The stamp commemorates the 150.th anniversary of the Slovak nation's first autonomous body of political representation, which came into existence in the revolution of 1848-49. It was at the beginning of 1848 that in the then Hungary, as in the majority of European countries, a revolution broke out which would abolish feudal privileges and usher in a bourgeois society. However, the Hungarian revolutionary government, headed by Lajos Kossuth, refused to grant equality to the nationalities within the country, and the Slovak's revolutionary programme (known as the Petition of the Slovak Nation) was met with repressive measures against the nation's leaders. This in turn provoked the formation, in September 1848, of a Slovak National Council under Jozef Miloslav Hurban, Ľudovít Štúr and Michal Miloslav Hodža, which on the 19th of that month announced the independence of Slovakia from the government in Budapest and began an armed uprising for national liberation and self-determination. In three military campaigns and through political activity the Slovak National Council endeavoured in the years 1848-49 to secure for the Slovaks an equal standing in the family of European nations. The quashing of the revolution would signal an end to such endeavours for a considerable time to come. The stamp features stylised renderings of the Slovak insurgents. The tab recalls the formation of the Slovak National Council - the first national political body and the guiding spirit of today's Parliament - with a depiction of the Council's historical seal. The FDC illustrates a ceremonial assembly of the Slovak Volunteer Corps (in effect the first Slovak army) in November 1849 in Námestie Slobody (lit: Freedom Square) in Bratislava.