Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
4. Towns in Slovakia after 1993
The effect of geopolitics on the urban network regarded as an enemy. The recognition and enforcement of the geopolitical situation is the starting point for the organization of the internal and external conditions of the country concerned. To examine the geopolitical situation of present-day Slovakia, Czechoslovakia has to be examined first. Czechoslovakia owed its 1918 foundation to the victorious powers of the Triple Entente, and the dividing up of the country in 1938-39 was also due to the changes in the balance of the great powers. The situation of the second Czechoslovakia, which was reestablished in 1945, was simpler, because, as a part of the Soviet sphere of interest, the possibility of all independent initiation was ruled out. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the political and economic world competition, Czechoslovakia had a new chance at independence and in this way it occupied a new geopolitical space. This event coincided with the transformation of Eastern-Central Europe, after the countries that had been occupied by the Soviets abandoned the Eastern European bloc organized by the Soviets. They are the eastern countries of the new Central Europe, from the Baltic states to the Adriatic Sea (including the independent Croatia, even if it is not, for the time being, a member of the European Union). Eight of these countries joined the European Union in 2004. After 1989, it was the western character of the Czech people, rather than Slav brotherhood, that was emphasized in Czech common talk. Giving Huntington as a reference, they also used Latin letters as evidence, saying they had not even adopted the Cyrillic alphabet. If, however, we only take into consideration the international power relations of contemporary Europe and the role that Czechoslovakia — within it the Slovak section — played, then we will forget that Slovakia’s several decades of gradual development within Czechoslovakia meant its having to adjust itself to the new geopolitical situation and establish its inner order in accordance with the new geopolitical situation. This is what we called ‘conquest’ above. Not only was Slovakia subordinated to the Czech protectorate, but the Slovak section of the country also had to ensure its own inner independence. This influenced its relations to the central government, which were rather ambiguous until 1993. It was another, much more important ambition for Slovakia to break away from Hungary, the country where the Slovak people first emerged and to which all its traditions go back. However, this was the task that caused the most difficulties. The new state had to change the mostly northernsouthern gravitation of Upper Hungary (Felvidék), which had existed till 95
