EN
Vavro Srobar entered politics as early as the turn of the 19th century hoping to contribute to an overall advancement of the Slovak nation oppressed in the Hungarian part of Austro-Hungary. He saw a solution to that situation in close contacts between Czechs and Slovaks; therefore, he supported the concept of one common 'Czechoslovak' nation. His political career culminated in the early period of existence of the Czechoslovak Republic. He was then a member of several governments of the new country. As a minister endowed with full administration powers over Slovakia he largely helped incorporate its territory into the Czechoslovak Republic. From the very beginning, however, his concepts were in conflict with those of Milan Hodza, another founder and leader of the Slovak agrarian movement. By 1921, both of them had succeeded in creating two organizations advocating the interests of Slovak peasants. In 1922, the two parties merged with the Agrarian Party, initially Czech, thus creating the nationwide Republican Party of Agrarians and Small Peasants, which was one of the main supports of the parliamentary democratic system in Czechoslovakia until the end of the First Republic.