The aim of the paper is to examine the political changes in Slovakia in the second half of the 20th century and their impact on historical-educational research and community of historians in a broader Eastern European context. Czechoslovakia became the part of the former Eastern European bloc in 1948 and was separated from other countries. As a result, the community of historians of education was reliant solely on itself, and due to the influence of the political ideology of Marxism-Leninism, it could use only the method of historical materialism. Outcomes of the historical-educational research were misrepresented and inapplicable, and the community of historians of education practically did not exist at the end of the 1980s. 1989, the year of the fall of Communism, brought hope for democratic changes in the society, hope for gradual purification of the field of history of education, and establishment of a scientific community of historians of education and their involvement in broader European space. The aim of this paper is 1) to identify political background in the Eastern Europe after the Second World War; 2) to point out the development and changes of the academic discipline of history of education, community of historians of education and historical-educational research in Slovakia after the Communist coup in 1948; 3) to identify the political background and political changes after the fall of Communism in 1989 and their influence on the area of history of education; and 4) to point out current problems, possible foundations and direction in this field in the Slovak as well as broader European context. The paper focuses on an analysis of the period’s legislation and source literature, making use of the authors’ previous research, too. [Note 1.]: This paper is supported by the contract of VEGA No. 1//0106/20 Freedom versus Unfreedom in Education in Slovakia in 1948 – 1989 (2020-2023). [Noter 2.]: In this work, we used outputs of our research, which was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract VEGA No. 1/0038/17 Educational Thinking, Educational System and Education in Slovakia from 1945 to 1989 (2017-2019).

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