Institute of History
Topic
Confessional Motifs in Slovak Nationalist Discourse and Political Mobilisation (1860–1918)
PhD. program
Slovak History
Year of admission
2026
Name of the supervisor
Ladislav Vörös, PhD.
Contact:
Receiving school
Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava
Annotation
The doctoral project focuses on the study of religious (confessional) motifs in Slovak nationalist discourse in connection with processes of political socialisation and the mobilisation of the population in the territory of present-day Slovakia during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The research will concentrate on selected events and phenomena—such as state policies in the fields of education and childcare (the introduction of Hungarian as the language of instruction, preschool education, adoption campaigns targeting Slovak children), the introduction of civil marriage and state registries, and the regulation of child upbringing in confessional mixed marriages—which representatives of the Slovak national movement perceived and interpreted primarily through the lens of national and religious oppression of Slovaks by the Hungarian state authorities.
The project will focus on discourse analysis while simultaneously examining the institutional frameworks of social practice related to the production and reception of this discourse. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between elite discourse and local reception, including the activities of confessionally grounded associations, manifestations of “popular” protest and resistance to state policies, as well as the local-level implementation of laws and regulations.
Special emphasis will be placed on the ways in which confessional affiliation shaped processes of political mobilisation and identification in relation to state authority, the Slovak national movement, and competing ideological currents during the period of the emergence of mass politics.
During the first semester, further specification of the thematic and regional focus of the dissertation project is anticipated.
The first two semesters of the doctoral programme will include a systematic study of theories of political socialisation, nationalism, and mass political mobilisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as methodological approaches in social and cultural history and discourse analysis.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research agenda on confessionalization and politicisation in the long nineteenth century and offers integration into ongoing grant-funded research at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak or Czech, Hungarian, and English (minimum level B2); knowledge of German is an advantage.
The project will focus on discourse analysis while simultaneously examining the institutional frameworks of social practice related to the production and reception of this discourse. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between elite discourse and local reception, including the activities of confessionally grounded associations, manifestations of “popular” protest and resistance to state policies, as well as the local-level implementation of laws and regulations.
Special emphasis will be placed on the ways in which confessional affiliation shaped processes of political mobilisation and identification in relation to state authority, the Slovak national movement, and competing ideological currents during the period of the emergence of mass politics.
During the first semester, further specification of the thematic and regional focus of the dissertation project is anticipated.
The first two semesters of the doctoral programme will include a systematic study of theories of political socialisation, nationalism, and mass political mobilisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as methodological approaches in social and cultural history and discourse analysis.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research agenda on confessionalization and politicisation in the long nineteenth century and offers integration into ongoing grant-funded research at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak or Czech, Hungarian, and English (minimum level B2); knowledge of German is an advantage.