The Slovaks

As one of the smaller ethnic groups in the Habsburg Monarchy, the Slovaks had a tough time embarking on the era of nationalism. In the nineteenth century the Slovakian emancipation movement focused on the political implementation of the ever louder demands for free expression of their national existence against the Magyar hegemony within the Kingdom of Hungary.

On the eve of the First World War, the political representatives of the Slovaks were divided as to the future of their nation. What finally prevailed was the not uncontroversial concept of Czechoslovakism,  a movement which combined the idea of a national unity of Czechs and Slovaks with the demand for a unification of the settlement areas into one state.