Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
3. The settlement structure of Slovakia
The role of the first independent Slovak state in town planning The north-south transportation line, which had been rejected in the Czechoslovak literature as a structure serving Hungarian interests, was not changed between the two World Wars. The railway network was lengthened by 49 km (to 3,403 km) between 1926 and 1935, and public roads by 271 km (to 14,577 km). The structure of industry was modified after 1936, because industrial companies were ranked into the munitions industry. From then on, the construction of factories served military purposes. Giving defensibility as a pretext, the new factories started to be built in the valley of the river Vah. Consequently, we may state that, in the Slovak province of bourgeois Czechoslovakia, it was the intention to achieve the Slovak national goal rather than economic factors that resulted in the birth of new towns and the development of old ones. 3. 5 The role of the first independent Slovak state in town planning War-time conditions contributed to the sudden prosperity of Slovak economy, which had an important political reason. With the example of the new state, Germany wanted to prove that small nations also had good prospects in a German Europe. Therefore, Germany supported the revival of the economy, as a result of which industrial production and, consequently, the rate of employment increased. In 1944 there were already 174,000 people working in industry, however, mainly for exports, i.e. for military purposes. Public investment also increased. Construction was begun on six water-power stations and hundreds of villages were supplied with electricity. Gradually, German capitalists took over industrial companies and banks from Czech capitalists. This was when Bratislava first became a capital city with full powers. 3. 5. 1 Bratislava, the old-new capital city After only a short period of indecision, the capital city of (Czechoslovakia became Bratislava. This had several reasons. Bratislava was an important town in historical Hungary in an economic sense, because it was built not far from Vienna, the capital city of the Hapsburg Empire. Transportation of goods was possible on the River Danube, which was navigable and therefore provided favourable conditions for trading. With the extending Turkish conquest, its significance 63
