Matice Slovenská

a Slovak cultural and educational society. Founded Aug. 4, 1863, in Turčianský Svätý Martin and modeled after Matica Srpska. The task of the society was to spread education among the masses and to aid the development of Slovak literature, art, and science. From 1864 to 1875, Matice Slovenská published the journal Letopis Matice slovenskej. The society established a museum (1868), in which monuments of Slovak material and spiritual culture were collected for the first time. In 1875, Matice Slovenská was liquidated by order of the Hungarian authorities. It was reestablished on Aug. 5, 1919. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Matice Slovenská continues to perform important scientific work (it has an institute of book science), as well as bibliographic, publishing, and methodological work. The literary archive of Matice Slovenská, which contains Slovak manuscripts of the 15th to 20th centuries, is of considerable value.