ĽUDOVÍT ŠTÚR A SLOVENSKÁ IDENTITA

The goal of this paper includes (1) interpretation of the part of Štúr ´s intellectual world, which is related to justification of the necessity of a literary Slovak language and, (2) related interpretation of today awareness of Slovak identity. Štúr strengthened this awareness at the level of system rationality and decisively contributed to the fact that the self-identification instinct of Slovaks gained a solid rational support and the Slovak identity was cultivated on a convincing intellectual basis. Nowadays, the Slovak identity has already been reproducing naturally. The naturally reproduced awareness of identity as well as the self-identification instinct of Slovaks as the origin of this awareness has been stimulated by an intensive intercultural interaction esp. within the European Union, which is compatible with its cultural strategy aimed at preservation of EU cultural diversity.