The Slovak Republic (SK) is located at the geographical center of Europe bordered by the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Austria.
Capital: Bratislava
Area: 49,030 sq kilometers
Maximum length: 428 km
Maximum width: 195 km
Elevation: 95 m – 2,656 m
Population: 5,268,935 (1995)
Population density: 107.5/sq.km
Nationalities: Slovak (85.6%), Hungarian (10.8%), Romany (1.8%), Czech (1.2%), Ruthenian (0.3%), Ukrainian (0.3%), German (0.1%), Polish (0.1%),Other (0.2%)
Religion: Roman-Catholic (60.3%), Greek-Catholic (3.4%), Protestant (6.2%), Reformist (1.6%), Orthodox (0.6%), Without any confession (9.7%),No data (18.2%)
Brief History of Slovakia:
When the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved in 1918, one of the independent states that formed was Czechia-Slovakia (Czechoslovakia).Ê Slovakia was officially a republic within Czechoslovakia. By 1938 Germany and, again, the Magyars (Hungarians) occcupied Czechia and Slovakia. On March 14th, 1939 Slovak parliament voted for independent Slovak Republic, to prevent a total Magyar and German occupation. On March 23rd, with Hitler’s support, Magyar Army attacked Slovakia and upon declaration of the Slovak National Uprising against Germans and Magyars in 1944, Germany occupied all of Slovakia.
Soviet Red Army liberates Slovakia from the German and Magyar occupation and as WWII ended in 1945, Czechoslovakia is re-established. It was governed from Prague by and unstable democratic government dominated by communist philosophy. By 1948, The Soviet Union was tightening it’s control over Czechoslovakia and effectively turned it into a satellite state.
In 1968 Slovak leader Alexander Dubcek started a drive for democratization and federalization of the Czechoslovakia today known as the Prague’s Spring. USSR and its satellites invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in August, remove Dubcek from power, and install Gustav Husak as head of Czechoslovakia. The dream of freedom and democracy of the Slovaks and Czechs was shattered. The following year, in 1969, the Slovak Socialistic Republic is established within the Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic. Slovakia was granted a measure of autonomy.
When communism fell in Eastern and Central Europe in 1989, mass protests and demonstrations in Slovakia bring down communists control over the country. During the summer of 1992, in free and democratic elections, Slovaks decided to end the confederation of the Czech and Slovak regions. In what came to be known as the Velvet Divorce, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Slovak and Czech Republics on January 1st, 1993.
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