These articles were published in the Spectacular Slovakia travel guide, published annually by The Slovak Spectator since 1996. The latest editions can be obtained from our online shop.

Uhrovec

One very important house

	photo: Jan Svrcek

A writer, teacher, politician and revolutionary, Stur is the ultimate Slovak hero. He rallied Slovaks in the 19th century in their struggle for self-determination, codified the Slovak language, and “established the foundations of modern Slovak culture”, writes the Beliana Slovakia and the Slovaks encyclopaedia. “Stur influenced the activities and orientation of his generation to such an extent that it was named after him - Stur’s followers.”

In 1849 Stur called for the separation of Slovakia from the Hungarian Kingdom. While this demand won him legions of Slovak followers, it also branded him a troublemaker in the eyes of the Hungarian royalty. He was forced to live out the rest of his life under police observation in Modra, and died seven years later while deer hunting.

As for Dubcek, he is the most internationally acclaimed Slovak of all time. Dubcek captured the world’s attention with his attempts to institute ‘Socialism with a Human Face’, a budding pro-reform movement in Czechoslovakia which was ultimately crushed by invading Warsaw Pact troops in the 1968 Prague Spring.

The defeat of the movement cost Dubcek and the country dearly. The regime of Slovak Gustav Husak, and his repressive policy of ‘normalisation’, took over. Prague Spring collaborators and supporters - and their ideals - were pushed underground. The intelligentsia who led the movement were removed from influential posts and spent the next 20 years as common labourers sweeping streets or selling fruit. Some 150,000 fled for the West.

The Czechoslovak president during the turmoil was the ageing Ludvik Svoboda. After the occupation, he was reportedly prone to wandering the Prague Castle grounds asking passers-by: “Where is Dubcek?” The aforementioned Husak soon replaced him.

Dubcek visited his birthplace a year after the Prague Spring to find the house he had been born in turned into a Stur memorial (guides were not allowed to mention Dubcek during tours of the home for the remaining Communist years). On his visit, he signed the visitors’ book with the following words: “Memories of the great Stur and his friends, and of Uhrovec in revolt, are always a great comfort to me in my work, and also in my misfortunes.”

In 1990, a year after Communism fell, he returned to Uhrovec and logged a new entry: “Only movements and currents of thought that originate from the eternal desire of nations and man for freedom, democracy, progress and social justice can prevail.”

Two years later, Dubcek died in a tragic car accident in western Slovakia. Injured when his chauffeured car drove off a road in September 1992 - a suspicious event that many Slovaks believe involved foul play as his driver was unharmed - he died two months later.

But his legacy lives on. The Czech president, Vaclav Havel, who with Dubcek was one of the main leaders of the Prague Spring movement, spoke before the French senate in 1998, saying: “It was a strange experience, it was an intense experience, and it was hard not to be affected and fascinated by it. What was important about the events of 1968 was that immediately after the occupation, people - to their own surprise - did not forget their civic and national self-awareness, the feeling of pride and self-determination. The country was under military occupation, the country’s leaders were backing off, but civil society managed to mobilise itself.”

- Chris Togneri

See also:

• The millennium's 10 most important Slovaks (Spectacular Slovakia 2001)
• Uhrovec (Spectacular Slovakia 2001)

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