Between Brussels and Moscow: Slovakia's Polarization in Context

1. Introduction

Thirty years after independence, Slovakia is in a dichotomy.

On the one hand, Slovakia is a success story of rapid economic growth and successful integration within the EU and NATO; indeed, this is the image that the country evokes among its partners in the West (Nič). Beneath the surface, however, the country is suffering a deep crisis of self-government and identity. The chair of the chief governing party has an approval rating of 8% (Murajdová), and according to a recent Eurobarometer, 68% of Slovaks are dissatisfied with their country's democracy—by far the highest rate among EU member states (European Commission T164). Of exceptional interest, however, is Slovakia's civilizational identity.

After Russia launched the first major military offensive in Europe since World War 2, the EU changed rapidly: political elites and the public rallied around values of territorial integrity and democracy, catalyzed toward energy independence and military aid, and began significant defense investments as part of the Zeitenwende. Although Slovakia's current pro-Western administration followed suit, recent polls show that the public is deeply divided over whether the EU should continue military aid to Ukraine (European Commission T100), and only 30% of the population has trust in NATO (T37).

Despite what these numbers may suggest, Slovaks do not feel that they are part of the Russkiy mir, and instead, most wish to belong "somewhere between" the East and West (GLOBSEC Policy Institute 9). This war, however, has made neutrality impossible—and, as sociologist Michal Vašečka notes, "we are searching for who we are as a nation" (Tódová).

This paper will examine Slovakia's current divisions in the context of historical Slovak-Russian relations, the growth of the country's far-right, and the effect of war on the national psyche.  This topic is especially timely because the current pro-Western administration is being challenged in a snap election in September, and as the easternmost NATO member, the deeply divided Slovakia has a role to play in future European policy vis-à-vis Russia.

2. Polarization in Numbers

Although there are no clear-cut lines, we can conceptualize three political groups currently undergoing polarization. First, the pro-Western group, which enjoys the benefits of EU integration and distrusts Russia due to memories of the communist regime. Second, an explicitly pro-Russian minority that grew with the radicalizing effects of social media and the normalization of far-right rhetoric. And third, a large group that values neutrality due to historical and cultural reasons, but may support concessions to Russia due to authentic fear of war.

The three groups have shifted over the years, but the heightened stakes of the war in Ukraine help illuminate their respective sizes. Conceivably, they could correspond to the 47% of Slovaks that would prefer a Ukrainian victory, the 19% that would prefer a Russian victory, and the 34% that couldn't choose, respectively (GLOBSEC & FOCUS qtd. in Mesežnikov and Bútorová 38).

3. Poets and Gas Lines: Slovaks' Historical Perceptions of Russia

To explain the origins of each group's ideology, we will explore three distinct eras that illuminate Slovakia's perceptions of Russia. First, the pan-Slavic legacy of early Slovak self-identification; second, the liberation of Nazi Slovakia by the Soviet Union in contrast with the subsequent communist era; and third, the early geopolitical attitudes of the independent Slovak Republic.

3.1. Early Pan-Slavism

The story of Slovak-Russian discourse begins with early Slovak self-identification, in the first half of the 19th century.
The process of nation-building began with clergymen and poets in the Classical period and was later brought to fruition by a second group of poets-turned-politicians under Romanticism. While surrounding nations like Poland had a historical legacy of well-connected nobles who could help foster a political sense of nation through myths of republicanism (Brykczynski 6-7), Slovakia had largely been a peasant nation under Hungarian rule. As historian Adam Hudek writes, instead of appeals to history or political allegiances, what turned out to be a crucial tool for national unification in the region was an appeal to a common language (2011, 259).

Ján Kollár, a Lutheran priest, was among the first to use linguistics to justify the existence of the Slovak nation. Because Slovaks were a small ethnic group whose language shared roots with Russian and some Balkan languages, Kollár believed the only way for an eventual recognition under Hungary was to subscribe to a pan-Slavic model. He argued that there was a single "Slav nation," which consisted of four "language branches": Czechoslovak, Polish, Russian, and Serbocroatian (Hudek 2011, 259). In his defining collection The Daughter of the Slava, Kollár uses a metaphor of “the big oak-tree”: a Slavic civilizational legacy that Slovaks could cling to in their fight for national rights (Andričík 21). Politically, in Kollár's era, the tree almost certainly symbolized Russia.

Although the nationalist movement was mostly based on political cleavages within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its leaders became referred to by Hungarian elites as treacherous "Panslavs" (Vörös qtd. in Hudek 2011, 260). This rhetoric only helped solidify idealized pro-Russian sentiments among Slovak intelligentsia. In the revolutionary era of L’udovít Štúr, Russia was romanticized as a center of Slavic politics, one that could "unite the Slavs" and "confer on them the leading historical role that … Kollár had foreseen they would play" (Van Duin 50).

Political collaboration with tsarist Russia never came to fruition under Austria-Hungary; contrarily, the Czechoslovak state was formed by democratically-minded exiles in France and the United States. Yet, the concept of pan-Slavism never entirely disappeared, and it is relevant to understanding the mythology of the modern Slovak far-right. As the oppression of the Hungarian part of the Empire allegedly necessitated an ideological alliance with the brotherly Russian Empire, so too does the alleged decadence of the European Union call for closer collaboration among Slavs with Putin's Russia (Paulovicova 182).

3.2. From Liberators to “Russians Go Home”

By World War II, the First Republic with Czechs had fallen, and Russia once again became relevant to Slovak statehood; this time, not only in romanticized ideology, but also in practice.

Although wartime Slovakia under Nazi control fought the Soviets, anti-fascist sentiment had been brewing in the country. This culminated in the Slovak National Uprising: an armed rebellion against the collaborationist regime, organized and commanded by Slovak generals loyal to democratic Czechoslovakia, with the strategic aim of creating a safe passage for the Red Army to liberate the country from the East (Hudek 2015, 2). The uprising was crushed, and cooperation with the Red Army failed; nevertheless, Russians enjoyed considerably more sympathy in Slovakia than in Poland after the war.

This era represented, arguably, the peak of Slovak-Russian sentiments which were uniquely aligned among the elites and the public. As historian Ivan Kamenec of the Slovak Academy of Sciences notes, Czechoslovak politicians began negotiations with the Soviet Union even before the division of Europe had been finalized (Minarechová). Kamenec argues that political elites were sympathetic to Russia because they still felt betrayed by the West: "[Czechoslovakia] had been one of the most loyal allies to France, and in 1938 in Munich, it was literally thrown overboard" (Minarechová).

Subsequently, the historical legacy of the Slovak National Uprising became intertwined with that of the Red Army's liberation. Despite the fact that its leaders were loyal to the First Republic, and democrats later faced political persecution, the new regime successfully solidified a political myth in which Slovaks and Soviets had freed the country together as brothers  (Švecová 84).

The takeaway of the Communist era is that people's perceptions of the regime and of Russia were correlated. After the initial gratitude toward Soviet liberators, opinions began to diverge as the regime began cracking down on dissent (Minarechová), and Czechoslovakia became one of the most totalitarian states of the Eastern Bloc, with deep state control over academia and culture (Londák and Londáková 343). Anti-Russian sentiments peaked in 1968 when Soviet tanks rolled through Czechoslovakia as a response to attempted democratization, greeted by disbelieving crowds and graffiti declaring "Russians, Go Home" (Stolarik xiii-xv). Today, pro-Western political elites point out parallels between Slovakia's communist past and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the two countries' shared experience of Russian aggression, they argue, necessitates deeper NATO ties and military support for Ukraine. During an annual commemoration of the Soviet occupation, Prime Minister Heger said:

We longed for liberty, for a better life. Now, Ukrainians long for the same … And Moscow refuses to let the citizens of another country live free (TASR).

3.3. Strategic Partnerships after Independence

In 1993, the democratic Slovak Republic was born, and for the first time, the country was free to determine its own foreign policy. The new country, however, was somewhat split over Russia due to the turbulent events of previous decades.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, around 34% of Slovaks felt threatened by the new Russian Federation (Malová qtd. in Hosnedlová). These were mainly young people from the post-1968 generation who were enjoying newly-found freedoms like travel and commerce, as well as democratic activists who had negotiated independence with the departing Communist party. Yet, the older generation still had some nostalgia for the stability, social security, and consistent world order that seemed to disappear under crony capitalism, as well as the deeply-ingrained political mythology of Russians freeing the country from Naziism. Notably, this dichotomy did not exist in Poland, whose population almost uniformly viewed Russia as a threat for historical reasons such as the Katyn massacre, leading to very different policy outcomes (Prizel 278).

Given a lack of national unity over Russia's role in Slovakia's past, and also the fact that a seemingly democratic Russia was no longer an active threat, it was clear that Slovakia's foreign policy in the long term would be guided by pragmatism rather than a civilizational divide. Russia was no longer a significant part of Slovaks' lives, with the remnants of pan-Slavism limited to school curricula and cultural exchanges through theater and literature (TASS)—and Russian tanks in Bratislava an important, but closed, chapter of a country on its way into the EU.

Since then, Slovak leaders continued to depend on historical relations with Russia in specific sectors where it was convenient, especially energy, and Russia appreciated every partner it could get in the European Union (Mokrá 93). By 2007, the Russian Federation was supplying 100% of Slovakia's gas and 97% of its oil, and conveniently, Slovakia was the only Central European member state to oppose discussions on EU peacekeeping in Moldova (Leonard and Popescu 38). Besides energy, another example of convenient dependence on Soviet-era institutions was Slovakia's aging military. In a truly bizarre headline of 2022, Russian technicians were still being paid millions of euros to service Slovak MiG fighter jets; in other words, months into the war, Russian citizens were handling critical weaponry on a NATO air base (Katuška).
Nonetheless, Slovakia kept growing more Western throughout the 2010s—its infrastructure funded by EU money, its capital a hipster hub, its youth taking for granted working and studying abroad. The peak example of leaving both doors open might be three-time Prime Minister Fico, whose administration proudly hosted Slovakia's presidency over the Council of the European Union and called for the country to be part of the "core of the Union" (Jancarikova), yet was protesting sanctions against Russia over Crimea (Jancarikova and Hovet).

4. The Mythology of Neutrality and Peace

Although the both-sides approach between 1993 and 2020 may look like an entirely pragmatic political choice, it also taps into a more fundamental Central European value: the people's understanding of their own fragility. As the region's smallest nation with roughly half the population of New York City, this is especially true for Slovakia, with unique effects on its national ethos. I will use generalizations in my argument, but this concept may be representative of those Slovaks who feel they belong "somewhere between" the East and West (GLOBSEC 9).

As Milan Kundera famously wrote: "The small nation is one whose very existence may be put in question at any moment; a small nation can disappear and it knows it. A French, a Russian, or an English man is not used to asking questions about the very survival of his nation. His anthems speak only of grandeur and eternity" (7). Instead, the first verse of the Slovak anthem reads, "the Slovaks will revive" (Cloet et al. 41).
Slovakia has experienced subjugation by larger nations for most of its history. After proclaiming their existence, Slovaks faced decades of Magyarization before World War I enabled a not-so-equal union with the Czechs (Hudek 2011, 260-262). A mere two decades later, the country was faced with the prospect of a full Wehrmacht invasion, and its popular uprising was crushed; and, after being liberated by the Soviets, Slovaks became an unfree imperial subject for four more decades. Slovak statehood is no small feat, and a recent one.
In line with Kundera's essay, Slovaks understand the fragility of their sovereignty, but unlike larger nations like Poland, they may not feel as confident rising up and resisting in pivotal moments. Instead, the nation's experiences with subjugation have instilled conflict-avoidant values: deep pacifism, a fear of antagonizing larger nations, and a certain sense of civic disengagement fostered by the top-down nature of communism. These ideas resonated with the nationally honored satirist and songwriter Milan Lasica, who coined the metaphor "národ holubičí", meaning nation of doves, to describe Slovak nature:

We are a dovish nation,
no one will grant us anything.
Everyone always shouts at us,
that is what we're known for.

Everyone just knocks us around,
and we lose our feathers.
Sometimes, this drives us mad,
because we are not as dumb
as we look.

We did not break the atom's nucleus — that's true, and what of it?
Try to count, dear friends, how many faces we broke.
We did not invent the Pythagorean theorem, and yet, we are here
and that will take some getting used to. (Lasica et al.)

Here, Lasica captures Slovakia's feeling of smallness. He addresses its self-pity, but he also evokes a certain sense of gratitude that, despite its lack of grandeur or deep mythology, the nation even exists. Politically, this could translate into the stereotypically neutral nature of many Slovaks, who may grow complacent in their deep desire for peace and stability above all else.

Darina Malová of Comenius University argues that the Slovak sense of fragility extends into international politics: "[since our independence], our politicians haven't yet had enough time to consider a unified civilizational orientation … we are trying to maintain the approval of the entire international community" (Hosnedlová). Therefore, it is easy to see why many Slovaks wouldn't be the first to take a hawkish stance over foreign affairs. For example, following Russia's annexation of Crimea, 83% of respondents agreed that “Ukrainians should decide on their future democratically, and Russia should not interfere in it”, and most agreed that Slovakia's NATO membership is a "guarantee of security"—yet, most would not agree to increase NATO's military presence in Slovakia as a response (Bútorová, Duleba qtd. in Mesežnikov and Gyárfášová 157-158).

In general, following a slight decrease in trust toward the US due to financial crises, many Slovaks found comfort in the identity of being a "bridge" between the East and West (Hosnedlová): Western enough to enjoy sovereignty and the benefits of the EU, and Eastern enough to stay in touch with a certain Slavic cultural heritage and not antagonize Russia.

5. Neonazism, Social Media, and Russian Propaganda

Although we have discussed the significant portion of the Slovak public that sees neutrality as a virtue, there has always existed an explicitly pro-Russian minority, and in recent years, it has transformed into a semi-unified opposition. In this section, we will discuss the fringe origins of Putin's supporters in Slovakia; the effect of Facebook on the rapid growth of the far-right scene; and how, for years, the Russian government supported this process from the shadows.

5.1. Fringe Origins

During the 1990s and early 2000s, a group of urban youth subscribing to the British skinhead subculture was growing up in Slovak towns. A documentary called Propeler - Subkultúry Mládeže captures some of their ideology: they were White supremacists and antisemites with hate for liberals and, in particular, the Roma community (43:40). They held that tolerance and humanism were driving the country into chaos and that only a militant, conservative mindset could save it from decadence. Eventually, some outgrew skinheadism and rallied around a broader neo-Nazi ideology on the fringes of Slovak society.

As these allegedly far-right youth grew up, some became elites of mainstream society—like a prominent Bratislava attorney who was recently arrested on charges of beating a classmate to death during his college years as part of a neo-Nazi gang (Ryšavý). Others have become politicians while trying to muddy their past and conjure a more moderate image as national conservatives. For example, a regional politician for the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (abbr. ĽSNS) had a swastika tattoo removed from his chest, and when confronted, "denied the association with Neo-Nazism as 'an absolute nonsense' and explained that the tattoo was the act of his past youth rebellion" (Paulovicova 186). By the 2010s, instead of appeals to fringe neo-Nazism, the Slovak far-right began reorienting itself toward the more popular topics of government corruption, as well as thinly veiled racism against the Roma population (184).

With respect to the historical role of Russia, the Slovak far-right held two somewhat conflicting beliefs, which reflect the change that Russia itself had undertaken under Vladimir Putin. On the one hand, many of them admired clero-fascist wartime Slovakia—and, by extension, they disapproved of Soviet liberation. On the other hand, they grew fond of Putin's Russia over time as it became more anti-liberal, protective of so-called traditional Slavic values (e.g. anti-LGBT), and militant (Arridu and Molis 166).
This went hand-in-hand with a reinterpretation of old pan-Slavic ideology. First, Slavic became an easy dog whistle for white, which appealed to its old neo-nazi base (Paulovicova 187). Next, it identified a role model: only a strong hand like Putin's could protect conservative Slavs from a perceived cultural erasure by globalists, human rights activists, and NGOs.

5.2. Social Media Polarization

Although many of their ideas were taboo among the political elites of EU-friendly Slovakia, the far-right scene ballooned in popularity on social media, in a way that closely resembles the MAGA movement in the United States.

The effect of social media on political polarization is well-documented. Emotionally charged posts tend to become viral: anger and anxiety are considered high-arousal emotions, which makes users more likely to engage with them through likes and comments (Berger and Milkman 192). Next, social media creates polarizing echo chambers, where communities of users solidify their views by receiving positive affirmation from their own social circle (Flaxman et al. 298; Sunstein 22), and create "out-group animosity" by spreading high-arousal negative information about their opponents (Rathje et al. 7). Finally, misinformation easily spreads in such an environment, because it is emotionally charged, and cognitive bias prevents users from questioning content that supports their own worldview. What's worse, social media companies have no economic incentive to fix this, because posts that are highly engaging increase ad revenue; in fact, it recently came to light that Facebook only employed one fact-checker for its 2.7 million users in Slovakia (Hornak).
This complex mechanism helped the once-fringe ĽSNS to grow into a multiverse of national-conservative parties and alternative news sites (Mesežnikov). First, during the refugee crisis of 2015, the fear-amplifying dynamics of Facebook radicalized moderate voters against Brussels and humanitarian organizations; examples of viral posts include a typically unruly French protest that was falsely labeled as a group of violent migrants (Šnídl). As Nina Paulovicova of the University of Alberta explains, Facebook-induced fears over refugees were used by far-right actors to reintroduce pan-Slavic ideas in favor of Putin's Russia: "ĽSNS not only amplifies the perceived threat of 'invasion' of Western and Muslim civilizations but also soothes the anxieties and fears of such invasion … The brotherhood of Slavic nations under Russia’s leadership is proposed as a viable solution to rescue Slovak women and girls from the claws of the Western and Muslim civilization 'threats'" (193).

Social media further deepened Slovaks' beliefs in conspiracy theories during the Covid-19 pandemic: the national vaccination campaign struggled to compete with pervasive online misinformation (Širotníková), and a counter-campaign led to the importation of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V (Mokrá 1). By the 2020s, general distrust of Slovak and European institutions had become so normalized online that when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it only took days before the far-right scene adjusted to new Kremlin talking points (Trnka). Distrust begets distrust, and eventually, "pro-Kremlin narratives were more frequently accepted by people who previously also bought conspiracy theories regarding the Covid-19 pandemic," with the two being spread "through the same groups or profiles on social networks" (Mesežnikov and Bútorová 36).

What were initially conservative voters, or simply fans of Slavic culture on Facebook, over years grew receptive to conspiracy theories like that of anti-Russian genocide in Donbas and supportive of strongman rhetoric. These voters make up the 19% of the electorate that today wishes for a Russian victory in Ukraine: for example, politicians of the far-right

Republika party became active during the early Facebook era of the migration crisis, and now, 55% of their voters desire a Russian victory (GLOBSEC & FOCUS qtd. in Mesežnikov and Bútorová 38-39).

Troublingly, some of the most popular politicians of the pragmatic-neutral crowd chose to embrace the changing electorate, further normalizing far-right rhetoric. Robert Fico, whose government was once known for strategic ambiguity, began spreading disinformation about refugees, Covid, and Putin's war, as well as celebrating Orbán-like national authoritarianism (Širotníková; Dlhopolec).

5.3. Russian Intelligence Operations

While it might sound plausible that the process of radicalizing Slovak conservatives online happened organically, and that Russia just happened to best represent their conservative-authoritarian ideas, that is not the full story.

The Russian government was well aware of the power that Facebook had in Slovakia, using it to actively disseminate misinformation. Investigative journalists analyzed thousands of Facebook posts made between 2013 and 2022, discovering that over nine years, 1,203 posts spread the Kremlin narrative that Ukraine is a Nazi state. Of those, as many as 37% were shared around the time of Russia's full-scale invasion—and most of the posts were published by none other than the Russian Embassy in Bratislava (UkraineWorld). In fact, in just one year, the embassy published an incredible 5,000 posts on its Facebook page regarding topics such as Covid-19 and Zelenskyy (Hajdari).
Although embassies have every right to engage in public diplomacy, in the background, Putin's regime was in the business of bribing disinformation-spreading journalists. In a 2020 interview, the head of the Slovak Information Service alleged that tens of thousands of euros were being paid to members of the Slovak disinformation scene by Russian operatives in an effort to promote messaging that would polarize Slovak society and weaken the relationship between Slovakia and the EU (Pčolinský 21:30). Two years later, in a bizarre video of espionage caught on camera, a Russian Embassy military attaché was seen giving money to a journalist of the far-right multiverse, and asking him to recruit people who "love Russia, who want to cooperate, who want money" (Hajdari). Another contributor to the same website was discovered to be a Russian national who had frequented the Sputnik news agency headquarters in Moscow (Šnídl 2018). This proved that Russia had infiltrated the circles of supposedly independent conservative journalists in Slovakia—and yet, the conspiracy did not stop there. The journalist who was caught on video later admitted that he had used his connections to provide Moscow with confidential government information marked "secret" and "top secret" (The Slovak Spectator).

Although many fans of Putin's Russia in Slovakia undoubtedly publish content out of genuine conviction, it is evident that Slovakia's recent geopolitical polarization is partially a result of Russian hybrid warfare. Today, we still do not know the full scope of the Russian government's involvement in undermining Slovak foreign policy and trust in public institutions.

6. After February 24

6.1. Breaking Point

For Europe, the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed everything: it raised the stakes of politics. In Slovakia, a decades-long policy of strategic ambiguity fractured overnight.
The pro-Western and pro-Eastern factions could no longer compromise to remain friendly with both civilizations. For the sitting administration, witnessing images of war crimes committed by the same nation that had invaded Slovakia in the past was not ignorable. Appealing to moral imperatives, as well as the strategic importance of denying Russia a victory, the Slovak government worked with the EU to stop Russian energy imports and vowed to help militarily. President Čaputová and Prime Minister Heger both visited Kyiv, and Slovakia has since donated its best weaponry to Ukraine—including its entire air defense system, and in the spirit of poetic justice, all of the fighter jets it formerly paid Russians to maintain (Mesežnikov and Bútorová 6).
Not surprisingly, the far-right minority, primed by conspiracies about Ukraine being a Nazi state and Russian atrocities being fake news, did not need convincing that Putin's invasion was righteous. What matters for national consensus, however, is the large part of society that has developed a bridge-between-civilizations identity.
Pro-Russian politicians, as well as Kremlin operatives, soon realized that this group could be influenced by appeals to their dovish instincts. Rather than celebrate Putin's regime, parties like Republika and Fico's Smer now frame the war as an imperial conflict between the United States and Russia. By rejecting military aid and calling for diplomacy, they effectively position themselves as reasonable people who want peace—and, by labeling pro-NATO politicians as warmongers, they create an effective appeal to the ethos of many Slovaks, taught by centuries of subjugation to avoid conflict.
Of course, letting Ukraine fall would only validate Putin's violent imperialist ideology: that is the painful lesson of the Munich Agreement. Yet, the anachronism of Slovakia's deep national desire for peace and stability—in an era that requires free Europe to oppose a powerful nation—is where I believe the core of Slovak geopolitical fragmentation lies.

6.2. A New Nationalism

The liberal-democratic bloc is now facing off against the authoritarian pro-Russian one in a snap election that will affect Central European cohesion for years (Dlhopolec). The issue, however, spans beyond a single election cycle. After decades, Slovaks need to commit to a civilizational identity, and that will require appeals to nationalism.
Slovak national identity has traditionally been ethnic; and that, in and of itself, does not bring about ideological unity. Nonetheless, Slovaks have demonstrated civic nationalism in the past. Their opposition to Hungarian control under the Austro-Hungarian Empire was rooted in political rights; the Slovak National Uprising was a profound proclamation of anti-fascism and rejection of ethnic supremacy; and under the communist regime, dissidents put their careers and families in danger for ideals of liberty. Yet, these examples happened in times of profound nationwide adversity, and over the last two decades, the civic aspect of Slovak self-identification appears to have dissipated in favor of complacency. For example, neither Romani people, nor second-generation Vietnamese citizens are widely seen as Slovak in a fraternal sense (Vermeersch 896; Hlinčíková 46), and unlike Germany, Slovakia's national consciousness never fully grappled with the legacy of ethnic cleansing under Tiso's regime (Jelinek 117).
There are attempts to change this. In her presidential victory speech, President Čaputová thanked the nation in four ethnic minority languages (TA3), and Prime Minister Heger appeals to the Central European mythology of resisting Eastern autocracy. Yet, these conceptions of an inclusive and proud Slovakness still ring more wishful than true, and promoting certain values is not the same thing as internalizing them in a civilizational sense. It appears that a more salient, civic, reconceptualization is necessary to unite Slovaks ahead of generational challenges for the region.

7. Conclusion

Slovakia's history and sociopolitical environment is linked to the rise of its pro-Western and pro-Eastern factions, and Russia's hybrid warfare and invasion of Ukraine have exposed cracks in Slovakia's self-identification and threatened its people's ability to cooperate during trying times. Now that the metaphorical bridge between East and West is straining under the weight of war, the question for 21st-century elites is how the definition of Slovak can be amended in a way that inspires its people to become protective of their hard-earned liberty, supportive of all who live among them, and willing to oppose an oppressive foreign aggressor despite their nature. In addition, Slovakia took in over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees, many of whom will grow up in a country whose national identity does not yet know how to include them. Can a new form of civic nationalism be built in tandem with the contributions of Ukrainians?

As long as the war is mainly felt in the form of rapid inflation and political division, the situation may not feel dire enough to unite Slovaks behind a new mythology. Perhaps only witnessing a neo-Nazi government, or Russian rockets falling on its residential buildings, would reunite the country. But by then, it might be too late.

[References (pdf)]

Oskar Lelko is an undergraduate student at University of Rochester. This essay was a final assignment for the course Nationalism, Central Europe and the Russia – Ukraine War.