National Minority Identity and the Main Ethno-Identifying Factors of Slovaks Living in the Czech Republic
National Minority Identity and the Main Ethno-Identifying Factors of Slovaks Living in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: Background: The paper describes the formation of the national minority identity and the main ethno-identifying factors of Slovaks living in the Czech Republic. Objectives: We will focus on the identity of this minority and try to answer the question of what their language is, what culture they prefer in their national life, and what their national consciousness is. When examining the aforementioned questions we use primarily the results of extensive sociological researches on the issue of nationality, which have been repeatedly carried out by the Silesian Institute of the Silesian Museum in Opava since the mid-1960s up to the present. Methods: The research was performed using sociological quantitative and qualitative methods, supplemented by historical and statistical analysis. The subject of our interest consisted of Slovaks who lived permanently in the territory of the Czech Republic, and were its citizens. Results: Slovaks in the Czech Republic identified Slovak as their mother tongue, which is most often used when communicating in a family environment with their parents. The use of Czech or bilingual communication increases with their partners, children and in public. Slovaks preserve the signs of their original culture, and are interested in it. They also actively participate in the creation of minority Slovak culture, organize their own cultural events. They are also interested in Czech culture, they are bicultural in this respect. The most important ethno-identification factor is national consciousness. Slovaks living in the Czech Republic have a strong emotional and cultural attachment to Slovakia, to their homeland, or the homeland of their ancestors. Discussion and conclusion: The monitoring of the three most significant ethnoidentification factors shows that Slovaks living in the Czech Republic gradually identified themselves with the minority status and formed their national minority identity. They base their national identity on Slovak sources, consider Slovak as their mother tongue, they are largely bilingual, and a good knowledge of Czech to a certain extent determines their cultural duality (biculturality). Their national consciousness remains Slovak, although they do not attach primary importance to issues of national consciousness, but these are not even at the margin of their interest. Despite the fact that they are in the process of integration into the majority Czech society, they strive to preserve their own Slovak national identity as an element enriching the Czech majority society.

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