Slovak National Party (historical) - SNS in Czechoslovakia/Czecho-Slovakia

SNS in Czechoslovakia/Czecho-Slovakia

During the years of the first Czechoslovak republic, the nationally oriented party was facing an ideology, which did not accept the existence of a Slovak nation, only a Slovak branch of one Czechoslovak nation - Czechoslovakism. The ideology was supported by a majority of the relevant Czechoslovak political parties and by the President Tomáš Masaryk. SNS not only demanded an acceptation of the Slovak nation's existence, but also a political autonomy for Slovakia.

On 1 January 1919, the Matica slovenská was reopened. On 11 January 1920, the SNS merged with the Slovak Agrarians. The new name of the party was Slovak National and Farmers' Party (Slovenská národná a roľnícka strana). The National Assembly elections in April 1920 brought the party 242,045 votes, which made it the second strongest party in Slovakia (after the Czechoslovak Social Democrats). In 1922, the Agrarians left the party and merged with the Czech Agrarians into the Republican Party of Agricultural and Smallholder People. The nationalist wing returned to its original name Slovak National Party.

In 1922, the SNS demanded cultural and administrative autonomy in the Memorandum of the SNS. In the 1925 general elections, the party received 35 432 votes and no mandates in the National Assembly. In another election year, 1929, the party participated in the elections as a member of a multi-ethnic coalition of parties (Czechoslovak National Democracy, SNS and an ethnic Russian block), which received 359 547 votes and 15 mandates. Only one mandate belonged to the SNS. On 16 October 1932, leaders of the SNS and the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party Martin Rázus and Andrej Hlinka accepted the Zvolen manifesto, in which they rejected Czechoslovakism. Here they formed an alliance of their parties called the Autonomy Block. A group of SNS members (e.g. M. Daxner, Ján Paulíny-Tóth) didn't agree with this coalition. Until the election in 1935, other political parties also joined the Block. The Autonomy Block succeeded in the parliamentary election: receiving 30.12% of the Slovak votes, it became the winner of the elections in Slovakia.

Slovak autonomy was established in 1938. On 6 October, Hlinka's Slovak People's Party declared it in the Žilina Manifesto. This step was supported also by other parties (including the SNS) on the same day in the Žilina Treaty and then accepted by the government in Prague. On 7 October, the first autonomous Slovak government (led by Jozef Tiso) was named.

The SNS merged with Hlinka's Slovak People's Party – Party of the Slovak National Unity on 15 December 1938 and received no autonomous position in this party. This step was forced by the People's Party and supported only by a group of members around Miloš Vančo. Other members showed their disapproval during the meeting of the Executive Committee on 23 November 1938. However, after further talks with the People's Party, as well as the official stopping of the SNS's activities (by a government body), made the further existence of the party impossible.