slovak history

Slovak history


Slovakia is small country situated in the hearth of Europe. It wasn’t different nor in the past. This nation was always the part of other countries. Since first till fifth century BC the territory of current Slovakia pertained to Roman Empire. Often we were attacked by German’s tribes. Romans called these tribes ‘barbarians’, because they were very cruel. They faced against big offensive of barbarians for long time in this territory. Finally their allies joined them to help Romans win the war.

Since fifth till sixth century our Slavonic ancestors were coming to colonise this land. According to Byzantine historian named Prokopius the German tribes migrated from the middle Danube to the North under the pressure of Longobards. In seventh century Slovakia had commercial contacts with Byzantians. First historical mention about the oldest Slavs is recorded in the book of latin chronicle known as Annals Regni Francorum. He wrote about emperor Karol Veľký, who sent the military forces to Panonia to end up contentions among Huns and Slavs. In 847 earl Pribina got his territory like inheritance and he became magnate of France Empire.

In 862 earl Rastislav, asked byzantian emperor to send him some teachers and bishop. In 863 Byzantian teachers Cyril and Method came to Slovakia and founded first university in Slovakia, translated liturgical books from Greek language to Slovak language, and translated some parts of Bible. The most famous emperors of our country were Svätopluk, Štefan and Ladislav I. For a long time Slovakia was a part of Austrian – Hungary monarchy. During the First World War, some politics saw in this situation chance of independent state of Slovaks and Czechs. Politics like Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Edvard Beneš fought for this idea.

In 1918 Czechs and Slovaks established their own state. In second half of twentieth century in Czechoslovakia ruled ideology of communism. The main thought of communism was equal standards of living and conditions for everybody and therefore a lot of people left in the past to USA and next countries where wasn’t war and where they have better conditions for their life. But this idea was not applicable in the real life forever. The year 1989 was written in Slovakian history as a fall of communism provided by all Czechoslovak nation in famous Velvet revolution. After revolution in 1993, Slovakia became a separate state.

Today we have our language, culture, politics, autonomy and legislation. The Slovak language is used only in Slovak republic.