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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Slovak Case: From Upper Hungary’s Slavophone Populus to Slovak Nationalism and the Czechoslovak Nation

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As a political entity, Slovakia emerged in 1918 within the broader framework of Czechoslovakia. The ethnonym ‘Slovak,’ though known since the mid-15th century, denoted either a Slav in general or a Slavophone inhabitant of Upper Hungary. Only in the course of the 19th century was the usage limited exclusively to the latter case. Although the name ‘Slovakia’ for the region where the Slovaks lived appeared at the end of the 18th century, it did not gain any official recognition until 1918 when Czechoslovakia came into being. Clearly, the nationalism of the Slovaks is much more steeped in ethnicity than that of the Magyars, the Poles, or the Czechs (Flajshans 1924: 5, 307).