Slovaks are a Slavic people who make up most of the population of Slovakia. The ancestors of the Slovaks had settled in what is now Slovakia by the A.D. 400’s.
In the 800’s, the Slovaks were part of the Greater Moravian Empire. The Magyars (Hungarians) conquered Slovakia about 900 and ruled the Slovaks for the next 10 centuries. Under Hungarian rule, the Slovaks preserved their own language, but they did not view themselves as a separate people until the 1800’s.
The Hungarians tried to destroy the new Slovak nationalism, and many Slovaks immigrated to the United States. Others worked with another Slavic group, the Czechs, toward the formation of an independent state. The republic of Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918. Most Slovaks had little or no political experience, and the Czechs took control of the new nation. The Slovaks did not gain equal representation in the government until the 1960’s. In 1992, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and the two independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia were created in its place.
