The National Memory Institute () is a Slovak public institution that holds the police records of the fascist

Slovak Republic Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's ...

and communist

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, (Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak: ''Československá socialistická republika'', ČSSR) known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic (''Československá republika)'', Fourth Czecho ...

regimes that ruled Slovakia during the twentieth century. The institute also promotes research into these periods of Slovak history and educates the general public of this history. It publishes a journal, ''Pamäť národa'', which is currently edited by . The founder of the institute was

Ján Langoš Ján Langoš (2 August 1946, in Banská Bystrica – 15 June 2006, in Drienovec) was a Slovak politician associated with the Slovakia Democratic Party. He was one of the key dissidents during the era of Communist Czechoslovakia. He served as a ...

, who served as director until his death in a car crash in 2006.

See

The Institute had 7 sees since its establishment, currently located at Miletičova Street 19 in Bratislava. In December 2021 it was announced that by 2026, the Institute should relocate to newly modernised and reconstructed buildings at Krížna Street in Bratislava, where a library and an exposition were to be opened to the public.

Controversy

One of the institution's staff historians, Martin Lacko, was fired in 2016 for promoting the First Slovak Republic.

Academic opinion

James Mace Ward commented that the National Memory Institute "has done a brisk trade in publications on the

, much of this scholarship being of high quality. Yet the focus on the state seems disproportionate, as the institute’s archive has few relevant holdings". Political scientist

Jelena Subotić Jelena Subotić is a political scientist. She is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is known for her research on memory politics, human rights, and transitional justice. She has expertise in the politics o ...

states that after Langoš's death, "The Institute’s main goal became the delegitimization of Slovakia’s communist regime, achieved by grouping it together with fascism while making a case that communist dictatorship was, in fact, worse."

See

Controversy

Academic opinion

See also

References

Further reading