The National Memory Institute ( sk, Ústav pamäti národa) is a Slovak public institution that holds the police records of the fascist Slovak State and communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 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 Democratic Party. He was one of the key dissidents during the era of Communist Czechoslovakia. He served as a minister 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 the 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, , was fired in 2016 for promoting the Slovak State.

Academic opinion

James Mace Ward ''Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia'' (2013) is a scholarly biography Jozef Tiso Jozef Gašpar Tiso (; hu, Tiszó József; 13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovak politician and Roman C ...

commented that the National Memory Institute "has done a brisk trade in publications on the Slovak state, 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 ...

states that after Langoš' 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

References

Further reading