History of Slovakia
The history of Slovakia spans from prehistoric settlements to the modern Slovak Republic. Situated in Central Europe, the region’s earliest evidence of human habitation dates to the Palaeolithic era, with significant Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures. By the Iron Age, Celtic tribes like the Boii established settlements, later displaced by Germanic and Slavic migrations. The Slavs arrived in the 5th–6th centuries, forming the basis of Slavic states like Great Moravia, which adopted Christianity through Cyrillo-Methodian missionary activity.
Following Great Moravia’s collapse, the territory became part of the Kingdom of Hungary, enduring Mongol invasions and later Ottoman Wars that split Hungary into three parts. Much of present-day territory of Slovakia resisted Ottoman conquest and became a province of the Habsburg monarchy. The 19th century saw the rise of Slovak nationalism, fueled by figures like Ľudovít Štúr, who codified modern Slovak, and movements advocating autonomy within Austria-Hungary.
Slovakia joined the Czechs to form Czechoslovakia after World War I, though tensions between Czechs and Slovaks persisted. During World War II, Slovakia became a Nazi-aligned puppet state under Jozef Tiso. Post-war, it was reintegrated into Czechoslovakia, which fell under Communist rule in 1948. The Prague Spring of 1968 briefly liberalized politics until the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Slovakia peacefully transitioned to democracy, culminating in its independence on 1 January 1993. Since then, it has developed a modern market economy and joined NATO and the European Union in 2004.
Prehistory
Discovery of ancient tools made by the Clactonian technique near Nové Mesto nad Váhom attests that Slovakia's territory was inhabited in the Palaeolithic. Other prehistoric discoveries include the Middle Palaeolithic stone tools found near Bojnice, and a Neanderthal discovery at a site near Gánovce. The Gravettian culture was present principally in the river valleys of Nitra, Hron, Ipeľ, Váh and as far as the city of Žilina, and near the foot of the Vihorlat, Inovec, and Tribeč mountains, as well as in the Myjava Mountains. The best known artifact is the Venus of Moravany from Moravany nad Váhom.Neolithic habitation was found in Želiezovce, Gemer, and the Bukové hory massif, the Domica cave, and at Nitriansky Hrádok. The Bronze Age was marked by the Unetice, Mad'arovce, Tumulus, Čaka, Velatice, and Lusatian cultures, followed by the Calenderberg culture and the Hallstatt culture in the early Iron Age.
Antiquity
The Celts were the first population in the territory of present-day Slovakia who can be identified on the basis of written sources. The first Celtic groups came from the West around. Settlements of the La Tène culture indicate that the Celts colonized the lowlands along the river Danube and its tributaries. The local population was either subjected by the Celts or withdrew to the mountainous northern territory. New Celtic groups arrived from Northern Italy during the. The Celts initially lived in tiny huts in sizewhich either formed small villages or were scattered across the countryside.Some of the small hill forts which were built in the developed into important local economic and administrative centers. For example, the hill fort at Zemplín was a center of iron-working; glass works were unearthed at Liptovská Mara; and local coins were struck at Bratislava and Liptovská Mara. Coins from Bratislava bore inscriptions like Biatec and Nonnos. The fort at Liptovská Mara was also an important center of the cult of the bearers of the Púchov culture of the Northern Carpathians.
Burebista, King of the Dacians, invaded the Middle Danube region and subjugated the majority of the local Celtic tribes around. Burebista's empire collapsed after he died about 16 years later. Archaeological sites yielding painted ceramics and other artefacts of Dacian provenance suggest that Dacian groups settled among the local Celts in the region of the rivers Bodrog, Hron and Nitra. The spread of the "Púchov culture", associated with the Celtic Cotini, shows that the bearers of that culture started a northward expansion during the same period.
The Romans and the Germanic tribes launched their first invasions against the territories along the Middle Danube in the last decade of the. Roman legions crossed the Danube near Bratislava under the command of Tiberius to fight against the Germanic Quadi in, but the local tribes' rebellion in Pannonia forced the Romans to return. Taking advantage of internal strifes, the Romans settled a group of Quadi in the lowlands along the Danube between the rivers Morava and Váh in 21, making Vannius their king. The Germans lived in rectangular houses, rather than square ones, and cremated their dead, placing the ashes in an urn.
Although the Danube formed the frontier between the Roman Empire and the "Barbaricum", the Romans built small outposts along the left bank of the Danube, for instance, at Iža and Devín. During the same period, the Germanic tribes were expanding to the north along the rivers Hron, Ipeľ and Nitra. Roman troops crossed the Danube several times during the Marcomannic Wars between 160 and 180. Emperor Marcus Aurelius accomplished the first chapter of his Meditations during a campaign against the Quadi in the region of the Hron River in 172. The "Miracle of the Rain"a storm which saved an exhausted Roman armyoccurred in the land north of the Danube in 173; Christian authors attributed it to a Christian soldier's prayer. Roman troops crossed the Danube for the last time in 374, during Emperor Valentinian I's campaign against the Quadi who had allied with the Sarmatians and invaded the Roman province of Pannonia.
Medieval history
New migrations
In the 4th century AD, the Roman Empire could no longer resist the attacks by the neighboring peoples. The empire's frontier started to collapse along the Danube in the 370s. The development of the Hunnic Empire in the Eurasian Steppes forced large groups of Germanic peoples, including the Quadi and the Vandals, to leave their homelands by the Middle Danube and along the upper course of the river Tisza in the early. Their lands were occupied by the Heruli, Sciri, Rugii and other Germanic peoples. However, the Carpathian Basin was dominated by the nomadic Huns from the early and the Germanic peoples became subjects to Attila the Hun.Disputes among Attila's sons caused the disintegration of his empire shortly after his death in 453. The Germanic peoples either regained their independence or left the Carpathian Basin. Warriors' graves from the next century yielded large number of swords, spears, arrow heads, axes and other weapons. Other archaeological finds, including a glass beaker from Zohor, shows that the local inhabitants had close contacts with the Frankish Empire and Scandinavia.
Arrival of the Slavs
Regarding the early history of Slavs, Slavic texts or a record written by a Slav dating from before the late 9th century are not known. The foreign sources about Slavs are very inconsistent. According to a scholarly theory, the first Slavic groups settled in the eastern region of present-day Slovakia already in the. The 6th-century Byzantine historian Jordanes wrote that the funeral feast at Attila's burial was called strava. Scholars who identify that word as a Slavic expression say that Jordanes' report proves that Slavs inhabited the Carpathian Basin in the middle of the. However, according to a concurrent scholarly theory, strava may have been a Hunnic term, because no primary source mentioned that the Slavs were present in Attila's court.Settlements which represented a new archaeological horizonthe so-called "Prague-Korchak cultural horizon"appeared along the northernmost fringes of the Carpathian Mountains around 500. Similar settlements, which are dated to the second half of the, were also excavated in the region of the confluence of the Danube and the Morava. "Prague-Korchak" settlements consisted of about 10 semi-sunken huts, each with a stone oven in a corner. The local inhabitants used handmade pottery and cremated the dead. Most historians associate the spread of the "Prague-Korchak" settlements with the expansion of the early Slavs.
According to historian Gabriel Fusek, written sources also evidence the presence of Slavs in the Central Europe in the first half of the. The 6th-century Byzantine historian, Procopius, wrote of a group of the Heruli who had "passed through the territory of all of the Sclavenes", or Slavs, during their migration towards the northern "Thule". Procopius's report implies that the Slavs inhabited the region of the river Morava, but its credibility is suspect. Procopius also wrote of an exiled Longobard prince, Hildigis, who first fled to the "Sclaveni" and then to the Gepids, "taking with him not only those of the Longobards who had followed him, but also many of the Sclaveni" in the 540s. According to a scholarly theory, Hildigis most probably mustered his Slavic warriors in the region of the Middle Danube.
The Germanic Longobards were expanding towards the Middle Danube in the early. Archaeological research shows that Longobard expansion bypassed virtually the entire territory of Slovakia and they settled only in the most north-western part of the country. Unlike neighbouring Moravia, Slovakia did not belong to any German empire in this time. The Longobards and the local Slavs remained separated by the natural border formed by Little and White Carpathians, respected by both sides according to Ján Steinhübel. He also writes that the Slavs, who remained "an independent third party" in strained Longobard-Gepid relations, were not interested in conflicts with their Germanic neighbours, but made raids in the faraway Byzantine Empire.
Avar Khaganate
The Longobards left the Carpathian Basin for Northern Italy after the invasion of the territory by the Avars in 568. The Avars were a group of nomadic warriors of mixed origin. They conquered the Carpathian Basin, subjugated the local peoples and launched plundering expeditions against the neighboring powers during the next decades. By the time of the Avars' arrival, the Slavs had settled in most lands that now form Slovakia, according to historian Stanislav Kirschbaum. Further migration waves strengthened the local Slavic population because new Slavic groups, pressed by the Avars, crossed the Eastern Carpathians, seceding from the Slavs who continued their expansion to the Balkan Peninsula. Dialects of Slovak still reflect that the Slavs came from different directions already in the Early Middle Ages, according to a widely accepted scholarly theory. Czech and Slovak share some features with the South Slavic languages, distinguishing them from the other West Slavic languages. According to archaeologist P. M. Barford, these features suggest that the Carpathian Mountains and the Sudetes separated the ancestors of the Slovaks and the Czechs from the Slavs living to the north of those mountains. Especially the dialects of Central Slovakia, which "stand out from the continuous chain between the western and eastern dialects", preserved South Slavic features.The 7th-century Frankish Chronicle of Fredegar wrote that the Avars employed the Slavs, or Wends, as "Befulci", showing that the Slavs formed special military units in the Avar Khaganate. According to the same chronicle, the Wends rose up in rebellion against their Avar masters and elected a Frankish merchant, Samo, their king "in the fortieth year of Clothar's reign", that is in 623 or 624. Modern historians agree that the Avars' defeat during the siege of Constantinople in 626 enabled Samo to consolidate his rule. He routed the invading army of Dagobert I, King of the Franks, in the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631 or 632. The realm of Samo, who ruled for 35 years, collapsed soon after his death. Its exact borders cannot be determined, but it must have been located near the confluence of the Danube and the Morava rivers. Historian Richard Marsina puts its centre to Lower Austria.
A new horizon of mostly hand-made potterythe so-called "Devínska Nová Ves pottery"appeared between the Middle Danube and the Carpathians before the end of the. Large inhumation cemeteries yielding such pottery were unearthed at Bratislava, Holiare, Nové Zámky and other places, suggesting that cemeteries were located near stable settlements. For instance, the cemetery at Devínska Nová Ves, which contained about a thousand inhumation graves and thirty cremations, was used up until the end of the.
In the 670s, the new population of the "griffin and tendril" archaeological culture appeared in the Pannonian Basin expelling Kuber's Bulgars south out of Sirmium. Shortly afterwards the new Avar-Slav alliance could expand their territories even also over the Vienna Basin. The political and cultural development in Slovakia continued in two separate lines. Lowland areas in the southern Slovakia got under the direct military control of the Avars. The Avars held strategic centers in Devín and Komárno which belonged to the most important centers of the khaganate. The Avars from Devín controlled Moravia and from Komárno they controlled southern Slovakia. In this time, the Avars already began to adopt a more settled lifestyle. The new period introduced Slavo-Avaric symbiosis and multi-ethnic Slavo-Avaric culture. The Slavs in southern Slovakia adopted new burial rite, jewelry, fashion and used also common cemeteries with the Avars. Large Slavo-Avaric cemeteries can be found in Devínska Nová Ves and Záhorská Bystrica near Bratislava and similar cemeteries, the proof of direct Avar power, south of the line Devín-Nitra-Levice-Želovce-Košice-Šebastovce. North of this line, the Slavs preserved previous burial rite. Natural increase of the population together with immigration from the south led to the settlement also in mountain areas.
In the 8th century, the Slavs increased their agricultural productivity along with further development of crafts. Higher productivity initiated changes in the Slavic society, released a part of human resources previously required for farming and allowed to form groups of professional warriors. The Slavs began to build heavily fortified settlements protected by strong walls and trenches. Among the oldest belong Pobedim, Nitra-Martinský Vrch, Majcichov, Spišské Tomášovce and Divinka. The neighborhood with Avars raised unification process and probably also formation of local military alliances. The archaeological findings from this period support the formation of a Slavic upper class on the territory that later became the nucleus of Great Moravia.
A series of Frankish-Avar wars led to the political fall of the khaganate. In 805, the Slavs attacked again. Their offensive aimed mainly on the centers of Avar power - Devín and Komárno. The Avars were not able to resist attack and they were expelled to the right bank of Danube. The Slavs from Slovakia probably participated also in further conflicts between small Slavic dukes and remaining Avar tarkhans.