Not far from Bratislava, the Capital of Slovakia there start the Alps, the mountain range, which spreads through six states up to the Mediterranean Sea. Here begins the arc of Carpathian Mountains, which ends in the South-east, in the plains of the Black Sea. Through the city there runs the Danube, connecting nine states. Such significant features of the crossroad has also the history of Slovakia.

The country in the arc of Carpathians, in the South opened to the Danube plains was for thousands of years a place for gathering various cultures from the South and North, from the East as well as from the West. At the break of ages, in the first centuries of our era there lay the Limes Romanus, the border of the Roman Empire in the south of Slovakia. In the Danube plains the big invasions of the Hunes, Avars and the ancient Hungarians from the East were about to end. On the western border of the present-day Slovakia fell the pressure of Germanic tribes. From the Bratislava Castle one can freely see the Capital of Austria and for centuries also the Capital of the Habsburg monarchy- Vienna.

Various political, cultural influences, struggles for gaining control over the Carpathian Basin have marked the fate of Slovakia for good. The Slovak history as well as the country itself were little known abroad for a long time because of their being "hidden" in the histories of other, bigger state units. The state tradition of Slovak inhabitants, the ancestors of today's Slovaks is recorded already in the 7^th century, when in the fight against nomadic Avars the Samo's Empire was established for a short period of duration. In the 9^th century the Great Moravian Empire covered the territory of Slovakia and its neighbouring areas. In this Empire the Christianity begins to be spread and the literature in the Slavic language starts to be written. The Great Moravia was in the constant struggle against the Frank's Empire, penetrating into the area around the Danube from the west. It vanished under the oppression of Hungarians' ancestors, who came to this area at the beginning of the 10^th century. Up to the year 1918 Slovakia was a part of the Hungarian kingdom and together with this kingdom a part of the Habsburg monarchy since the 16^th century.

Medieval Slovakia was a well-developed country. The proof of it can be seen in a great number of Gothic temples, fortifications, town halls and bourgeois houses in the rich business towns. These towns followed the law regulations, valid in the western-european countries. They got rich from wine-growing, international trade and mining. The goldmines in Kremnica belonged to the richest ones in Europe. Its gold ducats have been struck there in the mints since the year 1335. Also silver was mined in Kremnica in big amounts. Between the 16^th and the 17^th century Slovak copper ruled over the European market.

The economic bloom, reflected in the culture and scholarship as well was slowed down by the expansion of Osman Turks for onehundred-and-fifty years. From the defeat of the Hungarian army by Mohac in 1526 till the defeat of Turks by Vienna in 1683 in the south of Slovakia, ran the border with the Turkish Empire. The state of a so-called "cold war", interrupted by direct conflicts, raids and devastation was complicated by religious struggles between Catholics and Protestants and the repeated rebellions of the Hungarian nobility against the Habsburg family. One of the consequences of these "lost centuries" was also Slovakia's remaining behind the Western Europe.

After having expelled the Turks from Hungary, the country experienced its restoration under the rule of Maria Terezia /1740 - 1780/ and her son Josef II. A number of economic and social reforms made the status of farmers and townsmen easier, removed the hardest forms of Protestant discrimination, reforms in the field of school helped to improve the education. The end of the 18^th century is marked with the establishment of first manufactures and especially with the development of iron industry. The first railway was built in the year 1846, the first steamship reached the shore of Bratislava already in 1818. In the 19^th century first banks, insurance and share companies came into existence. At the close of the 19^th century all elements of the modern society - political parties, labour unions, miscellaneous associations, daily press and magazines, a dense network of secondary and higher schools are fully in function. This modernization was quite fast to keep the country in contact with the most developed European countries but unfortunately not fast enough to recover it from the historically arisen handicap.

The modernization of Hungary and Slovakia as its part was braked and deformed by the question of nationality. Hungary was a multiethnic state. Its Hungarian power elite though tried to assimilate the numerous Slovaks, Rumanians, Germans, Serbs and Russniaks in the struggle with the Habsburgs. This inevitably led to conflicts. Already during the revolution in 1848 - 49 the representatives of the Slovak national movement with Ludovit Stur at its head, the Slovaks defended themselves with weapons in hands when the Hungarians refused to recognize their equality.

The policy of Hungarianization, the liquidation of Slovak schools and associations created an obstacle for the further modernization and social development of the non-hungarian nationalities. The consequence of this long-termed conflict was that at the close of the WW1, in the time when the defeated monarchy was at its decline, on 30^th October 1918 the Slovak National Council declared its separation from Hungary and made itself a part of a newly formed Czechoslovakian state.

By the formation of the new state a big role was played by the military legions of Czechs and Slovaks who were fighting on the side of the treaty in Russia, France and Italy against Germany and Austria-Hungary. A Slovak general-in-chief Rastislav Stefanik was considered to be one of the founders of the state and has belonged to one of the most respected personalities of the Slovak history. In the years 1918 - 1938 the Czechoslovakian Republic was the only central-european state, in which the parliamentary democracy was preserved. In 1938 Czechoslovakia became a victim of the Munich's Treaty signed by the world powers, which enabled Hitler to occupy the frontier areas and to subdue the whole state little by little. The southern parts of Slovakia were occupied by Hungary in November 1938, a part of the northern Slovakia by Poland and the suburbs of Bratislava got under the supremacy of Germany. In March 1939 Hitler entered Prague and on the territory of Slovakia the Slovak Republic was founded.

The Slovak Republic was controlled by the Nazi Germany, on whose side it took part in the war. Many Slovaks rejected the German hegemony, the anti-democratic, anti-Semitic policy of the government. They entered the foreign Czechoslovakian units that took part in the war on the side of the Allies in France, North Africa, in the fight for England, also on the territory of the Soviet Union. On 29^th August 1944 the anti-German rebellion broke out. The army of over 60.000 defended the centre of Slovakia for two months.

After the WW2 Slovakia gradually got together with the revived Czechoslovakian Republic into the Soviet unit. Even though the Communists won only 30% of votes in the elections of 1946 in Slovakia, the dominion of the left wing in the western parts of the state enabled them to break down the resistance of Democrats. After the coup in February 1948 the communist dictatorship was introduced and lasted for 41 years. A kind of relief, which restored the hope for a change was the reform movement in 1968, embodied by a significant Slovak politician Alexander Dubcek. His "socialism with a human face" smashed the Soviet tanks in August 1968. It was apparent that the liberation of the country would be possible only together with the other subdued states and after the changes in the Soviet Union itself.

In November 1989 a massive folk movement organized by the initiative of Slovak citizens called "Public against Violence" smashed the communist dictatorship. The country's task was to return to its historical traditions: to the parliamentary democracy, liberal trade economy. Another task was to solve the position of Slovakia in the state.

Since the foundation of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia exerted to create such a system, that would take into account its individual features and demands. These exertions seemed to be successful for several times throughout, before and also in the post-war history but in spite of this fact it always came to a recovery of the old centralized regime. Long confrontations and discussions which started in 1989 ended finally in 1992 with an agreement on a peaceful separation of the state, also passed by the common Czechoslovakian parliament in Prague. On the 1st January 1993 a new independent Czech and Slovak Republic came into being. A new chapter of Slovakia's history was opened, for thousands of years inseparable part of the European civilisation and history, this time under its own name and with its own, not shared responsibility.