Although many streets across Slovakia are named after controversial figures, the one in the village of Varín, Žilina Region, has been particularly contentious.
One of its streets was named after Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest and president of the clerical-nationalist Slovak State, who collaborated with Hitler and was responsible for sending tens of thousands of Slovak Jews to their deaths during WWII.
Dr Jozef Tiso Street was approved by councillors in 1993, but no one in the village knows why or who prompted the change, as the street originally bore the name of a hero of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP). The street will no longer carry Tiso’s name. With nine out of ten councillors in favour, it will be renamed Mons. Jozef Noga Street.
Jozef Noga was a priest and Papal prelate born in the village.
For many years, Varín resisted pressure to change the name. When a Sme daily reporter spoke to residents in 2020, most locals refused to discuss the street. Either it did not bother them, or they simply did not care what its name was.
Two years ago, a referendum was held to decide whether to change the name, but the turnout was only 47.13 percent of registered voters. Only 360 voted in favour of the change, while 1,053 inhabitants voted against.
Lenka Ticháková, a local councillor from Varín, has long been the sole council member campaigning for the change. By her own admission, she was ashamed of the street’s name.
However, in May 2022, General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka proposed removing Tiso’s name, arguing that it violated the law. The Varín council did not comply and instead voted to retain the name of the wartime president and convicted war criminal. Only one councillor—Lenka Ticháková—voted against this decision. As a result, Žilinka filed a lawsuit in the Regional Court in Žilina in September of that year.
In June this year, the Banská Bystrica Administrative Court ruled in Žilinka’s favour, giving the Varín council six months to change the street’s name.
