Collective Memory and Political Change – The Hungarians and the Slovaks in the Former Half of the 20th Century
Collective Memory and Political Change – The Hungarians and the Slovaks in the Former Half of the 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the issue of Slovak-Hungarian relations in the period between the two World Wars, focusing on the way political circumstances were reflected in the representations of the ‘national past’ of both the Slovaks and the Hungarians. The competition and assertion of different national ideologies in the area of the present Slovakia was closely linked with attempts legitimize own status and marginalize contrast groups. In this period, apart from an internal political character, this competition was also significantly reflected in the foreign policy as it came along with the demand of maintaining or revision of status quo. The author points at the return to more distant history in reconstructing and deconstructing the national past particularly after 1989. This still remain the subject of political competition, albeit under new circumstances.

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