History Live – Bad Politicians or Indifferent Voters? Lessons in Slovak Politics

Much has already been said and written about the shortcomings of Slovak politics. Yet one critique keeps recurring—the lack of interest of ordinary people in public affairs and the detachment of political elites from the realities of everyday life. It may seem like just a journalistic cliché, but what if this criticism also has a deeper historical basis? We will discuss Slovak politics from a different perspective, looking into its origins at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as its development in the freer environment of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Did the national movement truly gain support, for example, in rural areas? Were they able to reach both the Slovak political elites and the common peasant? And how did political discourse accelerate or change after the establishment of Czechoslovakia? Jaro Valent from the Historická Revue magazine will converse with historians Ladislav Vörös and Juraj Benko from the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Discussion, 90 min.