Slovakia 1968-1989 since 1992






Slovakia within Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992



This chapter will only deal with events, developments affecting Slovakia; for a description of the history of Czechoslovakia click here.

Slovakia WithinCzechoslovakia . The Concrete Head administration under Husak / Jacek enjoyed minimal popularity within both the Czech and the Slovak population. When Mikhail Gorbachev, in the USSR, pursued his policy of Glasnost and Perestroyka (Transparency and Restructuring), hopes for an improvement of the political situation in the Czecho-Slovak Federation flared up, and the opposition in the underground became active. As in the GDR and in Czechia, the (Catholic) Church and novelists were at the forefront of the opposition.
Following the opening of the Berlin Wall (November 9th 1989), demonstrations in Prague, and, less in the focus of international media, in Bratislava put pressure on the Concrete Head administration; PM Ladislav Adamec resigned on Dec. 7th. President Gustav Husak resigned Dec. 12th 1989. He was succeeded by writer and political activist Vaclav Havel; Slovak Alexander Dubcek was elected chairman of the federal assembly in Prague.
The Slovak Socialist Republic was renamed Slovak Republic (March 1st 1990), the name of the federation altered to Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (April 20th 1990). Pope John Paul II. visited Slovakia on April 22nd. Free and democratic elections, held in June, were contested by a range of political parties; Public against Violence (VPN, for the continuation of the federation) gained the largest number of votes (29 %); the Communists came in 4th with 13 %. Vladimir Meciar (VPN) formed a coalition government; in April 1991, in a cabinet reshuffle he was replaced by Jan Carnugursky. On May 1st, Meciar and his upporters broke with VPN and formed the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), which won the elections of June 1992 (37 %); Meciar again was appointed PM. Negotiations with the Czech Republic over the constityution of the federation failed, and on January 1st 1993 the epublic of Slovakia declared independence.

The Slovak Economy . Slovakia's economy, to a larger extent than that of Czechia, depended on COMECON, as it produced for an Eastern European market, a market guaranteed by planned economies; a good number of Slovak industries produced arms and ammunition. With the collapse of Communism, this market vanished, and the Slovak industries had both to adapt to free market conditions, had to switch her production to marketable consumer goods and to conquer new markets.
The process of privatization of Slovakia's state-owned industries was begun in May 1991. On January 1st that year, price controls had been removed. By the end of 1991, Slovakia's economy was in a severe crisis; industrial production, construction had declined sharply, unemployment risen. The prices for many consumer goods had doubled or tripled, while wages had not kept up with the changes; the Slovaks were poorer than before.

Slovak Culture . With Slovakia in political transition, a conflict arose between nationalists who wanted to see Slovak declared the exclusive official language, and those who wanted to maintain an exception for the Hungarian minority in regions where the latter formed over 20 % of the population.






EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Velvet Revolution, Chapter 12 of the History of Slovakia by Prof. Jozef Komornik, Univ. Bratislava
History, from Eastern Slovakia Genealogy
Jan Uher, Democracy in Relations among Nations : Emancipation and Integration, in : Tibor Pichler, Jana Gaparkova (ed.), Language, Values and the Slovak Nation, posted by CRVP
Article Slovakia, Czechoslovakia 1987-1992, Communist Party of Slovakia, from Wikipedia
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE Julius Bartl et al., Slovak History, Chronology & Lexicon, Wauconda, Illinois : Bolchazy-Carducci 2002
Peter A. Toma, The Crumbling Wall of Socialism and the Velvet Revolution, pp.229-257, The Breakup of the Czechoslovak Federation, pp.258-282 in : Peter A. Toma, Dusan Kovac, Slovakia from Samo to Dzurinda, Stanford : Hoover Institution Press 2001 [G]


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on April 21st 2006

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