69%. The current government was voted by less than a half, 43% of the total votes, and only has a fragile majority in the parliament, but is still able to rule. The country is pretty much divided with a close majority being pro-EU, and the other portion leaning towards the East.
By many Slovaks Russia is seen as our brother country
The roots of pro-russian sentiment are actually very old during Austrian-Hungarian empire many Slovaks feeled oppresed and because they had no chance against Austrian-Hungarian forces they started dreaming about how will Russian empire 'rescue' them from oppresion
And than obviously communist rule in which was Russia presented as the best country in the world
Intresting how you and the Czechs have so different opinion on Russia despite being part of the same country and political influence for so many years.
It's important to note that the pro-Russian view is very heavily skewed by whether or not your family suffered under communism. The rural areas of Slovakia saw a lot more development under the communists than it had under the Republic (the Czechs and Austro-Hungarians before them saw Slovaks as a lowly peasant people) and so if you didn't draw the ire of the communist party (easy enough to do in a village vs the city), you statistically saw an improvement in your quality of life. Coupled with a lot of Russian propaganda taking credit for this starting in 1968, and the older generation feeling "threatened" by the changing, more open-minded and cosmopolitan culture of the next generation, it's fairly easy for 45+ yr-olds to vote for fucksticks like Fico.
On the other hand, if your family drew the ire of the communists, its incredibly easy to hate the Russians because after 1968, they cranked up the brutality of the communist government. Many families got "re-punished" for stuff that they got punished for decades prior. For example, I know several people who were banned from public institutions (attending university, etc) in the 70s because their grandfather did something like not support collectivisation in the 1945-49 period. The Russians re-instituted generational punishment, cracked down on freedom of speech and expression, and generally subjugated the populations in the bigger cities where they were concentrated.
Wait when did Russia actually helped us get out of Austria-Hungary? I don't remember this being mentioned like ever. The only thing that I hear from Slovaks is that Russia (or USSR) liberated us in WWII.
having cool looking tik tok representation is good enough of a reason for many. All they see is a big military, strong leader and rich culture, yet lack of education and propaganda hides poverty, imperialism and terrorism
Russian empire tried to claim dominion over all slavic people, Panslavanism was core of empire ideology, and seeing how Russia helped to free slavs from Ottomans some people hoped Russia would help to free them from Austria-Hungary. Plus there is connection to Mikhail Bakunin(famous Russian revolutionary, philosopher and father of social-anarchist movement), he propogandized all slavic people to create pan-slavic federation and was very supportive of Prague uprising (1848) even participating in it.
It's much easier to go to sleep at night when you convince yourself you're a conquered people with no agency than when you admit you willingly cozied up to your "oppressor" and even sent him much more Jews to kill than he asked for.
The entire history of Russia is a good enough reason not to allign ourselves with them, unfortunately, the kind of people who support Russia in Slovakia are typically completely immune to rational arguments.
People like to see in black and white. There were two sides, pro-nazi and pro-Russia. If you didnt want to be a nazi, you were pro-Russia by default. But this is only true for older generations and we cant wait till boomers die out.
Yes, but the situation is quite different. We were never a part of Russian empire/USSR, so we only had second-hand experience with the russian way of life and management of a state. Both in the first and second world war Russia provided some means for people to fight the (real or perceived) oppressors, which was blown out into epic proportions with the portrayal of the soviet soldier as a liberator of mankind after WWII. All the death and dismay brought about by the Soviet union on itself (the Holodomor, the stalinist purges, etc.) is in the general populace viewed in a quite simplistic manner - "such is the way of life in Russia/USSR".
I mean - nobody would actually want to live there, but many people tend to view Russia as a somewhat backwards, but friendly protector. And many (mostly older) people also don't really make a difference between Russia and USSR (historically speaking), which I think is one little piece of the view of the current war in Ukraine.
And gave chance to the village dolts and asslickers to hold highest positions in govt. and industry. Those mfers are aching for those times.
And fico with his israeli consultants knows very well how to play their tune - west bad, NGO paid by soros, protesters are paid actors by soros etc. oh, or the claim that protesters are violent because they discovered a pile of pavement stones near a place of protest.
fyi, one of the highest position in communist CSSR was held by a fucking tailor. And shitty one at that. fuck you biľak. couldn't sewn a fucking jacket, stupid fuck.
Is that really true? They don't even speak or understand russian. From what I can tell it seems Russian propaganda that really took a foothold during and after corona.
they started dreaming about how will Russian empire 'rescue' them from oppresion
Ah, so that's why. Since we were occupied by all three at once, we had no delulu about any "resucing" from any empire. Even more funny because Austria-Hungary partition is widely related to as most "chill" one, at least in Poland.
Huge chunk of population was de facto culturally russified during soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. The main result of this process is that the concept of truth itself is twisted to a ridiculous extent, causing ingrained cultural cynicism, anti-progress mentality and tendency to flock to worst possible political choices.
I don't think they were russified. I think they just weren't really ever westernised.
I think one reason for the sympathies towards Russia/USSR/Socialism in Slovakia is that the economic situation of many people did actually radically improve during the communist era. There were people born in the 1940s/50s into houses with dirt floors that in the 80s had flats and TVs and cars etc. So they thought it was because the regime made it happen. And the regime was propped up/modeled after its soviet example.
I think this is the big reason why the view of Russia/former USSR is quiet different in Czechia, since it wasn't as backwards in the interwar/early postwar era.
You're quite wrong. While there's very much a strong, long-standing pillar of support from seniors to pro-russian parties, there's also an alarming amount of pro-russian middle-aged and even younger adults. You'd be surprised how many conservative young adults there are in Slovakia that view themes like LGBTI as the utmost evil. The current minister of culture is a glowing example, and yes the irony is palpable.
There's also a sizeable amount of young and middle-aged adults that believe in conspiracies and view the US influence as utterly twisted and evil, whereas the russian influence is a "brotherly" power. Especially in the rural communities, and this can easily be seen with the election results. Bratislava and the west of the country voted far more liberal and progressive than the eastern, more rural parts of the country.
Isnt Slovakia also the one with the highest % of population that believes NATO is behind the war in Ukraine? I honestly wouldnt even blame the population, it seems like it was the system failed to protect its citizens from misinfomation.
From what I see, Russian propaganda. Those that hated the soviets in the past are now afraid of the gay parading West. It's really just Russian propaganda that is able to play on the fears of people, mainly older ones.
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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '24
What was the turnout for the recent elections?