The Economy of Southern Slovakia During the Husák Period

Keywords: Southern Slovakia, Dél-Szlovákia, industrial production, normalization, Hungarians in Slovakia

The study deals with a period of two decades in the history of Czechoslovakia, which is also the final period of socialism. This period is known in Czech and Slovak historical science as normalization, but in Hungarian-language literature it is more often referred to as the Husák period. The term normalization is a euphemistic term coined by party propaganda of the period to reintroduce the old order and to abolish basic ideas of economic reform of 1965–68. The reference of Husák period used in Hungarian literature comes from the name of Gustáv Husák (1913–1991), who was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969, and the general secretary from 1971 to 1987, and also served as president of the country between 1975 and 1989, therefore, his name and person were fully intertwined with the period analyzed. Communist ideology was present in all areas of life, including economic management and organization, and also determined development until the last moment of the system’s existence. The ideology was fully able to influence all strata of society as well as all parts of the country. In this study, I outline the economic development of Southern Slovakia using the analysis of industrial output during the normalization period. The work is basically based on the analysis of district-level statistics. In the paper, I would also like to point out how economic development was assessed by Hungarians, who make up a significant part of the region’s population.