Slovakia

Slovakia is a mountainous and landlocked country in Central Europe, one inhabited by the Slovaks, a West Slavic people. Historically the Slovak people have almost never enjoyed their own nation state. After migrating into the region in the sixth and seventh centuries they formed part of wider Slavic states that ruled parts of the northern Balkans. During the High Middle Ages the region was ruled over by the Kingdom of Hungary and from there it passed into Austrian domination in 1526. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918, Czechoslovakia emerged, a country in which the Czechs were always more numerous and dominant than the Slovaks. Slovakia only finally emerged as an independent nation in 1993. A member of the European Union today, it is a prosperous country and comparatively under-populated in European terms owing to its mountainous terrain. The capital, Bratislava, and the city of Košice are the only major urban centers in a country of 5.4 million people. Slovakia is a historically Roman Catholic country.^[1]

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The regions of Slovakia

Slovakia is divided into eight administrative regions known as kraj or kraje. They are as follows:

Bratislava Region (Bratislavský kraj)
Trnava Region (Trnavský kraj)
Trenčín Region (Trenčiansky kraj)
Nitra Region (Nitriansky kraj)
Žilina Region (Žilinský kraj)
Banská Bystrica Region (Banskobystrický kraj)
Prešov Region (Prešovský kraj)
Košice Region (Košický kraj)

These are in turn divided into smaller districts known as okresy. In a country with a population of just 5.4 million there are only two major cities. The capital Bratislava is in the far west on the border with Austria and has a population of nearly a half a million within the municipal boundaries, rising to three-quarters of a million in the wider metropolitan area. The other major city, Košice, in the east of the country, has nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants. There are over half a dozen large towns with a population of between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants.^[2]

Slovakian history

The Slovakia region has some of the oldest traces of complex human civilization anywhere in the world, with it and Czechia being major centers of the prehistoric Gravettian culture of Central Europe. Fertility statues or ‘Venus’ statues have been found in abundance in the region dating back 25,000 years.^[3] During the Bronze Age the region was settled by the Celts. It was subsequently conquered in part by the Romans during the reign of Emperor Caesar Augustus and formed part of the northern frontier of the Roman Empire for the next four centuries. It was always a frontier province and the Marcomannic Wars were fought here during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.^[4]

Slovakia was, like so many other parts of the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe, settled by the Slavs during the Slavic migrations of the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries CE. Indeed, the term Slovakia (or Slavonia) effectively means ‘Land of the Slavs’ in their West Slavic dialect. Still, while the name Slovakia is suggestive that this region was controlled by the West Slavs for centuries to come, in reality the lands now approximating to Slovakia were generally ruled by other powers until modern times.^[5]

The Kingdom of Hungary conquered Slovakia in the eleventh century and remained in control of it until the death of King Louis II in 1526 saw the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia pass to the Austrian Habsburgs. Pressburg, as Bratislava was known in pre-modern times, had emerged as a significant city by then, with a university established there in 1465 as the Academia Istropolitana.^[6]

Under Austrian rule the Slovaks were one of a growing number of ethnic minorities within a multi-ethnic state. At its height in the late nineteenth century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was home to German Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bosnians, Italians, Serbs, Ukrainians, Poles and Romanians. As that empire experienced defeat in the First World War it fragmented and the Czechs and Slovaks united to found their united West Slavic state, Czechoslovakia. It survived down to the early 1990s, though as a satellite of the Soviet Union from 1945 onwards. It was only once the USSR collapsed and the Cold War came to an end that political leaders in Czechoslovakia determined that they should divided their country. Hence, Slovakia was born on the 1st of January 1993. It became a member of the European Union during the mass enlargement of that organization in 2004.^[7]

Slovakia's geography

Slovakia is a landlocked country, bordered by Czechia to the northwest, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south and Austria to the west. It is a mountainous country, with the Carpathian Mountains running through much of Slovakia. At the same time there are contrasting lowlands created by the transit of numerous large rivers through the country and the river valleys that come with them, most notably the River Danube, as well as others like the Váh, Nitra and Hron Rivers. The Podunajska Plain is a breadbasket of the country and good agricultural land. The country is thinly populated with five and a half million inhabitants, while Bratislava and Košice are the only major cities.^[8]

Researching family history in Slovakia

There are numerous archives and research libraries in Slovakia and further afield that have collections relevant for the study of Slovakian family history and genealogy. They are as follows:

The Slovak National Archives, Bratislava – The Slovak National Archives were formed in 1928 as a regional repository for Slovakian records within Czechoslovakia. Copies of many demographic records relevant for genealogical studies are stored here.^[9]

The Slovak National Library, Martin – The Slovak National Library is the national deposit library of Slovakia. It is one of the newest national libraries in Europe, having only been established in 2000, but has extensive collections for studying Slovakian family history and genealogy.^[10]

Military History Archives, Prague, Czechia – Because of the ties between Czechia and Slovakia in the twentieth century and the fact that Prague was the political center of Czechoslovakia, many genealogical records for Slovakians today are found in the Czech capital. The Military History Archives is one such repository, housing the military records pertaining to Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1992.^[11]

MyHeritage provides access to 32 million records pertaining to the churches and synagogues of Slovakia between 1592 and 1910.^[12]

Slovakian surnames

Slovakia has a very varied surname landscape. There are no surnames, for instance, that are held by hundreds of thousands of people, as often occurs in other countries. Instead the most common surname, Vargá, is held by just 15,000 people. It is an occupational surname effectively referring to an ancestor having been a shoemaker or cobbler of Hungarian origin. The second most common surname, Kováč, is also an occupational surname, one which refers to an ancestor being a blacksmith. Some other surnames found frequently in Slovakia are:

Explore more about Slovakia

Slovakia, Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1910 records collection on MyHeritage
Beginning Slovak Genealogy Research at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
Her Parents Left Her on a Bench to Save Her from the Nazis. At 80, She Reunited with a Long-Lost Cousin at the MyHeritage Blog

References

[1] ttps://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/slovakia/

[2] ttps://www.statista.com/statistics/378004/largest-cities-in-slovakia/

[3] ttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618215008666

[4] Peter Kovacs, Marcus Aurelius' Rain Miracle and the Marcomannic Wars (Leiden, 2009).

[5] ttps://www.britannica.com/place/Slovakia

[6] ttps://www.paneurouni.com/en/about-us/useful-information/the-city/

[7] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17848213

[8] ttps://www.countryreports.org/country/Slovakia/geography.htm

[9] ttps://www.minv.sk/?sna

[10] ttps://www.snk.sk/en/

[11] ttps://www.vuapraha.cz/

[12] ttps://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-30139/slovakia-church-synagogue-books-1592-1910

[13] Slovak Surnames

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