Controversial campaigns in southern Slovakia use opposing national symbols to promote education agendas

Far-right Slovak Revival Movement and the Hungarian Rákóczi Association have launched competing campaigns in southern Slovakia that provocatively appropriate each other's national symbols. The Slovak group uses the image of Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth to recruit children to Slovak-language schools, while the Hungarian organization has co-opted Slovak national hero Ľudovít Štúr for their own educational promotion. The campaigns target Slovakia's ethnically mixed southern regions, where tensions between the Slovak majority and Hungarian minority have historically centered on language rights and education access. Both organizations are using the opposing side's revered historical figures in an apparent attempt to grab attention and advance their respective nationalist agendas in the sensitive area of minority education rights.