Fascist-Axis Slovakia’s spiritual Polis Politicus: transformation of Ružomberok to the ‘capital of the movement’ under the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party Rule (1938–1945)

Abstract

ABSTRACT After the events of autumn 1938, the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana; HSĽS) engaged in mythmaking to legitimize its regime in people's eyes. This included making a legend about the ‘capital of the movement’, a city linked to the party’s political struggle leading to ‘ultimate victory’. Ružomberok was naturally chosen, where chairman Andrej Hlinka lived and worked as a priest, and the party’s influential Ružomberok group came from. Using a creative destruction lens, this study follows the transformation of Ružomberok’s image from a provincial, politically insignificant town to the Slovak State’s spiritual metropolis and fascist Neueuropa’s progressive model city. We focus on the dynamics of reshaping: from initial plans, unimplemented reconstruction projects to politically motivated interventions in the public space to remodel Ružomberok corresponding to the new national ideology into a polis politicus highlighting the new aesthetics and values. Finally, we analyse political iconoclasm’s specific manifestations based on examples of political interference in architecture. We also reflect on the collapse of the old, ‘decadent’ to the construction of the new, ‘progressive’ on a societal level as targeted attempts by political elites to prove their system’s vitality through modernization compared to its predecessors.