| Abstrakt: |
The study deals with the issue of the Slovak national and state myth. It examines the genesis of these myths and their formation in the different historical conditions throughout history. The Slovak national and state myth was influenced by the cultural and civilizational factors of the territory inhabited by the Slovaks, interaction with other nations, social and political conditions. The Slovak national and state myth was born and matured gradually from the 17th century onwards as an expression of the collective identity of the Slovaks as a nobility and later as a nation in the struggle for recognition of their own equality and equivalence in historical Hungary. It grew out of the conviction of the autochthony and originality of the Slovaks and their belonging to the great Slavic nation. It followed the original oral tradition dating back to the Great Moravian period. The Slovak national myth first developed on the ground of the historical of Hungary and was important in emphasising of the equality and equivalence of the Slovaks. Thus, it offered a harmonisation of the national relations in Hungary. However, with the developing of the Hungarian national consciousness and its preferred myth of the conquest of the homeland and the subjugation of the Slavic population, a fundamental conflict and discord developed which led to the superiority of the Hungarians over the other inhabitants. Historical Hungary did not know Slovaks. It turned a thousand years of coexistence into a myth of thousand years of domination, which from the Slovak side mirrored the myth of the thousand years of oppression. Thus, the Slovak national but also state myth was directed outside the framework of Hungary. In that historical period, the Slovaks did not have the strength and means to establish their own state, where their national and state myth would also be applied. A state of their own was only a theoretical construct discussed among the Slovaks in the USA in the early 20th century. The national and state myth of the Slovaks began to develop more openly in the new state formation, the Czechoslovak Republic, from 1918. This was to be the fulfilment of history and, according to the Czechoslovak state myth, based on the theory of a unified Czechoslovak nation, in a sense the restoration of the historical Great Moravia as the first common state of Czechs and Slovaks. The Czechoslovak state myth was profiled as anti-German and anti-Hungarian due to national oppression before 1918. This linked it to the Slovak national and state myth. At the same time, it came into conflict with the Slovak national and state myth, which proclaimed the uniqueness and autochthony of the Slovak nation and its right to an autonomous state life. The establishment of the Slovak state in 1939 made it possible to identify the Slovak national and state myth with the existing national state of the Slovaks, which, like Czechoslovakia, claimed to be the restoration of Great Moravia. The limiting and strongly influencing factor in the conditions of the Slovak state appeared to be Nazi Germany. The Slovak national and state myth was presented as pro-German, or its pro-German elements were selected or its anti-German elements were retouched. After the restoration of Czechoslovakia in 1945, the situation of 1918 was in a sense repeated. Unlike in 1918, the Slovak national and state myth could not be officially and freely presented in a separate form. Due to the existence of the communist regime and the absence of democracy, it could exist in an illegal form and legally only in exile. The Slovak national and state myth is a set of idealised and simplified ideas and claims. It has shown vitality in history and contributed to the emergence of the modern Slovak statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
