Demands of the Slovak Nation


The Demands of the Slovak Nation was a manifesto issued by Slovak nationalists during the revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. It was prompted by the nationalists' realisation that the Hungarian government would not heed the calls of Ľudovít Štúr for the establishment of public regional assemblies and the acceptance of a Slovak petition at a national assembly.
On 10 May 1848, thirty members of Stúr's circle of nationalist activists met in Liptószentmiklós, at the initiative of Štefan Marko Daxner and Ján Francisci. They drew up a list of fourteen demands which included:
The nationalists rejected the way that Hungary was run as a centralised state under ethnic Hungarian supremacy and sought to establish Slovak autonomy within a reformed state. Some of their demands, such as their call for universal manhood suffrage, were unusually radical for their era and location.
The demands were the first public call to make the area then known as Upper Hungary a distinct political entity. They were proclaimed on 11 May but were poorly received. The assembly at which they were issued was ill-attended and before they could be delivered to Ferdinand I, the King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria, the Hungarian government declared that the demands were an illegal, unconstitutional and pan-Slavic act.
Štúr and his associates Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Michal Miloslav Hodža were targeted with arrest warrants issued the day after the proclamation was issued. Several of those involved with the proclamation were imprisoned and the government declared martial law in Upper Hungary. Štúr, Hurban and Hodža subsequently adopted a more radical approach; a few months later they established the Slovak National Council and launched an ultimately unsuccessful armed rebellion against the Hungarian government.