Features of the Transformations of State Power Institutions of the Slovak Republic in the Regulation of Interethnic Relations (1989-1995)

Abstract

This article examines and analyzes, for the first time in Ukrainian historiography, the work of the Committee of the Government of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on nationality issues. The committee was established by the decision of the CSSR Government on February 8, 1990, as a coordinating, initiative, and advisory body on nationality matters. The committee coordinated and monitored the resolution of all major issues related to the lives of nationalities and the realization of the rights of their representatives, offering recommendations and proposals for the coordinated implementation of state policies regarding nationalities. It proposed essential measures for the development of their national cultures, traditions, their rights to education, culture, press, literature, and information in their own language. It aimed to develop the activities of national cultural and civic organizations, organizing them in political and social life, which should have been unified throughout the CSSR.

The committee operated in accordance with the principles of the federal structure of the CSSR and collaborated with all central bodies involved in measures prepared in the national sphere. Its members included representatives of the CSSR, the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic governments, prominent figures from the social, civic, and cultural life of the Czech and Slovak peoples, as well as representatives of the Hungarian, German, Polish, Roma, and Ukrainian nationalities. It is emphasized that at the federal level, representatives of Ukrainians and Rusyns were identified as a single nationality.

Simultaneously, a thorough analysis is conducted of the activities of the Council of the Government of the Slovak Republic on nationality issues, which served as an advisory, initiative, and coordinating body of the Slovak Republic Government. It was accountable to the aforementioned committee and the federal government. Materials, reports on the work done, and resolutions were prepared for its meetings and implementation of its decisions. However, matters of state funding for national minorities in the Slovak Republic, their organizations, unions, culture, education, press, printed publications, and more were subjects of discussion and debates both within the Council of the Slovak Republic Government on nationality issues and by relevant ministries, as well as within the walls of the Slovak Republic Parliament during discussions on the state budget for the following year regarding these specific matters.