Struggle For Human Rights Day – March 25, 2025

History of Struggle For Human Rights Day

Slavik Slovaks settled in present-day Slovakia in the sixth century. Slovakia was politically united with the Moravian empire in the ninth century, but in 907, the Germans and Magyars conquered the Moravian state. It was only in 1918 that the Hapsburg-ruled empire collapsed, following World War I, and the Slovaks joined the Czech lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and part of Silesia, which formed the new joint state of Czechoslovakia.

In 1939, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia, created a German protectorate and a puppet state out of Slovakia, and elected Monsignor Josef Tiso as prime minister. Slovakia was liberated from the Germans by the Soviet army in 1945, and the state was restored to its pre-war status and rejoined the new Czechoslovakian state. But in 1948, the Communist Party took power, and Slovakia was again subjected to a centralized Czech-dominated government. This created a rift between the two republics.

It was in 1969, that the nation became the Slovak Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. On March 25, 1988, the candle demonstration was held in Hviezdoslav street by Roman Catholic dissent groups demanding religious freedom in Czechoslovakia. This demonstration was the first big-scale demonstration after 1969 and was a vital step toward dismantling the communist regime.

The Slovak Republic came into being on January 1, 1993, and Vaclav Havel became the president of Czechoslovakia, and democratic political reform began.