Historiography in Motion Historiography in Motion Slovak Contributions to the 21st International Congress of Historical Sciences Editors Roman Holec Rastislav Kožiak Reviewers Ján Steinhübel Vincent Múcska Martin Hurbanič Roman Holec Authors © Gabriela Dudeková, Bohumila Ferenčuhová, Ľudovít Hallon, Ľubica Harbuľová, Václav Ježek, Rastislav Kožiak, Dušan Kováč, Pavol Maliniak, Miroslav Sabol, Martin Štefánik, Vladimír Varinský, Milan Zemko, Dušan Zupka Book designer Imrich Nagy © Institute of History of Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, 2010 © State Scientific Library, Banská Bystrica, 2010 ISBN 978-80-89388-31-8 Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................. 4 KOŽIAK, Rastislav: Le pouvoir et le sacré : Aspects de la christianisation des Avars et des Slaves sur le Danube moyen ...................................................................................... 6 ZUPKA, Dušan: Power of rituals and rituals of power: Religious and secular rituals in the political culture of medieval Kingdom of Hungary ................................................ 29 JEŽEK, Václav: Perception and reception of the Byzantine heritage in the region of eastern Slovakia and the Podkarpatska Rus, and the formation of religious and cultural identity. Looking for the border between the East and the West. (Frontiers and Boundaries).......... 43 MALINIAK, Pavol: The use of border signs in the Carpathian region: Contribution to the understanding of borders in the Middle and Early Modern Age ........................ 62 ŠTEFÁNIK, Martin: Metals and power : European importance of export of metals from the territory of Slovakia in 14th and 15th century: The interest of Italian businessmen in the field of competence of Kremnica Chamber under rule of the House of Anjou and Sigismund of Luxembourg ............................................................................................Text nie je súčasťou 77 tohto výberu KOVÁČ, Dušan: Nationalism, idea of the nation‐state and the Habsburg Monarchy.... 98 HARBUĽOVÁ, Ľubica – FERENČUHOVÁ, Bohumila: Migration des habitants de la Russie après 1917 et la Tchécoslovaquie (1918‐1939) ..................................................................... 110 ZEMKO, Milan: Interwar Destiny of Hapsburg Empire Successors : Proved on the Case Text nie je súčasťou tohto výberu. of Czechoslovakia ...................................................................................................................Jeho rozšírenú verziu nájdete tu 121 HALLON, Ľudovít – SABOL, Miroslav: The international context of the technological changes of the Slovak power engineering base in the first half of the 20th century ....... 125 VARINSKÝ, Vladimír: Anti‐Communist Activities of the Exile White Legion and Its Operation by the State Security in Slovakia ........................................................................ 134 DUDEKOVÁ, Gabriela: Learning to crawl before we can walk : Gender in historical research (not only) in Slovakia .............................................................................................. 146 List of Authors ........................................................................................................................... 168 HISTORIOGRAPHY IN MOTION Foreword Slovak historians have participated in the activities of International Committee of Historical Sciences/Comité international des sciences historiques (ICHS/CISH) at the very outset of “that global community of historians”, that is, since 1926. Until 1993, Slovak historians were represented in ICHS/CISH by joint Czechoslovak National Committee of Historians; since 1993, by Slovak National Committee of Historians. Size of the Slovak participation was diverse in different periods. During the First Czechoslovak Republic, Slovak professional historiography was only at its starting stage, so it was not visible on the international forum. After 1948, there were good conditions for a professional progress of the Slovak historical science, but it was politics that entered that process. Violent interferences into the spontaneous development of historiography deformed the historical knowledge, but restrained the greater participation of Slovak historians on international activities as well. In the period of 1950-1954, the Czechoslovak National Committee of Historians, as well as other national committees in the Soviet bloc, did not exercise its membership in ICHS/CISH. The contacts between the Slovak historians and global historical community branched out intensively after 1989. A choice of a represent to The World Congresses was not dependant on political institutions, but solely on historians. Till 1989, the representation was determined by totalitarian regime that favoured historians mostly without any scientific background. Starting from Madrid congress in 1990, Slovak historians, who were able to communicate with the global historical forum, successively participated in international activities. However, it was not a rapid but a consecutive process, because Slovak historiography needed some time for reaching the standards of international historical science and its dominant trends. The World Congresses of ICHS/CISH reflect trends, tendencies and thematic shifting in international historiography. It is manifested at the individual associations, commission sessions and round table programmes. Participation of the Slovak historians in The World Congresses was not numerous even after 1989. At present, there exists any substantial difference in the thematic area more, which we have felt yet at the Montreal congress in 1995, but problem of the Slovak participation is of another nature now: Slovak academic institutions are not able to send more historians to congress, because their budgets are sill very short. Meanwhile, there are competent historians either of the elder, but mainly of the younger generation, who could react and contributed to the challenges of the world historiography. We have realised this before the 19th congress at Oslo in 2000. Slovak National Committee of Historians arranged a publication for Oslo Congress: Slovak contributions to the 19th congress of historical sciences, Bratislava 2000 (ed. Dušan Kováč), 243 pp. Slovak historians, in eighteen studies, contributed to the twelve thematic sessions chosen for the congress. The 21st World Congress of ICHS/CISH in Amsterdam is a breakthrough event for the Slovak historiography. There are six contributions by Slovak historians to the programme, one of them is in major theme One, and a Slovak historian is an organiser of one of the sessions. However, Slovak historiography, who the congress programme 4 Foreword regards as a challenge and as a demonstration of the running trends in the world historiography as well, has already branched that far that it is able to deal with the chosen themes in much more extent than the active participation at the congress allows. It is a reason why the Slovak National Committee of Historians decided to publish a special volume in which we offer some congress themes to the world community in Amsterdam. Electronic form of the volume is not only economical ant time-saving, but handy as well. We are ready to present this e-publication to the participants of the congress. Dušan Kováč President of the Slovak National Committee of Historians 5 HISTORIOGRAPHY IN MOTION Le pouvoir et le sacré : Aspects de la christianisation des Avars et des Slaves sur le Danube moyen∗ RASTISLAV KOŽIAK Avant 1989, la recherche historique sur la christianisation des Slaves se voit handicapée par les exigences de l‘idéologie imposées aux sciences historiques, d’où l’absence d’une recherche plus approfondie orientée vers l’aspect religieux de l’évolution des sociétés du haut Moyen Age. Les chercheurs manquaient de confronta- tion naturelle avec les études faites au-delà du « rideau de fer » où la recherche histori- co-ecclésiastique avançait toujours en élargissant non seulement sa base factuelle et événementielle, mais aussi en subissant des transformations importantes dans le do- maine de l’approche méthodologique, allant de l’histoire de l’Eglise traditionnelle, conçue de façon institutionnelle, vers l’histoire religieuse, et touchant également le processus compliqué de la réception du christianisme.1 Avec le recul du temps, les conséquences de ces limitations se sont faites sentir sous forme d’interprétations sché- matiques bien enracinées qui expliquaient comme une coupure le déroulement de la transition du paganisme au christianisme, et envisageaient ce processus comme éma- nant d’une réforme administrative où le contenu comme le résultat devait être un fait accompli.2 L’idée de la réception du christianisme par les gentes slaves, vue unique- ment comme dépendance ou soumission aux ambitions hégémoniques de l’empire franc ou byzantin, semble, elle aussi, simpliste et incomplète ; les historiens y attri- buant aux Slaves un rôle des récipients passifs. Dans ces cas-là, il est nécessaire d’appliquer plusieurs clés pour saisir la vraie signification des sources écrites ou matérielles. En faisant des recherches sur le chris- tianisme, on emprunte facilement la perspective des auteurs ecclésiastiques qui ont produit les sources, des auteurs qui, en adoptant la vision du „parti vainqueur“, décri- ∗ Cette étude on a été élaborée pour l´aide financier VEGA no. 1/0628/08. 1 Dans le premier cas, il s’agit d’un domaine de recherche plus ancien, caractéristique