"So I got home and I said based on how we talked about it, I told them thank you but I won't join that party. Well, it's like, it's such a coincidence of life that I did it with the possibility that I won't be the head of the studio. I'm not much of a hero, but I did it with that in mind. And suddenly it happened that November 1989 came. I was not alone, I think about four others from the Stavoprojekt received this offer and they accepted it. I even still remember that someone spread the idea that I was in Prague at the beginning of November, so I definitely knew in advance what was going to happen. So it's like today's hoaxes, so they were back then. In short, it was basically my decision, or our family decision, so everyone was reconciled with it, that even if something had happened and it hadn't happened in November, it wouldn't have been a family problem that I didn't join."
"And that's when the discussions started. Well, at that time there was also such a thing that Piešťany was, as it were, not the best relations with Trnava, and a large part of the people in Piešťany somehow felt closer, that they would like to belong to the Trenčín region. Well, it happened that actually in 1991 I was an advisor to the mayor at the time and such an initiative was created in the central Považia region, where the mayors of Trenčín, Nova Dubnica, Bánovce nad Bebravou, Nové mesto, and Trenčianske Teplice met and created such an association. And the city of Piešťany came there for that meeting, me and the mayor. And that's where the discussions on this topic started, which actually grew to the point that then the discussion started already during Mečiar's government, already after the elections, that Mečiar originally wanted to make only seven regions and that Trenčín should not be independent but should belong to Žilina region. And then this group of these mayors, who later formed the basis of the Club of Mayors (later the Union of Slovak Cities as a voluntary interest association of cities founded on April 29, 1994, editor's note), which was founded in 1992, wanted Trenčín to become an independent region or county (at that time they still called it a region) but actually at that time there was only such a comprehensive document in the world, which was still developed by the team around Marián Minarovič in 1990 and 1991, the so-called County variant of the alternative proposal of territorial division on the county variant. So it was not the application of the original counties, but on the county principle as a county - a natural region. And that was one of the three proposals that the government commissioned to make in the nineties. Of these, two were governmental and one parliamentary, and this was the parliamentary county one, and Marián Minarovič, an academic painter, was in charge and coordinated it. Unfortunately, he already died a few years ago. Now he has an exhibition at Slovak Radio, a few graphics, because he was originally a graphic artist. And top people worked there, professors Žúdela, Sokolovský and urban planners and so on, in short, it was the most refined and even then, when they were assessed, they chose that this one was the most refined and should form the basis for further preparation, the next steps of implementation to change it territorial arrangement."
“That childhood was so nice and our parents created relatively peaceful conditions for us, also by not burdening us or not wanting to burden us with the past that they experienced, they didn't want to pass it on to the next generations, so they kind of made it easier for us. And at the same time, you had to gradually form that opinion by yourself. When it is inherited or when it is lived from an early age in some environment that talks about it and so on, of course it is different than when you gradually realize maybe in five, ten years that if I were to ask something else, or knew more, so maybe I would have behaved differently. So, actually, with what I did in the next period, which I didn't even know at the time, I was actually catching up in retrospect. So I was actually aware of some things. At the time, my parents considered the whole thing quite counterproductive. Nothing would have helped at the time. It was certainly not easy for them, I also found some letters where some acquaintances wrote to my mother saying that she shouldn't be sad and that she was having a hard time, and so on, in short, it was probably difficult times for them, as I am now..., I'm just inferring that basically. So that's probably why they didn't want to talk about it."
"I remember, it was in the sixty-seventh-eighth year, somehow I was even in such a Slovak national team. We were supposed to go swimming in Vienna. I had to go to an interview with the principal of the high school, that I am going to the west and then when we come back after three days, or how long we were there, that I have to come again and say what happened there and so on. In short, many people have probably experienced it, such pranks. So I had to come to that school with my father to the principal's office. And so, of course, what happened, I just bought records there for shillings on Mariahilfer Straße.'
Viktor Nižňanský was born on April 25, 1953 in Piešťany. In 1976, he finished studying economics and management at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Slovak University of Technology (STU) in Bratislava.
After graduating from university, he got a job at Stavoprojekt Piešťany in the urban planning studio, where he worked for ten years. Since 1986, he worked at the Office of the Chief Architect of the city of Piešťany.
After less than three years, employees and former colleagues from Stavoprojekt approached him with an offer to return and become the head of the studio. Viktor agreed, and on January 1, 1989, he joined his original workplace. In 1990 and 1991, together with other experts, he created a working group and elaborated a strategy for the economic development of Piešťany. After the first free municipal elections, he worked as an adviser to the mayor of Piešťany from 1991. In 1991-1992, he was a founding member of the Rotary International club in Piešťany. In 1994, he joined the Democratic Party and later became a member of its Advisory Board.
Since 1997, he has been a member of M.E.S.A.10. During the years 1999 – 2001, he was the representative of the Slovak government for the reform of public administration, and in the years 2003 – 2006, he acted as the representative of the Slovak government for the decentralization of public administration.
In the years 2010-2012, he held the position of head of the office of Prime Minister Iveta Radičová. On January 1, 2023, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Slovak Republic, President Zuzana Čaputová awarded Viktor the 2nd Class Ľudovít Štúr Order for extraordinary merits for the development of the Slovak Republic in the field of territorial self-government.
Awarding of the state award of the 2nd Class Ľudovít Štúr Order, for extraordinary merits for the development of the Slovak Republic in the area of territorial self-government (January 1, 2023)
Awarding of the state award of the 2nd Class Ľudovít Štúr Order, for extraordinary merits for the development of the Slovak Republic in the area of territorial self-government (January 1, 2023)
