Changes in the number of Slovaks in Vojvodina in the last half century and the impact on the sustainability of Slovakia's architectural heritage

Researches Review DGTH | 48-1, 29–45 | 2019 ABSTRACT: Slovaks represent an ethnic group which is facing the problem of depopulation. This process is the result of low natural population growth, as well as emigration. In the last three decades, and especially in the last decade, there has been an intensive displacement of the inhabitants of certain ethnic groups who went back to their home countries. The Slovaks began to emigrate in the 1980s, and this process has been intensified in the last ten years. Although the number of Slovaks in Vojvodina has been reduced, this ethnic group manages to preserve its identity through cultural institutions, ethno houses, various events, magazines, books, radio and television shows in their mother tongue. During this period, when the displacement of Slovaks, as well as members of other ethnic groups, became increasingly intensified the importance of the sustainability of the national identity of ethnic groups in these regions was emphasized. Although the economic situation in Serbia is far from ideal, members of national minorities manage to preserve their customs as well as material goods, i.e. the architectural heritage. The Slovaks collected items that had a different purpose and opened ethno houses, i.e. they renovated and protected the houses that were one, two, and more than two centuries old. It seems that today this custom is even more intensified, as the number of Slovaks in Vojvodina is falling at a high rate.