak Newspapers
DOCUMENTS Flag of 1848, from FOTW
Article Slowaken (Slovaks), P.1, P.2, from Meyers Konversationslexikon 1888-1890, in German
REFERENCE Peter A. Toma, Dusan Kovac, Slovakia - from Samo to Dzurinda, Stanford : Hoover Institution Press 2001 [G]
Julius Bartl et al., Slovak History : Chronology and Lexicon, Bolchazy Carducci, 2000, 380 pp.


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on April 22nd 2006

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