On Monday, Slovakia is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the declaration of its sovereignty adopted by the Slovak national assembly on July 17th in then Czechoslovakia. Fifteen months later, the day became a remembrance day.
Let us realize that in 1992 we as a nation expressed our interest in living in an independent country. This act led to the adoption of the Slovak constitution in September 1992 and later to the foundation of an independent state on January 1st 1993.
said Slovak Prime minister Robert Fico at the celebration of the Declaration of Slovak sovereignty in the village of Stará Bystrica, Žilina region on Sunday. The programme also included the lighting of a bonfire of sovereignty
The bonfire is a part of our history, related to the Slovak national uprising, even to Jánošík and other events and personalities. Let's go back to the beautiful things which we have here. Lighting a bonfire of sovereignty is the best symbol which we can show to the Slovak nation. I am proud of these traditions.
explained the Prime Minister.
After the general election in Czechoslovakia in June 1992, the strongest Slovak party - the Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and the strongest Czech party, the Civic-Democratic party (OSD) led negotiations on the further organisation of the Czechoslovak federation. As TASR wrote, the adoption of the Declaration of Slovak Sovereignty came at a moment when its initiators did not expect any significant changes in negotiations. The then leader of the HZDS Vladimír Mečiar limited the validity of the federal constitution in Slovakia until the Slovak Constitution came into effect, which was signed late in September 1992. According to TASR, in those days Mečiar announced to the citizens of the Czech Republic that the goal of the Slovaks was not and never would be the end of the Czech-Slovak coexistence. The independent Slovak republic was founded on January 1st 1993.
