Each historical milestone ends one epoch and starts another one. The historical events taking place in the Slovak territory between 1918 and 1919 are an example of this phenomenon. Their significance and importance were explained by the lecture series and the opening of the exhibition entitled The Fights for Slovakia in 1919 and the French Military Mission. The organizers of the event were the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, the Eastern Slovak Museum Košice (cultural facility of the Košice Self-Governing Region); the Military History Institute, Bratislava; the Ministry of Interior of the SR; the State Archives in Košice, and the State Scientific Library in Košice. The event was also supported by the Ministry of Culture of the SR and the Košice Self-Governing Region. The lecture series and the exhibition took place on Tuesday 21 May 2019 under the auspices of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Republic in France based in Paris, Igor Slobodník and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France in the Slovak Republic based in Bratislava, Christoph Léonzi.
The lecture series did not concentrate only on the French Military Mission, but they also introduced other important events from 1918 – 1919. The lectures took place in the Historical Hall of the Rectorate of the UPJŠ in Košice, and the lecturers were E. Boisserie from the INALCO Paris, Š. Šutaj from the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, and M. Čaplovič from the Military History Institute in Bratislava
The Fights for Slovakia in 1919 and the French Military Mission exhibition was opened in order to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the territory of Slovakia into a state, in which Slovaks first engaged in the position of a state-forming nation. Its role is to commemorate the uneasy struggle for a common state and to highlight the often overlooked share of the French Military Mission in the successful establishment of the Czech-Slovak state power in Slovakia. The opening of the exhibition took place on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, at 3 pm in the Eastern Slovak Museum Košice on the Peace Marathon Square, and it is available until 4 August 2019.
