The original process of settling down in Romania (in the Banat) is closely related to Slovak inhabitants settling down in the Lower Land, particularly with the “secondary colonization of Slovak villages in the Hungarian Békés County”. With Slovaks moving from Sarvaš and Békéscsaba later followed by Slovak families from Gemer and Honta County the oldest Slovak settlement in Romania Mocrea (once called Apatek) was established. No sooner than at the beginning of the 19th century do we notice further Slovak settlements either in the Banat or elsewhere. It was in 1802-1803 when the first two hundred Slovak families from Slovak Komlóš, Sarvaš, Békéscsaba and Mezőberény settled down in the chamber property in Nadlak after evicting Serbian border guards. The community of local Slovak inhabitants was later enlarged by incomers from Slovak counties, mostly from the Gemer one as well as by a quite large group of Slovaks from Slovak Stomora in the Banat. So in 1806 there were 3 335 Slovaks living in Nadlak and in 1930 even 7 754 of them (in the coming years there were more than 8 000 of them). Slovaks in Nadlak represented a certain ethnic strength so Nadlak soon became the cultural and national centre of Slovaks in Romania (Siracky, J., 1985, p. 104 – 105).
Slovak writers in Romania stayed in connection with the literary life in Slovakia while they also intensively reflected the Romanian literary context. Romanian compatriotic literature therefore has basic features of a lively and dynamic literary organism. Slovak authors in Romania wrote prose, poetry, and literature for children, they dealt with the theory and history of literature, literary criticism and historiography, with journalism, theatre activities and cooperated in preparing textbooks as well.
The first poetic attempts of Slovaks in Romania can be dated back to the second half of the 19th century and they involve the name of Karol Hrdlicka. Although the first works of literature of Slovak authors in Nadlak were published in the interwar period we can call the literature of Slovaks in Romania modern literature only during the last three decades of the previous century when the generation grouped in the Ivan Krasko Literary Club joined the literature. By publishing the first issue of the collection of literature Variácie (Variations) (Bukurešť, 1978), which actually replaced the literary magazine, current Slovak literature in Romania started to be formed. Shortly after Ondrej Stefanko and Ivan Miroslav Ambrus there appeared another group in poetry – the Nadlak group represented by Dagmar Maria Anoca, Adam Suchansky and among younger authors there were Jaromir Novak, Anna Karolina Dovalova and others.
Activities of the Ivan Krasko Literary Club led by Ondrej Stefanko soon gained large dimensions as in the editorial activity and also in the aesthetic quality of literary works of its members and therefore this generation started to be called “the Slovak literary phenomenon of Nadlak”. The works of Ondrej Stefanko and Ivan Miroslav Ambrus went beyond the frame of the Slovak minority and were noticeably reflected also in the Romanian literary context. O. Stefanko, strongly rooted in the Banat flatland, showed in his work “the iconography of Pannonia an archetype“ typical for more Lower Land authors. A poetic mate and co-traveller of O. Stefanko – Ivan Miroslav Ambrus is a bit more lyrical in the process of aesthetic interpretation. Studying the ways of love, family life, beauty and relationship to the land and language through his rich and cultivated way to express his ideas he deeply reflects the pre-basis of the spiritual life of the Lower Land community.