Univ. Prof. Dr.Matúš Kuèera, DrSc.

There are nations which have no state and states which have no nations. Both types of historic set-up of society are to be found in European and world history. Those nations which have succeeded to establish and moreover to preserve their state dispose with considerably more identity features inward their society but mainly outward – towards their neighbors. If these nations were strong enough, they were able to incorporate into their own state several ethnic and unique communities to such an extent that multinational states were emerging. Central and Southeastern Europe offer numerous examples of such a development.

The Slovaks, an old civilized nation, who have settled down in their own homeland already in the 6th century A.D. have covered in their history both types of historic set-up of society. Already in the 9th century, they laid a sound basis of their own statehood headed by the first ruler Pribina, residing in Nitra, but soon they were incorporated into a common state with the Moravians. This state configuration, which has traditionally been called after the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porfyrogeneta. Great Moravia, had covered the politically vacant region of central Europe but which had ceased in the first decennium of the 10th century after fights with the Franks and an interior crisis. Some nations have succeeded to establish their own states (e.g. the Czechs and the Poles) on the economic, social and organizational Great-Moravian grounds. The Slovaks have become a constituent of the Hungarian state which has been from its beginnings a multinational state.  That fact was praised as an advantage also by the great sovereign Steve I. (“Regnum unius lingue imbecile et fragile est”). The Slovaks had lived their thousand-years´ historical passage and here they had realized their emancipation attempts directed towards the creation of their own state. As it is known the thousand- year dream has become reality only in present-day Europe's favourable democratic incubator and the sovereign and independent Slovak Republic came into existence.

In each society – starting with the family and ending with the nation and state, the question of origin – where are we from, where are our roots – belong to the most interesting ones. Therefore also the citizens of the Slovak Republic must originate their history somewhere, just like other European nations and states did. The clarification of these questions belongs in the democratic world to the questions of positive nationalism for which I prefer to use the Latin notion – patriotism, the love to one's predecessors and kin. It is part of the cultural habit of the society and at the same time of a reasonable state policy in the creation of the historic consciousness of the nation and the state. The interest in these questions culminated in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. The idea that science can clearly and definitely give answers to these questions turned out to be illusory. It was neglected that each generation, especially when it lives big historical changes will always return to these questions because these are important questions ever topical for mankind. Similarly, the citizens of the new Slovak Republic logically raise again the questions of their national community at the turn of the millennium. They raise questions to contemporary science for answers, such as: since when has the country in which they live been settled by their predecessors; how did the historic region look like into which they had built their settlements; where are the graves of predecessors and what culture has remained after them; did they really belong to those European nations which celebrated God in their vernacular and had their own script in the 9th century; is it true that bishopric in Slovakia represented living Christianity earlier than in Strasbourg where we go today to solve questions of our new Europe; what are the historical roots of our present-day language, of literary Slovak? And so on. These are fully legitimate questions raised by each nation, which has exercised its right for self-determination. This is why Slovakia's scientific community is aspiring to present explanations to the raised questions, update old scientific knowledge and add all newly gained by modern research methods to the treasury of knowledge about the beginnings of Slovakia and the Slovaks. The presented collection of papers comprises the contributions at the conference with the same name. Unfortunately it does not contain the extensive discussion which has proved that these are socially live questions and the decision to sponsor the conference by leading politicians and authorities of our country – beginning with President Rudolf Schuster, was appropriate.

Another curiosity can be noticed by the reader of this collection. The most important and oldest generation of Slovak scientists in the field of history, archeology, linguistics, and cultural history are presenting their scientific credo in this collection of papers. On a small and limited space but with a ripe scientific reflection they often formulate their conclusions to the investigated questions after a life-long scientific research work. Thus it seems as if a circle of one big generation of scientists of a Slovak socio-scientific group was closing and as if simultaneously challenging the new generation to step out on a new path of continuity, because science is in its substance genetic. We present our results to the surrounding Central-European and European world in English, which has already become a convenient scientific Esperanto also in European multinational environment. It is for the first time that Slovak science presents a complex view on the national childhood, the beginnings of Christianity, and statehood of their nation in an accessible language. Many of the discussed questions are common for many European nations and states and therefore we welcome every creative scientific discussion which moves knowledge forward. We act in the spirit of modern Europeanism where the nation is not conceited but it conciliatorily observes his neighbours first of all.

Slovakia and its historical space.

History is set in time and space. Of course, only in case these two components are joined by man. Without man real history would not exist. Man is a source of historical movements. He is given the opportunity to choose his way. There is no unchangeable fatal destiny or predetermination, even though some religions think so. Apart from given geographical surroundings where the drama of mankind, humankind, is set we are placed between the past and the present and we are given the opportunity to choose our future. And it is just this choice that makes history humane with its moral dimension; it makes history useful, which enables each individual as well as each generation to understand the meaning of life. Nevertheless, I myself don’t stand for the antique belief that history could function as ”magistra vitae” – the teacher of life. It happens only rarely and for a short time. We become aware of many of the postulates, truths and half-truths about history particularly in a period of great changes and real breakthroughs. The forthcoming turn of millennium justifies looking back as far as to the beginning of the history of Slovakia and the Slovaks.

If we take a scientific look and examine the two factors – space and time, we get to the conclusion that they are very different. Time in our mega world flies and heads for the only direction: from the past to the present or future; never does it head the other way round. It cannot be grasped or controlled. We have only learned to measure it relatively precisely. The very present moment is not the most interesting one from the historical perspective and similarly, isolated dramas and events of the time are not of great historical value. What is valuable in history is especially what has outlasted. The events with long-term effect, that outlive longer than one generation or long lasting epochs are of great importance for historians. This frees history from accidental improvising and enables us to follow wide developmental lines and, if necessary, also repeating experiences. The events the exploration of which became the objective of our conference have the hallmark of the millennium. They take us to the period when still unstable Europe set on the move and the foundations of the present day European states and nations were being laid. For a long time historians have been exploring this eventful period. It started after the turn of calendar and it was called ”the migration of nations”. Our ancestors put an end to this chain of migrations. They started moving from behind the Carpathians and in the period between the 3rd and 5th centuries they settled in Slovakia so definitely that they never moved away completely and we have lived here up to now.(1)  And, therefore, also the ancestors of the Slovaks belong to the pre-nations of contemporary Europe. It would not be sensible to believe in a ”low of blood” when laying the foundations of the new Europe at that time. The complete exchange of the population never occurred. The part of the community that had not left with their tribe gradually immersed in a new settlement community. They exchanged and shared their habits and experiences, innovation of the production and even worship to their common Gods. The mixing of languages and blood brought about the formation of a new Europe after the period of the migration of nations. The more it is necessary to carry on a scientific critical struggle for learning everything that a state and nation should know about their origin. In European history there are states without a nation as well as nations without a state. The Slovaks belong to the latter type and that is why Slovakia and the Slovak nation have only few self-identifying signs. Therefore the deep and wide critical exploration of the sources is of great importance; and Slovak researchers are behind with the exploration. When doing so, it is necessary to get rid of national romanticism developed as far back as in the last century as well as of the useless revisionism of so called eastern or post-socialistic nationalism. They don’t give rise to new trends in European research. The respect for the sources, which was the background of critical research in the 19th century, is a stable and permanent foundation also in the period of postmodernism. ”Ad fontes” prevents a historian and historical study from voluntarism, and utilitarianism. The number of sources of the information on the beginning of Slovak history is increasing every day. Although written sources are on the increase only rarely, excavated sources are becoming more and more plentiful. (2) The task for our Slavonic archaeology is to make dating methods precise and to deepen the historical information value of the sources. At present it is obvious that written and material sources are not mutually replaceable, which is useful knowledge resulting from discussions in recent years.

A historian must respect not only all-round knowledge of basic sources but also other related knowledge. One of the most important components is self-awareness, historical consciousness, which could be characterized as a kind of history in the mind of each individual or the whole community. Just this historical consciousness may be sometimes even more important for the cultural and spiritual dimension of a society than an actual historical event. To develop it the previous system offered an integrated theory of Marxism-Leninism, which was by means of everyday instructions transmitted into people’s minds. After the breakdown of the old system a kind of permanent ideological vacuum developed. A proof of it is the fact that in ten years since the fall of communism Slovak historiography has not offered a new synthesis of the history of the nation and state. (3) On the occasion of our conference I cannot not clamour at least for ”common sense” that orders a historian to make the knowledge accessible to the public who expect it by right. Slovak archaeology unveiled a ”new world” about the origin of Slovakia and the Slovaks. History, which apart from its scientific image cannot lose its ”narrative” character and colourful ”story-telling”, is required to offer a complete picture acceptable to wide society. It should compose the content of history textbooks for primary schools attended by all citizens of our republic. It is a common truth that it has not happened entirely so far. If all aforementioned postulates are directed to the questions of the beginning of our history, many topics appear: What does the myth of our origin say? How is it related to current scientific knowledge? Where are the boundary between the scientific and the non-scientific? Will the scientific study contribute to our historical awareness of the origin of the nation and statehood? Are these questions relevant in relation to the history of neighbouring European nations? The answers to these questions have been searched for in last years more by amateurs and journalists than by professional historians, archaeologists, or philologists. Scientific studies do not try to search for the origin of the Czechoslovak state in the early medieval Slovakia any more. (4) The ideas of ”the great Slovakian” empire have turned naïve as well. (5) Showing little respect for the results of archaeology and mainly the failing of scientific study in the field of Byzantium and Slavistics in our conditions enabled compilers to doubt the place where the statehood started to be formed – i.e. Great Moravia. (6) Therefore it is obvious that these theories fighting for being considered new came to the same situation as Juraj Sklenár, the professor at gymnasium in Bratislava, in the 18th century who then was not able to explain a military invasion of the Carpathian hollow and the region of the central Danube by Turkish-Tatar, Kabar, and Hungarian nomadic tribes in the 10th century; he could not explain the subjugation of the Slovaks. (7) The publicity that was given to these attempts was often rooted in a doubtful nationalism. It should be recommended to all these innovators to read again and again the works of Pavol Jozef Šafárik who as early as in 1837 raised the question of the ethno genesis of the Slovaks. Ever since the scientific study has offered many new sources. However, the basis created by our native of Kobeliarovo remains the stable skeleton of the world Slavistics.  P.J. Šafárik did not answer the basic question completely i.e. where the Slavs came from and how they got to their current settlements. (8) He stayed at a half waypoint between the theory of migration and the theory of the autochthon origin of the Slavs, which was at that time, i.e. the time of strong Hungarization of the Slavs and when Hungarian historiography defended the theory of the Hungarian origin in the old Helen Era below Acropolis, more than socially valid. Also we have to keep in mind that the finds of archaeology, which was at that time just fighting for its position among serious historical branches of study, were not available for Šafárik yet.

The Geographical Position of Slovakia and its Neighbours.

Archaeology and paleolinguistics took great pains to prove the Slavonic origin of people buried in Lusetian ashes fields. (9) However there are no firm scientific proofs. Therefore nowadays when this theory of the origin of the Slavs has been abandoned there are just two great theses left: whether the place of origin of the Slavs was in the North beyond the Carpathians or in the region of the central and lower Danube. For a long time researchers were confused by the monk from a Kiev monastery from the 12th century who had the ambition to answer the question of the Slav’s origin and therefore created a Danubian theory. The theory says that the Slavs had inhabited the region of the central Danube since time immemorial and from there they spread to their current settlements. (10) This opinion again reappeared in a Kiev chronicle twice to become trust worthier. In so doing the monk tried to present himself as a trustworthy witness who was said to have written down the tradition of the Slav’s origin that the Slavs had stuck to already in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries. And even if it appeared that there was not the least evidence to support the tradition presented by the monk Nestor, researchers, especially philologists, again returned to the defense of the autochthon theory at the well-known world congress of Slavistics in Kiev. (11) However, the world’s scientific study keeps on supporting the better elaborated theory of migration according to which our ancestors came from beyond the Carpathians in the period of so called great migration of nations. Slovak historiography is also working hard on gathering the proofs of the way and period when our ancestors populated the area of present Slovakia despite the fact that there would be many reasons to support the theory of autochthony as F.V.Sasinek very vehemently did. (12) The truth is that it occurred gradually in the period between the 3rd and 6th centuries and the settling was so stable and permanent that we have stayed here up to now. The country that our ancestors found here had followed a long historical development. The area of present day Slovakia belonged to the European countries where the process of the hominization of the mankind occurred. (13) The territory was affected by all influential ancient civilizations and what is even of greater importance is that a Neolithic man had prepared the earth for the later development of the most productive branch of production, which considerably influenced the destiny of mankind, for agriculture. It seems that our ancestors on their arrival came across the remains of highly developed Celtic population as well as many German tribes such as the Gepids, Heruls and a part of the Longobards. We don’t know much about them as at that time the Roman literate lost their interest in what was going on at the borders of their Empire and were busy defending world dominating Roman Empire itself. However we didn’t come as a dovelike nation, we had to get into fair fights for our land as well as all European inhabitants at that time. It was confirmed also by Byzantine historians and encyclopedia writers such as Prokopios from Cesarei, who managed to introduce the settlement and ethnic situation in Central Europe at that time in the best way. He traced the Slavs at a wide territory from the Nezider Lake as far as to the region of Northern Greece. (14) Slav’s ancestors were given a beautiful land prepared for life by many previous civilizations from their Gods. However there were also many disadvantages. The impassable Carpathian mountains ranging from the West as far as to the East separated the Slovaks from almost all their Slavonic neighbours namely the Moravians, Silesians, Polish or the Ukrainians. Apart from that there were no natural lowlands in the centre of the country that would homogenize all the inhabitants of the territory. On the contrary, two vast lowlands most suitable for life, West Slovakian and East Slovakian, were not horizontally directly connected; they were connected by a southern route that ran through the territory of present Hungary – from Ostrihom below Bukové forests and the Matra to the region of the Tisa, and Miškovec where Slovak settlements reached far to the South. (15) Therefore the early medieval Slovakia was placed at the edge not at the crossroads of European interests. Soon it was confirmed by the invasion of the Avars who occupied central areas of the Carpathian hollow and they forced the ancestors of the Slavs to move to the northern part of the country. (16) This neighbourhood influenced the development of co-existence for hundred and fifty years. The language, which reflects the acculturation processes most evidently, shows that the Avars did not enrich our civilization horizon very much. However, as many archaeological findings show, in material culture especially as far as clothing, decorations or the imagination of some ideas are concerned the influence is more obvious. (17) The occupation of the southern border of Slovakia by a non-Slavonic element, which renewed again after the invasion of Hungarian tribes two hundred years later even if with some changes, as well as naturally closed borders in the North caused that our ancestors did not need any special names, the original general names for the Slavs – i.e. Slovene, Slovjenin, Slovenka - were sufficient. (18) The phenomenon is almost identical with that of the Slovenes who were originally our neighbours in the present day region of Danube and for who just the identifying name Sloviene was sufficient as they were surrounded by the Bavors. Here the common experience can be applied: nobody gives a name to himself it is given by his neighbours. We have already mentioned the lack of a central hollow or lowland that would speed up the integration processes in Slovakia. On the other hand it is necessary to note that mountains, valleys and hollows protected us from decline. Researchers even between the two wars referred to the early medieval Slovakia as to the country of forests and they admitted old Slovak settlements only in the region of lowlands. (19) The opposite turned to be true. Slovak hollows and valleys with the altitude from 200 to 800 meters rich in waters with their original landscape, temperatures and appropriate climate that was at the beginning of the millennium much more suitable for life than today – all these since time immemorial created good conditions for agricultural production and for the formation of human settlements. (20) These conditions were utilized also by Slovaks’ ancestors and nowadays researches don’t have to point at the forests and countryside but at the cultural country also at the beginning of Slovak history. At the time being when the findings of archaeological exploration and historical sources are connected we can present about 1200 settlements existing until the middle of the 13th century. (21) Just to compare: Today the administrative division of Slovakia consists of three thousand settlements, needless to say that a village as it is referred to today is a product of a later period, i.e. 13th century. An early medieval village as a small group of houses (approximately 20 - 30) surrounded by cultivated and non-cultivated ground is a different organizational-administrative and settling system; to get to know it we still have to carry on much research work. (22) Wars, attacks and harmful invasions spread over lowlands and open country. At that time hollows and valleys became reservoirs of human labour, a kind of demographic store. The Slovaks from mountains and valleys populated lowlands and plains as they headed for fertile black soil. It occurred in the same way as in the settlement history of the Alps and the Pyrenees region where the development may be followed much more precisely and in detail due to wider and older sources. That is why the early medieval Slovakia survived great historical upheavals such as the invasions of the Avars, Hungarians, Tatars, Kumans and later even more than a hundred-year neighbourhood with the Osman Turks without significant economic, social and demographic shocks. It firmly kept the line of historical continuity of the country and its inhabitants. And so ethnically relatively pure core was preserved as a base for the formation of the contemporary Slovak nation enjoying full rights in the map of Europe, which was later formed in spite of unimaginable hard and complicated conditions.

The Roots of State Formation.

It must have been a contact with late Roman traditions in production as well as in the life of communities, that brought about the first attempts to form a Slavonic state in the region of present-day Croatia as well as at the confluence of the central Danube and the Moravia. (23) Due to the work of a French chronicle writer we, as if by chance, learn a bit about one of them and about the king Samo and his Empire. The first real state, which is known in history as Great Moravia, spread in the same area where Samo’s Empire was in the middle of the 7th century. (24)...just its centres were shifted a bit more northwards. (25) From the very beginning it consisted of two distinct parts and this dualism lasted throughout its existence. The eastern centre was formed in Nitra where the first arch presbytery and later bishopric were formed and which was also the place of residence of rulers of almost the whole area of present-day Slovakia. (26) As it is well known, they were Pribina (27), later Svätopluk and before the state came to an end also Svätopluk II. And it is quite possible that also Rastislav, who was undoubtedly raised also in the world of Frank rulers, was waiting for the time of his reign here.

How is Moravia Magna perceived today in the context of Slovak history? Sometimes we show off the gold and silver of the upper class, sometimes we overemphasize Slavonic view based on the language and script, recently the beginning of a kind of ”ecumenism” appeared. However the importance of the state in European dimension is not sufficiently acknowledged. I do not mean only the acknowledgement from the Curia, an attempt to make Svätopluk a European Caesar. I mean the phenomenon of the state; its organization and structure (28) that laid foundations for the great Central European Slavonic Empire that could have been formed under more suitable European constellation as a counterbalance to the West at that time. Economic and social foundations of the state power managed to ingeniously bridge the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the formation of national European states in the 10th-11th centuries. The phenomena that did not disappear after the fall of Moravia Magna but became the basis for the following Czech, Polish and Hungarian states were such as: the system of administration utilized also by the church as its organizational component, servant organization as the economic basis of ruling power - both these phenomena were recognized and scientifically described only recently (29)– as well as the organization of serfdom (30) which existed between classical slavery (31) and free society. And therefore the Slovaks could not get drowned in the multinational Hungarian state as the system they had brought from Moravia Magna formed the foundation of a new Danubian state. It does scientific study credit that this fact was recognized first by linguists (32) and only then by strict historian who afterwards constructed the system from anatomic components and described it. There is one more point connected with Moravia Magna and Slovakia that should be highlighted at least a bit; it is the tradition of state formation. As early as in the 11th – 12th centuries three archetypes of the legend of the great Svätopluk and of the fall of Great Moravia were created in the region of Nitra; (33) they make up the content of folk and religious tales, historical songs sung in market places and pubs as well as sung by singers (iuoculatores) at noble courts. The chronicle writer Anonymus knows about them but purposefully avoids them. He transformed just one of them, namely heroic defense of Nitra people against the troops of old Hungarian tribes. (34)  Also Šimon from Kéza admits that he knows where the last lost fight of great Svätopluk is placed in folk traditions. (35)

For the Slovaks not having their own national state the Great Moravian tradition of state formation remained the only continuous historical tradition that they always turn back to at any upheaval in their history. However, a tradition even if having its stable followers is always unstable. A nation cannot be forced to keep a tradition. In the 18th and 19th century when the Slovaks were forced into the tradition of Hungarian state with the subsidiary position of the Slovaks in it the whole Slovak people refused the tradition through the words of Baltazár Magin and many others. (36) Therefore Július Botto in his work Slovensko a Slováci rejected the whole epoch of Hungarian history, of course, without justification. (37) After the formation of the Czechoslovak republic when the idea appeared that the Slovak nation can be incorporated into the Czechoslovak political nation such a strong resistance developed that eventually the common state as well as both its nations being aware of their sovereignty had to pay for that. At the time being in a new sovereign state, in the Slovak republic, we are again faced with a new task to offer a reasonable explanation of the historical traditions that may become an active component of our social consciousness as well as a driving force of the further progress. The questions of the genesis of state formation, culture and Christianity are traditional questions of European nations. Slovakia as well have their lawful right to look for the roots of their state formation, language, culture, conception of the universe. Historians are faced with the task to offer Slovak citizens a reasonable tradition that does not reject or degrade the historical tradition of Slovak state formation and culture up to now. It is a task for historians and other experts to offer our state and society the tradition that is historically truthful and socially useful.

The Ethno Genesis of the Slovaks and its Problems.

The population of the country called Slovakia has never had problems with its identity. For centuries there has been the awareness that we are a historical nation settled in our country since time immemorial and that in the course of history also other ethnic communities prevailingly from neighbouring countries were coming and settling in our country. Very soon we were able to give them names and as early as in the period of early Middle Ages we managed to adapt their names to the phonetics of the Slovak language; we distinguished the Moravians, Polish, Silesians, Ukrainians (Rosins) and, of course, also Hungarians and Germans. All the processes occurred in natural old differentiating learning: we – they, ours – the others; quite frequently also we, the good – they, the bad; we friends – they enemies. (38) There have always existed simultaneously two kinds of self-consciousness: ethnical and historical. They are not mutually exclusive; it is an advantage for the society if they are organically interconnected. Each generation then gives the following one basic knowledge of their ethnic and historical past. Writing these facts down was never ultimately necessary. Oral message was sufficient providing there was a continuity of a bearer of the consciousness. Ethnic consciousness is closely connected with the language. The Slovaks took over some names of big rivers or mountain ranges from previous ethnic communities. (39) The other toponomasic structures of the country were given names by the Slovaks themselves in their own language. Testimony to that can be found in many various papers and documents written by Latin writers as early as in the 9th century while the number of the documents is increasing with the development of writing and literature. In particular, the description of the landscape and properties since the 12th century is a real well of the foundation of the Slovak language.

Ethnic consciousness requires first of all knowing ethnos (later nation) as a sovereign separated unit. However, it cannot be formed without an elementary historical background, while its quality is not decisive. Myths about its past and mythology about the ancestors are sufficient as a basis for ethnic self-identification. Such a process of the development of ethnic consciousness is quite common and it occurred also with the Slovaks. The ethnic consciousness of the Slovaks has never doubted the reality that we are the first population of this country, that we are a historical nation here, that we are significantly different from all our neighbours whereas it has been emphasized that we together with our Slavonic neighbours are a kind of ”ethnos”, the Slavs. Language similarities only strengthened this fact, which was perceived also by the others. For example when old Hungarian tribes came to the Danubian lowland they gave the ancestors of the Slovaks and Slovenes because of their similar languages the common name ”Tot, Totok”, which in their old language basis meant ”people”, obviously ”people different” from coming old Hungarian tribes the language of whom was full of unknown Turkish expressions. (40) The process of the formation of somebody’s own historical consciousness is different. Historical consciousness may under some conditions eliminate ethnic consciousness or the ethnic element of consciousness. So it may happen that if several ethnics live together in a territory, in the process of the formation of a historical – political unit of state character the historical consciousness of one ethnic (by the rule of a stronger or bigger one) covers that of the others. Usually it occurs in a way that this new ”state consciousness” becomes a dominant historical consciousness for other ethnics with their own ethnic consciousness. To illustrate this I can present the example from our neighbours: When the chronicle writer Peter Žitavský, a German with highly developed ethnic consciousness, wrote about the fight of Charles 4th he expressed his pleasure that: ”Ours have won!”(41) The chronicle writer identified himself with the Czechs, the Czech state but not with the Czech nation as an ethnic community. This kind of contradiction appeared also in the historical and ethnic consciousness of the Slovaks in the period of appropriately called ”dark centuries” of their development beginning in the 10th century. A short period of the formation of the strong Great Moravian state comprising also the relatively compact and territorially-politically defined Nitra region came to an end in such a way that the following state, Hungarian reign, purposefully rejected everything that could remind people of Great Moravian state, destroyed traditions and purposefully created new ideology about the coming of the Hungarians to the region of the Carpathians, about their settling and establishing in this territory. As early as in the 13th century the theory saying that Svätopluk sold the country for a white horse was created. It was built on the basis of a real historical core; however, the element of the admission of Hungarian nomad groups to the region of the Tisa was explained in a new way appropriate to the position of the subordinate nation in the Hungarian state. The theory was clearly elaborated by a chronicle writer Šimon Kéza who was legally educated (in the 13th century) and who in a scientific annex of his chronicle achieved a clear clarification of the class structure of the Hungarian state: winners became ”rulers” and the defeated became ”slaves and servants”. (42) This conception was sufficient for the whole of feudal historiography about the multinational Hungarian state and its historical roots. The first upheavals appeared in the historiography of the Age of Enlightenment that as early as at that time could see and feel that the scheme of ”rulers and servants” was not valid any more. And even more, that many of those for a long time belonging to the group of servants became great rulers and contributed significantly to the development of the Hungarian state, served as important authorities, were educated, became also historians who were expected to offer a new and better explanation of the historical roots of the multinational Hungarian state. In a tough fight of opinions and arguments a new theory of the ”hospitable admission” of Hungarians to the Carpathian hollow was created. It was first of all a theory that the Slovaks used to protect themselves from a pejorative naming as descendents of Svätopluk. At the same time it explained the historical fact that the multinational Hungarian state became a stable historical category in which all member nations trying to find an appropriate and dignified position within the state were working and building up their country. At the same time it was trying to sort out how each nation contributed to the common development of the Hungarian state. As for the Slovak contribution, the theory for the first time pointed out many organizational elements of state formation including Christianity that the Hungarian state took over from Great Moravian or Danubian Slavs, developed and stabilized. (43) Understandably, the whole new Enlightenment explanation of the early medieval history of the Hungarian state is built strictly on the positions of etatism and Hungarianism, it keeps respecting unified Hungarian patriotism. Even if it offered some stimuli for protective arguments of the nations, it did not offer the basis for creative historical approach for the developing nation, it did not offer any clear answer and approach to old Slovak history, the history of the Slovaks in the Hungarian state. Therefore it is not surprising that our national renaissance almost did not consider historism as part of its fighting arsenal in the process of nation formation and dealt only with the questions of the language. (44) It was not only the consequence of non-democratic conditions and conservativism but also of an unclear conception and approach to the history of the nation itself. Therefore it is understandable that a kind of return to the period of Great Moravia, of ”Slovak kings”, to the period when the ”Slovak language” was highly valued in the whole world at that time appeared. (45) This part of Slovak history not only fitted in with the requirements of nation formation but also fully respected the feudal view of the world, feudal ideology, which at that time seemed so stable in Hungary that it could not be jeopardized even by such an event as the Great French revolution with its socially attractive watchwords about equality, freedom and brotherhood. The tradition of Great Moravian historism met the requirements of the process of nation formation, which apart from that was at the beginning theoretically rooted in natural rules and principles and did not need ”glorious history” that much. This determined also the interest in the history of Slovakia and the Slovaks at that time. And where the Great Moravian historism itself was not sufficient they turned to the general history of the Slavs as it was presented in Herder’s perspective also at Bratislava Lyceum as well as in Kollar’s conception of the renaissance of the Slovak nation. (46)

According to the level of democratization of the Slovak national movement in ...Štúr’s group also the view of the old history of Slovakia and the Slovaks was changing, even if only slowly. It was in accordance with ideological and political needs of newly developing bourgeoisie. Under not rightful conditions created since the beginning of the 1830’s, when the tendency to eliminate the Slovak language appeared, it was necessary to brush off and use each single piece of historism; it was necessary to explain the history of the nation as a whole. This fact was perceived very sensitively as the Slovaks still had not written even a simple view of their history. Particularly evident was the absence of the history of the Slovaks in the Hungarian state. The topicality of the need came to the fore especially in the period when the question of the territorial separation of Slovakia from the Hungarian state appeared, either within the programme ”Slovak neighbourhood” or within other programmes aiming at federalization or autonomization. (47) Apart from the topical ideological and political needs of the process of nation formation of the Slovaks also other facts, as well important, appeared. Since the middle of the 19th century when the bourgeoisie got into full power in most of Europe it ceased being the criticizing element of the society and became an apologist of the present situation, though viewed differently. This reality affected also the relations to the historism and historical thinking. Let’s put aside the eruption of historism, historical study, ”scientification” of history either of its more positive components or various ”realistic” reactions to the period of romanticism with its belief in historical progress. In connection with our topic it is necessary to realize mainly that the theories about the formation of new nations at that time shifted from the basis of natural rules to the basis of historical and historical-state rules. This served the purpose of governing nations in multinational states. However it was not any more just some enlightened ideas or knowledge of the intelligent. At that time even an average politician understood that ”nation” as a new political and historical category was becoming one of basic structural elements of the organization of mankind. The identity of ”state” and ”national” got viewed as an ideal. Where it did not exist intensive endeavour and fight utilizing all means, not only ideological but also power ones, appeared. The change of the theoretical and ideological base of the doctrine of ”nation” was presented in the conviction that ”a nation without great and glorious historical past has no right for its national future”. (48) These ideological and political changes caught the Slovak society absolutely on the wrong foot. While in neighbouring European nations (and not always only governing ones) the study of their history for the needs of national ideology had been conducted by various scientific institutions, departments etc, in Slovakia only one institution was founded, Matica Slovenská, which was in a very short time closed as undesirable for Hungarian aristocracy and the ruling class. As it is known, at the same time also Slovak ”gymnasia”(49), which could educate knowledgeable young people with national consciousness, were closed.

In Slovakia, the history of the nation is necessary not only for the purpose of the process of national self-consciousness but also for the purpose of the protection of basic national rights. The thing is that the Hungarian ideology denied the ethno genesis of the Slovak nation that had existed up to that time and deprived the Slovaks of any historical rights of the country they lived in. The strong version of the thesis said that the Slovaks were not ”Svätopluk’s descendents” but only an ethnic collection of the immigrant Czechs Valachs and Rosins. However hard they tried, this ethno genesis of the Slovaks had not existed before the 14th and 15th centuries and therefore no medieval version or history had existed. (50) The necessity to deal with the early history of the Slovaks appeared to be utterly topical while political fight with a poorly developed political structure expected historical study to help also in the fight against the Hungarian governing ideology trying to assimilate small, so called non-historical, nations into a unified state-political Hungarian nation. The most talented Slovak historian of the second half of the 19th century F. V. Sasinek, who was named ”Slovak Palacký” by his contemporaries, undertook the tasks of historical study. Creating a new conception of the Slovak medieval history F. V. Sasinek had to begin with answering the basic question: Where in fact did the Slovaks come from? His answer was based on Šafárik’s conception, which he managed to consistently develop to the autochthony of the Slovaks: ”Slováci od pradoby nepretržite bývajú na tomto území, kde sú do dneška. Boli tu pod menom Sarmatov a Kvádov... Longobardi len takreèeno prenocovali na Slovensku, a po nich až do 9. storoèia nikto nebol, kto by bol búril Slovákov pod Karpatami.” (51) Autochthonism offered the proof of age-old rights for the country where the Slovaks lived. In so doing it fulfilled the first and basic condition of historism for a developing nation. F. V. Sasinek ingeniously adapted the accomplishments of Enlightenment history saying that the Slovaks had not always been ” trussed up by the hoops of the Hungarian state”, that they had their great and interesting history before the Hungarian kingdom was formed. He also connected it with the Avar history and the period of the Great Moravia. However the question of the Slovaks in the Hungarian state remains unanswered. F. V. Sasinek offers a quite original solution. He suggests two explanations of the connection of the Great Moravian and Hungarian state: 1.)  He traced back the history of the Hungarian governing family and found out that as early as during the first centuries of the existence of the Hungarian state it was connected with Slavonic dynastic families in Poland and in Russia. In so doing he tried to prove that from the very beginning the Hungarian state was not an ethnically monolithic Hungarian state, the reverse is the case. (52) From a historical point of view he appropriately emphasized the fact that from the very beginning of the Hungarian state there were some organizational elements surviving from the previous, i.e. Great Moravian, period. In this connection Sasinek focused particularly on the function of Nitra and the Nitra principality at the beginning of the Hungarian state as an autonomist element influencing Slovak development until the middle of the 13th century. (53) F. V. Sasinek in his conception, which was in essence eclectic, offered the content and programme of ”drievne” Slovak history. He wrote the history of the Slovaks for the Slovaks particularly focused on the period when the official Hungarian historiography did not considered the Slovaks at all. In Sasinek’s conception a historical-legal approach is appropriately connected with an ethnic one, which contributed to the development of the historical theory that may be universally useful for the protection of the political and territorial rights of the nation. In such a conception history may effectively serve the political fight of the nation for its sovereignty. However the well-intended effort was affected by the lack of professionalism, of theoretical as well as practical knowledge of the study of history. Sasinek tried to replace the apparent non-professionalism by the enormous extensiveness of the knowledge of the sources of not only Hungarian but also wider Slavonic history, by his attempt to publish his findings in German, Czech,  as well as in Hungarian academic institutions. However his attempts were in vain, the lack of knowledge of European streams of historical study and thinking was apparent. Therefore it is not surprising that at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Slovak historiography resigned our medieval history. This was caused also by the event in the 1890s known as millennium celebration of the Hungarian state.

During the period of the strongest Hungarization, when even the prime minister of the Hungarian government replied to the petition of the Slovaks that there is no Slovak nation, in 1896 the Hungarian bourgeoisie even required of the Slovaks to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarian state. Of course, the date was just fictitious without the exact date of the arrival of Hungarian herdsmen to the Danubian hollow, the less the date of the state formation. However there was a monumental and above all ”state” celebration. And so all the non-governing nations of the Hungarian state were forced to celebrate the beginning of their national oppression, the cruel process of denationalization in the long history of the Hungarian state. This brought about the political refusal of the celebration that the committee of the congress of non-Hungarian nations agreed on on the 30th of April 1896. Furthermore it had a strong impact on the change of the Slovaks’ view of their history in the Hungarian state. This change was apparent from the historical and historiographical perspective particularly in the work of the most sophisticated Slovak historian Ján Botto. In his great synthesis ”Slováci” (Vývin ich národného povedomia) consisting of two volumes he expressed a surprising opinion considering the historical-legal continuity of Slovak history to be an absolutely unnecessary phenomenon. He emphasizes ”the moral power of the nation”, ”developed sense of national fellowship”, and ”the formation of economic life based upon mutual cooperation” as the only inevitable attributes. (54) Return to the foundations of the nation based on natural rights logically resulted in the correction of the conception of Slovak history. J. Botto characterizes the Great Moravia period as the period when the Slovaks had ”their own history when they lived and existed for themselves”. However as soon as the period finished and they fell into the hoops of the Hungarian state they lacked their own national history until the 10th of May 1848, the day of the national gathering in Liptovský Mikuláš. Needless to say that not only the Slovaks lacked their own history during this period but also the Hungarians as the whole of the feudal history of the Hungarian state was focused only on the ”colourless, international yeoman or noble aristocracy” which was, so to say, the only political component of the Hungarian state. Moreover the component fighting only for their own privileges and rights. (55) The resigning from the early history of Slovakia and the Slovaks contributed to the working out of the topical political and national question of the Slovaks. However it did not help work out the genesis of the nation, the political-territorial formation of the circumstances of the Slovak nation. All these characteristics caused that Botto’s conception became less useful not only in relationship to the defensive and political needs of the nation but also for the process of the self-awareness of the nation. Therefore as soon as the Slovaks became part of their own new national state, the Czechoslovak republic, after the decline of Austro-Hungarian monarchy the questions of the history of Slovakia and the Slovaks including the history of feudalism were brought to the board. It was clear also to the first generation of Czech professors who came here to develop Slovak education, culture, and science. Not surprisingly the first important work that introduced Czech university scholars in Slovakia was the work of Václav Chaloupecký, a very talented follower of J. Pekaø, appropriately called “Staré Slovensko” (The old Slovakia). (56) The work generated interest not only because of its professional level or endeavour to increase to professionalism in Slovak historical documents that were by that time written only by amateurs – priests, lawyers and later also by engineers. The conception of Chaloupecký’s work provoked discussion. (57) The thing is that the author objectively finished or started exactly at the point where the Hungarian historiography of the second half of the 19th century was: he denied the existence of Slovakia and the Slovaks during the period of the Middle Ages, he tried to prove their later development from the Valachs, Czechs, and other nations by means of the metamorphosis of these immigrant nations into a new ”amalgam”. Even if he found an old Slavonic settlement in Western Slovakia (in old historical Nitra region) before the 13th century, he characterized the population settled here as ”Czechoslovak or rather Czech”. (58)  Chaloupecký initiated the development of a new Czechoslovak history, which would reflect proclaimed unity of state and national, in not very clever, improvising and subjectivist way reflecting the interests of the Czech bourgeoisie trying to subordinate Slovak economy to their needs. Not surprisingly, his conception of the early medieval history of Slovakia was not supported by Slovak amateur historians. Moreover it met the strong opposition of the developing Slovak academic community consisting not only of historians but also geographers, linguists and others. Chaloupecký’s opinions were refused also by some Czech professors, who regarded them as a wrong step interfering in the necessary political unity of the Czechs and the Slovaks. The debates on ”Staré Slovensko” pointed at the direction that the exploration of the early medieval history of our country should follow. However, there was lack of needed potential, means as well as academic background to fulfill the objectives. Inner political fight in Czechoslovakia dominated by the National party, later called Hlinka’s party, forced historiography to work out the problems of the formation of the joint state and co-existence in it. Understandably, these were the questions directly connected with political practice. Moreover, Slovak historiography still had not had ideologically and methodologically prepared medieval historians who would be able to successfully discharge the programme. Those who were being educated at the university under the influence of Chaloupecký’s opinions needed too much time to get rid of his theoretical political approaches and influences. And this was the situation in the development of Slovak medieval historiography when the Second World War started and when the fascist ideology more and more penetrated into the Slovak state.

The catholic wing of the Slovak historiography grouped mainly around the journal Kultúra was not capable of bringing new light into the medieval Slovak history. F. Hrušovský, who was educated by Chaloupecký’s ideology, however, did not accept his ”Czechoslovakistic” opinions, took up the task to synthesize Slovak history to meet the needs of the new state. In so doing he helped the ideologists of the Slovak society create the synthesis of the Slovak national development to meet the needs of education as well as of wider society. In the field of the early medieval history the author brushed off the results achieved by that time, cleared them of the Hungarian and Czechoslovakistic bias and provided the society with a version that was more objectivistic than nationalistic. The moderate way of his presentation of the early medieval history of Slovakia can be explained also by the fact that F. Hrušovský started his academic study of the medieval history by studying the relations between Slovakia and the Boleslav Chrabrý’s reign. However, what appeared in chapters on the early medieval history in various mutations of F. Hrušovský’s syntheses does not apply to other historical periods. (59) Slovak medieval historians neither between the wars nor immediately after the war carried out the critical analysis of the sources of our medieval history even if in some areas some partial contribution appeared. The endeavour to write the synthesis appeared late and the unfinished publication Dejiny Slovenska (The history of Slovakia) was released as late as immediately after the liberation. Its two volumes covered prehistoric times and the period of Moravia Magna. (60) František Bokes also intended to deal with the medieval history within the series Slovenská vlastiveda, however, it remained at the stage of discussion on Old Slovakia. (61) The establishment of the new organizational basis after 1945, which has been systematically applied in historiography since 1950s, caused an upheaval in the development of Slovak medieval history. The ideological upheaval – the formation of the theory of scientific socialism, which also some older experts declared their support for, considerably influenced the development of the Slovak early medieval history and thoroughly changed the object and content of the explored period of the Slovak historical development. The fact that the Slovak medieval history did not need to break down any fixed or socially appointed ideological streams of thinking turned to be great advantage. The low level of Slovak medieval history study existing by that time did not provide the forthcoming historiography with a critically examined basis, which new Slovak historical study could be reliably built on. At the same time the society in its diverse fields expected their historians do provide them with a new synthesis offering not only educational materials but also justification of the new methodology.

At this stage the Slovak medieval history study was offered the help of a better-developed Czech historiography and particularly Hungarian one. The later was represented namely by E. Molnár.  E. Ledererová and others who were considered as a theoretically mature academic generation having spent the fascist period in the Soviet Union and immediately after 1950s they presented Marxist syntheses of the Hungarian early medieval history, which were undoubtedly methodologically and professionally remarkable. Especially surprising for the Slovak historical study was the reasonable picture of ethnic groups, their relations and development. The connections of the previous results of Slovak historiography with those of Hungarian and Czech medieval histories brought about the first attempt to synthesize Slovak medieval history. It was presented as an integral picture in so far unfinished Dejiny Slovenska, particularly in its 1st volume covering the historical development until 1848. (62) Not only the authors but also all the users realized that just this synthesis, which became the basis for a number of other similar ones written for specific purposes, despite many problems revealed unknown so called ”white spots” in the knowledge of our national history. Apart from that it raised a number of professional problems, questions, and tasks to be explored based on new, by that time unknown and unanalyzed basic sources. In so doing historical study prepared a background for the sound formation of self-awareness i.e. historical consciousness of the Slovaks. However any deep examination of the conditions of ethnic – national awareness was put aside. Processes with so-called ”bourgeois nationalists” who were hanged or put to jail by Czech communists shut down on a part of Slovak intelligence and left a huge black cloud above historians. Any attempt to bring up problems of ethnic and national awareness was considered to be a suspicious academic activity. At the same time since the 1960s a change took place also in neighbouring Hungarian historiography. The renaissance of national approach not only to Hungarian history itself but also to the history of the whole of Hungarian state began. It that situation the Slovak historical study was placed under the programme pressures from two sides and any step aside was regarded as misappropriation in relation to the Marxist internationalism. There was a paradox here. When the Slovak society was trying to overcome the institutional shortcomings of the 19th century and started to systematically form a national cultural infrastructure, before it was possible to constitute diverse streams of historical thinking, before it was possible to raise creative basic questions of the content and purpose of the history of Slovakia and the Slovaks we were ordered a uniform Marxism and ”non-national” view of the beginning of Slovak history. Relatively well-established institutional background as well as developing and well-prepared generations of historians were made to follow a given narrow way of thinking, moreover, preferring the history of labour movement and ideological recent events. A number of historians rather devoted themselves to economical and social history. (63) Only the political situation in 1960s and 1970s that was slightly less tense enabled historians to timidly raise also the questions about our ethnic-national development, which the society were interested in. (64) However the question of the ethno genesis of the Slovaks was not raised at all. The discussions were focused only on ”Great Moravian nationality”, which actually did not exist either in historical process or in tradition. It was just a kind of compulsory contribution to the development of Jozef Visarionoviè Stalin’s theoretical reflections. Nowadays it is hardly possible to distinguish and name what was just necessary and forced ”charge” and what was real overwork. A present day situation in Slovak historiography opened up the possibilities of free exploration also in the field of the nation and its historical roots. The period of uncontrolled and uncensored thinking has set out; the period of searching and thinking when Slovakia and the Slovaks want to answer the questions that the neighbouring nations in Central Europe have been asking and trying to respond since the 19th century. It is necessary to overcome a number of deformations as well as the romanticism of the 19th century. The results that we present are compatible with those of European historiography as well as with the European way of thinking and exploring. Presenting our results we hope that wider possibilities for international cooperation have opened up; that nationalistic barriers built in the past will be broken down and that the spirit of the Old Europe will be restored on modern foundations.

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