Why did some Slovak political leaders demand greater autonomy within Czechoslovakia?

Some Slovak political leaders, most notably Andrej Hlinka and his Slovak People’s Party, demanded greater autonomy within Czechoslovakia primarily due to their dissatisfaction with the centralizing efforts of the government in Prague.12

Key factors driving these demands included:

• Broken Promises: Hlinka argued that the Czechs had failed to honor the autonomy allegedly promised to Slovaks in the Pittsburgh Convention (or Pittsburgh Agreement) of 1918.1
• Disparate Experiences: While Czechs and Slovaks shared cultural and linguistic affinities, they brought vastly different experiences to the new state. The Czechs possessed a long history of statehood and were more urbanized, industrialized, and secularized, whereas Slovakia had been under Hungarian rule for nearly 1,000 years and lacked a tradition as a separate geopolitical unit.342
• Opposition to Centralism: The Slovak Populists viewed the government's trend toward centralism as a threat to Slovak identity and interests, leading them to consistently advocate for a more decentralized administrative structure.2

These tensions persisted throughout the 1920s and 1930s, occasionally leading the Slovak People's Party into opposition against the central government.12