Left to Right: Katarina Csefalvayova, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic; Lucas Parizek, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic; Peter Kmec, Slovak Ambassador to the U.S., ; Tod Sedgwick, former U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia; Vince Obsitnik, former U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia, display the Pittsburgh Agreement document.
During this special anniversary year of 2018, a number of events have been held, most recently in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., commemorating the historical events of 100 years ago. The major event, a gala reception commemorating the ‘Pittsburgh Agreement’ was held on May 31 in Pittsburgh, at the Heinz History Center. It was organized by the Slovak and Czech honorary consuls and the embassies of both countries. Nearly 300 attendees and guests heard from local officials and Czech and Slovak government officials commemorating and interpreting the event that took place 100 years ago in downtown Pittsburgh. There, Prof. Thomas G. Masaryk met with representatives of the Slovak-and Czech-American communities to endorse an agreement that Slovaks and Czechs would support the formation of an independent republic following the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire. From this ‘Pittsburgh Agreement’ and a number of other keys events, the nation of Czecho-Slovakia (or Czechoslovakia) emerged. The resulting nation experienced both a glorious and torturous path within Europe throughout the middle of the 20th century (1918-1992).
The Embassy of the Slovak Republic to the United States and Friends of Slovakia invite you to a lecture and informal discussion with 
Pavol Demeš is a well-known Slovak expert on international relations and civil society, author and photographer. He served in the Slovak government, first at the Ministry of Education and later as Minister of International Relations (1991-92), and then as Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of the Slovak Republic (1993-97). In 1999 he was awarded a six-month public policy research fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. From 2000 until 2010 he was the Director for Central and Eastern Europe of the German Marshall Fund of the United States based in Bratislava. Since then, he has been a non-resident senior fellow with GMF US and board member of the European Endowment for Democracy. In 2011 he was awarded a Medal of Honor from the Friends of Slovakia and in 2017 the Czech and Slovak Transatlantic Award.
Here is an interview of the President and CEO of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, Gail Naughton, by Pavol Demes, former Slovak Minister of International Relations, Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Slovakia and currently Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the German Marshall Fund. CEO Naughton describes some of the exciting programs the NCSML plans going forward including celebrations in 2018 of the Centennial of the creation of an independent nation of Czechs and Slovaks.
