The first data on the existence of Valentine's Day as a Western European holiday appeared in Slovakia in the 1870s. In the beginning, they were brought by translations of William Shakespeare's works containing references to Valentine's Day customs. From the middle of the 19th century it was also reported in newspaper articles. "In the 20th century, the source of information about Valentine's Day in Slovakia was also the teaching of English, which included information about the way of life and culture of the inhabitants of Great Britain and the USA," adds Juraj Zajonc from the Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, who has been researching this holiday in Europe and Slovakia since 2011. The massive spread of Valentine's Day to the states of the former socialist bloc began in the last decade of the 20th century after the fall of the communist regimes. Valentine's Day began to enter the holiday calendar of the Slovak population intensively in the early 1990s. "In Slovakia, it spread primarily as a holiday of romantic love of lovers, partner love of lovers, fiancés and spouses. Even then, it was also a celebration of parental and family love, and also a holiday of remembering and strengthening positive interpersonal relationships between friends or colleagues at work," explains the ethnologist. On Sunday, February 12, we commemorated World Marriage Day. According to the 2021 Census of Housing and Housing, married couples are dwindling in the country. Continues Jasmine Stauder spokesperson for the 2021 Census of Population, Housing.
"Over the past 10 years, the proportion of married or remarried people in the Slovak Republic has declined slightly. In 2011, there were 2 214 767 married people living in the Slovak Republic, which represents a share of 41.48%. At the last census in 2021, the number of inhabitants falling under the marital status was 2,182,365 (40.05% of all inhabitants of the Slovak Republic). Thus, the proportion of the married population has declined by 1.43 percentage points over the last 10 years."
Marriages are popular in the Prešov region. In terms of the share of married people to the total population of a given region, during 2021 the highest share of married people was recorded in the Prešov region (42.83%) and the lowest in the Banská Bystrica region (37.29%).
"The situation has changed in the Bratislava region. During the 2011 census, the highest share of married people was 42.59% in the Bratislava region. Today it is only 38.56% of the population who approve of marriage. On the contrary, the dislike for marriage was preserved in the Banská Bystrica region. The share of the married population in the Banska Bystrica region in 2011 was (38.18%) and in 2021 it was (37.29%)."
In the comparison of regional cities, the city of Bratislava has the lowest share of married people (38.14%), on the contrary, the highest share is shown by the city of Prešov (43.10%). Within the regions of the Slovak Republic, since 2011 we have seen an increase in the proportion of married people only in the Prešov region, where the proportion has increased by 1.16 percentage points over the last 10 years. In all other regions of the Slovak Republic we have recorded a decrease in the share of married population compared to 2011. The most significant decrease was recorded in the Bratislava region.
Source: SAV, ŠÚ SR
