The Nation’s Memory Institute (ÚPN) is one of the youngest memory institutions in Slovakia. It was founded according to the Nation's Memory Act (2002) with the aim “to disclose the activity of repressive authorities, which was kept in secrecy, in the period of non-freedom 1939–1989, to establish responsibility for subduing our Mother Country, murdering, enslaving, committing robberies and degrading others, the moral and economic decline accompanied by judicial crimes and terror against those of different opinions, the destruction of traditional principles of property rights, the misuse of upbringing, education, science and culture for political and ideological purposes,” as well as “to rectify the wrongdoings to all those who suffered damage caused by a State, which violated human rights and its own laws.”

The indirect predecessor of the Nation’s Memory Institute (ÚPN) was the Department of Documentation of the Crimes of Communism established at the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic by Ján Čarnogurský, the Minister of Justice, in December 1999. It collected and analysed documents on the activities of the Communist regime and its crimes. The department was also dedicated to the activities of dissenters and forms of anti-Communist resistance. However, due to its low number of staff and insufficient authority to carry out all its activities, it mostly performed advisory services regarding the compensation procedure and initiated a review for the so-called residual punishments, i.e. cases still pending after the closing of rehabilitation proceedings. This department could hardly meet the considerations of an institution compared with those already existing in other countries of the former Soviet bloc (precisely in Germany and Poland). Although the effort to establish such an institution persisted throughout the entire period since the fall of Communist totality in November 1989, the political will in society for this step triggered yet in 2002.

The Nation’s Memory Institute was founded on 28th September 2002, after passing Act No. 553/2002 Coll. on Disclosure of Documents Regarding the Activity of Security Authorities of the State During the Period 1939–1989 and on Founding the Nation’s Memory Institute (Nation’s Memory Act). The author of the law was Ján Langoš, who was inspired by foreign models when preparing the wording. On 10th July 2002, the National Council approved the Nation’s Memory Act for the first time and subsequently outvoted the presidential veto on 19th August 2002. The Nation’s Memory Institute started its activities in May 2003. Ján Langoš became the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nation’s Memory Institute as he was appointed by the National Council of the Slovak Republic on 1st May 2003. All members of the Board of Directors were appointed and elected until July 2003.

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