History of Slovakia
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History of Slovakia Obchodná akadémia, Veľká okružná 32, 011 57 Žilina Prehistory Slovakia's territory had been inhabited in the Palaeolithic - Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Bojnice and Gánovce. The best known artifact is the Venus of Moravany from Moravany nad Váhom. Neolithic habitation was found in Želiezovce, Gemer, the Domica cave and at Nitriansky Hrádok. 2 History of Slovakia Prehistory Bronze Age was marked by the Čakany andVelatice cultures, followed by the Calenderberg culture and the Hallstatt culture.The major Celtic tribes living in Slovakia were Cotini and Boii. The great invasions of the 4–8th centuries saw the emergence of the Huns, followed by the expansion of the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Gepids, Heruli. Eurasian Avars followed, battling the Byzantine Empire, to be replaced by the Slavs. 3 History of Slovakia The Slavs Parts of the Slavic population that settled in the Middle Danube area were unified by King Samo,after a successful Slavic insurrection against the Avar Khaganate in 623. In 631, Samo defeated the Frankish army of King Dagobert at the Battle of Wogastisburg. Samo's Empire, the first known political formation of Slavs, disappeared after the death of its founder in 665 and its territory was again included into Avar Khaganate. Around 828, Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church for Prince Pribina in Nitrava. In 833, Mojmír I, Duke of the Moravians, expelled Pribina. 4 History of Slovakia The era of Great Moravia Great Moravia arose around 830 when Mojmír I unified the Slavic tribes settled north of the Danube and extended the Moravian supremacy over them. The new monarch Rastislav pursued an independent policy: after stopping a Frankish attack in 855, he also sought to weaken influence of Frankish priests preaching in his realm. Rastislav asked the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to send teachers who would interpret Christianity in the Slavic vernacular – missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius. Monarch Rastislav I. (846 – 870) 5 History of Slovakia The era of Great Moravia Svatopluk I (871– 894) assumed the title of the king (rex). During his reign, the Great Moravian Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, when not only present-day Moravia and Slovakia but also present-day central Hungary, Lower Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, southern Poland and northern Serbia belonged to the empire. Saints Cyril and Methodius 6 History of Slovakia The era of Great Moravia After the death of King Svatopluk in 894, his sons Mojmír II and Svatopluk II succeeded him as the King of Great Moravia and the Prince of Nitra respectively. However, they started to quarrel for domination of the whole empire. Weakened by an internal conflict as well as by constant warfare with Eastern Francia, Great Moravia lost most of its peripheral territories. Great Moravia left behind a lasting legacy in Central and Eastern Europe (906 or 907). The Glagolitic script and its successor Cyrillic were disseminated to other Slavic countries, charting a new path in their cultural development. The administrative system of Great Moravia may have influenced the development of the administration of the Kingdom of Hungary. 7 History of Slovakia The era of Great Moravia From 895 to 902, the Hungarians (Magyars), progressively imposed their authority on the Pannonian Basin.The territory of the present-day Slovakia became progressively integrated into the developing state in the early 10th century (the future Kingdom of Hungary with Arpád dynasty). Ruins of a Great Moravian castle in Ducové 8 History of Slovakia Mongol invasion (1241) In 1241, the Mongols invaded and devastated the north- western parts of the kingdom. Following the withdrawal of the Mongol troops (1242), several castles were built or enstrengthened (e.g. Komárno, Beckov and Zvolen) on the order of King Béla IV. He also continued his policy of granting town privileges to several settlements, e.g. to Krupina, Nitra, Banská Bystrica and Gelnica. During his reign, new German immigrants settled down in Spiš whose privileges were granted in 1271 by King StephenV of Hungary. The last decades of the 13th century were characterized by discords within the royal family and among the several groups of the aristocracy. 9 History of Slovakia The period of the oligarchs Following the Mongol invasion of the kingdom, a competition started among the landowners: each of them endeavored to build a castle with or without the permission of the king. Matthew III Csák was the de facto ruler of the western territories of present-day Slovakia, from his seat at Trenčín. He allied himself with the murdered Amade Aba's sons against Košice, but King Charles I of Hungary, who had managed to acquire the throne against his opponents, gave military assistance to the town and the royal armies defeated him at the Battle of Rozhanovce in 1312. 10 History of Slovakia The period of the oligarchs King Charles I strengthened the central power in the kingdom following a 20-year long period of struggles against his opponents and the oligarchs. He concluded commercial agreements with Kings John of Bohemia and Casimir III of Poland in 1335 which increased the trade on the commercial routes leading from Košice to Kraków and from Žilina to Brno. In the first half of the 14th century, the population of the regions of the former "forest counties" increased and their territories formed new counties such as Orava, Liptov and Turiec in the northern parts of present-day Slovakia. From the 1320s, most of the lands of present-day Slovakia were owned by the kings, but prelates and aristocratic families also hold properties on the territory. 11 History of Slovakia The Late Midlle Age King Sigismund (1387–1437) granted vast territories to his followers during his reign. Following the death of King Albert (1439), civil war broke out among the followers of the claimants for the throne. The Dowager Queen Elisabeth hired Czech mercenaries led by Jan Jiskra who captured several towns on the territory of present-day Slovakia and maintained most of them until 1462 when he surrendered to King Matthias Corvinus. King Matthias Corvinus (1443 – 1490) 12 History of Slovakia Habsburg and Ottoman administration The Ottoman Empire conquered the central part of the former Kingdom of Hungary, and set up several Ottoman provinces there (Budin Eyalet, Eğri Eyalet, Uyvar Eyalet). Transylvania became an Ottoman protectorate vassal and a base which gave birth to all the anti-Habsburg revolts led by the nobility of the Kingdom of Hungary during the period 1604 to 1711. The remaining part of the former Kingdom of Hungary, which included much of present-day territory of Slovakia (except for the southern central regions), northwestern present-day Hungary, northern Croatia and present-day Burgenland, resisted Ottoman conquest and subsequently became a province of the Habsburg Monarchy. 13 History of Slovakia Habsburg and Ottoman administration 14 History of Slovakia Habsburg and Ottoman administration It remained to be known as the Kingdom of Hungary, but it is referred to by some modern historians as the "Royal Hungary". From 1526 to 1830, nineteen Habsburg sovereigns went through coronation ceremonies as Kings and Queens of the Kingdom of Hungary in St. Martin's Cathedral, especially Maria Terézia (1740 – 1780). Queen MariaTerézia (1740 – 1780) 15 History of Slovakia Habsburg and Ottoman administration Due to the Ottoman invasion, the territories that formerly were administered by the Kingdom of Hungary became, for almost two centuries, the principal battleground of the Turkish wars, and the region paid dearly for the defense of the Habsburg Monarchy (and, moreover, of the rest of Europe) against Ottoman expansion. The territory paid not only with the blood and the goods of its population, but also by losing practically all of its natural riches, especially gold and silver, which went to pay for the costly and difficult combats of an endemic war. In the second half of the 17th century, Ottoman authority was expanded to eastern part of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary, where a vassal Ottoman principality led by prince Imre Thököly was established. 16 History of Slovakia Slovak National Movement Despite living under Hungarian, Habsburg and Ottoman administration for several centuries, the Slovak people succeeded in keeping their language and their culture. Moreover, the Hungarian control remained strict after 1867 and the movement was constrained by the official policy of magyarization. The first codification of a Slovak literary language by Anton Bernolák in the 1780s was based on the dialect from western Slovakia. It was supported by mainly Roman Catholic intellectuals, with the center in Trnava.The Lutheran intellectuals continued to use a Slovakized form of the Czech language, especially Ján Kollár and Pavel Jozef Šafárik. 17 History of Slovakia Slovak National Movement In the 1840s, the Protestants split as Ľudovít Štúr developed a literal language based on the dialect from central Slovakia. His followers stressed the separate identity of the Slovak nation and uniqueness of its language. Štúr's version was finally approved by both the Catholics and the Lutherans in 1847 and, after several reforms, it remains the official Slovak language. Ľudovít Štúr 18 History of Slovakia Hungarian Revolution of 1848 In the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Slovak nationalist leaders took the side of the Austrians in order to promote their separation from the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austrian monarchy.After the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution, the Hungarian political elite was oppressed by the Austrian authorities. The Slovak political elite made use of the period of neoabsolutism of theVienna court and the weakness of the traditional Hungarian elite to promote their national goals. Sankt Martin became the foremost center of the Slovak National Movement with foundation of the nationwide cultural association Matica slovenská (1863), the Slovak National Museum, and the Slovak National Party (1871).