In the post-1939 Slovakia, the government adopted several measures to exercise undue control over its citizens and influence their views and opinions. During World War II, a number of censorship decrees were issues which sought to control what information was made public in the press, on the radio and in movies and other artistic productions. This paper examines book censorship during that period, analysing the role of specific institutions which were tasked with excising the undesirable literary production, describing the process of „cleaning up“ libraries and looking at what works and which authors were considered unacceptable by the ruling regime, focusing on the city of Nitra.
Streets and squares on the Slovak territory were repeatedly renamed during the 20th century. Representatives of political regimes were aware the symbolical and ideological importance of public spaces. During WWII the political regime was openly seeking patterns in Nazi Germany. Ruling Hlinka´s Slovak Peoples Party was interested in the purifying of public spaces. Representatives of previous democratic regime of Czechoslovak republic and exponents of democratic ideas became unwanted. Preferred were different historical figures. The result was list of approved personalities whose names were allowed to use while renaming streets and squares.
During the war years 1939 – 1945, films were popular way of spending free time and escaping from everyday reality. They were not only a means of entertainment, thanks to them it was possible to present a specific message to the general public, and they were misused for political, ideological and propaganda purposes. In this period, cinemas showed anti-Semitic films, full of xenophobic ideas, films celebrating the German army and “Aryan ideals”, but also films offering simple entertainment. The financial and creative potential of the Slovak Republic was limited, so the demand for films was supplemented by pictures distributed from abroad. As a result of the political and military situation, German films predominated in Slovakia. Using the example of the town of Nitra, the study presents information about films shown in a middle sized Slovak town, analysing their origin, genre, message and price. It gives information about visits to the cinema as one of the possibilities for spending free time, as well as about efforts to politically exploit them.
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