page_title: Matica slovenská
section_title: The second Matica (since 1919)
hierarchical_section_title: Matica slovenská / History / The second Matica (since 1919)
caption_attribution_description: English: Martin - Matica slovenská headquarters This media shows the protected monument with the number 506-574/1 (other) in the Slovak Republic.
context_page_description: The Matica slovenská is Slovakia's scientific and cultural institution focusing on topics around the Slovak nation.
  This all-nation cultural institution of the Slovaks was established in 1863 as a result of the Slovak national efforts to lay the foundations of Slovak science, libraries and museums.
  Nowadays it is governed by the "Act on Matica slovenská" of 1997.
  The anniversary of the 1863 establishment of Matica slovenská on August 4 is locally known as Deň Matice Slovenskej, a Remembrance Day in Slovakia.
context_section_description: The Matica slovenská could not resume its activities until after the dissolution of the Kingdom of Hungary and establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, when the conditions for the national life of the Slovaks improved. On August 5, 1919, it was reopened and rededicated in the presence President Tomáš Masaryk. Matica slovenská played an important role in further development of Slovak culture and scholarship. lt was supported by a wide membership (in 1950, it had 1,125 local branches with more than 100,000 members). Institutional offices were built gradually. Local branches throughout Slovakia were primarily engaged in public education and cultural activities. The Matica also played a significant role in the development of amateur theatre. The Matica founded and operated one of the largest and most significant publishing houses in Slovakia, Neografia, which published scholarly journals, public education literature, classic and contemporary Slovak authors, translations of world literature, and especially supported and enhanced the publishing of literature for children and young people. The Matica established a unique collection of prints, manuscripts and pictures related to the development of Slovak national culture, which became the basis of the Slovak National Library. It also established several research sections (for history, literature, history, linguistics, ethnography, philosophy, sociology, psychology etc.), which publish series of books, journals etc. Before the establishment of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Matica was also the regulator of the Slovak language.
  The establishment of the Communist regime in 1948 initially threatened the existence of the Matica slovenská, since communist ideology, policy and the principles of socialist culture contradicted the principles upon which the Matica slovenská had been established. Local branches were dissolved, its research sections, journals and publishing activities gradually were transferred to other institutions or abolished. According to an act of the Slovak National Council of 1954, the Matica slovenská was reduced to the Slovak National Library and Biographic Institute with a limited role within the fields of librarianship, bibliography and archives. The Matica came under severe ideological and political control of the Communist party and of state organs. Many of the members of its staff were persecuted, discriminated or dismissed. The Communists did not manage to fully uproot the traditions and spirit of the Matica. They were manifested openly in 1963 during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Matica slovenská and culminated in 1968-69 (the Prague spring period) when Matica became a significant cultural and political institution again. An act of the Slovak National Council re-established the local branches, new working places were established and the foundations for a new modern building were laid. After the defeat of the reform movement in Czecho-Slovakia in 1969, the normalization regime almost liquidated the effort to renew the Matica slovenská.
  The collapse of the communist regime in November 1989 brought new environment for the development of Matica slovenská and the possibility for the public to become members has been renewed. In 1993 Matica made an agreement with the authoritarian prime minister of Slovakia Vladimír Mečiar. In exchange for Matica's political support for his political party HZDS, he gave Matica the Neografia publishing house for 1 Slovak crowns, even though Matica was allowed to sell it at any time for over 600 million Slovak crowns. Neografia then started printing among others hard pornography, fascist memoirs of members of clerical separatist Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana or the poetry of war criminal Radovan Karadžić.
  The attitude of Matica and its members during the social and political struggles in Slovakia around 1989 – 1995 was that it supported the ultra-conservative Languages Act, forcing the SNR to sign into law the VPN-version of the Languages Act and Matica also supported the Declaration of Ind
caption: Current seat of Matica slovenská
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