Book Description

Throughout the 1990s, several observers of the post-communist transformation in East Central Europe viewed the Slovaks as a non-historic nation hastily modernized during the communist era. Since it had been mostly invisible in Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Slovak history appeared as ruptured and fragmented. Following the fall of the communist regime and the creation of the independent Slovak Republic, the country's image was primarily associated with radical nationalism, intolerance towards its minorities and an unstable domestic political scene. These were seen as major reasons for the detour in Slovakia's transformation to democracy in the mid-1990s. In the 2000s, western scholars re-examined the earlier interpretations of Slovak history that had stressed the compliance of Slovak society with Communism and its missing tradition in the state and institution-building processes. They came to the conclusion that stereotypes in the interpretations of Slovakia's transformation in the 1990s stemmed from unfamiliarity with the facts and preconceived methodological approaches. This dissertation examines Slovakia's evolution from the downfall of Communism (1989) to the accession of the independent Slovak Republic (1993) into the European Union (2004) from a broader historical perspective. It challenges the assumptions of political inexperience and passivity of Slovak society as major hindrances in the more recent phase of its evolution. It argues that the building of the Slovak political nation had started in Austria-Hungary and continued in Czechoslovakia under all its regimes. As a result, Slovak political parties and institutions as the main carriers of democratic transformation did not emerge in the early 1990s in a political and institutional vacuum. After the creation of the independent Slovak Republic, the focus of Slovak political elites switched from national emancipation to integration with the ED. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, the political parties in opposition, supported by the nongovernmental sector and western democracies, defeated an illiberal regime ruling over Slovakia. In spite of the alleged historical deficits of Slovak society, this change was seen by many as a result of its sudden awakening. This dissertation suggests that Slovakia's transformation from a post-communist state to a democratic one, marked by the country's accession into the ED, can be better understood as a continuation of the processes that had begun in the mid-1960s, rather than as a result of the change of government in 1998.