PhD. Topics

Slovak-Hungarian Football Rivalry in Towns of Southern Slovakia during the Interwar Period

Slovak History

2026

Matej Hanula, PhD.

Contact:

Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava

The aim of the PhD thesis will be to examine the dynamic development of football as a new mass phenomenon in the context of Slovak-Hungarian rivalry in towns in southern Slovakia during the First Czechoslovak Republic. During the interwar period, sport, and football in particular, became a factor that helped to shape the national identity of the ethnic Slovak population within the democratic republic. The task for potential applicants will be to comprehensively document football events and their broader political and social context in the ethnically mixed cities of southern Slovakia, where clubs officially declaring themselves to be Slovak (or, in the context of the time, Czechoslovak) and Hungarian competed alongside each other. The Slovak-Hungarian football rivalry was intensified by the organizational structure of football in the interwar republic, where the Czechoslovak Football Association (ČSFA) brought together several national federations, with the most numerous clubs in Slovakia belonging to the Czechoslovak and Hungarian federations. In cities such as Bratislava, Nové Zámky, and Lučenec, clubs affiliated with both the Czechoslovak and Hungarian federations of the ČSFA operated, quickly becoming fierce rivals. These processes will need to be documented based on research of archival materials and a study of contemporary press, considering the methodological approaches of foreign, especially Anglo-Saxon and German-language historiographies. A deeper interest in the history of nationalism and a preliminary orientation in the topic are expected.
Requirements: knowledge of Slovak/Czech language, English language (min B2). Knowledge of Hungarian, German and other world languages is welcomed.