Education as a Political Tool of the Communist Regime in Slovakia
Education as a Political Tool of the Communist Regime in Slovakia

Summary/Abstract: Schools and education represent one of the most important tools of every totalitarian regime. The aim of the paper is to approach and clarify the process of ideologisation in education at all levels of schools, i.e. pre-primary education, national schools, and universities in Slovakia during the period of communism (1948–1989). Archival sourc- es, period legislation, newspapers as well as existing research in this area (Gabzdilová 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021; Kudláčová, ed., 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023; Olejník 2018; Glossová 2021, see the Bibliography) were used in this study. The paper proves that education was under the control of the regime, the supervision of the communist party in particu- lar, and it was shaped by its conclusions and resolutions. Thus, education became one of the tools to spread and promote the communist ideology. The analysis also points out the fact that the given period was not homogeneous, rather it had several stages in which some was recorded strong political interference (the period of Stalinism, the so-called normalisation) and in others, political release can be noted (Prague Spring, the 1980s).

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