As Slovaks head to the polls to vote in the second round of their country’s presidential election there is more at stake than the appointment of a new head of state. With the opposition and civil society united, Fico’s government could face a serious setback to its plans to capture more of the state.

The victory of Robert Fico and his Smer party in the recent Slovak elections has caused fears that the country may adopt a more pro-Russian foreign policy. Despite such rhetoric during the vote, it is important to remember that Fico remains a pragmatic actor who understands how the game is played.

The race to reach the parliamentary threshold promises to be as nerve-wracking as the race for first place.

A conversation with Samuel Abrahám, Slovak intellectual and editor in chief and publisher of the Slovak journal Kritika & Kontext. Interviewer: Adam Reichardt

ADAM REICHARDT: Despite the fact that Milan Kundera was a well-known writer with some ground-breaking books and essays, he was quite a private person. You knew him personally, how would you describe Kundera, as a person, writer and a colleague?

SAMUEL ABRAHÁM: True, he was a very private person, but whoever knew him, was struck by his humour and joie de vivre. He told us many funny stories about his beginnings in France, often making fun of himself and he managed to catch you in his web of jokes, if unguarded. Above all, it was an amazing picture to see him and his wife Věra, being so close and also intellectual peers and humorous.

In the autumn of 2023 Slovaks will elect a new parliament in an early election. Since March 2023, Smer, the party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has been leading opinion polls and is expected to win the election. What would Fico’s return mean for Slovakia, the region and the rest of Europe?

There was a time when you almost never heard talk of emigration in Slovakia. Just before the pandemic hit, discussion about the big return of Slovaks who had left in the 1990s was still the topic of the day. Not in the summer of 2023. Nowadays, people buying flight tickets for their foreign holidays would more often than not utter the running joke that perhaps they should only take the one-way fare.

An interview with American director Matt Sarnecki, creator of the documentary “The Killing of a Journalist”. Interviewer: Aleksej Tilman.

The war in Ukraine is the latest test Slovakia has had to face since its independence. Despite being vulnerable to Russian disinformation, the country has shown remarkable resilience and unity.

The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be determined by three key actors – Ukraine, Russia and the West. However, all three operate as if they are in different time dimensions. One of the features of this “totally new era” is that clocks are ticking on all sides, but the speed seems different.

Since February 24th, Ukraine has been at the forefront of global media and we have been inundated with both short and long-term predictions about the war as it progresses. It has led to endless analysis, some profound, some superficial, some objective, some ideological, some partisan and much contradictory. We all want to know how this tragic conflict will end, whether Ukraine prevails and remains free or Vladimir Putin’s Russia conquers its neighbour. What would either development mean for the future of the West? What would be the status of the external and internal enemies of liberal democracy that have grown during the last decade and have been somewhat muted since February?

Whilst governments often claim to speak for their countries, the elites that constitute the majority of states’ political systems may take a more balanced approach. This is clear in the Visegrad states, where a recent survey has revealed many nuances regarding foreign policy.

Over the last decade, the natural gas market in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has changed dramatically. Today, we are seeing more cross-border pipeline routes that are bi-directional and the possibility of greater liquified natural gas (LNG) imports. These changes will bring increased economic opportunities for the full market chain under EU rules. Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine are emerging as key players in these developments.

Not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, western policymakers began to think about how to reduce European reliance on Russian hydrocarbon resources by expanding Europe’s alternative sources. Much of the energy diplomacy undertaken since then has focused on building pipeline infrastructure designed to bring new sources of oil and gas to Europe that bypass Russia. Of course, this strategy has seen many large successes, with the development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) perhaps the most notable examples.

It has been over 70 years since the essential banning of the Rusyn identity, and to this day these people are still not fully recognised in all of their home countries.

The developments in Slovakia leading up to 1989 can be interpreted as a belated response to momentous changes in Moscow and, more immediately, in Prague. They could be classified as a “revolution on the periphery” – a phenomenon describing how the wave of change travelled to provinces and distant cities from the centre. Nevertheless these events shaped Slovakia’s development and their interpretation plays a role in politics today.
Looking back now at the precarious post-communist transformation and pondering the turbulent period that we witness today, we might ask to what extent the current condition in Central Europe in general, and Slovakia in particular, were affected by the events of 1989 – that annus mirabilis when the communist regimes of Central Europe fell after four decades in power. Was the current status quo somehow predetermined by the events and developments of that year? Or did the post-communist transformation contain its own dynamics, reflecting the longer-term conditions and political cultures of the countries that now form the Visegrád Group?