NEWS

Join Friends of Slovakia (FOS) at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a momentous Economic Summit on Thursday and Friday, May 2-3, 2024. This unique forum, co-organized by the FOS, will bring together delegations from the USA, Czech Republic, and Slovakia to discuss the consequences of modern […]

The spring of 2004 was momentous in the history of independent Slovakia. On May 1st of that year, the country joined the EU. Coming as it did less than five weeks after Slovakia joined NATO, this marked the culmination of a long process that was highly uncertain in the 1990s. A decade later, we can now reflect on what enabled Slovakia to join these European and trans- Atlantic structures, and how the subsequent integration has fared.

John Palka, scion of one of the most distinguished families in the history of Slovakia, has written a masterful account of Slovakia’s history. The Hodža and Palka families played a significant role in Slovakia’s history. John Palka’s mother was the daughter of Milan Hodža, the last prime minister of interwar Czechoslovakia. Mr. Palka attended the […]