The territory of present-day Slovakia was occupied over centuries by different peoples and cultures. The first references to be made are the Celts, around 450 BC. n. and., who built “oppida” in Bratislava and Liptov. [1] The oldest written record of Slovakia is a series of silver coins with the names of the Celtic kings. From year 6 n. and., [2] the Roman Empire established and maintained several settlements on the Danube River. In western and central Slovakia between AD 20 and 50 the barbarian kingdom of Vannius existed, founded by the Germanic people of the quads. The Slavs settled on the territory of Slovakia in the 6th century. Western Slovakia was the center of the kingdom of King Samo during the 7th century. Later, in the 8th century, the principality of Nitra arises, and its first ruler Pribina had the first Christian church in the territory consecrated in 828. From the year 833, together with its neighbor Moravia, the principality formed the nucleus of Great Moravia. Its moment of greatest apogee was the arrival of the Christian religious Cyril and Methodius in 863, during the reign of Prince Rastislav, and territorial expansion under the reign of King Svätopluk.
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was created in 1000 by King Stephen (canonized by the Catholic Church). Slovak settlements spread throughout the northern part of present-day Hungary, while Hungarians settled in southern Slovakia. The ethnic composition became more diverse with the arrival of the Carpathian Germans (in the 13th century), the Wallachians (in the 14th century), and the Jews. The population was devastated and contracted due to the Mongol invasion in 1241 and the famine that followed. However, Renaissance Slovakia was characterized by its bourgeois villages, numerous castles built in rock, and the development of art.
In 1467, Matías Corvino founded the first university in Bratislava. As the expansion of the Ottoman Empire began in Hungary and the occupation of Buda occurred in the early 16th century, the center of the Kingdom of Hungary shifted in 1536 to Pozsony (today Bratislava) which became the capital city of Royal Hungary. Numerous Hungarians moved to Slovakia to escape the cruelty of the Ottoman government, with the consequent reduction in the proportion of Slovaks in Royal Hungary. The Ottoman wars and frequent insurrections against the Habsburg monarchy also produced great damage and destruction, especially in rural areas. When the Turks withdrew from Hungary in the 18th century, Slovak influence waned within the kingdom, despite the fact that Bratislava remained the capital city of Hungary until 1848, when the Hungarian capital moved to Budapest.
Guided by the idea of splitting from the Hungarian administration associated with the Austrian monarchy, the Slovaks supported the Habsburg emperors against the Hungarians on occasions when there was a conflict between Hungary and the Habsburg kings regarding the autonomy of Hungary. For this reason, during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, between 1867 and 1918, the Slovaks suffered cultural repression through the process of “Magyarization” promoted by the Hungarian government.
According to Youremailverifier, the Slovaks were more oppressed than any other minority in Hungary and among the poorest, occupying mountainous and not very fertile territories, constituting an almost completely rural population, the little trade was in the hands of the Jews, often agents of Magyarization, which which led to the development of anti-Semitism with nationalist and economic roots.
From the disappearance of the Kingdom of Hungary to the present
In 1920 the Treaty of Trianon granted the current territory occupied by Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, which had been created in 1918, and which also included the regions of Bohemia and its neighbor Moravia.
Czechoslovakia was permanently threatened by revisionist governments of Germany and Hungary, until it was divided in 1938 by the Munich Accords (Germany). In 1939, Slovakia became a separate state under the command of the anti-Semiticpriest Jozef Tizo (1887-1947). Despite the strong influence of Nazi Germany’s policies, the anti-Nazi resistance movement carried out a major armed insurrection, known as the Slovak National Uprising, in 1944.
Czechoslovakia prior to the Second World War (1939-1945) was reestablished; Together with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, it integrated the Warsaw Pact as of 1945. In 1969, the state became a federation of the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic.
In 1989 Czechoslovakia through the peaceful “Velvet Revolution” ceased to exist as such; Slovakia and the Czech Republic parted ways after January 1, 1993. Slovakia became a member of the European Union in May 2004.
