ABSTRACT

The real aim of the national movement was to survive and make gradual gains. Continuing economic and social development in Slovakia pushed in the same direction. Of more than 6,000 public officials working in Slovakia in 1910, only about 150 could be classified as Slovaks, a mere 2.5 percent. Of the industrial capital invested in Slovakia in 1910 only 1 percent was Slovak-owned. Some thousands of Slovaks found their way to Budapest, fast becoming a large industrial and population centre; but their contribution to solving the work problem in Slovakia was slight. Industry, of course, provided much new employment. The Slovaks in America, more nationalist than the Slovaks at home, were enabled, with the restrictions the Magyars imposed on Slovakia, to influence their brethren towards more radical views than might otherwise have been the case. However, the most important group of outsiders to whom the Slovaks were driven for succour were the Czechs.