institutionalization of science

The study deals with the institutionalization and subsequent development of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts during the existence of Slovak state (1939 – 1945). It introduces the main actors of this process and their activities aimed at the creation of a central institution for the coordination of scientific research in Slovakia. The plans for the Slovak Academy have its roots in the changes in the scientific community after the dissolution of Czechoslovak Republic in 1939.

Scholar activities within the Slovak national-scientific society before 1918 are often characterized as amateurish and rather enthusiastic. This evaluation is quite right while one of main reasons is to be seen in an absence of any institutional background, inevitable for professionalization as well as specialization of individual scientific activities of the Slovak intellectual elite.