Slovak Learned Society (SUS) was established in 1939, shortly after the demise of its predecessor, Šafárik’s Learned Society. Chemist and theologian František Valentín became the first Chairman, while linguist Ľudovít Novák became the General-Secretary. The society was divided in two departments – humanities and natural sciences. The former was led by theologian and philosopher Alexander Spesz together with Secretary, literary critic Andrej Mráz, while the latter was led by doctor and poet František Šubík, better known by his pseudonym of Andrej Žarnov, to whom engineer Anton Bugan was appointed as a Secretary.

An important editing and publishing achievement of the Society is the multiple-volume encyclopaedia Slovenská vlastiveda (Homeland Study). This literary work encompassed all areas of Slovak reality – nature, history, society, language, literature etc. The society also established a number of new scientific journals, among others Linguistica Slovaca, Historica Slovaca or Physiographica Slovaca.

The Society continued the work of its predecessor, Šafárik’s Learned society, of networking Slovak scientists with the foreign ones. The Society in general filled in the gap in the management of Slovak science and to a certain extent prepared the ground for creation of Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts (SAVU), direct predecessor of today’s Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV in Slovak or SAS in English).

After the foundation of SAVU in 1942 the organisation of Slovak science relied mainly on this insitution, but SUS formally didn’t cease to exist until the end of World War II.