s
YORK, N, y.
i/fiRARY
THE
SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
SLAVS AND PANSLAVISM
BY
THOMAS CAPEK
MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK BAR
Gbe IRnfcfterbocfcer press
New York
1906
1396 I
i'JFEB 1953
COPYRIGHT, 1906
BY
THOMAS CAPEK
PJ3
Ube TRnlcftevfcocSer press, Dew ]3orft
Exchange From
iTur i irr . .
TO
P. V. ROVNIANEK, ESQ.
OF PITTSBURG, PA.
A TIRELESS WORKER FOR SLOVAK RIGHTS
A RECOGNIZED LEADER AMONG HIS FELLOW COUNTRYMEN
THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SLAVS i
PANSLAVISM 18
THE SLOVAKS : PAST AND PRESENT 53
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE .... 102
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 144
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW . . . . 169
PERSECUTION . . . . . . .191
INDEX . 211
r ci
YORK, N, Y.
ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN KOLLAR
PAUL JOSEPH SAFARJK
MICHAEL MILOSLAV HODZA .
MATICA BUILDING (CONFISCATED)
JOHN HOLLY .....
LUDEVIT STUR
DR. JOSEPH M. HURBAN
SVETOZAR HURBAN-VAJANSKY
PAGB
18
30
84
98
128
134
138
206
INTRODUCTION.
IN the steel mills along the Monongahela
River, in the Connellsville coke region,
in the anthracite coal mines throughout Penn-
sylvania, and for that matter in every factory,
mill, and industrial concern north of the Mason
and Dixon line, you will find, doing generally the
hardest and meanest labor, but doing it faith-
fully and cheerfully, able-bodied "foreigners"
whom their employers call indifferently "Huns,"
"Hungarians," or "Slavs." Of these work-
men, skilled and unskilled, the Slovaks from
Hungary form a considerable percentage.
Pennsylvania has the largest Slovak population,
and the name of Penn's Commonwealth is by
all odds the most familiar English term in all
Upper Hungary. How many of these people,
who come to our shores in ever increasing
numbers, are now in the United States can
only be guessed. If we use for a basis of
computation the enrolled members of ben-
evolent and other organizations, of which
Slovaks have a good many in our country, the
x INTRODUCTION
number will run wellnigh to four hundred
thousand. To obtain an even approximately
correct count is impossible, for the reason that
our census does not classify Slovaks separately
as such, and because, furthermore, the popu-
lation is constantly fluctuating. It may be
stated without fear of contradiction, that prob-
ably no other class of people travel to and fro
as much as the Slovaks. Steamship companies
find them very profitable patrons.
Nothing has been written in English about
the Slovaks except brief articles in the various
encyclopaedias, and even for these the reader
was compelled to look under the collective
title "Slavonians." Talvj (Mrs. Edward
Robinson) has devoted a few pages to a criti-
cal discussion of the Slovak language, but as
her book did not touch on social and political
conditions, dealing mainly with Slavic litera-
ture and philology, and that in a manner now
necessarily obsolete, the Historical Review of
the Languages and Literature of the Slavic
Nations does not throw much light in the
darkness. The Millennium of Hungary, a
compendious work issued in English by the
Hungarian Government in 1890, is a publica-
tion of the usual Magyar official type, and for
hat reason must be taken only for what it is
INTRODUCTION xi
worth. As a matter of fact, any work that re-
counts solely Magyar deeds and knows of only
Magyar culture in Hungary tells mathematic-
ally, if not actually, only half of the story of
that country, when we bear in mind that Hun-
gary is but one-half Magyar. More has been
written about the Slovaks in German. An ex-
cellent booklet appeared in Prague in 1903,
entitled Die Unterdruckung der Slovaken durch
die Magyaren.
The author of the present work is intimately
acquainted with the American Slovak, his am-
bitions and efforts, and in the fall of 1903 he
had an opportunity to observe him at close
range in his own home, and as a result of his
observations he is prepared to say that Ameri-
can dollars and American civilization have
done more to uplift him than anything else
that had been done for him by his own
Government within the last half century. Ex-
aggerated as the statement may seem at first,
it is yet quite true. Just now the Slovak
highlander is far more concerned over the
scale of wages obtaining in and about Pitts-
burg than he is over the wages paid in Pest.
If the whole truth must be told, Hungary,
ever since Kossuth's time and long before that,
has been nothing but a foster-mother to the
xii INTRODUCTION
Slovaks and a cruel foster-mother at that.
When Louis Kossuth came to the United
States after the suppression of the Magyar
rebellion, his powerful eloquence, and the cap-
tivating cause of which he made himself the
champion, won him the sympathy of every
lover of freedom in the country. Terrible,
though not undeserved, was Kossuth's arraign-
ment of Austria for her shocking excesses in
Hungary. But the Nestor of Hungarian
liberty had nothing to say to Americans about
the gibbets that he and his party caused to be
erected for the prompt execution of Slovak
and Servian rebels who demanded for them-
selves exactly what the Magyars believed to
be their due from Austria. During his travels
in Hungary, the present author interviewed
Francis Kossuth, son of Louis Kossuth, and
now the leader of the Independents, and asked
him whether the charge was true that the
Slovaks were being persecuted ? Mr. Kossuth
affected to be very much surprised. Perse-
cuted ? Impossible ! The very fact that they
had survived the Magyar occupation of a
thousand years disproved effectually any tale
of persecution. Like Kossuth reasons the
average Magyar. Truth travels slowly but
surely, and observing travellers from France
INTRODUCTION xiii
and Germany have had occasion to correct
some of the views which our fathers and
grandfathers still hold concerning affairs in
the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Ludevit Stiir
better than anyone knew and felt how shame-
fully ill-treated his people were, and he used
to say that their lot in Hungary was worse
than the position of the Christian raia in
Turkey. It may not be quite as bad as all
that, and things may have improved consider-
ably since the time of Stiir, who was a contem-
porary of Kossuth, but nevertheless the fact
is indisputable that no people in Central
Europe are abused more impudently by a
wicked and hostile Government than the
Slovaks. And why? Because all of them
will not sell their birthright for a mess of
Magyar pottage. If we recognize in principle
the right of the Finns, or Jews, or Irish, or of
any other people or sect to a separate exist-
ence, is there any good or valid reason for
denying that right to Slovaks ? The Irish
make the welkin ring with their grievances at
times ; the Finns can count on powerful sym-
pathizers in their uneven struggle with Russia ;
the Jews have formidable interests backing
them everywhere ; in the same way the Mace-
donians are not wholly without friends but
xiv INTRODUCTION
whither shall the downtrodden Slovak high-
lander turn for support? In his case the
Lord is too high and the sovereign too far to
save.
Is it denied that they are ill-treated ? The
Slovaks constitute one sixth of the total popu-
lation of the country, yet how many of them
serve the state in higher spheres of life, as
soldiers, churchmen, or statesmen ? Not a
single name could be mentioned. What
Slovak journalist has not been tried or sen-
tenced to a term in prison for political libel ?
What Slovak deputy was not forced to defend
a suit for incitement against Magyar nation-
ality ? What patriotic priest has not been under
police surveillance at one time or another?
As often as the accusing finger is pointed at
Pest, the answer comes : Panslavs alone are
persecuted, not Slovaks ! But is a panslav
a fore-doomed culprit who has no rights that
Hungarian officials, from the gendarme up to
the Minister of State, are bound to respect ?
Overwhelming must be the sense of injustice
when a national poet, a minister of the gospel,
relieves the bitterness of his soul in such a
heart-stirring song as " Mor ho!" "Kill!"
" Experience has shown," sadly comments Paul
Krizko, "that at the present time there is no
INTRODUCTION xv
legal protection for the Slovaks in their ancient
home."
The present author has drawn his material
almost exclusively from Bohemian and Slovak
sources, consulting, however, Magyar publica-
tions in so far as the same are translated into
English. Below is a list of some of the writers
and publications examined :
Charles Kalal, Meakulpinsk^, Stephen Dax-
ner, Jaroslav Vlcek, Zdenek V. Tobolka,
Anton Bielek, Dr. Emil Stodola, Joseph
Skultety, Joseph L. Holuby, Paul Joseph
Safafik, Miloslav Bohutiensk^, (Life of Kolldr),
Pohlady ( Slovak Review), Dr. Samo Czam-
bel, Sbornik Musedlnej Slovenskej Spolocnosti
(Magazine of the Slovak Museum Society),
Dr. Julius Markovic, Ludevit Stiir, Paul Sochan,
Milan Lichard, Francis Pastrnek, Rudolph
Pokorn^, Joseph J. Touzimsk^, 2iga Pauliny-
Toth, Paul Krizko, Andrew Kmet, Francis
Sasinek, Lubor Niederle, Arminius Vambery,
Coxe, William H. Stiles, Julius Botto, Dr.
Joseph Dejekelfalussy, W. R. Morfill, Talvj,
E. L. Mijatovics, Valerian Krasinski, T. G.
Masaryk, Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, L. Heilprin,
Louis Leger, Arthur Gorgei, Professor Krek,
Francis Palack, John Kolldr, Hurbans father
and son, etc.
xvi INTRODUCTION
That the subject-matter might be clear
chapters on Slavs and Panslavism were in-
cluded in this book.
In Moravia, close to the Hungarian frontier,
are entire villages of Slovaks, but no mention
is made of these although Moravian and Hun-
garian Slovaks are one and the same race.
Diacritical marks are used wherever expedi-
ent, except in the oft recurrent word " Slovak,"
which requires a mark on the vowel a, viz : a.
Due regard is had to Slovak terminology,
because its continued use is justified by cen-
turies of approbation as against decades of
Magyar official wantonness.
The ethnical map of the Slavic races follows
the standard map of Erben and the ethnical
Russian map of 1867.
Proper names of persons are written in ac-
cordance with the accepted orthography of
each race. Thus Safarik is given preference
to Schaffarik, Jellacic to Jellachich, etc.
THE AUTHOR.
NEW YORK CITY,
December 6, 1905.
THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
THE SLAVS
IT is estimated that there are between 125,-
000,000 and 145,000,000 Slavonians. 1 In
the east live the Russians, the mightiest branch
of the Slavic family, numbering some 86,000,-
ooo. They are divided according to dialect
into Great Russians, Little Russians, and
White Russians.
In the south are the South-Slavs or Illyri-
ans, known as Servians, Croatians, Bosnians,
1 Under existing conditions it is impossible to state the accurate
number of Slavs. In some countries, as for instance in Austro-
Hungary, it is a practice to count according to the "language of
intercourse," and not according to the mother tongue, by virtue of
which stratagem Slavs lose enormously. Basing his figures on
official census and minimal estimates, Professor Lubor Niederle
reckoned that the Slavs in 1900 numbered 138,987,800. At the end
of 1904 this should have been increased by 8,000,000, giving a grand
total of 145,000,000 or 147,000,000. German statisticians reckon
fewer Slavs. Thus, for instance, A, L. Hickmann, in 1904, found
132,000,000 of them.
I
2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Montenegrins (Crnogorci), Slavonians, Dalma-
tians, and Slovenes respectively. To these
may be added the Bulgarians. All told, the
South Slavonians number about 13,000,000.
In the west are found the Bohemians who,
together with their nearest kinsmen, the Mora-
vians and Slovaks, are 8,500,000 strong; the
Poles, computed at 17,000,000; and 150,000
Serbs, living in the two Lusatias, all that
is left of the once powerful branch of that
name.
Slavs owe allegiance to four great govern-
ments, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Germany, and
Turkey.
The creeds of the Slavic nations are as
varied as the governments under which they
live. They belong to the Orthodox Church
(Russians, Bulgarians, and Servians), to the
Roman Catholic Church (Poles, Bohemians,
Slovaks, Croatians, Slovenes), about 3,000,000
are Uniates, or United Orthodox, 1,500,000
Protestants (Lusatians, Serbs, Bohemians,
Poles, Slovenes, and Slovaks), and 1,000,000
Mohammedans (Bosnians, Hercegovinans).
The Slavonians are members of the great
Aryan family of nations. Originally they
called themselves " Srbove," which signified
"people of the same race." To Germans and
THE SLAVS 3
others with whom they came into contact,
they were known as Vends or Vinds. In the
sixth century, the use of the name Vinds be-
came restricted to particular branches of the
race and a new name, Slavonians, until then
the ancient designation of a tribe settled around
Novgorod, in Russia, gained universal recogni-
tion. About the meaning of the word " Slav,"
" Slavonian " writers differ. Some derive it
from " slava," glory, which interpretation, no
doubt, is more fanciful than true. Others,
like Dobrovsk^, trace it to "slovo," word,
thus meaning speech, as distinguished from
"mutes," or "Nemci,"as the Slavonians called
the Germans. " By chance or malice German
and Latin writers degraded this national appel-
lation of Slavs to the signification of servitude,
slavery."
At what period the Slavic peoples migrated
with other nations to Europe, by what route
they proceeded, when they separated from the
parent stock, what common tongue they spoke,
are problems which, unsolved and seemingly
unsolvable, continue to occupy the minds of
scholars. At one time the so-called Old or
Church Slavic, into which the missionary Cyril
translated the Bible, or parts of it, was regarded
as the mother of all the Slavic idioms, but re-
4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
cent investigations have demonstrated that the
Old Slavic is only an elder sister, and that the
mother tongue must have passed out of ex-
istence ages ago. White or Great Croatia, a
country of indefinite extent, traversed by the
Carpathian Mountains, and situated between the
Vistula and the Dnieper, is spoken of by all
the chroniclers as the fatherland of the primi-
tive Slavs. There they lived, it is supposed,
in common brotherhood, speaking, substan-
tially, the same language, governed by the same
traditions, and practising the same pagan rites.
From this White Croatia, they afterwards
spread north, west, and south, either in search
of new possessions, or because they were
thrust out by other nations.
In the seventh century their migrations ap-
pear to have ceased ; and we find them a cen-
tury later occupying in uninterrupted continuity
a vast tract east of the Elbe, the Saale, and
the Bohemian Forest, southward to the Adri-
atic Sea, in the regions where, upon the whole,
they are still to be found to day. The names
of rivers, cities, and villages with Slavic roots
or terminations prove irrefutably that in ancient
times Slavonic was spoken in Saxony, Brand-
enburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and other
provinces now German. Some of the finest
THE SLAVS 5
passages in the prologue to KollaYs poem,
Slavias Daughter^ dwell on the sad fate of
the nations that lived along the Elbe and the
Baltic and were in time absorbed by the
Germans.
Ay, here lies that country before my tearful eye,
Once the cradle, now the coffin, of my nation.
Whither have you disappeared, beloved Slavic nations,
who here have lived,
Nations that drank of the sea here and of the Saale
there ?
The peaceful tribes of the Serbians, of the Obodritian
empire the descendants,
Where are you, tribes of the Veleti, where, grandsons of
the Ukri ?
Far to the right I gaze, to the left I turn my searching
vision,
But in vain does my eye seek Slavs in Slavia.
Speak, tree, their grown temple, under which offerings to
ancient gods were burned;
Where are those nations, their princes, cities,
That first gave life to these regions of the north ?
Of the Slavs in the days of paganism and
idolatry our accounts are meagre. Native
writers who possessed intimate knowledge of
the country and its people did not appear
among them until long after the introduction
1 Adapted from Leger's Histoire de rAutriche-Hongrie, translated
by Freeman.
6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
of the gospel. As all our knowledge of the
manners, instincts, and sentiments of the
robust Slavonian peasant of pre - Christian
times is derived from foreigners, and, as the
observations of contemporary writers rest
mainly on hearsay, from tales that had been
gathered in Slavic lands by Roman and Greek
merchants, whom cupidity had tempted thither,
it will be seen how untrustworthy such accounts
must be.
In some respects, however, all writers agree
as, that the Slavs were eminently agricultur-
ists. The Germans acknowledged that the
Slavonians taught them both agriculture and
horticulture. The name of plough, German
" Pflug," is of pure Slavic origin. Therein
they differed from the primitive Germans,
their neighbors in the west, who were seldom
tillers of the soil, but were more generally
roving and predatory.
Before the introduction of feudalism among
them, the Slavs were as free as any barbarians
in Europe. To show that this was so, it is
only necessary to cite an ancient law of theirs,
which provided that captives of Slavonian
nationality, by whomsoever held, should be
free the instant they set foot on Slavonian soil.
Castes and hereditary power were unknown.
THE SLAVS 7
All the traditions of the Bohemians, Poles, and
Russians point to this conclusion. Everywhere
the chiefs were elected from and by the people
without distinction of rank or birth. Samo,
surnamed the Great, who in the seventh
century founded the first Slavonic empire in
the west, was a jeweller before he became a
ruler ; according to tradition, Premysl was
called from the plough to rule the Bohemian
nation ; and in Poland a wheelwright estab-
lished a long line of kings. An historian who
wrote in the sixth century says of them that
they lived in a " democracy," recognizing no
ruler. Such was admittedly the case with the
Baltic Slavs, among whom each clan or village
existed as a separate republic, and " all must
be persuaded where none could be compelled."
A father stood at the head of every family
or clan. Upon his death a vladyka (vlddnouti,
to rule) was selected, by free choice, to repre-
sent the interests of the clan in the assembly.
By virtue of their dignity all vladykas were
zemans, or freeholders. Land being aliena-
ble, it inevitably followed that some families
acquired greater territorial possessions than
others. In time the wealthier class of zemans,
to whom land had come through inheritance,
received the name lechs, a Slavonic term sig-
8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
nifying " field." The nobility of feudal times,
the llechtici, as they are called in Bohemian,
are indebted for their name and possessions to
the lechs. To advise him on legislative and
judicial matters, the chief magistrate (in Bo-
hemia) chose a senate of wise men, known as
kmets, meaning " old men."
Usually land was held and cultivated in
common by each clan, out of which grew a
custom, familiar to the Scottish Highlanders,
requiring some responsible person to be secur-
ity at court for the good conduct of the mem-
bers of the clan. That they possessed a code
of laws, differing in many respects from the
laws sought to be introduced among them by
the Germans, is well known.
The men tilled the soil ; the women per-
formed domestic work. Families bore the
name of their chieftain ; therefore, if the chiefs
name was Mladen, Bratron, Radon, the mem-
bers of that family were Mladenovici Bratron ici,
Radonici, the patronymic, as will be observed,
always ending in ici. In the same manner
villages became known by the name of the
clan, inhabiting them Bratronice, Radonice,
Mladenice. A union of families constituted
a tribe. Bohemia, for instance, was inhabited
by a number of tribes, all of Slavonic ances-
THE SLAVS 9
try, but of unequal strength and influence, and
differing slightly in speech and manners. The
Cechs, now the dominant race, were only one
of a number of tribes that peopled Bohemia.
Tradition names Lucans, Decans, Liutomiri-
nas, Psovans, Lemusians, Croatians, Netoli-
cans, Dudlebs, Zlicans, and Sedlicans as the
other tribes. Some of these clans became re-
nowned for their wealth and influence. It is
asserted that the Vrsovici, celebrated in early
Bohemian history, numbered 3000 heads at
the time when they were ordered to be put to
the sword.
Ever since the dawn of history we read of
" Slavic discord." The Emperor Mauritius
(539-602 A.D.) already comments on it. A
disposition to quarrel among themselves ap-
pears to be the common heritage of the race.
Discord contributed to, if it did not entirely
cause, the early downfall of some of the Sla-
vonian nations that had lived in the north and
in the west. From immemorial times a feeling
of hostility seems to have existed between
two powerful tribes, the Obodritians and the
Lutians. Again and again they plunged into
fratricidal wars. Tradition is silent as to the
reason, but presumably it was tribal jealousy.
A deep - rooted dislike kept the Serbs apart
io THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
from the Lutians, while both these nations re-
peatedly fought the Cechs, who, we may im-
agine, retaliated in kind. That the Polabian
tribes did not live on any better terms with
their more eastern kinsmen, the Croatians,
Polans, Milcans, Pomeranians, and others, is
quite certain. Divided by petty, intermin-
able quarrels, was it any wonder that, notwith-
standing their recognized bravery in war,
they sustained innumerable defeats, becom-
ing vassals to races less numerous than them-
selves, like the Celts, Scythians, Sarmatians,
and Goths ?
Although Christianity had been previously
introduced mainly by the arms of the Franks,
the new faith was not fully established among
them till the ninth and tenth centuries. Some
tribes, however, continued to worship their
ancient gods in the sacred groves long after
that time. To two brothers, the missionaries
Cyril and Methodius, natives of Thessalonica,
a city of mixed Greek and Slavonian inhabi-
tants, belong both the glory and credit of hav-
ing given to the Slavs the light of the gospel.
To the missionary Cyril the Slavonians are,
moreover, indebted for a knowledge of letters,
an acquirement that distinguishes a civilized
people from a herd of savages incapable of re-
THE SLAVS ii
flection. It may be, as some writers claim,
that letters were known to the Slavonians long
before Cyril's time (827-869) ; indeed, there are
evidences that the pagan priests on the Baltic
employed written characters in their rituals.
Yet, as that circumstance appears to have been
barren of result, Cyril must still be regarded
as the teacher who taught the Slavonians the
art of written speech. Incidentally, it may be \
remarked that the legends clustering around
the persons of the " Apostles of the Slavoni- i
ans," a title conferred upon them by affection- I
ate posterity, constitute the opening chapter to I
Slavic history. Everything that took place be- /
fore their time appears blurred and indistinct/
to us, if not hopelessly lost in a maze of tradi-y
tion and fable.
It would be beyond both the scope and the
purpose of this chapter to describe, even in a
general way, the progressive, intellectual, so-
cial, and political development of the Slavonian
peoples from the time of Cyril and Methodius,
which is coeval with Christianity among them,
to the present day. Let us rather examine
some of the causes that have retarded and
checked that development.
The adoption of two irreconcilable creeds,
the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox ; the
12 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
adoption of two rival civilizations, the Eastern
and the Western, with their separate literatures
and alphabets is the first and, by many it is be-
lieved, the principal cause. The missionary
Cyril invented, as we have noted, an alphabet,
consisting of forty-one letters, and known after
him as the Cyrillic. Then he translated, or
caused to be translated, part of the gospels and
the liturgy into an idiom spoken at that time
by the Macedonian Slavonians. I f_ it had been
possibkM^ and
alphabet, the Slavswould have actnevecTTn^
time the same, or _ similar, literary Amity as the
Germans or Italians. But hardly had Cyril's
invention begun to take root when a quarrel of
thrones and churches broke out at Rome and
Constantinople. The Slavic lands lay in the
direct zone of the conflict. Whichever side
won, the Eastern or the Western, they were
bound to be affected. Reconciliation becom-
ing impossible, the churches separated, and
with them the Slavs : the Russians, Bulgari-
ans, Servians, and a portion of the South-Sla-
vonians being drawn into the fold of the
Orthodox Church ; the Bohemians, Poles,
Slovaks, and Slovenes becoming subject to the
Church of Rome and to Latin influence. This
was the beginning of an estrangement that
THE SLAVS 13
centuries of religious and literary prejudices
have made complete.
Another great misfortune of the Slavs was
their apparent inability or unwillingness to
abandon their primitive life, which afforded
more freedom than security, and to unite in
great commonwealths. The historian Gibbon
expressed the opinion that the Slavs were too
narrow in experience and of too headstrong
passions to compose a system of equal law or
general defence. Be that as it may, the fact is
that, with the exception of the Poles and Bo-
hemians, none of the western tribes succeeded
in establishing an enduring state. Samo's em-
pire (627-662 ?), which included a number of
nations, went to pieces with the death of its
founder. The great Moravian kingdom of
Svatopluk (870-894), mention of which will be
made hereafter, survived its ruler only a short
time. During the second half of the tenth and
eleventh centuries, the Bohemian princes Bole-
slav and Bfetislav, imitating the example of
Samo, again and again united numerous tribes
under one sceptre. The monarchies of these
princes, however, were no more permanent
than those of Samo or Svatopluk. Even the
mighty realm of Boleslav the Brave (967-1025)
colapsed for lack of cohesive unity. That
I 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
ambitious Polish prince aspired to rule ovei
the Bohemians, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, and
Polabian Slavs. Prague was to have been the
capital of Boleslav's empire and " King of the
Slavonians " his title. Of all the Slavic races,
the Russians alone were able, in face of every
obstacle, to create and to maintain a vast
and durable empire. The village republics of
the Obodritians, the Lutians, the Serbs, the
Rotars, and others, succumbed, one after an-
other, to German domination.
Many as were the disasters that the Slavs
often drew down upon themselves, none was
followed by consequences more lamentable
than the invasion and occupation of Hungary
by the Magyars. Slavonic territory extended
in the ninth century from Holstein on the
north to the Peloponnesus. Almost in the centre
of this territory, Svatopluk, with consummate
skill, erected and maintained a powerful empire
in face of numerous enemies. It was here
that Cyril and Methodius first preached the
gospel. Assured of the support of both Rome
and Constantinople, Svatopluk's realm seemed
to be destined for great things. In time, it is
more than likely, all the western Slavs would
have joined it for reasons of expediency and
self-protection, or would have been absorbed
THE SLAVS 15
by it. From it they would all have received
Christianity, together with an entire fabric of
laws and institutions and, above all, a common
language and literature. In short, Svatopluk's
monarchy, like Russia in the east, would have
become in time a bulwark of strength to the
Slavs in the west. But the Magyars, a nation
totally dissimilar in language and origin, hav-
ing thrust themselves into this body politic,
not yet coalesced in all its parts, forever shat-
tered all these hopes. Disrupted anew and
separated from each other by an alien race, the
various tribes relapsed into their former state
of independence, political and literary. That
the Magyars, situated, as they were, in the
midst of Slavic people, have not been absorbed
by them is, indeed, remarkable.
The formation of the Slavs into several
nations distinct from each other is an accom-
plished fact that cannot be undone. They are
related to each other in about the same degree
of kindred that unites people of the Latin or the
German races. There is this difference, how-
ever, that, while the Germans developed uni-
formly, never having been checked or arrested
in their growth by alien races hostile to civili-
zation, we allude to the Tatars who for cen-
turies dominated Russia, and to the Turks, the
16 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
evil masters of the Servians and Bulgarians,
the evolution of the Slavs was for these reasons
slow and unequal. Even geographical condi-
tions were against them, as any one can readily
see by glancing at the map of Europe. It
should also be borne in mind that, while the
Latin and German peoples are free and inde-
pendent, obeying no will but their own, a great
many Slavic nations are controlled by sover-
eign wills, not their own.
The Bohemians or Cechs are now contend-
ing with the Germans for equal rights, lingual
and political, in the ancient Kingdom of
Bohemia.
The Slovenes aspire to the consolidation of
southern Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and
Trieste, in all of which provinces their lan-
guage is spoken. Neighbors of two hostile
races, the Germans and Italians, their posi-
tion is particularly trying.
The Hungarian Slavs are oppressed more or
less by the Magyars. Croatia and Slavonia,
together forming a political unit with territorial
autonomy inside the dominion of Hungary,
enjoy privileges in regard to the use of their
mother tongue that are denied to the Servians,
Rusenes, and Slovaks.
The position of the Poles is obviously peril-
THE SLAVS 17
ous. Of all the Slavs, they are losing most
ground, and this is especially true of the Poles
who were incorporated in Germany. Will
these eventually meet the fate of the Obodri-
tians and of the Lusatians ?
The hour of deliverance from Turkish yoke
has not yet come to all the Balkan Slavs.
The Crnogorci (Montenegrins) and Servians
are entirely free and independent ; the Bul-
garians are nominally free.
What remains of the once powerful nation
of the Serbs, now confined to the two Lusa-
tias, Upper and Lower, is doomed to perish
sooner or later in the German sea that en-
circles it on all sides.
PANSLAVISM
IN the St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna stands
a simple marble shaft with this inscrip-
tion : 4i Living, he bore the whole nation
in his heart ; dead, he lives in the heart
of the whole nation."
This monument marks the resting-place of
John Kollar (1793-1852), the " High Priest of
Panslavism." By birth a Slovak, by affiliation
a Bohemian, but by preference a "Slavonian
patriot," Kollar devoted his whole life, or as
much of it as his obligations to the Church
allowed him, for he was a Lutheran minister,
to the preaching of unity among Slavs.
"What art thou ? A Russian? What art
thou ? A Servian ? What art thou ? I am a
Pole ! My children, unity ! Let your answer
be, I am a Slavonian."
This Slavic unity, in literature at least, or
" literary reciprocity," as he styled it, was the
keynote, the ambition of his life. Why could
not the Slavonians adopt a common medium
of communication as the Germans have done ?
To Kollar's mind the analogy between the two
18
PANSLAVISM 19
great races, the German and the Slavonian, was
complete, and in this respect Kollar showed
a judgment lamentably deficient. As a result
of this cardinal error, the phantom confederacy
which he had reared in his lyric-epic poem,
Slavias Daughter, and in his Literary Reci-
procity failed to stand a practical test when
the opportune time came.
But in one regard the " High Priest of Pan-
slavism " was eminently successful, and for this,
if for nothing else, his name deserves to be
remembered by posterity. He it was who first
sought to inculcate in the Slavs the sentiment
of " Slavonic patriotism." Moreover, by his
prophecies, Kollar filled the Slavs with hope
and confidence. If Isaiah was the oracle of
the Hebrews, Kollar may be said to have been
the seer of the Slavonians. To be sure, all
his prophecies have not come true, but then
the race, as a scholar of distinction expressed
it, " has neither reached the flourishing con-
dition of the Germans, nor is it decaying, but
is the race of the future."
In that part of Kollar's Slavias Daugh-
ter which was published in 1824, we find
these prophetic lines :
" What will become of us Slavs a century
hence ?
20 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
What aspect will Europe wear then ?
Flood-like, Slavic life will inundate all,
Expanding its influence everywhere.
And the tongue which was proclaimed to be
the speech fit for slaves, according to the
distorted judgment of the Germans,
Will resound within the walls of palaces,
issuing even out of the mouths of its very
rivals.
Sciences, too, will flow in Slavic moulds.
The styles, customs, and songs of our
people
Will be mighty, alike on the Seine and on the
Elbe."
No wonder that Kollar tried to solace him-
self with the future, for the present in which
he lived was dark and unpromising enough.
Safarik had counted seventy nine millions of
Slavs in Europe in 1842, but almost as many
bondsmen : Bohemia, the vanguard of the
race, almost German ; the Illyrians talking
Italian ; the Hungarian Slavonians, under the
tutelage of the Magyars ; Servia and Bul-
garia yet unborn ; the cultured classes in Po-
land and Russia affecting French manners and
language it will be remembered that around
Elizabeth's throne a whole generation grew
up, French in thought and education, while
under Catherine II. the aristocracy was more
PANSLAVISM 21
French than Russian ; many of the historical
traditions forgotten during their long tenure of
servitude, well might the bard bewail the
pitiable state of the Slavonians !
If Kollar earned for himself the title of
" Arch - priest of Panslavism," Paul Joseph
Safarik (1795-1861) deserves to be called a Sla-
vonic Deucalion, because he peopled Austro-
Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and Prussia with
Slavonians where, before his time, there
had lived subject races only. Like Kollar,
Safarik was of Slovak extraction ; yet he felt
himself to be a Bohemian, and he preferred to
write in German. His Slavic Antiquities is a '
book which, to use Palacky's words, "will live
imperishable, continuing to yield bountiful
fruit so long as the Slavonians and their his-
tory shall endure." Of different temperaments
and inclinations Safank was a scholar, exact
and critical, while Kollar knew how to appeal
to one's imagination through his passionate
ardor, even though his arguments sometimes
lacked in depth and discrimination, Safarik
and Kollar both worked toward the same end,
the first unconsciously, may be, but the other
with a design. That end was Slavonic brother-
hood, panslavigm.
Nationalization had come to the race later
I
22 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
than to most European people. Although
French thought in the eighteenth century
dominated all Europe, and certain Slavonian
scholars were thoroughly familiar with the
labors of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rous-
seau, yet it cannot be said that the national
awakening of the Slavs was the work of the
French. Paris was too remote from the Bo-
hemian Forest, which marks the westernmost
Slavonian line. The task of rousing the Slavs
fell to their nearest neighbors, the Germans.
Herder, Kant, Goethe, Lessing, and Schiller
took their first lessons in the mental workshop
of the philosophers on the Seine. In their
turn, the Slavonians studied under the tutor-
ship of these Germans. Though unknowingly,
Herder sowed the first germ of panslavism.
Herder's belief in the higher destiny of Slavoni-
ans, not yet revealed, and his ideal humanity,
captivated one after another every Slavic
thinker of note. I n his Ideen zur Philosophic der
Geschichte der Menschheit, Herder gave utter-
fance to his now famous prophecy, that the
Slavonians, until then held in a thraldom of
oppression, would awaken from their lethargic
sleep, and, freeing themselves from the shackles
,that bound them, would again recover the
ownership of their vast domain, that stretched
PANSLAVISM 23
from the Adriatic Sea to the Baltic, and from
the Don to the Mulda, and devote themselves,
within the confines of this magnificent heri-
tage, to the peaceful cultivation of the arts
and commerce. Men like Dobrovsk^, Safarik,
Kollar, Palack^, Celakovsk^. Surowiecki,
Kopitar, and Jarnik at once ranged them-
selves in support of Herder's theory, helping
to disseminate it among their respective peo-
ple. Those Slavic lands that lay nearest to
Germany, or were tied to that country by his-
torical associations in the past, naturally fell
first under the Herderian spell. Not without
interest is it that Leibnitz, on a certain occasion,
addressed himself as a Slavonian to Peter the
Great The monarch and the philosopher met
at Torgau in 1713, and during a conversation
Leibnitz said to Peter : " We are both of Slavic
ancestry. You have wrested the world's
mightiest power from barbarism, and I have
founded a realm of equal extent. The origina-
tors of a new epoch, we are both descendants
of that race whose fortunes none can foretell."
By the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the work of nationalization had already made
startling progress. Every new book that left
the printing-press, be its theme Slavic phil-
ology or history, only made more apparent
24 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the close relationship that existed between the
Russian muzhik and the Bohemian peasant,
the Servian shepherd and the Dalmatian
fisherman. Simultaneously the discovery was
made that, with the exception of Russia, every
Slavic country suffered more or less from the
oppression of foreign masters, while two or
three were threatened with absorption by
other races. With such gloomy prospects be-
fore them, it was only natural that the smaller
nations, anxious to save themselves, conceived
the idea of a confederation. The reasoning was
perfectly logical. In unity lay strength and
power, as the Germans had demonstrated ; in
separation, the doom of the Polabians and
Lusatian Serbs, now almost wholly extinct,
awaited the Slavs. Chief in this movement
toward confederation were the Bohemians
the most advanced of all the Slavic races, but
at the same time the most exposed to the
perils of denationalization. In this way the
Bohemians earned for themselves the title of
" Apostles of Panslavism."
One of the first, if not the very first, to
make an issue of panslavism, or Slavic reci-
procity, that being a more accurate term, was
Joseph Dobrovsk^ (1753-1829). Studies in
Slavic languages had drawn him to this capti-
PANSLAVISM 25
vating subject. Dobrovsky was conscious and
proud of his Bohemian ancestry, but he de-
spaired of the future of his nation. As Bo-
hemians, his countrymen were fatedjtfl HIP, Jie
thought ; as Slavonians, they might survive.
Hence he sought and found consolation in"
panslavism. The extent of the Slavic lands
inspired Dobrovsk^. Reasoning further, he
came to the conclusion that the Slavs, like the
Germans, should adopt one common tongue.
In course of time they might even succeed
in building up a confederacy. Another Bo-
hemian writer who found comfort and assur-
ance in Slavic fraternity was Joseph Jungmann.
Like Dobrovsk^, he, too, believed it to be a
hopeless undertaking to try to resuscitate the
Bohemian nation, then almost wholly Ger-
manized. Toward Russia, which was powerful
enough to conquer a Napoleon, Jungmann
turned his hopeful gaze. Slavonians, he as-
sured himself, should form a lingual union and x
select as a common language the Russian, \
that being the tongue of the strongest branch
of the race. Jungmann's views, it may be
said, were shared by the majority of the Bo-
hemian patriots of that time. Kopitar, a noted
Slovene author, advocated the founding of a
Slavic; Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and
26 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
he made other suggestions that clearly mark
him the precursor of John Kolldr.
Meantime a current of nationalism had
swept over the face of Germany. In schools,
literature, public press, and secret societies a
war, bitter and uncompromising, had been de-
clared against everything French. " Union and
Liberty " were the watchwords that went the
length and breadth of the fatherland. " When
united, Germans were never defeated ; dis-
united, always." This was the trend of Ger-
man reasoning. Of this teaching the university
at Jena was the recognized centre. Safank
and Kolldr studied in this school. Already
before their coming to Jena both Safarik and
Kolla"r were ardent nationalists. Jungmann,
the Nestor of Bohemian letters, had fired their
souls with notions of Slavonic brotherhood.
During their stay at the university, and under
its immediate influence, these sentiments were
probably crystallized. Quite possibly it was
at Jena that the two Slovaks conceived the
ambitious plan of doing for the Slavonians
what Lessing, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe
were doing for the Germans. Be it as it may,
certain it is that Safarik and Kollir left the
university thoroughly convinced that what was
good for the Germans must be equally bene-
PANSLAVISM 27
ficial for the Slavonians, and that if the Ger-
mans clamored for " Union and Liberty," the
Slavic nations must similarly seek unity among
themselves. His ideas on the subject Kollar
explained at length in a work written in Ger-
man in 1837, and entitled On Literary Re-
ciprocity among the Various Branches and
the Idioms of the Slavic Nation}- No new
ideas were contained in the book, nothing
that had not been brought out by other Slavists,
or that had not been proposed or commented
upon by them in newspaper articles or private
correspondence or confidential discussions.
To Kollar, however, belonged the credit of
having reduced to a system the material which
had been accumulated by his predecessors and
contemporaries. His notion of Slavonic reci-
procity and fraternity was after the pattern
of other writers. He essayed to make the
weak strong by the simple process of associa-
tion. Literary reciprocity, as planned by him,
would not disturb established institutions,
either of State or Church ; above all, it would
not lead to the fusion of the various Slavic
dialects into a common literary language. All
that it required was that a Slavonian who had
1 Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit zwischen den verschiedenen
Stammen und Mundarten der Slavischen Nation.
28 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
attained what the writer designated the first
degree of culture should learn four idioms
namely, Russian, Illyrian (Servo-Croatian),
Polish, and Bohemian. Reaching the second
degree, our Slavonian should already be able
to command other dialects and sub-dialects ;
while he who had elevated himself to the third
or last class should show familiarity with all
the Slavic idioms without exception. In all
cases this knowledge should be lexicographi-
cal at least. Benefits from such literary reci-
procity would be many. The more powerful
branches of the Slavic family would in this
manner be constantly reminded of the exist-
ence of their weaker kinsmen. To smaller
branches, reciprocity would impart strength
and assurance ; as long as their mother tongue
survived, they would be safe and secure, even
though their sovereignty might be lost. All
tendencies at separation should be combated
and suppressed. Reciprocity indicated to
Slavonians the way to their great mission
among the nations of the earth. Belated as
had been their appearance on the stage of
world's affairs, nevertheless a glorious future
was in store for them. Even the ways and
means whereby he hoped to accomplish his
purpose were set down by the author. Among
PANSLAVISM 29
others, he would open bookstores making a
specialty of Slavic literature in Slavic capitals,
establish chairs of Slavic languages, found
circulating libraries, publish panslavic reviews,
compile comparative grammars, and edit folk-
songs. Foreign phrases and expressions he
would eliminate gradually, replacing them with
pure Slavic words, to the end that the race
might sooner reach the goal of a panslavic
tongue a tongue which should be readily in-
telligible to all Slavs of whatsoever branch.
Kollar's panslavistic teachings, as expounded
in Literary Reciprocity, and in Slavias Daugh-
ter, made a great stir in Europe. Many there
were who acclaimed them the " Slavic Evan-
gel," while non-Slavonians, and of those
particularly Austrian Germans and Magyars,
assailed the author, condemning his theories
as dangerous and subversive.
The South Slavonians espoused the cause
of Slavonic reciprocity. However, Ljudeviti
,5^(1809-1872), their brilliant leader, believed
that the unity of his own countrymen, who
were divided by religious differences, should
precede the larger union of all the Slavs.
With this object in view, Gaj worked for the
creation of Greater Illyria, which should in-
clude all the South Slavic races, known by
30 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
their tribal names of Slovenes, Croatians, Sla-
vonians, Dalmatians, Bosnians, Crnogorci
(Montenegrins), Servians, and Bulgarians.
The Slovaks more than any other people
were charmed with the lessons of the new
evangel. Kollar and Saf arik were their fellow-
countrymen, a circumstance that insured in-
dulgent criticism for them, to say the least.
But, aside from this, there was another and
deeper consideration that prompted them to
embrace Kollar's faith. To them, threatened
,as they were by the Magyars, the union of the
Slavonians promised security. Hence we see
that in the early thirties almost all educated
Slovaks rallied around KollaYs banner.
Through students attending the seminaries
at Prague, Kollar's panslavism filtered among
what there was left of the Lusatian Serbs.
John E. Smoler and J. P. Jordan became the
acknowledged leaders at home.
Under Alexander I. of Russia even the
Poles cherished the hope that the Slavs might
eventually group themselves around Russia.
Prince Adam Czartoryjski, it is related on
good authority, never ceased to remind that
democratic and enlightened monarch that
Russia should re - establish Poland. After
Napoleon I. had broken his promises to them,
PANSLAVISM 31
the Poles more than ever clung to Russia.
Stanislaw Staszic expressed the wish that
Russia would begin the great work of re-
demption of the Slavs by the upbuilding of
Poland. When Alexander died, in 1825, and
Nicholas I. succeeded him on the Russian
throne, the Poles lost faith in the rectitude of
Russia's intentions. Only those of them that
lived under the Austrian Government sympa-
thized with Kollar's ideas.
The Bulgarians prior to 1848 were all but
unknown, and, singularly enough, the " Arch-
priest of Panslavism " had forgotten them
entirely. For a long time the Bulgarians con-
tinued to be an enigma to the rest of the
Slavs. Dobrovsky mistakenly thought that
Bulgarian was a dialect of the Servian. Kopitar
could throw but a feeble light on their lan-
guage in 1815, and even Safarik was unable to
describe their exact location or state their
numbers in his ethnography. A Moscow
newspaper as late as 1827 manifested honest
surprise that there should live a Christian
people in European Turkey, speaking an un-
known tongue that much resembled in sound
the Old Church Slavic.
When, after the downfall of Napoleon I.,
Alexander I. of Russia committed himself to
32 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the adventurous fancy of a universal monarchy
such as the bold Corsican had planned but
failed to realize, the Russian court sought to
win the good-will of the rest of the Slavo-
nians to that scheme. V. N. Karazin, the
author, in 1804 called the court's attention to
the wretched condition of some of the smaller
Slavic nations, and when the Servians appealed
to Russia for aid, he implored the Emperor,
in the name of the common ancestry and
faith which united the two peoples together,
to render the help needed. Indeed, this com-
munity of faith and origin played an all-im-
porant rdle in all the ensuing wars between
the Slav and the Turk. Panslavism was at
one time propagated by a class of vision-
aries in Russia during Alexander I. 's reign,
who banded themselves into secret societies
for that purpose. Of this class was a " Soci-
ety of United Slavonians," founded in 1823,
which hoped to unite the Slavonians into
a confederacy. Russia, Poland, Bohemia,
Moravia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Hungary
were to be welded into one government, the
representatives of which were to have resided
in a capital centrally located. Alexander's
successor suppressed this and other similar
societies, being opposed on principle to every
RA(
1904.
AK.J
PANSLAVISM 33
radical change or opinion. When Michael
Pogodin returned home from his journeys in
Slavic countries (1842) the idea of Slavonic
reciprocity more than ever began to engross
public attention in Russia. What Kollar
recommended as to the publication of a Slavic
review, founding of libraries, bookstores, etc.,
Pogodin urged the Russian Government to do
at its own expense. Later the term " Slavo-
philes " was given by way of distinction to those
of the Russian leaders who interested them-
selves in any way in the western Slavs. The
names of Hilferding, Lamanskij, Aksakov, and
others are widely known in this connection.
But, while universally popular, it could not
be said that Kollar's all-Slavic ideas were
unanimously approved. At first opponents
were few. Charles Havlicek, the fearless Bo-
hemian publicist, was the first to raise a dis-
senting voice. " Slavonians," wrote Havlicek,
"do not constitute one nation but are divided
in four nations, each being as independent and
distinct from the others as any European
nation. Each branch stands by itself, for good
or evil ; neither glory nor dishonor is theirs in
common. Because of the great similarity of
Slavic idioms, it is both useful and necessary
for the different Slavic nations to keep up an
34 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
active literary fellowship and to draw recipro-
cally from the literary treasures of all. As
matters now are, the Bohemians and Illyrians
are the only ones who are in position to bene-
fit one another, their interests not clashing.
. . . . For all Slavs to have a common
literary language is impossible, and endeavors
toward that end are senseless. Let no one
point to the Germans, now wedded to a com-
mon literature, though greater dialectic dif-
ferences separate them than us Slavonians.
Among Germans, political unity dates back to
earlier times, and the conditions which were
instrumental in creating uniformity of letters
are wanting among Slavonians. In short, I
shall proudly say ' I am a Bohemian/ but
never ' I am a Slavonian.' Whenever I call
myself a Slavonian, I shall always mean it in
an abstract sense, geographically or ethno-
graphically. Slavonians have four fatherlands
and not one ; Slavonic patriotism is only a
shade better than cosmopolitanism."
In 1848 panslavism had reached a new stage
of development. Hitherto it had found ex-
pression solely in literature ; now the time had
come to subject it to a practical test. A revo-
lutionary storm had begun to gather in Austria.
The first clash between the Slav and the
Teuton came when the Germans, yielding to
the popular demand for " Ein freies, einiges
PANSLAVISM 35
Vaterland," met in Frankfort, in March, 1848,
and invited the Austrian people to send repre-
sentatives to their parliament. Austria was
not German, and the Slavonians, who constitu-
ted a majority in that empire, resented the idea
of being incorporated in the new " Deutsches
Reich." As planned by the Frankfort Diet,
Greater Germany was to have included Bohe-
mia, Silesia, Moravia, and Illyria lands inhab-
ited by Slavonians. The nations living in the
Hapsburg monarchy promptly took issue on
the Frankfort Parliament. As a rule, the Aus-
trian Germans were in favor of sending depu-
ties there ; the Slavonians for the same reason
bitterly opposed it. The Vienna Government
did not know what to do. In one sense partial
to the Frankfort Parliament, in another it felt
distrust. While anxious to have a deciding
voice there, Minister Ficquelmont feared
that, eventually, Frankfort might defeat him
at home. He had no objection to Austrians
taking part in the election, if he could control
it. With unrestricted suffrage, the probabilities
were that the majority of electors would vote
for a republic. " Let us remain Germans, while
continuing to be Austrians," declared Ficquel-
mont in a burst of wise patriotism. A situa-
tion bordering on anarchy was produced, when
36 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the ministry at last made public its decision
that it would neither order the election nor yet
prohibit it, but would leave the right to vote
or not to vote to the discretion of each citizen.
On April 10, 1848, Francis Palack^, the Bo-
hemian historian, received an invitation to take
part in the deliberations of the parliament.
Unhesitatingly Palack^ declined the honor.
On the following day, April nth, his letter
had already left Prague. The document was
worthy of that great historian's reputation.
Palack^ well knew that his letter to the pre-
siding officer of the diet, Soiron, must be broad
enough to speak for all the Austrian Slavs,
whom the government was either unwilling or
unable to protect. " I am a Bohemian of Slavic
origin," wrote he to Frankfort, "and whatever
I now possess or may yet own I have conse-
crated wholly and forever to the good of my
nation. Small in numbers is this nation, yet
since time immemorial it has maintained its
individuality and sovereignty; true, its rulers
have for ages been parties to the league of
German princes, but the nation has never re-
garded itself as one with the German nation,
nor have others classed it as such during all
these centuries. The relations of Bohemia,
such as they were, first with the Holy German
PANSLAVISM 37
Empire and thereafter with the Bund, were
always a pure formality of which the Bohemian
people and their Estates took little or no
notice. ... It is a matter of public know-
ledge that German Emperors, as such, had no
relations with the Bohemian nation ; that they
were not vested with any rights in or over
Bohemia, either legislative, judicial or execu-
tive ; that at no time had they the power to
levy armies or order contributions of any kind;
that Bohemia, including her crown-lands, never
formed part or parcel of any of the ten German
states of those times ; that the mandates of the
highest court of the realm did not apply there ;
in fine, that the past connection between Bo-
hemia and the German Empire should be re-
garded not in the nature of a union between
nations, but as a league between rulers. Who-
ever now urges that this league of princes
should give room to a union between the Bohe-
mian and German nations, advances a new
postulate, utterly at variance with the past."
The diet at Frankfort was still in session
when the following proclamation appeared in
Slavonic newspapers published in Austria :
" Desirous of unity, the Germans have
summoned to meet at Frankfort a parliament
38 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
which calls on the Austrian monarchy to sur-
render so much of its independence as is in-
dispensable to German plans, requesting it,
furthermore, to join the Germanic Empire with
all its lands, excepting Hungary. Such a step
would not only result in the disruption of Aus-
tria, but would, at the same time, bring about
the isolation and effacement of the Slavic
races and imperil their nationality. Duty im-
poses it upon us to bravely defend that which
is most holy to us. The time has arrived for
us Slavonians to meet in conference and agree
on a common cause of action. Therefore, in
response to numerous calls addressed to us
from several Slavic lands, we hereby take pleas-
ure in inviting all Slavonians from Austria,
urging especially men who enjoy the confi-
dence of their people and who have the welfare
of the public at heart, to meet in the ancient
Slavonic Prague of Bohemia on the 3ist day
of May of this year, to the end that we may
jointly take counsel on all matters pertaining
to the well-being of our nations and which the
exigencies of these troublous times require.
Slavonians living without the boundaries of
the monarchy who may desire to honor us
with their presence will be cordially welcome
as guests. Prague, May i, 1848."
Signed to the proclamation were the names
of men eminent in letters and public life.
Who first conceived the idea of a panslavic
PANSLAVISM 39
congress? It was said that it emanated from
the pen of a Croatian journalist by the name
of Ivan Kukuljevic a warm advocate of Kol-
lar's panslavism. Be this as it may, the sug-
gestion met with instant favor : as a retaliatory
measure against Frankfort, and as a warning
to Germans and Magyars to cease persecut-
ing the Slavonians, the congress promised
to relieve a situation that seemed wellnigh
intolerable. By June 2d, when it was form-
ally opened, there were in Prague, to attend
the congress, 42 deputies from South Slavic
countries, 61 Poles and Little Russians from
Galicia, and 237 Bohemians, Moravians, and
Slovaks.
It will be noticed that the committee on
arrangements, in sending out invitations, drew
a fine distinction between Austrian Slavonians
and Slavs in general. The first-named alone
were eligible to membership ; non-Austrian
Slavs were to be received as guests only.
This was by no means unintentional. The
Bohemians who were heading the movement
were everywhere being made out to be rabid
Russophiles, and unless the congress was to
stand accused, justly or unjustly, before Eu-
rope, of making propaganda for the Tsar, pru-
dence and tact made this restriction imperative.
40 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
None the less the promoters were overwhelmed
with abuse from the Magyars, hemmed in as
they were by disaffected Slavic populations,
and by the partisans of Frankfort, the latter
asserting that the Slavs were about to set up
an opposition " Slavonic Confederacy," to with-
stand their Germanic Empire. Document-
ary proof is extant to show that, acting on
Kossuth's advice, Premier Batthyany lodged a
protest in Vienna, in the name* of the Hunga-
rian Government, against the congress taking
place. Failing to prevent it altogether, Eszter-
hazy, who represented the Hungarians in the
capital of the monarchy, was to have devised a
plan, with the co-operation of the Vienna Gov-
ernment, whereby the gathering might be
made to appear before the world as a sort of
Bohemian provincial diet. At any rate the
Poles from Galicia were to be deterred, either
by threats or promises, from going to Prague.
How the congress alarmed the Magyars and
how furiously opposed they were to it is proved
by the letters of Kollar and Wett, now on file
in the land archives at Prague. Under date
of June i, 1848, J. Wett writes from Pest:
" Great was our joy that we might all meet in
Prague on May 3ist. However, the moment
our Pest newspapers printed an account of the
PANSLAVISM 41
congress, threats of the most violent nature
were made by the Magyar public against Kol-
lar ; he was given to understand that if he
ventured to go to Prague, it would cost him
his life." In a tearful letter, bearing the same
date, Kollar excused himself to Palack^ for his
inability to attend : " A few days ago a Mag-
yar soldier sent a message to me through the
regimental bandmaster to the effect that he
would shoot me on sight if I went to the
congress."
Preparatory labors being finished, the very
first business of the congress was to issue a
manifesto to European nations. " The Pan-
slavic Congress now convened in Prague,"
says this manifesto, "is a novel occurrence in
Europe and a new experience for us Slavoni-
ans. For the first time since history mentions
our name, the scattered members of this wide-
spread family of nations have congregated in
larger numbers from distant lands, that we
might become better acquainted among our-
selves and might peacefully and like brothers,
as we are, deliberate on affairs that concern us
all alike. Not only have we succeeded in mak-
ing ourselves understood, as far as concerns
our melodious language, spoken by eighty
millions of people, but also by our hearts
42 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
beating in unison and by the sameness of our
intellectual aims." Continuing, the manifesto
explains the difference in the past between the
Germans and Latins, invariably bent on con-
quest, and the peace-loving Slavonians who,
one after another, were deprived of freedom
and ^independence, but now, when the old order
of things is about to pass away, have stepped
forward to reclaim their lost heritage of free-
dom freedom for all, irrespective of caste or
race. " Liberty, equality and fraternity of
every citizen is again our motto as it was a
thousand years ago." The manifesto defends
the principle of equal rights before the law ;
reproves the Germans and Magyars for their
contemptuous claim to superiority over the
Slavonians ; repudiates the charge of "political
panslavism," the spectre which had been in-
vented by malicious people for the obvious
purpose of discrediting the congress before
Europe, but against which the remedy is sim-
ple justice to Slavic people ; makes a digni-
fied yet forcible appeal to Prussia to desist in
her cruel persecution of Poles and of Lusatian
Serbs ; remonstrates with the Magyars for de-
nying equal rights to Hungarian Slavonians ;
gives expression to the hope that kinsmen
groaning under Turkish despotism might soon
PANSLAVISM 43
be freed. In conclusion the manifesto moves
the establishment of a recurrent tribunal of
nations for the peaceful settlement of all in-
ternational disputes, thus foreshadowing The
Hague Tribunal.
Among the labors that were left unfinished
was a petition to the Hapsburg ruler. This
demanded the reconstruction of Austria as a
federal empire, which alone is capable of guar-
anteeing the sovereignty and inviolability of
the many races living there. The meddling
of Germans this referred to the Frankfort
Diet in Austrian home affairs should neither
be encouraged nor tolerated. What the Sla- \
vonians contend for is a powerful, sovereign
Austrian state.
A multitude of other motions and propo-
sitions remained equally uncompleted, for on
June 1 2th, exactly ten days after it had been
opened, the congress came to a sudden and
unexpected close. Prague was plunged in the
throes of a revolution.
"The ' Bloody Easter Week' that followed
interrupted the work of the Slavic Congress,"
comments a noted Bohemian. " The dele-
gates dispersed, some of them being ordered
away, others leaving voluntarily, because it was
inadvisable to continue in their work in a city
44 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
under martial law. For this reason, and no
other, further sittings were discontinued, the
congress terminating abruptly. However,
these events only suspended its deliberations,
failing to defeat them. Not one of the dele-
gates in attendance, much less the municipal
bodies and people electing them, relinquished
the object before them : to make effectual
and final the unification of the Slavonians who
come under the Austrian rule ; to secure for
Slavonians, in accordance with the grand prin-
ciple of equality of nations, those rights, invio-
late and inviolable, that are by nature inherent
in all people alike ; to elevate the Austrian
Slavs to that degree of worth that is theirs by
reason of their culture and numerical strength,
as compared with the other natives of Austria.
The Slavic Congress was intended to lay the
first corner-stone of this new policy of brother-
hood. The fact that it was interrupted by
untoward, uncontrollable circumstances, due to
the plottings of enemies, does not justify the
assumption that the cause was either aban-
doned or that the deliberations were in vain,
just as the happenings in Prague had not put
a bar to the great mission of the Slavs among
civilized mankind, nor diminished the weight
of the Slavs in Austria in particular. Agree-
ably to an expressed wish of the departing
delegates the congress was only adjourned, to
reconvene at some future time, to finish what
it had been prevented from doing at its first
session."
PANSLAVISM 45
Although none of the plans of the congress
were put into execution, still it cannot be said
that it was wholly without result. The good
fellowship formed at Prague continued there-
after to be a fountain of hope and force to Aus-
tro-Slavism. Nor was this the last meeting of
Slavonians. Once grown intimate, the newly-
found relatives have never again allowed
themselves to lose sight of each other. The
next gathering of note took place in Moscow,
Russia, in 1867, on the occasion of the Ethno-
graphic Exhibition, held in that city. Except-
ing the Poles, representatives of the entire
Slavonic family were present at that meeting.
And because the exhibition at Moscow hap-
pened to take place in the same year in which
dualism had been first put in operation in
Austria, whereby Magyars and Germans fondly
hoped to make lasting their hegemony over
the Slavonians, a hostile press saw more than
a mere coincidence in this. It was represented
as a threat aimed at Austria. Kollar's phan-
tom Slavonic confederacy again began to cast
its shadows over Central Europe and to plague
the consciences of statesmen. The Bohemian
delegates to Moscow, among whom were Fran-
cis Palack^, Francis L. Rieger, Dr. Brauner,
Charles Jaromir Erben, Baron Villani, Julius
46 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Gregr, and Joseph Manes, were publicly
charged with treason. Shortly before his
death, Rieger, the venerable leader of the
Bohemians, then in his eighty-third year, said,
apropos of this shameful calumny, in a lecture
which he delivered before the " Slavic Club "
in Prague :
" What is the signification of Slavonic re-
ciprocity ? Our enemies have invented the
word * panslavism ' for it, and persistently
claim that we contemplate the founding of a
Slavonic confederacy, under Russian protec-
tion. Such a contention is manifestly false
and absurd. Only the other day a Vienna
newspaper criticised me bitterly for having
attended the Moscow exhibition in 1867. Can-
not an intelligent person go to any exposi-
tion he pleases ? If I live thirty years longer I
shall still be reproved for making the journey,
I believe. At the banquet at Sokolinky, near
Moscow, where I spoke, I made it known in
no uncertain language that a Slavic confed-
eracy was out of question. Slavonic States
I repeat what I had said then must be like
so many chimes ringing in harmony."
At this same ethnographical exhibition Rie-
ger declared emphatically that,
" in fraternizing, the Slavs had no politi-
cal objects in view. The ideals which were
PANSLAVISM 47
agitating them were not and must not be
inimical to the peace of other nations. As
always, it is still true that whatever there is in
panslavism of a political nature is due to dis-
satisfaction of some sort or other. Remove
that, and panslavism will have no reason to
exist."
In conclusion, let us say a few words about
panslavism in Hungary, with special relation
to the Slovaks.
To begin with, every Magyar's political
education includes a belief in panslavism. A
thousand years have elapsed since the wreck-
ing of the Great Moravian Kingdom on the
fields of Pressburg, but patriotic Magyars still
see Svatopluk's ghost hovering over that
monarch's former domains. According to a
popular theory, prevalent among them, pan-
slavism is a dangerous political movement,
which is directed not only against the crown
of St. Stephen but against Austria and Turkey
as well. If a person reads a Slovak newspaper,
or salutes a stranger with " dobr den," instead
of the Magyar " jo napot," he stands self-con-
victed of being a panslav !
At a recent trial of a prominent Slovak
journalist for political libel, an intelligent wit-
ness for the prosecution was asked as to his
NtW YORK, N, Y,
48 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
understanding of the term "panslav." The
answer of the witness was that a panslav was
one who did not feel himself a Magyar at
heart. A professor of jurisprudence defined
panslav as a person who was regarded as such
in the community in which he lived. At the
same trial, the attorney for the defendant,
Isidor 2iak, made a remarkable plea for his
client :
" Gentlemen of the jury, the verdict you
render in this case will be watched with breath-
less interest by thousands, nay, millions, of
Slovaks. Baron Eotvos has said that one may
live without happiness, but not without hope.
What a splendid opportunity you have, gentle-
men of the jury, to rekindle this hope, now
almost dead, in the breasts of the Slovaks by
acquitting their beloved writer. But the real-
ity is sad, and though it may be customary
among lawyers to plead for mercy for clients
who stand accused of heinous crimes, I shall
not make such an appeal to you ; for, having
lost all, let it not be said of us that we have
begged in places where justice and mercy do
not exist for us."
And the unfortunate journalist was convicted,
not because he was guilty, unless it be guilt to
love and cherish one's native tongue, but be-
cause he was a panslav !
PANSLAVISM 49
Recently a troupe of Bohemian actors from
Moravia made an attempt to play at Kosice
(Kassa) in Upper Hungary, but the local
press saw a dangerous panslavist agitation
in the performance and the manager was re-
fused the necessary license. For the same
reason, panslavism, the choir-master at Kosice
was forbidden to render in the church Anton
Dvorak's beautiful Stabat Mater. Very no-
torious is the case of Rev. John Skultety,
who was disciplined by his bishop for having
baptized a child by the name of " Cyril." The
bishop had no fault to find with Cyril as a
saint, he said, but he would not tolerate, in his
diocese, the baptism of children by the name
of panslavic saints. Skultety's argument that
the child received the name of Cyril because it
had been born on that saint's day was futile,
and that the Cyril chosen by him was not the
great panslavic Apostle Cyril ; the bishop re-
mained obdurate ! A student in a seminary
who may be fond of Slovak literature is in
imminent danger of being expelled for pan-
slavist cabals ; likewise a teacher's career is
blasted and his name entered on the black list
of panslavs the moment he begins to be sus-
pected of writing, even clandestinely and under
a pseudonym, for Slovak publications.
50 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Magyars like to point to Gabriel Ugron's
utterance in the land diet to the effect that
" the trees of all the races in the Hapsburg
monarchy are planted in other countries than
Austria, and that, having no kinsmen in Eu-
rope, the Magyars are the only people who are
destined to live and to die there." The in-
stinct of self-preservation tells them to stand
by the empire. Should they become disloyal
to it, that moment the dynasty of the Haps-
burgs is doomed to fall. History, they claim,
has assigned to them the task of stemming
the aggression of the Slavs, just as in the past
they formed a bulwark against the Turks.
Let us reason a little. If it be true, as
Ugron contends, that the various nationalities
of which Austro-Hungary is composed have a
tendency to gravitate outside the boundaries
of that monarchy, and that, for instance, the
Germans wink at Berlin and Vienna, that the
Servians look for sympathy to Belgrade, and
the Rumuns court the favor of Bucharest,
whither do the Slovaks gravitate ? Toward
the Bohemians, who are their nearest and
most natural allies ? Certainly not. To prove
the truth of this statement one only needs to
mention their separation from Bohemian
literature. Do they seek their centre in St.
PANSLAVISM 51
Petersburg ? For centuries the Slovaks have
inhabited Hungary, admittedly longer than
the Magyars themselves, have fought and
bled in defence of the fatherland jointly with
others of their fellow-citizens. Yet, how many
plots are charged to them to further the alleged
cause of panslavism? Not one. Prosecuting
attorneys, when trying journalists for political
libel, are in the habit of making sinister allu-
sions to Russian subsidies. Have these base
insinuations ever been substantiated with
proof ?
" False, one and all, are the accusations that
Slovak nationalists are in communication, in
any way, with any of the Slavic committees, or
that they receive pecuniary aid from them,"
angrily retorted Paul Mudron, on one occasion.
" If there were an iota of truth in all this, why
should the Slovak journals all suffer for lack of
funds?"
But did not the teachings of KollaV, Sa-
farik, Hodza, Stiir, H urban, and of the other
panslavs lead the Slovaks to revolt against
Magyar intolerance in 1848 ? Yes. However,
it is equally a matter of common knowledge,
even though one may not read of it in Hunga-
rian history, that Kossuth issued an ultimatum
52 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
to the Hungarian Slavs in his organ, the Pesti
Hirlap, that whatever rights they claimed to
have in the kingdom they must make good,
swor Jl in hand. Was there any alternative
left after this challenge but to resort to arms ?
The Slovaks have time and again sent dele-
gates to the periodical gatherings of Slavoni-
ans, and this, too, is brought against them as
evidence of panslavism and disloyalty. Since
when is it wrong to yield to the natural
promptings of fraternity and consanguinity?
Surely, it is not in the province of any tempo-
ral power to repress that inborn feeling.
THE SLOVAKS: PAST AND PRES-
ENT.
HUNGARY is now, and has been for cen-
turies, a multi-national country. Owing
to its proximity to the Roman Empire, of
which at one time it constituted a province,
it was the stamping ground of many barbar-
ous nations. The Huns, Goths, Gepidse, Lom-
bards, and Avars occupied it successively.
Now, Magyars, Slavonians, Germans, and Ru-
muns jostle one another there. Until recently
no one race had an absolute majority, which is
very strange indeed, considering the length of
time each had been domiciled there.
If we concede the claims of the Rumuns,
whose main strength is in Transylvania, that
they are the descendants of Roman colonists
and of Romanized natives, they may be re-
garded as the most ancient living nation in
Hungary. Next to the Rumuns in point of
antiquity come the Slavonians, known as Slo-
vaks in the northwest, as Croatians and Servi-
ans in the south, between the rivers Drave and
53
54 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Save, and as Slovenes (Slovinci), sometimes
called Wends, 1 in the west. To be sure, there
were scattered settlements of Germans in the
country as early as the Slavonians, but the
bulk of the German colonists arrived in com-
paratively recent times, after the expulsion of
the Tatars and Turks. The same may be said
of the Little Russians whose coming is assigned
to the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.
"What do we know of Slovak history?
Very little. Beginning with the Hussite
wars, our knowledge is somewhat more accu-
rate. But before the days of the Hussites,
that is, before the fifteenth century, the past
seems securely hidden. And yet the Slovak
people had lived over a thousand years in their
fatherland before the outbreak of the Hussite
wars."
Such is the mournful admission of Prof.
Pastrnek, a noted scholar.
There was a time when SlovaktSmcl was pro-
claimed the cradle of the Slavic race, the lan-
guage spoken there the nearest approach to
the Old Slavic, and its people the autochthon-
ous inhabitants of Hungary. Recent investiga-
tions have, however, failed to sustain any of
''Also incorrectly designated as Winds and Windisch, but since
$848 officially termed Slowenen, Slovenes, Slovinci.
PAST AND PRESENT 55
these high claims and contentions. " To-day
it is agreed," says Niederle, "that the seat of
the aboriginal Slavs must be looked for in
Transcarpathia, in the region bounded by the
rivers Vistula and Dnieper." Even the belief
in the antiquity of the Slovak dialect is not
shared by modern scholars. Some time in
the fifth century the Bohemians and Moravians
left their ancient abodes, in White Croatia,
moving west. Their nearest kinsmen, the Slo-
vaks, followed them, taking, however, a more
southerly course that led them along the
rivers Morava (March), Vah (Vag) and Hron
(Gran), down to the Danube. 1
Here they seized the land that had been
abandoned by the Gepidae, the Heruli, and the
Rugi, which they have held continuously ever
1 " I am really convinced," says Prof. Niederle, " that the Slavoni-
ans entered Hungary from the north some time before the fourth and
fifth centuries, and if the hypothesis which is being accepted more
and more by west Slavonian archaeologists is correct, namely, that
the burial grounds known as urn fields, of the Lusatian-Silesian type
and which are common throughout eastern Germany of old, are evi-
dences of Slavonian culture, marking the footprints, so to say, of
Slavonians advancing toward Germany, then in that case we should
be justified in assigning the arrival of the Slavonians from Transcar-
pathia to Slovakiao^! to prehistoric times. For in Slovakhttkl, too,
finds of the same kind have been made: burial grounds near Puchov
(Pucho), Domanik (Domehaza), Medovarce (Meznevelo), and Lisov
(Liso). The existence of these grounds proves that those who made
them have advanced in pre-Christian times from the Vistula to the
valley of the Vah and of the Hron as far as liont County,"
56 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
since. Slovensko, the Land of the Slovaks, is
first referred to by name in 860 by King
Lewis. 1 At present, the ethnical conditions
have changed little, if at all the Slovaks oc-
cupy a territory comprising the counties of
Pozsony, Nyitra, Bars, Hont, Zolyom, Trenc-
sen, Turocz, Arva, Lipto, Szepes, Saros, Zem-
ple*n, Ung, Abauj-Torna, G6mor, and Nograd,
called in Slovak language : Presporok, Nitra,
Tekov, Hont, Zvolen, Trencin, Turec, Orava,
Liptov, Spis, Sarys, Zemplm, Uzhorod, Abauj-
Torna, Gemer, Novohrad. To the counties
here enumerated should be added Borsod
(Borsod) with a large Slovak population,
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun (Pest-Pilis), Esztergom
(Ostrihom), and Komarom (Komarno). This
territory is bounded on the north by the semi-
circular chain of the Carpathian Mountains
and on the west by the river Morava. On the
south and east there is no topographical de-
markation. A well-defined ethnical line is all
that separates the Slovaks from the Magyars
and the Little Russians. How many Slovaks
there are in Slovensko proper 2 and in the rest
1 Many writers insist that Slovensko is an unwarranted translation
of a Latin name used by King Lewis.
2 Says Andrew Kmet: "How many Magyars and Germans are
scattered over our territory it is hard to say, but surely their numbers
will not exceed the number of Slovaks who again live in sections
PAST AND PRESENT 57
of the country, is a matter of speculation.
Official figures set the number down at 1,900,-
ooo. The true figure is nearer 2,500,000 or
even 3,000,000.
So nearly related in language and origin are
the Slovaks and the Bohemians and Moravi-
ans that they may be said to have a common
history. Between the Moravians and Slovaks,
dwelling near each other, the relationship was
especially close. From the meagre and con-
fused accounts that have come down to us, it
would appear that at one time Slovakland
formed the nucleus of the Great Moravian
Kingdom ; that native princes related by
blood to the Moravian reigning house ruled
the people from the town of Nitra (Nyitra) ;
that the Moravian-Slovak Kingdom extended
far beyond the river Danube, into a territory
called Pannonia. Over this Great Moravia
ruled successively Princes Rostislav, Pribina,
Kocel, and Svatopluk. Here it was that the
Slovaks first heard the wonderful story of
Christ from the Slavonic Apostles, Cyril and
Methodius (863). Here, too, the art of written
speech was taught to them. Under Svatopluk
other than those that make up Slovakland, so that, if we applied the
process of elimination in this particular instance, it would be seen
that Slovakia^ is all ours."
58 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the kingdom reached the zenith of power and
glory. With his death it began to decline,
falling in ruins at the memorable battle of
Pressburg in 907. What transpired in Slovakia
land after the disruption of Great Moravia by
the Germans and Magyars has not been made
clear. It would seem, though, that not only
the Magyars, but the Poles, Germans, and Bo-
hemians as well, tried to secure for themselves
a portion of Svatopluk's inheritance. The re-
sult of the many-sided contest was that the
Magyars seized Pannonia and the flat lands
between the Danube and the Theiss ; the
Germans took the country situated west of
Pannonia ; Moravia and Slovakland became
the prize of Bohemians and later on of the
Poles. Exactly at what period the Slovaks
were made subjects of Hungary, is also dis-
putable. Magyars pretend to believe that the
event occurred during the reign of St. Stephen,
the first Hungarian king, who ushered the
country into the community of European civil-
ization. According to their version of it, King
Stephen made a successful war on Mecislaw of
Poland, and, taking Slovakland from that po-
tentate, annexed it to his own crown, to which
it has belonged ever since. It is a significant
fact, though, that prior to 1075 no direct refer-
PAST AND PRESENT 59
ence is made to Slovensko in any of the
documents issued by King Stephen ; and,
while that pious monarch built numerous
ecclesiastical edifices in Pannonia and in his
possessions on both sides of the river Theiss,
it is not known that he erected a single church
or monastery in northern Hungary. An old
chronicle says that in the year 1000 the Polish
boundaries extended to the banks of the
Danube. From this it would seem that
Slovakland did not belong to Hungary in
Stephen's time, but if it did, was all but un-
known to the court of that King. The Car-
pathian Mountains, overgrown as they were
with dense forests, presumably offered few at-
tractions to the Magyar horsemen of the plains
and no opportunity for exploitation.
Merged in the Hungarian crown, the Slo- 1
vaks ceased to exist in a political sense.
Henceforward they began to share in com-
mon with the other people the glories and mise-
ries of Hungary.
The Tatar invasion of northern Hungary
occurred in 1241. It lasted a year. A pecul-
iar interest attaches to it because, indirectly,
it laid the foundation to the colonization of
Slovakland by foreigners, chiefly Germans.
Such devastation the relentless barbarians
60 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
wrought there that in many places not a soul
was left alive. Only those who sought and
found refuge in mountain recesses and forti-
fied places escaped with their lives. This
condition of things prompted several kings, be-
ginning with Bela IV., to invite alien homeseek-
ers to Hungary. The Germans were especially
favored in the matter of privileges. Besides
giving them large tracts of land free, an ex-
ample that was followed in several instances
by the clergy and the nobility, the crown con-
ferred on the Germans the right to be governed
by their own local laws and customs. Only
judges of their nationality were competent to
try them and the testimony of a fellow-coun-
tryman was alone admissible. Non-German
witnesses were disqualified from testifying.
Such numbers of Germans appeared to have
taken advantage of these unusual opportuni-
ties that in the sixteenth century there was
not a place in Slovakland but had German
settlers. Eminently builders of cities, these
Teutons and their descendants became a for-
midable power in the country, in the course of
time. Most of the commerce and all of the
trade gradually centred in the cities which they
had established and to which they success-
fully refused to admit Slovaks and Magyars
PAST AND PRESENT 61
alike. Around these towns, some of which
were noted for their opulence, was eventually
formed a valuable element of Hungarian popu-
lation, namely, the middle classes. While the
peasants and the nobility continued to hold
fortified castles and the villages, the Germans
were in control of the cities. During the
Turkish irruption many noble families from
the south fled there to save themselves from
the violence of Mohammedan soldiers. Being
fortified and walled, these cities were the only
places that could offer any resistance to the
invaders. And, because the German burghers
would not willingly receive them, a law was
passed in 1563, making it compulsory for
towns-people to admit within the gates of
their cities all refugees, irrespective of nation-
ality. At first the law was flagrantly violated,
the Germans having powerful influence at
court ; but in 1 604, after the outbreak of the
Bocskay Rebellion, which had found a hearty
support in Slovakland, sweeping changes were
made in the law. All Hungarians were put
on the same footing in the towns and cities as
the Germans. This was a serious blow to the
privileges and exclusiveness of the Germans ;
from that time on their influence began to
wane and nothing could save them, not even
62 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the efforts of Emperor Joseph II., who planned
to make Hungary a German-speaking country.
It is believed that in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries the Germans in the Slovak
territory must have numbered some 1,000,000
souls. To-day only about 30,000 are left on
the boundaries of the counties of Tekov,
Nitra, and Turec. A somewhat larger colony
has survived in Spis County.
There are but few 7 instances on record of
Slovaks rebelling, resenting their vassalage to
an alien race. They first gave vent to their
political hopes and ambitions in the fourteenth
century. Then the Slovaks, led by Matthew
Csak (Csaky), otherwise known as " Matthew
of Trencin," bade defiance to Charles Robert,
the Anjou King. What led to this occurrence
may be briefly told : In 1301, the male line of
the Arpad kings became extinct. Three reign-
ing houses, Bohemian, German, and Italian,
who claimed to be related, in some way or
other, to the female branch of the Arpads,
offered candidates for the vacant throne. All
three claimants soon had supporters in the
kingdom, After some deliberation the Es-
tates chose Vaclav II., King of Bohemia. That
prince, thinking possibly that the cares and
honors of one crown were all he cared to bear,
PAST AND PRESENT 63
sent to the Hungarians a substitute in his son,
Vaclav III., at that time a boy of thirteen. To
this selection Pope Boniface VIII. promptly
objected. Vaclav the elder, we are told, was
a good-natured, easy going monarch ; and fear-
ing violence to his child, and despairing of ever
overcoming the opposition of the Roman See,
he caused Vaclav III. to leave Buda in 1305
and come home to Prague.
Vaclav's irresolute action, it may be im-
agined, was productive of instant mischief.
Charles Robert, aided by the influence of
Rome, now seized the crown that he coveted,
but opposition was strong and almost uni-
versal. Powerful nobles rose up in arms
against him on every side. He had the throne
but not the obedience of his subjects. Of all
the rebels, Matthew Csak, the " Lord of the
Vah and Tatra," as he liked to style himself,
was the most formidable. Nobles, zemans,
peasants, and shepherds flocked to his standard
and willingly submitted to his authority. From
his castle at Trencin, on the river Vah,
Matthew ruled over a vast domain comprising
the greater part of the Slovakle^d of to-day.
Some thirty fortified castles belonged to him.
In splendor and magnificence he vied with the
King at Buda. Such was his power and the
64 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
magic of his name that to this day people are
wont to call that part of the country where
he once ruled " Matthew's Land." Csak held
out longer than any of the other oligarchs.
Neither the wiles of the King, nor the anathe-
mas of the Pope, who had excommunicated
him, could bring him into submission. Pre-
cisely what his plans were, or for what price
the " Lord of Vah and Tatra " was willing to
lay down arms, will never be known. It may
be surmised, though, that the haughty rebel's
ambition kept pace with his increasing power,
and that when at the summit of his might he
dreamed at his Trencin castle of emulating the
great deeds of Svatopluk. Why not ? The
people were with him. They had not yet for-
gotten Great Moravia. Affairs in the country
at large were unsettled and otherwise it seemed
that the time was propitious for a bold move.
Charles Robert, it seems, divined Csak's
schemes. Subduing by force or persuasion
the nobles who opposed him, he prepared a
supreme effort against the chief rebel. With
a large army he entered Slovakfceffd. At
Rozhanovce (Rozgony), near the river Torysa,
the armies of the King and of Csak met, in
1312. The Slovaks fought bravely ; but they
were overwhelmed by numbers and defeated.
PAST AND PRESENT 65
On this bloody battle-field perished, at one
blow, the nucleus of a future Slovak state that
had been gradually forming around Trencin
Castle.
For over five hundred years after Matthew
Csak had ended his brief but remarkable career
the Slovaks remained inactive. The furies of
war had swept the hillsides of their mother
country, drenching it with the blood of its
defenders. During the war for the Hungarian
crown between John Zapolya and Ferdinand
I., following the disaster at Mohacs (1526), the
Highlands bore the brunt of the fighting, for
the Slovak nobility sided with Zapolya. The
evil rule of the Turk had come and passed
away. The invention of the art of printing,
followed by the Reformation, had revolution-
ized human thought in Europe. Yet the Slo-
vak people could not be stirred to independent
action. It was not till the tocsin of revolution
had sounded on the banks of the Seine, in 1848,
that these children of Svatopluk, like other
people who were enthralled, began to feel a
sudden longing for freedom. Led by Stiir,
Hurban, and Hodza, a part of the Slovak
nation rose in arms and demanded for itself the
same rights for which the Magyars were con-
tending with Austria.
66 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Since Svatopluk's time nothing has influ-
enced the Slovak mind in a higher degree than
the Hussite religious movement in Bohemia.
With the high tide of the Hussite wars the
Slovaks received from their near Bohemian
neighbors a precious gift, a Bible printed in
the language of Hus and Komensk^, and it
was probably this Hussite Bible that saved the
nation from extinction, leading it later on to
join the Bohemian republic of letters.
The Hussites raided northern Hungary
more than once, for Sigismund, who broke
faith with John Hus in 1415, was King of
Hungary and of Bohemia both. But these
raids were only a prelude to bloodshed that
was yet to come. King Albrecht of Haps-
burg died in 1439 without issue. It became
necessary to elect a successor. Two powerful
parties arose at once. Elizabeth, the Widow
Queen, gave birth to a posthumous child,
known in history as Ladislav the Posthumous.
All Slovak-ySi, except, possibly, the counties
of Hont and Novohrad, ranged itself on the
side of the Queen and of her son. The Ger-
mans generally also took up the Queen's
cause. The Magyars, however, cast their
fortunes with Vladislav I. of Poland. Bitter
and relentless civil war was the result. In the
PAST AND PRESENT 67
beginning the warfare was carried on by indi-
vidual oligarchs or by people of this or that
county. To prosecute her claim more vigor-
ously, Queen Elizabeth retained a renowned
Hussite captain, John Jiskra of Brandos.
This adventurous soldier with his Bohemian
troops seized the eastern and middle part of
Slovensko. Another captain, Pongrac, held
the western counties for Ladislav Posthumous.
In 1444 Vladislav fell at Varna, battling with
the Turks ; and the Hungarian Estates at last
recognized Ladislav's rights to the crown, pro-
viding, however, that during his minority John
Hunyadi should act as regent. The action of
the diet did not stop the civil strife entirely,
neither John Jiskra nor Pongrac being willing
to recognize Hunyadi's regency. Not until
Ladislav was old enough to reign, himself, was
there again peace in northern Hungary. Al-
together the Hussite troops remained about
twenty years. Their settlements were espe-
cially strong in the counties of Gemer, Hont,
Novohrad, Zvolen, Liptov, Trencin, and Ni-
tra. Judging from the solid dwellings and
churches they built, it would seem that they
intended to settle permanently with their fam-
ilies in Hungary. Some of the churches con-
structed by them are still standing and easily
68 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
distinguishable by their peculiar architecture.
Originally the churches served the dual pur-
pose of places of worship in time of peace and
strongholds in time of public disquiet. Owing
to the Hussites and to their teaching, Luther's
Reformation in the sixteenth century found
a large portion of the Slovak nation ready to
embrace the new faith. During the Reforma-
tion scores of teachers and ministers of the
gospel came from Bohemia and Moravia to
work among the native Slovaks, and, on the
other hand, many students from that country
went to seek education in the University of
Prague. After the disastrous battle of the
White Mountain, Bohemian Protestants again
flocked to Slovensko to escape religious perse-
cution at home. Every new arrival added a
valuable element of strength to the literary
unity of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovensko
that lasted until the time of Anton Bernolak,
who codified the Slovak language and who
inaugurated the secession movement from the
Bohemian.
March, 1848, is the fateful month which
forms the line of demarkation between the old
and the new order of things in Austria. Be-
PAST AND PRESENT 69
fore March, Metternich and his invidious sys-
tem of absolutism after March, the dawn of
liberty and constitutionalism. On March 3d
Louis Kossuth yet spoke of the " poisoned air
that issued from the charnel house in Vienna,"
and already on March i;th events had taken
such a surprising turn that he could exclaim
joyously : " We have attained all that we con-
tended for. From now on our mistress shall
be Pest and not Vienna."
The news that Louis Philippe had forfeited
his crown to the French republicans in Feb-
ruary, 1848, travelled quickly to every corner
of the Hapsburg monarchy. All at once the
several races began to clamor for civil liberty
and equal rights. In Hungary not only the
Magyars, but the Slovaks, Croatians, Servians,
and Rumuns as well, formulated their partic-
ular grievances and claims. In some respects
these claims were antagonistic to each other,
although by no means irreconcilable, and, un-
happily for the cause of freedom in that land,
no wise measures had been provided for to
bring them into harmony, fpiungary's first
gift from the sovereign consisted in a re-
sponsible ministry ; but this body of repre-
sentative men, influenced by Kossuth, almost
from the day of its organization committed
70 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
itself to a policy that was certain to offend and
repel all or nearly all, save the Magyars.
The first public manifestation on a large
scale among the Slovaks occurred on May
loth at Liptov (Lipto Szt. Miklos). Six arti-
cles, supposed to contain the wishes of the
people, were unanimously adopted. In sub-
stance these articles were :
" We demand that our people be permitted
to take part in the legislative deliberations of
the land, and this not only in law but in fact.
And as such participation can alone become
real and profitable when conducted in a lan-
guage that is intelligible to us, we ask for our
representatives the right to speak Slovak in
the diet.
" We demand the right to plead and answer
cases in the courts of law in Slovak.
" We demand that the school training of
our youth, which is now so wofully neglected,
be carried on in the mother tongue.
" We demand a just and equitable represen-
tation in the diet.
" We demand for ourselves and shall forever
ask that our nationality, which we will never
renounce, remain inviolate and inviolable.
" We demand that this petition be made
known within the entire jurisdiction of Hun-
gary, in Croatia, and Slavonia, and may be
brought to the notice of the viceroy and of
PAST AND PRESENT 71
the Hungarian ministry, to the end that all
friends of liberty and humanity may plead our
just cause."
Unwonted activity pervaded the atmos-
phere of Slovakkk4 in the spring of 1848.
Everywhere open-air meetings were held, in
larger towns the audiences running into the
thousands. Equality and liberty, the mainte-
nance and defence of the Slovak language in
the schools, judiciary, and administration, were
the keynote of them all. The Liptov pro-
gram was indorsed by a dozen towns, supple-
mented here and there by subordinate local
needs.
Kossuth and his followers at first affected
to treat the situation in Slovakia!* with lordly
unconcern. What resistance could be offered
by an untutored mass of peasants just emerg-
ing from mediaeval conditions a people who
hardly knew the meaning of the word " Slovak,"
preferring in their ignorance to be called
Highlanders, Lowlanders, Trencans, Liptovans,
Protestants, Catholics, Sarisans, and what not ?
Kossuth, himself of Slovak extraction on his
mother's side, well divined that it was not
Slovakkwwf that needed careful watching. The
real danger lurked elsewhere, in the south,
72 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
among the warlike Servo-Croatians in Croatia,
Slavonia, and Dalmatia.
Croatia and Slavonia, although " annexed
parts" of Hungary since 1102, are, in a politi-
cal sense, as free and independent as Hungary
herself. These lands have their home gov-
ernment, with a ban or governor at the head,
but, by virtue of their relation to the Hun-
garian Kingdom, send forty deputies to the
parliament at Pest. On matters common to
the whole crown, all deputies, including those
from Croatia and Slavonia, have a vote ; when
affairs are under discussion that concern Hun-
gary alone, the deputies from the annexed
lands have no voice. In a way, then, Hungary
may be said to have two parliaments, one aug-
mented, in which all the deputies participate,
the other limited to representatives of Hun-
gary proper. Dalmatia, which at the begin-
ning of the twelfth century was united to
Hungary, now belongs to Austria.
The relations between the Croatians and
Magyars were not always of the friendliest,
and immediately prior to the Revolution they
were at snapping-point. Two main reasons
were accountable for this hostile feeling. In
the first place, most Croatians accused Hun-
gary of undue meddling in their home affairs.
PAST AND PRESENT 73
Then again Ljudevit Gaj's scheme of United
South Slavonia, or " Illyria," as he termed it,
had legions of enthusiastic partisans south of
the Drave. Needless to say that every loyal
Hungarian detested the thought of " Illyria."
On March 2Oth a popular assembly took place
at Zagreb (Agram), the Croatian capital, which
was attended by many South Slavonians of
prominence. This national assembly passed
a set of bold resolutions, indorsing the plan
of Illyric unity as elaborated by Gaj. Other
things that the convention demanded were
freedom of speech and press, the election of a
House of Representatives intended to meet
alternately at Zagreb, Osek, Zadr, and Fiume,
and the garrisoning at home of native regi-
ments. But the most far-reaching act, as sub-
sequent events have proved, was that the
delegates present nominated and elected on
the spot, as viceroy or Ban of Croatia, Colonel
Joseph Jelacic. 1
The election of Jelacic by a popular vote
was, of course, illegal and contrary to prece-
dent ; but the Emperor-King, gracefully yield-
ing to the inevitable, confirmed the election
1 Jelacic de Buzim, also spelled Jellacic, or, in the old-fashioned
way, Jellachich, is the name of an ancient noble family, originally
from Bosnia.
74 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
of the ban a few days before a deputation of
Croatians, that was to have espoused their
countryman's cause, had arrived in Vienna. If
it be true that coming events cast their shad-
ows before them, the governments in Vienna
and Pest could have guessed what sort of
man they would have to cope with in the
new ban, judging from the tenor of the mani-
festo whereby that soldier convoked the Cro-
atian Constituent Assembly a few days after
his installation : " That will be the right course
for us to pursue which, disregarding the pres-
ent Hungarian Government, will adjust our
relations with Hungary along the lines of
liberty and independence, as is worthy of a
free and brave people."
Among the very first acts of Jelacic was
the abolition of serfage. Restrictions were re-
moved from the press. A national militia was
reorganized. Magyar officials and renegades
were removed from office and everywhere
replaced by nationalists. Magyar correspond-
ence from Pest was returned to the senders
unopened. What, however, angered Pest
above all, was the issuance by the ban of an
order to all municipalities throughout Croatia
and Slavonia enjoining them neither to receive
nor to execute orders other than those from the
PAST AND PRESENT 75
office of the ban in Zagreb. Plainly this meant
the severance, judicial and legislative, of Croa-
tia and Slavonia from Hungary.
Encouraged by the apparent success of the
Croatians, the Servians who are massed in the
southeastern part of Hungary also began early
to show signs of restlessness. Both of Sla-
vonic origin, and speaking substantially the
same dialect, the Croatians and Servians differ
only in the religion they profess, the Croatians
being Catholics, and, as such, using the Latin
alphabet, while the Servians, who are Ortho-
dox, adhere to the Cyrillic.
On previous occasions the Hungarians have
succeeded in checkmating the national wishes
of Croatians and Servians by playing skilfully
on their religious differences. A deputation
numbering several hundred persons called on
Metropolitan Rajacic, urging him to summon
the Servians to meet at once to take counsel
on their exclusive affairs. Accordingly, the
Metropolitan sent out a call for a Constituent
Assembly, to meet on May i3th, at Novy Sad
(Ujvidek). However, an order was issued
from Pest, changing the date to May 27th
and enjoining the participants to refrain from
the discussion of political questions. But the
Metropolitan chose to ignore the government
76 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
at Pest, and, as the town of Nov Sad had
been placed under martial law, instructed the
delegates to meet at Karlovac instead. Thou-
sands of Servians from every district of the
kingdom came to this truly national gathering.
Even from the Servian principality delegates
arrived. Among the many memorable resolu-
tions passed by this novel parliament was one
declaring the Servian people politically free
and independent under the united rule of Aus-
tria and Hungary, creating a " Vojvodina,"
or " Land of the Servians," and lastly elect-
ing unanimously as its chief Colonel Stephen
Suplikac. It could not escape notice that the
newly-elected "vojvoda" and the ban were
brother officers in the same regiment. Also,
that the Servians agreed then and there to
co-operate harmoniously with the Croatians.
Most backward of all the nationalities in
Hungary, the Rumuns, too, were drawn in the
whirlpool of discontent, demanding what they
considered to be their own.
Portentous events were now fast develop-
ing in the several centres of the monarchy.
Vienna seething with political excitement,
and centre of an agitation which favored
the ambitious plan of the Frankfort Parlia-
ment ; Prague in feverish anticipation of the ap-
PAST AND PRESENT 77
preaching Slavonic Congress that was to meet
there on June 2d, and which was to protest
against the bartering of Slavonic Austria to
Greater Germany ; Pest on the eve of an
open rebellion against the camarilla in Vienna,
but at the same time dealing heavy blows to
the national aspirations of the non-Magyar
Hungarians ; Zagreb distrusting both Vienna
and Pest and determined to strike out inde-
pendently, if necessary. The Slovak high-
landers, who were already wide awake to the
situation, fast becoming critical, gave up all
hope of relief from Kossuth's government,
which spurned them and turned their eyes to
the Prague Congress and to the parliament in
Vienna. Several bloody collisions between the
populace and the military had already taken
place, when, on June 5th, the first freely elected
Croatian Diet convened in Zagreb.
Imposing in the extreme were the cere-
monies of the opening day, and such throngs
crowded the old town of Zagreb that the
installation of Jelacic, as ban, had to be per-
formed in the public square, no building be-
ing large enough to hold them. That the
Hungarian Government protested against the
installation of the " usurper ban " only served
to heighten the effect of the occasion. That
78 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
which, however, worried the Kossuthists and
Frankfortists more than anything else was the
presence in Zagreb, as invited guests, of Bo-
hemians, Slovaks, Servians, and Slovenes.
Hurban, the spokesman of the Slovaks, sent a
thrill of indignation through his hearers when
he declared that the lot of the Christians in
Turkey was far more bearable than the con-
dition of Slovaks in Hungary. Opening the
diet, Ban Jelacic made this singular utterance :
"If the Magyars are anxious to play the r6le
of oppressors toward us and our kinsmen in
Hungary, let them learn that we still remem-
ber the saying of that valiant Ban, Erd6dy,
4 Regnum regno non prescribit leges' 'A king-
dom shall not prescribe laws to a kingdom.'
With sword in hand we shall prove to them
that the times are past when one nation may
presume to rule over another."
All efforts to reconcile the many conflicting
interests seemed unavailing. The Hungarian
Diet, which held its first session on July 5th,
only made the gap wider and deeper by its
haughty attitude toward non-Magyar nation-
alities. The mobilization of an army of two
hundred thousand men was a challenge to all
malcontents, the signification of which could
not be doubted.
PAST AND PRESENT 79
The first to take up arms in defence of their
rights, real or imaginary, were the Servians.
" Vojvodina," with all that it implied, was an
idea that every Magyar abhorred deeply, and
the Hungarian Government inflicted swift and
terrible punishment on all those who either
aided or abetted the plan, of the " Land of
the Servians." Countless numbers of Servian
patriots perished on the gallows, and if the
Magyars complained of the Servians that
they played the rdle of La Vendee, though
the parallel is utterly inapplicable, the answer
could be made that even La Vendee had its
glories and honors. So brutal had been the
treatment of the Servians who were unarmed,
and so precarious the position of the brave
fellows who had taken the field, that Patriarch
Rajacic sent one frantic appeal after another
for help to Ban Jelacic. In the name of a
common ancestry, and in the name of the just
cause that his followers were struggling for,
he entreated the Croatian not to forsake his
brothers in their supreme hour of trial.
At last the die was cast. Jelacic set his
whole army in motion, and with the watch-
word, " Stobog dade i sreca junacka," " What-
ever God may give and a soldier's luck," he
crossed the swiftly flowing and turbulent waters
8o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
of the Drave in three columns on September
i ith. What the ban achieved, with the limited
resources at his command, most of the sea-
soned men from the Military Frontier being
absent from home and fighting under Radeck^
in Italy, was really remarkable.
Owing to the ban's prompt action, affairs in
Hungary at once took on a new turn : the
sorely pressed Servians were relieved, atten-
tion was diverted from the Rumuns, for the
time being at least, and the Slovaks felt reas-
sured. Most cruel measures were adopted to
"pacify" the last-named race. Their leaders
were imprisoned and tortured, and more than
one, to recall the names of Sulek and Holuby,
perished on the gallows. Among those Slo-
vaks who suffered long imprisonment occur to
us the names of Rotarides, Modraft, and Borik.
Hurban, btiir, and Hodza were under constant
police surveillance, and many were their thrill-
ing escapes. Even worse persecutions came
when the diet ordered a partial mobilization
of the home guards against the Servians and
Croatians. Slovak communities, following the
example of Tisovec, refused to post the draft,
on the ground that it lacked the customary
sanction of the King. To reduce the refrac-
tory highlanders to subjection, gibbets were
PAST AND PRESENT 81
erected everywhere, and it is asserted that
there was not a village along the Vah that was
not provided with a rough gibbet. Strung
up to them, or to the limbs of willow trees,
were the mouldering bodies of rebels. Scoff-
ingly the gibbets were named " Slovak trees
of liberty." Later, when the insurgents en-
tered the country from the north, they demol-
ished, as they marched, the " Kossuth gallows,"
as these subsequently came to be known.
Hostile critics require us to believe that the
great ban, in striking at Hungary, had other
objects than to punish the alleged oppressors
of his people, and higher ambitions than the
salvation of Austria. That he stood sponsor
for liberty and emancipation, they say, was
only a bid for popular acclaim. Did he not
join forces with the reactionaries in Vienna
when the revolution was well under way ? In
a sense this was true ; but why, it may be asked,
did these self same accusers invoke the military
aid of reactionary Vienna to suppress the agi-
tation for reforms that made itself manifest
in Slovak and Servian territory? Assuredly
what was wrong in one instance should not be
claimed to be right in the other. No mean
share of the responsibility for the ban's mili-
tary undertaking rested with Ljudevit Gaj, the
6
82 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
editor of the Narodne Novine Horvatsko Slavon-
sko Dalmatinske. The originator and chief
exponent of I llyrism or fraternization of Servo-
Croatians, a staunch adherent of Kolldr,
Ljudevit Gaj was Jelacic's right-hand man,
clearing the way with his resolute pen for the
ban's larger projects.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to re-
count, step by step, the many incidents that
preceded the rupture between Austria and
Hungary : the massacre of General Lambert
in Pest, the execution of War Minister Latour
by a street mob in the Hapsburg capital, the
flight of Ferdinand V. from Vienna, and later
his abdication in favor of Francis Joseph I.,
the stormy sessions of the young parliament,
the clash between the Teuton and the Slav
for the mastery of Austria, the Frankfort Parlia-
ment, and the Prague Congress ranging their
respective forces for the series of battles yet
to come ; nor of the events that followed it,
from the initial successes of the Magyars to
the irretrievable ruin at Vilagos ; all these are
matters which the reader will find treated in
full elsewhere.
Soon after Jelacic let loose his Croatians,
the Slovaks, or rather those of them, largely
Protestants, who could intelligently grasp the
PAST AND PRESENT 83
situation, resorted to arms. For some time
the Slovaks vacillated, being undecided where
to look for sympathy and help. Should they
form an alliance with Vienna, which was Ger-
man, or would their particular interests be best
subserved by remaining loyal, notwithstanding
an open rebuff by Pest, to the Hungarians?
A hard choice it was, with Scylla on one side
and Charybdis on the other. At the Slavic
Congress on June 3, 1848, Ludevit Stiir is
quoted as having declared : " You say it is to
our advantage to preserve the Austrian mon-
archy. Our paramount object is self-preserva-
tion. First let us help ourselves, then assist
others. Austria has managed to live until
now and we have rotted. What would the
world say were we to put on record that our
only aim was to save Austria ? " Nevertheless,
and despite Stiir's bitter invective, we find the
Slovaks casting in their lot with the dynasty.
A story is told of a French peasant who
came down from the mountains to buy salt,
and in this way was surprised to learn that the
French Revolution had begun. Upper Hun-
gary is traversed by a succession of steep
mountains and rocky defiles, and it will readily
be believed that many of the mountaineers,
cut off as they were from the outside world
84 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
and destitute of reading matter, like the
French peasant, hardly comprehended what
all the stir was about. To these remote
dwellers Kossuth's name, which was then on
everybody's lips, must have come like some
tale of wonder. Proverbially docile ; utterly
devoid, it was believed, of the warlike spirit
that has made the Croatians feared and re-
spected by their enemies ; with national pride
crushed out of them ; and weighted down by
centuries of oppression and neglect, it was
thought by all that the Slovaks were incapa-
ble of organizing armed resistance. But the
unexpected happened, and the despised high-
landers, following the example of the Servians
and Croatians, took up arms against Magyar
tyranny.
Behind the movement stood, nominally, the
" Slovenska Narodna Rada" (Slovak National
Council). In reality, however, the entire work
and responsibility lay on the willing shoulders
of Stur, Hurban, and Hodza. Jaroslav Borik,
who served in the political section of the Rada,
had the misfortune of falling into the hands
of the authorities, and he perished miserably.
To Zach, Bludek, and Janecek was confided
the care of the military preparation of the
Rada.
ct.
PAST AND PRESENT
The first expedition entered Slovakktacr on
September i7th, from the north, under the
leadership of Zach, Bludek, and Janecek. As
the natives remained curiously indifferent, the
volunteers had to feel their way slowly and
cautiously. Moreover, a lack of military train-
ing, and, above all, poor equipment must have
made it clear to Hodza and H urban that the
expedition could not achieve signal results.
To add to their woes, the volunteers while
engaging their energetic opponents, found it
advisable in the early stages of the uprising
to keep a sharp lookout on the imperial troops,
in conjunction with whom they were supposed
to co-operate ; for it often meant a punishment
just as hard and swift to be captured by the
imperialists as to fall into the hands of the
Magyars. At no time did more than eight
thousand volunteers respond to Stur's call.
After some minor successes, notably that of
Brezova, where they dispersed the Magyar
guards on September 22d, the volunteers were
forced to disband. Nothing daunted by the
first failure, in which the insincerity of Vienna
played a prominent part, Hodza in October
planned another invasion of SlovakkwJd In
the month of November Bludek obtained per-
mission from the Austrian Minister of War to
86 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
recruit Slovak volunteers. Bludek really did
succeed in raising seventeen companies of
them. In Silesia Bludek's contingent was
augmented by four companies of imperials
and a detachment of horsemen, and this ex-
pedition, commanded by Colonel Frischeisen,
forced the passage, on December 4th, of the
northern Hungarian frontier at Jablunovsky
Pass. Near Budatin, on December nth,
Lewartowski defeated the Hungarians, but he
was finally compelled to retire to Silesia before
an overwhelming command. Afterwards, hav-
ing joined General Gotz's imperial army, the
volunteers once more returned to Hungary,
and, retaking Budatin, operated in the northern
counties. Early in 1849 Hodza and Janecek's
men overran the region along the lower Vah,
demolishing Kossuth's gibbets wherever they
went. After the battle of Kaplna the insurgent
bands were disarmed, thus bringing the Slovak
uprising to a somewhat unsuccessful close.
What followed after the downfall of the
Hungarian revolution before the combined
armies of Austria and Russia is too well known
to be recapitulated here in detail. Once more
the black pall of absolutism settled over the
dominions of the triumphant Hapsburg, sti-
fling every expression of liberal and national
PAST AND PRESENT 87
thought, not only in Hungary but in Bohemia
and the other states as well. Over night Min-
ister Bach filled Hungary with his officials,
to administer affairs there " impartially but
sternly." No one must now complain of fa-
voritism. Magyar and Slovak received equal
treatment from Bach and his creatures both
races being made to feel that a foreign master
ruled over them. True, under Bach's regime
the use of Slovak in schools and local admin-
istration became much more general than had
been the case under the Magyar rule. Even
higher schools here and there were permitted
to teach Bohemian-Slovak. Political life, how-
ever, was wholly denied to every Hungarian
citizen. Bach, the all-powerful, was charged
to watch closely and to crush promptly every
political movement of the Austrian nations,
and contemporaries all agree that his gen-
darmes, of whom he had an abundance, did
much to please their exacting master. What
bitter thoughts must have racked the brain of
that impetuous rebel H urban, when he ob-
served Bach's gendarmes tracking his foot-
steps ! What must have been his estimate
of Austrian gratitude !
Mirabeau has said that " privileges die, but
the people is eternal." And so it was with
88 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Bach's system. In less than a dozen years
his government by the police crumbled down
as a direct result of the Austrian defeat at Sol-
ferino. In the fall of 1859 Bach was requested
by his sovereign to " resign."
With the return of constitutionalism to
Hungary, in 1861, there was every reason to
believe that the Magyars would, in turn, be-
come reconciled to the Slovaks, conceding
them, at least, a part of the rights demanded
in the manifesto of May, 1848. But it is a
curious feature of modern Hungarian history,
and one that has time and again found fresh
exemplification, that every concession made to
the Magyars has, in a corresponding measure,
worked injury to the non-Magyars. Not that
the welfare and interests of the Hungarian
peoples are divergent or irreconcilable ; but
because the favorite policy of forcible Mag-
yarization is fundamentally wrong.
So it proved to be in this instance. When
the Hungarian Diet opened, following upon
the restoration, non-Magyars became anx-
ious. What would the diet do for them,
if anything ? The sovereign had made peace
with the dominant people ; would these evince
the same spirit of magnanimity toward their
less favored fellow-citizens ?
PAST AND PRESENT 89
No welcome message was forthcoming from
Pest, and the Slovaks, impatient of delay,
agreed to take matters into their own hands.
On June 6, 1861, the leading men of the
nation assembled in Martin, and there, amid
genuine enthusiasm, unanimously adopted a
petition of rights, called by Stephen Daxner,
who drafted it, a " Memorandum."
What judgment a thoughtful student of
Hungarian politics will eventually pass on
the soundness of the doctrines set forth in the
memorandum, is of course uncertain. The
great majority of Slovaks of our generation
indorsed it in full, insisting that it represented
the minimal demands of the nation. As com-
pared with the manifesto of 1848, the memo-
randum impresses the reader as being far more
dignified in tone and temperate in claims.
Throughout the memorandum one observes a
spirit of conciliation, which feature was almost
wholly absent in the manifesto. Having
made an appeal for harmony and thorough un-
derstanding on the ground of community of
interest, material and intellectual, the memo-
randum urged a complete social equality, easy
of attainment when it was once conceded that
Slovaks were a separate and distinct nation,
occupying a territory the boundaries of which,
90 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
for administrative purposes, could be agreed
upon later. In this territory, or "okoli," the
Slovak language should be paramount, though
not exclusive, in churches, schools, and local
government.
A deputation repaired in due time to Pest
to present the document to the diet. Baron
Revay, Szentivanyi, and Justh, who were will-
ing at first to put themselves at the head of the
petitioners, backed out at the last moment,
having learned in advance that the diet would
not receive them. And this is what actu-
ally happened. Instead of probing into the
justice of the grievances and answering the
petitioners frankly, the diet sought to create a
public feeling adverse to the Slovak memoran-
dum. Orders were sent out from Pest to the
highland counties to solicit protests against it.
Renegades were, of course, found in plenty,
especially among the zeman class, who signed
a vigorous counter petition. And this latter
paper was afterwards read in the diet and
applauded by the legislators as the true voice
of all loyal Slovaks.
Failing at home, the memorandists later on
decided to appeal direct to the throne. Ste-
phen Moyses, the distinguished Catholic bishop,
went with a delegation to Vienna. The Em-
PAST AND PRESENT 91
peror-King is said to have received his faithful
Slovaks graciously. But, like the appeal to
Pest, this pilgrimage to Vienna was also barren
of material results.
Realizing at last the futility of seeking as-
sistance from without, the leaders now turned
their attention to self-help. A happy begin- o
ning was made in the organization of higher
schools, of which the nation was then utterly
destitute. The first to give themselves to
this promising work were the Protestants, who
founded two sectarian gymnasia, a higher at
Velka* Reviica in 1862 and a lower at Martin.
To Stephen Daxner, the father of the " Memo-
randum," belongs the chief credit for the es-
tablishment of the first-named school. Charles
Kuzmany did much toward the starting and
successful operation of the other. Soon after,
the Catholics opened a gymnasium at Klastor.
Following close upon these auspicious events
the "2ivena," a women's society, was organ-
ized. In 1870, Andrew Radlinsk^, with the
co-operation of the Catholic clergy, laid the
foundation to the " Society of St. Vojtech."
The same year (1870), witnessed the incorpo-
ration at Martin of a publishing concern on
shares, John Francisci having removed his
political newspaper, the Vedomosti, published
92 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
heretofore in Pest, to the new Slovak capital
and renaming the Vedomosti to Ndrodnie
Noviny. But by far the most eventful hap-
pening of this memorable period of national
development was the birth in 1862 of the
"Slovenskd Matica" the " Slovak fund."
The object of the Matica, as expressed in the
by-laws which were officially approved in Au-
gust, 1862, was stated to be "to publish and
circulate Slovak books and works of art, to
give lectures on educational subjects, to collect
funds for the purpose of aiding literature, arts,
sciences, natural history, and researches in an-
tiquities, and also to subsidize native scholars
and artists, and to offer prizes and rewards for
works on science and arts." When the open-
ing meeting was held at Martin, the Matica
boasted of 984 members, the roll practically in-
cluding every Slovak of note regardless of
creed. On Bishop Moyses was conferred the
honor of presidency ; Charles Kuzmany, a
Protestant bishop, was elected first vice-pres-
ident, and John Orszdgh, another high church
dignitary, second vice-president ; Paul Mud-
ron and Michael Chrastek were elected secre-
taries; Abbot Thomas Cerven, treasurer.
About 90,000 florins had been raised by vol-
untary subscription, the Emperor-King himself
PAST AND PRESENT 93
contributing 1000 florins. Gratifying in the
extreme was the missionary work of the Ma-
tica. Books were printed that otherwise could
not be published because of the poverty of the
authors or the limited number of subscribers.
Of the Letopis, which is a kind of chronicle of
national events, eleven volumes were issued
by this educational society between 1864-74.
Chiefly due also to the impetus of the Matica
some 150 reading clubs and circulating libra-
ries came into being. The lower clergy of
both denominations, encouraged by their bish-
ops, who stood at the helm, vied with each
other in the patriotic enterprise.
The crushing defeat that Austrian arms sus-
tained at Sadova in 1866 was of course bound
to affect, in one way or another, not only the
policy of the Hapsburgs toward their old-time
partner and late antagonist, Germany, but the
mutual relations of the several Austrian peo-
ples as well.
In sullen opposition to the King since 1848,
the Magyars, ever on the alert, decided to
strike for concessions when Austria, weakened
by the war, was least able to resist them.
Dualism, the division of Austria in two parts,
Austrian and Hungarian, was the direct out-
come of the pressure brought to bear by the
94 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Magyars. Presently we shall see how the
Slovak " hordes" profited by Hungarian au-
tonomy in 1867.
Once more, but for the last time, the expec-
tations of the patriots rose. Owing to Deak's
initiative the diet passed, in 1868, the so-called
" Law of Nationalities." In substance the
11 Law of Nationalities" emphasized the privi-
leged position of the Magyar, but it recognized,
in principle, the limited use of other tongues
besides the dominant one, in districts where the
non-Magyar idioms predominated. Article 44,
paragraph 26, of the law provided that "every
inhabitant of the land, irrespective of nation-
ality, and every commune, religious denomina-
tion and parish had the right to establish at
his or its own proper cost and expense elemen-
tary, middle and higher schools and to found
societies having for their aim the promotion
of philology, arts, sciences, agriculture, com-
merce and industry under proper state super-
vision, to formulate its own by-laws, if not
inconsistent with the laws of the land, etc., the
language to be used in managing the affairs of
such private associations being determined by
the founders thereof." Under the law litigants
and taxpayers were to be served in their
mother tongue. Thus a litigant, be he plain-
PAST AND PRESENT 95
tiff or defendant, could insist on being heard
in the language prevalent in his commune.
Likewise the judge was obliged to conduct the
trial, examine witnesses and enter the court
minutes in the language of the parties to the
action.
But alas ! wofully has the " Law of Nation-
alities " failed of its purpose. For a year or two
it seemed to respond to the ideas of its noble-
minded framer. Times changed rapidly, how-
ever, and the Magyar, confident of his growing
power, again returned to his favorite policy of
repression, which he had been forced to aban-
don, at least in part, by the events of 1848.
Probably the chief reason why the much-
vaunted " Law of Nationalities " became an
ornamental dead letter on the Hungarian
statute-book was that, within a short time after
its enactment, the country was stirred to its
very depths by the " Magyar state idea."
What is the " Magyar state idea ? " A high
government official, at one time a deputy,
Adalbert Grunwald is looked upon as the
elaborator of this doctrine, though not its
originator, for the thought had been born in
the reign of Joseph II. In 1878, Grunwald
published a work, which he named Felvicttkiek
(Highlanders), the guiding idea of which is
96 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
that Hungary must be changed to a homo-
geneous country, if it is to have a safe future.
To accomplish this end it was necessary to
strengthen the Magyar element and make it
paramount in the land. To rule was the des-
tiny of the Magyars ; to follow must be the
mission of the rest. Danger to the state
lurked in the national awakening of the Slo-
vaks, Servians, and others, and this awakening
should be promptly suppressed. A native of
Hungary could not be a patriot unless he in-
dorsed in full the Magyar state idea. While
it might be permissible, reasoned Griinwald,
for a peasant or laborer to converse, for ex-
ample, in Slovak, a cultured person, reared
on Hungarian soil, should under no circum-
stances speak, think, or feel, except as a
Magyar. A Slovak of education who re-
mained true to his ancestry was deficient in
patriotism and a traitor to his country. To
Magyarize SlovaklanrS was the government's
manifest duty, and it should be effected by
forcible means, if necessary. The Slovaks
were slaves and nature intended them for
drudges. Although faithful to their country
and brave in war they seemed to have been
born to eternal bondage, because the terms
" Slovak " and " lord " were wholly incom-
PAST AND PRESENT 97
patible. There was no Slovak nation, only a
horde speaking that language. The so-called
Slovak party consisted of a few rebels, who
should be done away with ; the peasants could
then be subdued with ease. To the Magyars
was allotted the task of exterminating the
Slavs living on Hungarian soil. A compromise
with the Slovaks was impossible. There was
only one expedient left to wipe them out.
If the Magyars wished to live, they must in-
crease their numbers by assimilating the non-
Magyar people.
Very little urging was required to put
Griinwald's captivating theories into practice.
Who dared to interfere with the ambitious
designs of the Magyars, absolute masters in
the country since the Act of Settlement ? Un-
merciful and quick were the blows that were
now to be dealt to the children of Svatopluk.
In the month of August, 1874, the govern-
ment ordered the closing of the Revue school ;
in January, 1875, followed the closing of the
Martin and Klastor gymnasia. There yet re-
mained the Matica. But the accusing finger
had been raised against that fine institution,
and to a few initiated ones it was known be-
forehand that a condemnatory verdict had
been pronounced against it. Futile was the
98 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
pleading in Pest of William Pauliny, then
vice-president of the Matica, and of Francis
Sasinek, its secretary. Tisza had made up his
mind. To all the eloquent arguments of
Pauliny and Sasinek his only reply was that
not Slovaks but panslavs were persecuted, and
that all the three institutions had been proved
to be hotbeds of panslavism. At last Matica's
doom was announced officially. Three months
after the suppression of the Martin and Klas-
tor schools, the charter of the Matica was
annulled, the library and the rich collections
in the museum sealed, and the fund, which
had been raised entirely by voluntary subscrip-
tion, confiscated by the government. When
Polit, a Servian deputy, called the ministry to
account for this high-handed and barbarous
proceeding, insisting that the funds confis-
cated should be returned, as the by-laws of
the Matica provided, to the donors thereof, to
wit, to the Slovak nation, Premier Koloman
Tisza made the famous utterance on the floor
of the Hungarian Parliament, December 15,
1875, "There is no Slovak nation."
Later an effort was made to reopen a
gymnasium at Martin. Would the Ministry
of Education give the necessary consent?
Trefort thought it would. The law of 1868
O 2
Q HI
5
CO ui
"
PAST AND PRESENT 99
was apparently favorable to the scheme, for it
provided that non-Magyar peoples might estab-
lish sectarian middle schools in their respective
environs. V. Pauliny-Toth, hoping for the
best, announced that voluntary subscriptions
would be received toward the school fund.
In a month one hundred thousand florins
were raised. At this juncture Minister Trefort
made the crushing announcement that the
gymnasium could not be allowed and this
in direct violation of the law of 1868. How,
then, the reader will ask, do journalists, school
teachers, writers, and other professionals per-
fect themselves in the higher knowledge of
the tongue ? The answer is : by diligent pri-
vate study. The few hundred communal
schools hardly teach its elements.
The Slovaks appropriately describe the years
succeeding 1875 as " dark days of persecution."
Persecution it is of the most atrocious and
merciless kind the kind of which John Hay
complained to the Rumanian Government in
his famous note issued on August u, 1902.
Speaking of the cruel ill-usage of the Jews in
Rumania, a condition strikingly applicable to
the Slovak case, the great secretary then said :
" Shut out from nearly every avenue of self-
support which is opened to the poor of other
ioo THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
lands, and ground down by poverty as the
natural result of their discriminatory treatment,
they are rendered incapable of lifting them-
selves from the enforced degradation they en-
dure. Human beings so circumstanced have
virtually no alternative but submissive suffer-
ing or flight to some land less unfavorable to
them."
Longest to resist the encroachments of
Magyarization were the church organizations.
Protestants of the Augsburg Confession, ex-
clusive of Transylvania, number about 1,085,-
ooo. Of this total Slovaks claim 600,000,
Germans 235,000, and Magyars 250,000. For-
merly the whole country was divided in four
districts or bishoprics, and because the Cis-Da-
nubian district had 85 % Slovak communicants,
it followed that Slovak Lutherans had the
control of at least one bishopric. This consti-
tuted quite a bulwark of strength to ministers
and teachers in their patriotic work, in schools,
churches, and denominational conventions.
To the Magyar party, however, the arrange-
ment was objectionable, and accordingly a law
was formulated in 1894 by which two Slovak
seniorates were detached from the Cis-Danu-
bian and attached to the Theiss district. By
this geometry the Slovaks, as had been fore-
PAST AND PRESENT 101
seen, lost a positive majority in every bishop-
ric. Moreover, the government, to secure a
firmer hold on the good-will of ministers of the
gospel, stood sponsor to the passage of a law in
1898 whereby preachers who enjoy an annual
income less than 1600 crowns are entitled to a
subvention from the state. The meaning of
this will be best understood when it is remem-
bered that the tempting law affects almost every
minister in SlovakiafltH Those suspected of
" sentiments unfriendly to the state " - note
the application of the particular provision
may not receive subventions.
An event of more than passing interest, al-
though without apparent results, was a meeting,
in 1895 in Pest, of non-Magyar nationalities,
including Slovaks.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
IN the preface to his Literature in
'IvMtd, written in 1880, Jaroslav Vlcek, a
recognized authority on the subject, says :
" The Bohemian-Slovak nation is divided
politically, administratively, ethnographically,
and linguistically into two unequal parts, the
development of which has been totally differ-
ent both in manner and trend. The first part
embraces Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. It has
a glorious past, all its own, which reached its
culmination during the Hussite wars, waged to
free man's conscience and secure spiritual free-
dom from the thraldom of the Middle Ages.
It has a rich blossoming literature, the golden
flow of which is traceable long prior to the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Lastly,
because of its rejuvenation, that should be
regarded as the most remarkable occurrence
in the history of mankind, it is recognized by
all unprejudiced observers as a separate body
politic, occupying a respectable place in the
history of European culture.
" The second and smaller part of the nation,
which inhabits northern Hungary, lost its polit-
ical independence after the battle of Pressburg
IO2
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 103
(907), hence as early as the dawn of the tenth
century, and history is silent in regard to
it. But this is only seemingly so, for it has
never ceased to contribute its quota of culture,
of letters, of military force, and of leaders of
thought to the land into which it has been
merged. Its legions battled in the crusades,
against the Turkish hordes which repeat-
edly invaded the fatherland, and rallied under
every insurgent banner of the time, but all this
was done under the name of ' Hungary.'
The world is ignorant of its existence, and its
literature is barely a century old.
" One name alone shines through the void
of Slovak history since the downfall of Great
Moravia, namely that of Matthew Csak of
Trencin, 'the Lord of Vah and Tatra,' who
tried to unite Slovakia^ with Bohemia in the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Yet even
this name suddenly vanished like the flight of
a meteor. The single figures of Pongrac of
Liptov, an illustrious Slovak lord; of Matthew
Korvin, who was reared in the atmosphere of
Slavic thought in Bohemia, and conferred
patents framed in Bohemian on a number of
towns in Upper Hungary; of Vladislav II.,
who likewise corresponded in that language,
opening Hungarian Diets in Bohemian, and of a
few others who in their respective times were
familiar with Slavonic tongues; all else has
disappeared behind an impenetrable screen of
Latin which helped to obliterate every expres-
sion of thought and racial characteristic of the
104 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
people, from the time of St. Stephen to the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
" And just as all traces of the Slovaks taking
an independent action in the events of the
world's history are lost to us, so the fact is ob-
vious, too, that the native language, sheltered
as it was by the nature of the country and cut
off from intercourse with the outside, had
failed to develop and to keep pace with its
more powerful kin in Bohemia. The levelling
influence of Latin in the Middle Ages appears
overwhelming in Slovakkt&U Nowhere is ob-
servable any literary movement, not even signs
of any home culture whatever of civilization
that had not been transplanted thither from
elsewhere. The Hussites entered the country
and settled there in the middle of the fif-
teenth century (1440). Especially they over-
ran Nitra, Novohrad, and Zvolen counties. A
portion of the inhabitants adopted their re-
ligion, and with it the language of the Kralic
Bible, for liturgical purposes. Yet the people
remained unmoved. A second stream of Bo-
hemian exiles followed the first, and after the
battle at the White Mountain in the seventeenth
century SlovakkSd welcomed to its hearth
John Amos Komensky and other Bohemians
of renown ; Slovak evangelical preachers re-
ceived into their safe-keeping writings of the so-
called golden era of Bohemian literature, books
that were condemned to be burned at home ; in-
dividual Protestant clergymen went to Prague
to acquire education there and composed theo-
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 105
logical works, translated Bibles, compiled hym-
nals, edited prayers and sermons. However,
all this was not literature, only a series of dog-
matical, apologetical, polemical, and theological
writings and pamphlets, designed almost ex-
clusively for the use of evangelical clergy and
influencing, and that only to a degree almost
imperceptible, the adherents of the Protestant
faith. The bulk of the people remained in its
former condition of intellectual torpor, unpro-
gressive, immovable.
" Meantime Bohemia lay in the throes of
a lethargic sleep. The Bohemian language,
having been ruthlessly suppressed everywhere
except in the wretched hovels of the peasantry,
had been deprived of its right and power. From
1 620 to 1820 Bohemia virtually did not exist.
Property rights may be said to have been for-
feited during this lengthy period. . . .
" It was the impulse of religion which laid
the foundation of native literature in Sloven-
sko. In the year 1718 a zealous Paulist
monk, Alexander Macsaj, began to publish
his harangues in a subdialect current around
Trnava. His evident object was to get nearer
to the comprehension and sympathy of the com-
mon people. The innovation was obviously
meant as a rebuff to the Protestants and it
served to pave the way for Bernolak. A modest
opening it was ; yet it made receptive the
home soil for literature that was to sprout
up later.
" The close of the eighteenth century was at
io6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
hand. The reign of Maria Theresa and of
Joseph II., while freeing the human mind in one
direction, endeavored to fetter it in another by
forcible Germanization. The French Revolu-
tion shattered one after another the last rem-
nants of mediaeval cults, fetters, and prejudices ;
here and there were seen, illuminating the im-
penetrable darkness, flashes of Slavic literature,
emerging into life. All of them found inspi-
ration in the grand idea of a national awaken-
ing. In Russia, and especially in Little Russia,
the native language sought to liberate itself
from the deadening influence of the Church
Slavonic. A new light penetrated into Bo-
hemia and the South Slavic countries.
" Slovaky3 at this juncture outstripped
Bohemia, and this finally decided the fate of
its literary language. The Slovaks nowhere
hearing a word of Bohemian, which had been
stamped out by the hoofs of mounted dra-
goons 1 and placed under the ban by anti-re-
formers ; and, moreover, as Catholics, not
being tied to it by tradition, grasped at the
living tongue of their own people, a course as
logical as it was natural. A band of patriots
with Fandli, Bajza, and Bernolak at their head
took hold of the language that had been som-
nolent for eight hundred years, and began to
mould it to literary uses. Bernolak issued the
1 During the Thirty- Years War, missionaries accompanied by
mounted troops visited one village after another, burning Bohemian
books and Bibles. Liechtenstein's dragoons were especially notorious
in this wanton work.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 107
first Slovak grammar and a compendious Slovak
dictionary. Benefactors came forward, chief
among them being Prince Primate Alexander
Rudnay, who generously aided the literature
which was being ushered into life. Poets were
born, Holty foremost of -them, who sang for the
first time familiar native songs which, despite
their strange classic form, were nevertheless
Slovak. H owever, Bernolak's dialect made slow
headway in popularity, partly owing to the op-
position of the Protestants, and partly because
of its inherent imperfections. Bernolak, who
labored in the neighborhood of Nitra and
Pressburg, chose for his literary language, in-
stead of pure Slovak, the faulty subdialect of
these counties, the so-called Bohemian-Slovak.
Equally defective was Bernolak's orthography,
being purely phonetic, illogical, and lacking
connection with the other Slavonic languages
a veritable linguistic jumble. It was a work
faulty not alone in principle but in construction
as well ; still, itwas the first signal effort to bridge
the differences between the so-called Biblical,
then dominant, and the Slovak language.
" The nineteenth century was opening.
Once more vigorous breezes blew from west-
ern Europe, breezes of liberty, and the Slovak
people, heretofore immovable, were set in
motion with the rest of the big Slavic family.
The needs of the people multiplied, and all
that was required was to throw a spark into
the smouldering mass, appealing to it in a
voice that all would at once recognize as their
io8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
own. The Catholic and Protestant clergy,
who had been defying one another all along,
the first displaying marked partiality to Latin
and " Bernolacina," the other with equal per-
tinacity upholding the Biblical Bohemian, con-
sented to listen to the conciliatory arguments
of Ludevit Stiir, a great reformer, who, having
grasped the situation, contrived to isolate Ber-
nolak's dialect, and in the year 1844 with nu-
merous followers (the young Protestant party)
came forward with a dialect that is spoken in
eight central Slovak counties, and which in
miniature represents all Slavic tongues, not
even excepting the Old Bulgarian, being
besides melodious, sonorous, and chaste. The
confusion which arose through the adoption of
StuYs tongue and the retention of Bernolak's
orthography, added to that of numerous syn-
tactical and other errors and imperfections,
were gradually removed by Hodza, and finally
the work was systematized by Professor Martin
Hattala, who gave the language a scientific
and Slavic finish. This explains all. The philo-
logical convention of Pressburg (1852), that
completed the reform in orthography, was the
means of firmly and lastingly uniting both
factions, hostile to one another for cen-
turies, namely the Catholic (lately Berno-
lak's) and Protestant (StuYs) in one common
tongue, which in due time took a position
among other Slavic literatures as its youngest
sister.
" From this it will be seen that Slovak liter-
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 109
ature, as such, is the product of the nine-
teenth century.
" But while it is admitted that the Slovak
dialect was called forth by an urgent need,
and while the innovation always had and now
has a wide and appreciative public in both liter-
ary and journalistic fields, yet purely scientific
literature can never thrive in Slovaks-Set, lack-
ing as it does the requisite sources of material
support. . . .
"The ties of culture that unite the Bohe-
mian-Slovak nation are strong and indissolu-
ble, and, notwithstanding the fact that the two
peoples have parted, their literatures appear
to us as a literary unit, forming a circle within
a circle and supplementing one another as
surely as that Slovakia^ and Bohemia are
one linguistically, nationally, ethnographically,
and geologically.
" Slovak belles-lettres may therefore be di-
vided into two periods : the first period begin-
ning from Bernolak's time and ending with
Stiir (1783-1844), the second from Stur to the
present day (1845-1880)."
Exactly what position should be assigned to
Slovak in the family of Slavonic languages is
a question on which philologists are not agreed.
Is it entitled to an independent place along
with the Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Servo-
Croatin, and others, or should it be classed as
a dialect of the Bohemian, to which latter it
i io THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
bears a striking resemblance in sound, gram-
mar, and intonation ? Certain it is that no two
Slavonians understand each other as readily as
a Bohemian and a Slovak. What renders an
accurate classification difficult is the fact that,
but for fragments of songs, nothing is known to
exist of early Slovak literature. If there were
any, the evidences of them are now lost, or lie
hidden, as is believed by some, in the still
unexplored libraries of Hungarian magnates
having estates in Slovakkdd. The " father of
Slavic philology," Joseph Dobrovsk^, added
the weight of his authority in favor of the
linguistic independence of Slovak. So did
Safarik, at first, in a German work published
in 1826. Later on, and having examined the
subject more thoroughly, Safarik changed his
mind. He thought he recognized in Slovak
an old form of Bohemian. According to his
version of it, the rustics in Bohemia and Mo-
ravia, like all country people, indulged in local
mannerisms of speech, yet on the whole devi-
ating but slightly from the written standard.
This, Safarik claimed, was not the case with
the Hungarian Slovaks. Living in a rough
and mountainous country, far from the refining
influences of seats of learning, and without any
national centre to unite them, they drifted
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE in
more and more from the accepted forms of
speech. It is on this hypothesis alone that we
can account for the bewildering multitude of
dialects and subdialects that were evolved in
SlovakkfflFd in the course of centuries. Jagic,
having pointed out all the structural and lexi-
cographical variations, sums up by saying that
" science is justified in regarding Slovak and
Bohemian as two constituent parts forming
a unity in the group of Slavic languages."
Florinskij took the same ground as Dobrovsky.
In a treatise on the subject he enumerated no
less than sixteen instances wherein Slovak is
supposed to vary from its Bohemian sister.
Already the geographical situation of the Slo-
vaks toward the other Slavs seemed to justify,
in Florinskij's judgment, the assumption that
their idiom is a distinct one. Slovak shares all
the peculiar characteristics of the languages
which it borders Bohemian here, Polish there,
Russian and Servian where it mixes with those
kindred tongues. Though nearer to Bohe-
hemian than to any other Slavic language,
reasons Florinskij, it nevertheless must be
treated under a distinct head. Ludevit Stiir
had this to say in praise of his mother tongue :
" Viewed from the standpoint of philology,
U2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Slovak appears to us as a distinct and separate
language, without which it would be impracti-
cable to formulate a comparative grammar of
Slavic tongues, because it forms a connecting
link between them all."
Dr. Samuel Czambel, in one of the latest
works on the subject (Slovdci a ich rec,
1903), also essays to prove the independence
of his mother tongue. But if truth must be
told, all the great philologists oppose Czam-
bel and the other grammarians who hold with
him.
Be it as it may, the fact remains that until
Bernolak's time (1762-1813) writers of Slo-
vak birth, such as Daniel Sinapius (Horcicka),
Daniel Krman, Matthew Bel, Bohuslav Tab-
lie, George Palkovic, Stephen Leska, George
Rybay, etc., all composed their works in Bohe-
mian. Especially was this true of the Protest-
ants, who have always remained faithful to the
Bohemian. It is not without interest to know
that Slovak Protestants to this day use Bohe-
mian hymns, catechisms, and Bible. Indeed,
the holy book has never been translated into
Slovak.
Many reasons there were that led to the lit-
erary secession from the Bohemian. Religious
zeal and the ever-increasing antagonism be-
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 113
tween the Catholics and Protestants were
probably the chief contributing causes.
Then there was the cry : " Write as you
speak ! " At home the people used Slovak ;
in the church the preacher conducted services
in Bohemian. That was a situation admittedly
incongruous. " The present style of writing
affected by Bohemians," wrote Safafik to Kol-
lar in 1827, "can never become popular
among Slovaks. . . We authors must play
the role of Brahmins, of priests, whose sermons
the people will not understand." Again, the
terms "Slovak" and "Bohemian," each owing
allegiance to a different country, were a serious
obstacle to lasting unity.
Still another reason was that the Magyars
neglected no opportunity to remind their
Slovak brothers-in-law that Bohemian was a
foreign language in Hungary. After the death
of Joseph II., who had dreamed of making
Hungary a German state, as related elsewhere,
the Magyars founded, in 1791, a chair of the
Magyar language and literature at the national
university. Jealous of this signal achieve-
ment, the Slovaks also demanded some con-
cession for themselves from the government.
But as Bohemian was being stigmatized as
" foreign " and inadmissible, the Catholics, in
ii 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
1793, formed a "Slovak Learned Society"
for the cultivation of their own tongue. In
this way they hoped to obtain in the future
what was denied to them at that time.
Then again, between 1620-1820 Bohemian
had been practically dead in its own home.
Expelled from schools and administration by
the promoters of the anti-reformation move-
ment become the language of an ignorant and
brutalized peasantry how could it defend its
rights in Slovaklgfcgci when it was helpless on
its native heath ?
Finally, why should the Catholic Slovaks
favor Bohemian ? Surely no such reverent
tradition and affectionate ties bound them to
it as was the case with the Protestants. On the
contrary, they had every reason to dislike it.
It will be remembered that in the fifteenth
century the Hussites, led by John Jiskra, of
Brandys, had overrun Upper Hungary. The
settling in Slovak4a4 of these warriors, whom
religious persecution had driven from Bohe-
mia, was productive of far-reaching results.
In the first place, the Hussites had sown the
first seed of Protestantism among the people
whose country they had invaded. Secondly,
they imposed on the natives their idiom, forc-
ing it to the front in schools and churches, and
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 115
to a certain extent in communal affairs, to the
exclusion of Latin. Most important of all, the
Hussites brought about the regeneration of
the people in a national sense. In the seven-
teenth century, after the disastrous battle of
the White Mountain, thousands of Protestants ,
from Bohemia again flocked to Slovaklach
The relations which spring from common faith
were cemented anew. Naturally, the Catholic
clergy could not remain indifferent, seeing what
inroads " the religion imported from Bohemia "
was making among the faithful.
Already before Bernolak's time the separat-
ist tendencies were more or less noticeable.
It may be laid down as a general rule that,
while the Protestants always adhered scru-
pulously to the chaste model of the Kralic
Bible, the Catholics from the very start seemed
to favor local forms of speech. Every pamphlet
that came out in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries from the Catholic presses showed
these grammatical deflections. In the six-
teenth century two Bohemian letters, r and e,
were dropped altogether, and such forms typi-
cal of the Slovak of to-day jd nesem (I carry),
instead of the Bohemian jd nesu, otcov^?
(father's), instead of otcova, were introduced.
Numerous words foreign to Bohemian, were
ii6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
adopted, as vidiek (highland), raz (once), pdcit
(to please), robit (to work), neskdr (later), and
so forth.
Slowly but steadily the divergence grew.
Alexander Macsaj, a Paulist priest, published
at Trnava, in 1718, a harangue in defence of
the Catholic faith, in the " Slovak language."
A bolder secessionist than Macsaj, and ad-
mittedly more intelligent, was Joseph Ignace
Bajza, also a priest, born in 1754. While
Macsaj wrote at haphazard, seemingly with no
definite object in view, there was clearly a
method in Bajza's composition.
To Anton Bernolak, however, belongs the
full credit of inaugurating the separatist move-
ment and making it a success. It was he who
codified Slovak. Before Bernolak's appear-
ance, one could not speak of Slovak literature,
rather, of literature in Slovaklaad Born in
Slanice, in the county of Orava, on October
1 4th, 1762, of the lower class of nobility, the
" zemans," Bernolak was destined by his
parents for priesthood. Slavic lore attracted
him from his early youth. As a student of
theology, in the seminaries at Trnava and
Pressburg, he conceived, and later executed, a
scheme whereby his mother tongue might be
adapted to literary uses. With that end in
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 117
view, at the age of twenty-five years, he pub-
lished a Latin treatise. In 1790 appeared his
grammar, a book in which the author's ambi-
tious plans were set forth in full. His " lexicon,"
which is quite an exhaustive and laborious work,
was published between 1825-1827, thanks to
the munificence of Canon Palkovic. 1 Crude
in material and replete with faults that even
his admiring friends could not overlook, the
first two volumes by the youthful priest had a
startling effect. The Protestants ranged them-
selves in sullen opposition to the innovating
theories of Bernolak. But that was to be ex-
pected. On the other side, all the Catholic
clergy promised to support him. Time had
proven that the author committed several
errors of judgment. An irremediable mistake
was that he chose the wrong dialect on which
to build. Matthew Bel already guessed the
truth when he said that the richest and purest
dialect was the one spoken about an equal dis-
tance from the seats of the Bohemians, Mora-
vians, Poles and Magyars, and called, from its
location, " Central Slovak." This self-evident
1 Many books printed in the " bernolacina " were issued at the
expense of Alexander Rudnay, Cardinal Primate of Hungary, who
is famous for his words: "Slavus sum; et si in cathedra Petri
forem, Slavus ero ! "
ii8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
fact Bernolcik either did not know or would
not admit. He had recourse, instead, to the
Trnava and Pressburg dialects ; whether he
wished to compliment the Catholics, predom-
inating there, or, as seems more likely, because
more men of letters and publishers flourished
around these parts than elsewhere, is unknown.
Still another bad feature of Bernolak's lan-
guage was its phonetic mould. To the one rule
" Write as you speak " he subordinated every
other consideration. Letters f, e, u, etc., which
are not sounded in Slovak, he urged, should be
eliminated altogether; and he advocated the
adoption of consonantal combinations dz and
dz. Even the logical connection between his
creation and the other Slavonian tongues was
lacking. Nevertheless, the " bernolacina," as
it became known, endured some sixty years.
In order to make his innovation popular,
Bernolak placed himself at the head of the
" Society for Slovak Literary Art," every
member of which had to take a pledge to
further the work. Joseph Bajza, George
Fdndli, Adalbert Arady, Simon Falbi, Anton
Dattel, George Holty, Joseph Nejedty, and
Anton Saffarovic all enrolled as members of
the society or lent their aid. Trnava, having
a Catholic college, was chosen as a center of
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 119
this movement, and in time, branches, with />
bookstores in each, were established at Nitra,
Rovna, Banska Bystrica (Beszterczebanya),
Jager (Eger), Roznava (Roznyo). " The
Society of the Friends of the Slovak Language
and Literature" was another body that was
organized to propagate Bernolak's language.
Whether it was jealousy or a desire not to
be outdone by the Catholics, the Protestants,
too, began to band themselves into literary
societies. An " Association for the Advance-
ment of Slovak Letters " was founded about
this time by Bohulav Tablic, George Palkovic,
M. Hamaliar, L. Bartholemaeides, M. Godra,
and S. Cerfiansk^. Owing to the extreme
poverty of its members, the association did not
last long. But already in 1803 a new organi-
zation, having ample means at its disposal,
took up the place of the defunct one. The
" Institutum Linguae et Literaturse Slavicae,"
for the promotion of Bohemian-Slovak, is justly
celebrated in the annals of Slovaklatfch The
lecture-rooms of the institution in the Evan-
gelical Lyceum at Pressburg, swarmed with
patriotic youth. Under Ludevit Stur, the In-
stitute reached the zenith of its renown. The
last association of this kind among the Protes-
tants was the " Slovak Literary Society at a
120 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Banskd, Stiavnica" (Selmecbanya). J. Holuby,
B. Tablic, J. Seberiny, A. Lovich, and J.
Rybay were its founders. This latter-named
society was instrumental in establishing a chair
of Bohemian-Slovak language and literature at
the Evangelical Lyceum at Banska Stiavnica.
Still another literary schism was to come
in 1843-1844. This time it was the young
Protestant party, led by Ludevit Stiir, that
decided to secede from the Bohemian. His-
tory has shown that Stiir was actuated by the
loftiest of motives in taking this step. It grieved
this zealous patriot to see his little nation torn
up in so many factions. He sincerely deplored
the centrifugal tendencies in the ranks of the
Catholics. Unless checked in time, he believed
there would be a complete rupture between
them and the Protestants. Stiir was convinced
that there must be some medium of under-
standing between those two hostile factions,
but what was it ? That " bernolacina " would
ever unite Catholics and Protestants, he
doubted. How to win back to the Slovak
cause the renegade "zemans," with their well-
known aversion to Bohemian, was another
matter that occupied Stiir. With the " zemans "
in the ranks, the nation's fighters would find
invaluable allies. Again, he perceived the
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 121
need of awakening his people from their long
sleep. Great events were imminent, and he
felt that his people should be ready when the
time came. How was he to strike the right
chord in their hearts ? Stiir's intuition told
him that it was useless to make an appeal in
Bohemian. He must commune with his people
in the tongue in which they prayed and sang,
the tongue that alone was natural to them,
and that was Slovak. Stiir went to work,
and in due time the tenth Slavic language was
born.
Thinking to profit by Bernolak's blunder,
Stiir decided in favor of a dialect which obtains
in the counties of Liptov, Orava, Turec, Upper
Trencin, Upper Nitra, Zvolen, Tekov, Hont,
Novohrad, and a part of Gemer. As far as
concerned the dialect, the choice was a happy
one. Here, in the depths of the Tatra Moun-
tains, was a rich language, apparently least
affected by surrounding influences. Unfortu-
nately, the grammarian made the same fatal
mistake as Bernolak. He adopted the pho-
netic system.
Now Slovaks had three different schools of
writing :
The Catholics continued to use " berno-
lacina."
122 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
The young Protestant party favored gener-
ally StuYs dialect, which was called " stiirstina."
The older writers, like Kollar and Safafik,
remained faithful to Bohemian-Slovak.
Bitter quarrels, lasting for years, broke out.
The Bohemian literary institution " Matice
Ceska " issued a warning " About the need of
one literary language for Bohemians, Mora-
vians, and Slovaks."
" A number of the younger Slovak literary
men [wrote Francis Palack^ in 1846] began
last year against the advice and entreaties of
their colleagues to again lay the foundation
of a new Slovak literature, which might be
designated, by way of distinction from those
previously tried, a Tatra literature. Lacking
knowledge and experience, these men have
taken a course that must lead them and their
followers direct to destruction and ruin. If
any of the Slovak dialects had found their
way, within the last years, into legislative
bodies and county conventions ; if laws had
been framed therein ; if it were the language
of the executive and of the higher schools,
then hopes might be entertained that some-
time it might usher into life a new literature,
though it could boast of none in the past.
Now, however, when Slovak is almost pro-
scribed by law and excluded from the diet and
the administration ; when the Magyar, follow-
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 123
ing in the wake of victory, is beginning to
force its way, with the aid of the state, into the
very village school ; when the higher classes
have deserted Slovak almost to a man for the
Magyar cause, and the nation, weak numeri-
cally, is bound to look for support to the
middle and lower classes and, therefore, mostly
poorer classes, who are, besides, divided and
antagonized by several subdialects ; who have
nowhere a public social life, nowhere indepen-
dent centres of their more important affairs ;
who are forsaken by every one, who struggle
between life and death, and feel themselves
whirled irresistibly into an all-engulfing vortex
it is a mistake, fatal and grievous, to think of
such a work, to incite anew old disputes, to
weaken by division forces that are already
weak, perhaps to lose sight, in the heat of a
new strife, of the principal object."
Jonas Za*borsk^, addressing Caspar Fejer-
pataky, argued as follows :
" You want the Slovaks to discontinue the
Bohemian and to write in their mother tongue.
Which of the Slovak dialects, however, will
you choose for that purpose ? Will it be
the Liptov ? the Trencm ? the Sarys ? the
Gemer, or Lord knows which ? Can you not
see that there are as many dialects in our land
as there are counties ? That these dialects
vary as much from one another as they all
differ from the Bohemian ? Which one, pray,
124 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
will you elevate to the dignity of written lan-
guage ? Your answer will be : none of them ;
that you will select and retain that which is
best in all. But what dialect will you use as
the groundwork, and who is to decide what
shall be added thereto from other dialects ?
Friend, we should not give up the Bohemian,
not so much for the sake of unity with the
Bohemians, but in the interest of our own
unity. Suppose we were successful in im-
proving the grammar. Yet, in a lexicographi-
cal sense, we will not, and in the nature of
things cannot, have our own language. All
the terms relating to higher, abstract notions,
all the words in the realm of science and art,
must be taken from the Bohemian storehouse.
Create a literary language to-day, and you will
find that you will not make yourself one iota
more intelligent to the Slovaks. The poor qual-
ity of our literary productions, which is due
partly to the wretched condition of our schools
and partly to the lack of public libraries, should
deter us from trying to build up an indepen-
dent literature."
" As matters are [pleaded John Kollar], Sla-
vonians are already so divided, cut up, lacer-
ated, scattered, and dismembered, externally
and internally, that it is a treason to reduce
these particles to atoms almost invisible ; on
the contrary, the person would deserve well
who would undertake to weld into one the
many detached fragments. Other nations have
shown us the way a long time ago. The ocean
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 125
divides North America from England, and
yet these countries have but one literary
tongue. Among Germans, how many local
forms of speech, dissimilar from one another,
there are ! The Kralic Bible originated in
Moravia. Komensky, 2erotin, Ctibor, and
other shining stars of the first magnitude in
the old literature, were Moravians. Tranovsk^
was a Silesian by birth. Cernansk^, Dolezal,
Hruskovic, Semian, and other Slovaks wrote
correct Bohemian. Some of the foremost Bo-
hemian writers of recent times, whose names
will live for ages in the history of Bohemian
letters, belong, by birth, to Moravia and Pan-
nonic Slovakktmd.'6a>
All appeals for harmony were in vain. One
thing became evident even in the heat of the
quarrel namely, that a return to Bohemian
was out of the question.
M. M. Hodza published, in 1847, what he
called Epigenes Slovenicus, and a year later
Vttin o slovencine, and in both of these philo-
logical works he tried to prove that the system
of phonetic spelling, which was adopted by
Bernolak and Stur, could not be maintained.
Unless the langugage was reconstructed on
an etymological basis, confusion and dishar-
mony were bound to continue. It appears
that Hodza's books came out at a propitious
126 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
moment ; every one seemed to be getting tired
of the endless bickering. The two great par-
ties, Bernolakists and Stiirists, were both will-
ing to make mutual concessions. Peace was
desired above all. Accordingly a conference
was arranged between representative men at
Cachtice (Csejte), in 1847, and the following
resolution was passed : " It is agreed that a
special philological commission be chosen
which shall pass on the work of Michael M.
Hodza, Epigenes Slovenicus, treating of the
theory of our language and its grammar."
The most prominent writers of the two war-
ring factions were named to serve on the com-
mission : L. Stiir, O. Caban, E. Gerometta, J.
Scasn^, C. Cochius, B. Hrobon, and M.
Hattala.
The revolution that broke out in 1848 of
course made it impracticable for the .commis-
sion to come together. Some members of it,
like Stiir, were too occupied with other mat-
ters to think of grammars. They had been
called to lead their people to battle. But there
was one scholar on the commission who went
quietly to work, and before the year 1850 was
over he wrote and published, along the lines
suggested by Hodza, a Grammatica Linguce
Sloveniccz. This was Martin Hattala. In the
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 127
month of October, 1851, another philological
conference took place, this time in Pressburg.
Bernolakists and Stiirists again came together,
and in the most harmonious way unanimously
voted their approval of Hattala's book. At
the same time it was agreed to translate and
publish it in Slovak. This was done in 1852,
when it issued under the title of a Short Slo-
vak Grammar. Three distinguished Protes-
tants (Sturists) and three equally renowned
Catholics (Bernolakists) announced above
their names in the preface that the " gram-
mar met the approval of both parties, and that
both have agreed to abide by it in the future."
This Pressburg Conference at last made the
Slovak language uniform. 1
Five names are inseparably associated with
the new literary and national movement that
was born immediately prior to the revolution of
1848. They are those of John Kollar, Paul
J. Safafik, Ludevit Stiir, Joseph M. Hurban,
and Michael M. Hodza. Properly speaking,
Kollar and Safafik belong to Bohemian litera-
1 Dr. Czambel still recognizes five distinct dialects : That of the
Calvinists in the neighborhood of Kosice and Uzhorod (Ungvar) ;
&arys ; Bernolak's ; Star's ; and Hodza-Hattala's.
128 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
ture, having always made common cause with
it, and upholding, to the end of their lives, the
literary unity of the two countries. Still, their
writings did so much toward the nationaliza-
tion of the Slovaks that their names cannot
be omitted.
A most singular circumstance, and one that
even a casual student cannot fail to observe, is
the number of names of ecclesiastics which
one encounters in Slovak literature. So out
of proportion are the clergy to the laity repre-
sented that one is irresistibly led to believe
that but for them Slovak letters might have
never taken root for lack of cultivators. Espe-
cially is this true of the early authors, most of
whom, if not all, were either clergymen or peo-
ple who in their youth had received a theologi-
cal education at one of the many seminaries
that flourished in Upper Hungary. Thus,
Kollar was a minister of the gospel. The
famous triumvirs, Stiir, Hodza, and H urban,
had all been prepared for the church. Of the
long list of writers with an ecclesiastical train-
ing it will suffice to name :
John Holty (1785-1849), a Catholic priest,
a renowned poet of the Bernolak group of
writers.
Evangelical pastors : Andrew Slddkovic,
JOHN HOLLY
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 129
Samuel Chaliipka, John Chahipka, Dr. Charles
Kuzma*ny, professor of theology, Samuel To-
ma'sik, Ladislav Pauliny, Paul Dobsinsk^, C.
Zoch or Cochius, August Krcmery, Samuel
Godra, Andrew Bella, Joseph Podhradsk^,
Daniel Marothy, Daniel Bachat, and host of
others.
" Why are we meeting with such a small
measure of success ?" complained young H ur-
ban in 1847, an d, forthwith, he proceeded to
answer himself : " Because our leaders have
been till now, almost without exception theo-
logians. So abundant are the books and ideals
with which they have befriended us, that we
Slovaks should be the happiest nation in the
world, provided literature and ideals were
enough to make nations happy. Ours is a
purely theological nationality. Until some
genius other than a churchman places himself
at the head of our affairs, we shall continue to
decay."
When John Kollar first published his famous
lyric-epic poem, Sldvy Dcera Slavids Daugh-
ter y in 1824, Stiir and those of his compatriots
who were destined to revolutionize Slovak*
hnrel were yet boys. This poem, written in
Bohemian was a most stirring summons to
the Slavs to unite.
I 3 o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
The Slavic peoples then living under the
rule of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey
presented a composite picture of the direst
misery. With aching heart the poet tells of
the woes that oppressed them. Like Childe
Harold, he travels through the Baltic and Po-
labian provinces (along the River Elbe) "that
were once the cradle, but are now the tomb of
the race." He recounts all the terrible wrongs
inflicted on the Polabians by their old-time
antagonists, the Teutons. In Bohemia and
Moravia every place of interest is visited and
the deeds of persons of fame recounted in the
poem. From those countries the poet pilgrim
goes to Slovakia^ and further down south
and east to Croatia and Servia. Wrathfully
he hurls sinister imprecations at the various
foes of the Slavs, and greater yet is his anger
at those who, turning renegades, have become
traitors to their blood and ancestry. Every-
where the bard beholds disunion and hurtful
jealousy, and he deplores these hereditary sins
of the Slavs ; for, in his opinion, they alone are
to blame for the wretched condition of their
respective branches. From all the fragments
he would mould one immense statue before
which Europe should kneel in awe. The key-
note of the whole poem is an exhortation to
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 131
unity. " Learn to love your nation ! " he thun-
ders. " Let the words echo from the Tatra
Mountains to Crna Gora (Montenegro) and
from Krkonose to the Urals : Hell for traitors,
heaven for patriotic Slavs ! "
The effect of the poem was tremendous, far
greater than Kollar ever dared to hope. In
time the whole Slavic world rang with the
verses of the Sldvy Dcera. To the youth the
poem became a creed to believe in and to the
literates an example to follow. Schoolboys
learned by heart most of the fine passages,
with which especially the prologue abounds,
vowing to avenge the wrongs done to their
kinsmen. It was at this time that the pan-
slavist spectre made its first appearance in
Europe. Kollar was furiously attacked by
Magyar and Austrian writers for fanning the
national passions of the Slavs. In Hungary
entire editions of the book were bought in and
burned to prevent its circulation. But so great
was the demand for it that many booklovers,
unable to procure it, because of police vigi-
lance, had complete copies transcribed by hand.
In 1837 Kollar issued a short treatise in Ger-
man on literary unity among the Slavs. This
publication created another stir in Central
Europe.
132 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
A man who had influenced the destinies of
Slovaks to a remarkable degree was Paul J.
Safarik (1795-1861). Like Kollar, he too re-
mained faithful to Bohemian. While the one
was a poet, who prophesied a brighter future
to the Slavs, the other was a savant, dispas-
sionate and unprejudiced, who took upon him-
self the task of revealing the treasures of their
past. Safafik's volume on Slavic Antiquities,
published in 1837, and Slavic Ethnography,
that came out in 1842, attracted wide-spread
attention. Accompanying the latter work was
a map on which the Slavs, to the number
of eighty millions, appeared to occupy, in un-
broken continuity, an immense part of Europe,
extending from the Bohemian Forest on the
west to the Ural Mountains, and from the
Polar Sea on the north to the ^Egean on
the south. To the Slavs this picture was at
once inspiring and pleasing. They took new
courage and hope. The satisfaction they ex-
perienced from Safarik's researches was only
second to the astonishment felt by the rest of
Europe at the potentialities of the people,
shown as a unit, on the ethnographic map.
No country welcomed the writings of Kol-
lar and Safarik with greater enthusiasm than
Slovakli&i The Slovaks were proud of
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 133
the achievements of their two countrymen, no
doubt. But there was an infinitely deeper
reason why they should rejoice. They felt
that they were no longer without friends and
allies. The knowledge that they were one of
a family of eighty millions gratified and reas-
sured them. Why fear for the future because
the present was gloomy ? Did not Kollar,
their prophet, predict that in time to come
things would grow brighter? Enemies may
persecute them, if they will. But their chil-
dren will be free, and if not they, then their
children's children. The Tatra Mountains
were the cradle of their common ancestors.
Would the Slavic peoples ever permit the
alienation of that sacred land ?
Kollar and Safafik were already famous
when Ludevit (Ludwig) Stiir, then a young-
ster just returned from a college in Germany,
was beginning to make his entrance into public
life. An ardent Slovak by conviction, whereas
Kollar and Safarik were Slovaks only by the
accident of birth, a tireless and enthusiastic
worker, and an idealist wholly devoted to the
Hegelian school of philosophy, a theologian
whom the versatility of his talent and the mul-
titudinous needs of his country made succes-
sively an orator, writer, journalist, politician,
134 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
and soldier Stiir was, according to the unani-
mous verdict of his enemies and friends, the
most remarkable champion of Slovak rights
since Matthew Csa*k's days. Aiding him were
Joseph M. H urban and Michael M. Hodza.
Contemporaries and friends, these splendid pa-
triots divided the enormous task that lay before
them according to the respective talents and
the natural bent of their minds. And so indis-
pensable were they to one another and collect-
ively to the cause which they served so well,
that but for their united efforts it would prob-
ably have failed. Very oddly, all three received
the same training for the Church. This felic-
itous circumstance helped them to act in con-
cert, even though it may have made their life
work seem rather too one-sided. All three
believed that by nationalization alone their
nation could be raised to a higher plane,
morally, socially and intellectually. Being pa-
triotic Slovaks, it goes without saying that
they were enthusiastic Slavonians at the same
time.
Nothing ever daunted Stiir. Opposition
only served to redouble his energy. Kolldr
frequently gave vent to his despair, seeing the
utter hopelessness of the situation. The na-
tive nobility alienated ; the Catholic clergy
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 135
hostile and irreconcilable ; the common people
improvident and pathetically indifferent to
their own fate a disheartening outlook, in-
deed ! All this Stur knew and saw, but he
would not concede that everything was lost.
With a will he set to work in the Pressburg
Lyceum, in which institution he had held the
post of assistant professor. In time, and thanks
to his unflagging energy, his lecture room be-
came the most popular of all the Protestant
schools of learning in Slovakl-sara. Hundreds
of young men flocked to Pressburg to be near
him. Such was the affection of the students
for the master, that when in 1844 Stiir was re-
moved from the lyceum, because of alleged
anti-Magyar agitation, numbers of the youth
left Pressburg to continue their studies else-
where. To commemorate this exodus from
Pressburg, John Matiiska, one of the voluntary
exiles, composed under the spur of that bitter
moment a touching song, now so popular :
Clouds above Tatra soar
And lightning's thunders roar;
O brothers, never fear :
The skies again will clear,
We shall live evermore ! 1
1 Nad Tatrou sa bliska, hromy divo bijii :
Nebojme se bratia,
Vsak sa ony ztratia
Slovaci oziju !
136 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Happily for his nation Stilr devoted himself
wholly to letters and journalism. His enemies
might make it impossible for him to teach ;
still they could not prevent him from express-
ing his thoughts in writing. And, convinced
that Bohemian was not less unsympathetic
than Bernolak's literary invention, he grasped
what he believed to be the most popular native
dialect. The grammar he wrote has been
termed a keystone of Slovak literature. On
the lecture platform the same success marked
his progress as in the literary field. Admiring
followers took up "stiirstina" at once, intro-
ducing it not alone in journalism but in belles-
lettres as well. While Bernoldk's dialect has
been preserved to us only in the poems of
John Holty, Stiir's school has produced, and
rightly claims as its own, a whole galaxy of
clever writers.
The appearance of the first number of Stiir's
Ndrodnie Noviny (National Gazette) on Au-
gust i, 1845, was an eventful day, long to be
remembered. In this journal the nation at
last found a fearless advocate and reliable
guide. The publisher had to wait three years
before the necessary concession was obtained
from the government, and it is said that but
for the gracious intercession of Baron Kulmer,
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 137
it would have never been granted. The times
were just as hostile to the Slovaks then as they
are now. Palkovic, the venerable professor at
the Pressburg Lyceum, for instance, incurred
the disfavor of the government because he
dared to change the name of his publication
from Weekly Gazette to Slovak National Ga-
zette. After a searching trial that nearly cost
him the concession, Palkovic won his case, but
the word " Slovak " was ordered stricken out
from the title page ! A supplement, the
Tatranskj? Oral (Tatra Eagle), accompanied
every number of Stur's journal, and these two
publications, one devoting its columns to po-
litical and economical questions and the other
to belles-lettres, constituted in those days the
chief literary repository of the Stiir school of
writers. For the treatment of scientific sub-
jects Hurban founded, in 1846, an excellent
review called the Slovenskt Pohlady.
Meantime, revolution was approaching, and
while its terrors lasted, literary activity ceased
altogether, except for revolutionary airs, with
which Hurban, Chaliipka, Pauliny, Botto,
Tomasik, Matiiska, and others greeted the
dawn that was approaching, and with which
bluecoated Slovak volunteers went marching
to battle. It is worthy of note that most,
138 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
if not all, of the revolutionary songs have
survived.
By turns a minister of the Gospel, a Biblical
scholar, a writer on philological, educational
and political subjects, an able organizer, a pro-
found reasoner, Michael M. Hodza (1811-
1870) had but two equals among his con-
temporaries, Stiir and H urban. As for con-
summate tact and rare judgment he stood
unrivalled. Many were the delicate and even
dangerous missions intrusted to him. No
Slovak was more cruelly or systematically per-
secuted than he. His career was cut short at
the height of its usefulness. Removed from
the parish which was his only means of liveli-
hood, excommunicated by the church of which
his profound learning was an ornament, and ex-
pelled by the government that feared and hated
him, Hodza died a miserable exile. The
Epigenes Slovenicus, already referred to, Vettn,
and Der Slowak were his principal works.
Some twenty volumes, in addition to count-
less articles in various periodicals, bear testi-
mony to the industry of Dr. Joseph M.
Hurban (1817-1888). Yet it is not as a liter-
ary man that Hurban commands the respect of
admiring posterity. He will be remembered
as a tribune of his people. But for Hurban's
v^^^y4^f^<
/
tx/tf*
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 139
indefatigable labors, the storms of 1848 might
have swept over the Hungarian highlands
without arousing any interest on the part of
the natives. Irresistible, indeed, must have
been the powers of eloquence of this Slovak
O'Connell to have moved to armed rebellion a
nation that had remained quiescent for cen-
turies. Stur was the heart, Hodza the brains,
but Hurban the soul of the revolutionary
movement. He collected funds, provided
weapons and ammunition, organized volunteer
corps, chose trained soldiers to lead them,
aided financially patriots who were in prison,
besides conducting a vast correspondence.
Certain traits all the Stiir writers had in
common : the folk song constituted their favor-
ite material and Slavic fraternity their prime
motive. All began by being idealists, Hegel-
ians, but some of them, in pursuing their ideals,
ended in becoming visionaries, who lost them-
selves hopelessly in the mazes of mysticism
and general vagueness, to cite only the case of
Samo Hrobon. This was a serious fault of
the Stiir school. To lead an austere life, to
scorn civic honors, and to devote one's whole
being toward the deliverance of the nation from
the bondage of ignorance formed part of their
teaching. The nationalism of Kollar's poetry
NtV YORK, N, Y
140 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
attracted them no less than Hegel's philosophy.
One of their beliefs was that the Slavs, with
the Slovaks in the forefront, would be the first
to realize Hegel's future perfect state. Why ?
Because they claimed to have a better under-
standing of the philosophy of that noted Ger-
man than he himself had. The Tatras, as the
alleged seat of the aboriginal Slavs, were glori-
fied in patriotic verse, and even Safarik's re-
searches were idealized by them. The ambition
to rule was, in their eyes, reprehensible ; and
they prophesied that Slavic territory would
crush those who entered upon it with hostile
intentions.
Among the most renowned Stiirists should
be named the poets Chaliipka, Botto, Krai,
Tomasik, and Sladkovic, and Kalincdk, the
novelist.
Samuel Chaliipka (1812-1883), an evan-
gelical pastor, was descended from a family of
authors. The Turkish invasion of Upper
Hungary and traditions and tales clustering
around ruined castles were his most successful
themes. Chalupka's were the first poems to
be published in the new Slovak language.
Andrew Sladkovic (Braxatoris, 1820-1872),
an evangelical pastor, is reputed to be the most
talented poet ever born in Slovakfeai. Ma-
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 141
rina, a lyric-epic poem, which portrays, in an
idealized form, the object of the poet's own un-
happy love affair, and Detvan, a romance of
the time of Matthew Korvin, are supposed to
be the culmination of his art. As a poet,
Sladkovic ranks higher than John Kollar.
Samuel Tomasik ( 1 8 1 3-1 887), an evangelical
pastor, is chiefly remembered for the author-
ship of Hej Slovdci, a song now familiar to
every Slavonian.
John Botto's (1829-1881) claim to fame
rests on his having created the " Janosik," a
type of good-natured brigand, a giant in
strength, with the heart of a child, who takes
it upon himself to administer justice in his
own way, by robbing the rich to give to the
poor. " Janosik " is a kind of Slovak Cid.
John Kalincak (1822-1871) stands proba-
bly unrivalled among novelists. Descended
on his mother's side from an old zeman family,
Kalincak gathered in his books much valuable
material on the manners and habits of the
zeman class of people, now almost wholly Mag-
yarized. Restavrdcia has been pronounced
his chief work.
Janko Krai (1822-1876) was an eccentric,
a " Bohemian," who preferred the companion-
ship of shepherds to the chicanery of law, for
142 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
which profession he had been educated. His
lyric poetry bears the stamp of his roving
nature and erratic temperament.
Besides these, the following writers and
versifiers deserve to be mentioned : Jacob
Greichman, ballad writer of some note ; John
Matuska, remembered as the composer of
Nad Tatrou sa bltska ; Ladislav Pauliny, pas-
tor, and uncle of William Pauliny-Toth (1828-
1885), a bright satirist and humorist; John
Francisci, known under the pseudonym " Janko
Rimavsky"; Paul Dobsinsk^, pastor (1826-
1877), an industrious compiler of folk-tales;
Peter Kellner (pseudonym "Zaboj Hostin-
sky" 1823-1873), who professed to believe
that the Tatras, according to him the birth-
place of the Slavs, would yet astonish the
world by the magnitude of ideas to issue from
them; Nicolas Dohnany, a translator of By-
ron and Shakespeare ; Dr. Charles Kuzmany
(1806-1866), professor of theology and warm
friend of Kollar and Safafik ; John Chaliipka,
pastor (1791-1871), the elder brother of Sam-
uel Chaliipka, a popular dramatist ; Nicholas
Stephen Feriencik (1825-1881), a productive
novelist and journalist; John Palarik (1822-
1870), dramatist.
Svetozar H urban (pseudonym " Vajansk^ "),
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 143
born in 1847, is a poet, journalist, and writer
of the highest rank. The Tatras and the
Ocean in verse and Withered Branch in prose
are works of excellent merit. As editor-in-
chief of the Ndrodnie Noviny, Hurban is a
power among his people. More than once in
his life has this redoubtable champion been
struck down by the brutal might of the tyrant.
Paul Orszagh (pseudonym " Hviezdoslav"),
born in 1849, ' ls a ly f recognized ability,
as is " Martin Kukucin " (pseudonym of Dr.
Matthew Benciir), born in 1860, a novelist.
Other contemporary writers, whose names are
familiar to every Slovak reader, are : Helen
Marothy-Solte'sz, Therese Vansa, Ludmila
Podjavorinsky, Martin Sladkovic, Tichomir
Milkin, and J. Somolick^. Among essayists
and historical writers, Francis Sasinek, Paul
Krizko, Andrew Kmet, Joseph Holuby,
Joseph Skultety, etc., excel. With the name
of Stephen Marcus Daxner (1822-1892) is
linked the authorship of the famous " Memo-
randum."
SOCIAL CONDITIONS.
ILLUSTRATIVE of the national traits of
1 the motley population of Hungary is the
following humorous estimate found in Bielek's
work in German, published in 1837 :
" The Magyar is proud and happy when he
can ride a fine horse ; the Slovak when he can
talk familiarly to a person of distinction ; the
German when he secures the burgomaster's
staff of office ; the Rumun when twirling a
handsomely carved cane ; the Little Russian
when he attains to clerical honors ; the Jew
when renting landed property ; the gypsy when
parading in scarlet trousers."
Anecdotes are related of the proverbial
humility of the Slovak, and of the love of fight
which again is said to be characteristic of the
Magyar. A Magyar peasant runs to a tavern
where a combat is in progress. " Why don't
you take a stick with you, Pista ? " admonishes
his wife. " It is not necessary," replies Pista,
" I guess the man whom I tackle will have a
stick."
144
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 145
How many Slovaks there are in Hungary
is a matter of speculation. The official count,
which is notoriously unreliable and partial to
the dominant race, computed their number at
2,008,744 in 1900. A prominent attorney in
Martin assured the writer that, although no
one in his native village spoke Magyar, yet
every inhabitant had been returned in the offi-
cial sheets as belonging to that race. Vam-
bery's figure in a recent work is 1,800,000.
Safarik estimated the number of his fellow-
countrymen in 1842 at 2,753,ooo. 1 Of this he
credited 1,953,000 to the Catholics and 800,-
ooo to the Protestants. Possibly Safafik may
have been wrong. In 1850 the first census,
according to nationalities, was taken in Hun-
gary, and this official account gave to the
Slovaks 1,704,000, or 13 %ot the entire popula-
tion. The Magyars appeared to have 4, 1 66,000,
or 36.9 % of the whole. 2 Now, however, official
figures begin to puzzle us, for while in 1900
the Magyars claimed 8,679,014, or 45.4 % of
the entire population, this being an increase
between 1850-1900 of 80 %, the Slovaks came
in for 2, 008, 744 in 1900, or 10.5$ of the whole,
an increase of only 32.6 % between 1850-1900!
1 Slovansky Ndrodopis. Prague, 1842, p. 98.
2 Czoernig's Ethnographic der Ost. Ung. Monarchic. Wien, 1855.
146 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
How is this inconsistency to be explained ?
The Slovaks, with their known fecundity-
families of 10-12 children among them being
nothing uncommon have increased during
the last 50 years only 32.6 %, while the Mag-
yars, among whom large families are rather
the exception than the rule, have gained 80 %
during the same period of time. Taking as a
basis Safarik's computation, which is surely
nearer the truth than the census of 1850, and
deducting from it about 80,000 Slovaks settled
in Moravia and elsewhere, there should have
been 2,673,000 Slovaks in 1842. If the in-
crease between 1842-1900 had amounted to
only 45 % y or 1,202,850, Slovaks should now
be 3,875,850 strong. Every one who has ever
travelled through northwestern Hungary is
satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the
official figures, quoted above, are inaccurate.
When it is remembered that the rural popula-
tion is purely Slovak ; and that, with the ex-
ception of the officials, school teachers, and
nobility, the rank and file of the townspeople
are of the same nationality, the conclusion is
irresistible that the real figure is nearer to
3,000,000 than 2,000,000. There are, besides,
colonies of Slovaks, large and small, through-
out the whole kingdom. Some of these colo-
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 147
nies date back to the time when the country,
laid waste and depopulated by the Turks,
needed agriculturists to till it. The phrase
" a nation over 3,000,000 strong," with which
we meet frequently in the Slovak press, must
not be taken literally, however. What it
means is that people of the Slovak blood num-
ber 3,000,000. Naturally many of these, the
nobility and the zemans to a man, having re-
nounced their nationality can no longer be
classed as Slovaks. Apropos of the origin of
the nobility, " Were the lords all of Magyar
and the peasants altogether of Slavic de-
scent?" The mass of the peasantry, in gen-
eral, were of the same race as their lords. In
the Slovak counties they were Slovak ; in the
Magyar counties of the centre, they were
Magyars ; and in Croatia and Slavonia they
were of that nationality.
In Bacs, Bodrog and Szerem are large and
compact settlements of " Rusnaks," or Little
Russians, who came to Hungary between the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. These
Rusnaks mix with the Slovaks in the east, and
further east they replace them entirely. They
number about half a million. Slovaks by speech
and Orthodox Russians in creed, these Rus-
naks have been for years a bone of contention
148 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
between Slovak and Russian etymologists,
both contending parties claiming them as their
own. Safank was of the opinion that there
were only Protestant Slovaks and Catholic
Slovaks. Of Orthodox Slovaks and the Rus-
naks all profess that faith he would hear
nothing. It was his judgment that the Rus-
naks are what their name betrays them to be,
Russians.
An official publication describes the Slo-
vaks as
" generally of a lofty stature ; well built,
with broad faces and prominent cheekbones.
For the most part they let their light hair
grow long, but do not wear beards or mus-
taches. Their dress of white baize is comple-
ted by a broad leathern girdle, a broad-brimmed
hat, and sandals. Their dwellings are frail.
They are simple, religious, humble and quiet,
but when heated, quarrelsome. Their songs
are as a rule of a melancholy character. They
do any kind of work and are industrious. By
preference they occupy themselves with the
breeding of cattle and sheep and go down to
the Great Plain to reap the harvest. They
are very skilful in domestic manufactures.
Their women are celebrated for their em-
broideries."
" From immemorial times the Slovaks were
a nation of peasants and shepherds," says
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 149
Ziga Pauliny-Toth. " For these two vocations
the love of our people is deep rooted and,
although they may be taught other callings,
they are happiest when ploughing, sowing and
reaping.
" Generally the soil is poor, and with the
exception of the Lower Trencin and the south-
ern portion of Nitra and Pressburg, where
the country is rich, nowhere in Slovakia^! is
the soil fertile enough to support the farmer in
independence. Of the many evils which still
weigh down our peasantry," continues Pauliny-
Toth " one is illiteracy. Before the fifties the
people were, with some exceptions, wholly illit-
erate. At the present time there are 51.44 %
in Hungary unable to read or write. In the
twelve Slovak counties the percentage of illit-
erates is somewhat below the average obtaining
in the kingdom, except in the counties of
Trencin, Zemplin, Sarys and Ung, where it
rises a trifle above. Still, the fact remains
that over one half our population is unlettered."
A grave fault of the small farmer is his un-
progressiveness. He insists on cultivating his
fields in pretty nearly the same primitive fash-
ion as his father and grandfather before him.
Naturally the amount of the crops corresponds
to the methods employed. Again, the soil is
not sufficiently responsive. To this latter cir-
cumstance is probably due most of the wretch-
150 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
edness with which one meets in
In passing through the country the traveller is
constantly reminded of the hills of Utah and
Colorado. The woodlands which are unfit for
cultivation will average 15$ throughout, while
in Turec the average rises to 33 %, in Orava to
30$, Liptov 41-$, Zvolen 32 %, Novohrad 26%,
Gemer47$, Spis 37$ and Sarys 43$. In Orava
County there are 2761 farms that average from
T to 5 acres of land of which only about two-
thirds is arable. One village in that county
bears the highly suggestive name of Hladovka
Hungerville. With a tiny patch of ground
that yields hardly anything else than oats and
potatoes in the north part of Orava, where
freezing weather comes early, potatoes are
often dug from underneath the snow it is as-
tonishing how the highland peasant manages
to pay his taxes. There is a ground tax, the
per capita tax, communal assessment, travelling
tax, ecclesiastical dues, notarial tax, midwife
tax, etc. A typical case of over-taxation : A
poor mountaineer in a hamlet in Turec, with
real and personal property valued at 1 80 florins,
which is equivalent to $72, was taxed with 18
florins per year !
Among the most lovable traits of the people
is their love of music. No less than 5000
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 151
folk songs were collected in the neighboring
Margravate of Moravia, and it is claimed that
fully one half of these, some of them admitted
to be tonal gems and by far the best specimens
in the collection, are the product of Slovak in-
ventiveness. In the more modern airs the
temperament of the gypsy and Magyar music
is plainly discernible. But, on the whole, Slo-
vak songs have retained the rugged simplicity
of the folk song. That they are very old is
plain, although Milan Lichard believes that
there is no warrant for the assertion, repeated
by certain enthusiasts, that some of the songs
date back to pagan times. Almost without
exception, the folk songs are written in a minor
key, this giving them a sad and melancholy
coloring, quite in keeping with the unhappy lot
of the people.
Sheep farming is carried on extensively and
with excellent results. Usually sheep are raised
on shares by the communes. In the spring-
time the "baca" or shepherd-in-chief takes his
charge to the pasture on the elevated table
lands, caring for them there with his assistants
till the autumn, when the sheep are returned
to their respective owners. In the hills the
sheep are lambed, shorn of wool, and milked.
The milk is used in the making of "brindza,"
152 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
a sharp-tasting, strong-flavored cheese which
finds a ready market in central European coun-
tries. The profit which arises at the end of
the season is divided equitably among the
owners. Cattle breeding yields a handsome
revenue to the farmer. The census taker
found within the Slovak territory in 1898
1,059,529 head of cattle, 249,818 horses, 3452
donkeys, 159 mules, 22, 724 goats, 639,297 hogs,
1,311,777 sheep, 3,099,606 fowl, and 117,403
beehives.
The most pretentious house in every hamlet
is invariably the property of a zeman family.
The villagers call them residences. A lower
class of nobility, these zemans used to be a
power in the land until the serfs were liber-
ated. Kossuth was descended on his mother's
side from a Slovak zeman family. Exempt
from taxation and enjoying the fruit of forced
labor, the zemans lived for centuries in ease
and affluence. The moment serfage was abol-
ished the zemans found themselves on the
decline. Slowly but surely their estates are
now passing in the ownership of enterprising
Semites, while the " Most Powerful Lords," as
the humble peasant was wont to entitle them,
are glad to earn their living as minor govern-
ment officials. Obeying the law which has
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 153
guided the nobles in all ages and in all coun-
tries, they all have joined the ruling element
in Hungary. The Slovak zemans no longer
exist.
Two festering sores sap the vitality of the
unsophisticated highlander drink and usury.
Nowhere in the country have these terrible
social evils taken such a firm grip as here in
the mountains, " where rock begins and bread
ceases."
It is true that the foremost mortgage banks
lend money at a moderately low rate of inter-
est, providing the borrower will take, say 20,000
Austrian crowns. But of what advantage is
the Hypothecary Bank at Budapest to the
small farmer? He is compelled to borrow
from a local banking institution, and at what
cost ! Including commissions and disburse-
ments charged the interest will amount to 7-8
% and not infrequently to 14 %. On short
loans the borrower has to pay as much as 50 %.
A savings bank in SlovakkwS with a capital of
60,000 cr., reserve fund of 18,000 cr., and de-
posits amounting to 160,000 cr., cleared an
annual profit of 2 2,000 cr. The average profit
of banks in 1894 was said to be 13.58 % on the
capital invested and in 1888 29.56 %.
Every Slovak of intelligence deplores the
154 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
drink habit among his people, and time and
again appeals have been made in the newspa-
pers and otherwise to regulate the sale of
liquor in the highlands apparently all to no
purpose. The sellers are always successful
in blocking every attempt at reform. Why
should these pest dens continue their nefarious
trade unrestricted ? An alarming feature of
the rum business is that in ninety cases out of
a hundred the rum dealer is apt to be a money
lender to the poor country folks, which of
course implies that he is a heartless usurer.
Some years ago the Catholic clergy, seeing
what ravages the drink habit was making
among their flock, started to organize temper-
ance societies to which was given the name of
rosaries. Singularly enough, the government
promptly suppressed the rosary organizations
on the charge that they fostered panslavism.
It was noted at the time that the chief wit-
nesses against the leaders of the rosaries were
the rum sellers. ^/^
Emigration from Slovaklawd is assuming
such alarming proportions that it threatens to
depopulate it. " Certain people would make
the public believe," remarks Joseph L. Holuby,
" that this emigration in masses is due to for-
cible Magyarization. That is an error. The
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 155
hungry man is not concerned with gram-
mars, be they Magyar or Slovak. What he
wants is bread. To him the quarrel between
his nation and the Magyars is, after all, of
secondary importance. He seeks work. It is
no secret that people emigrate from districts
where Magyars are all but unknown." In
the two decades between 1880-1900, it is
computed, emigration from Hungary was as
follows :
Via Hungary 372,979
Antwerp 87,609
Genoa 9,501
470,089
How many of these are to be credited to
Slovaks ? Roland Hegedus, an authority on
the subject of emigration from Hungary, esti-
mated the number of American Slovaks at
160,000-200,000, in 1899. As the onrush of
immigration to the United States has been
especially great within the past five years, it
is no exaggeration to say that at the present
time the United States are the home of some
400,000 Slovaks.
Already the exodus of so many people be-
gins to disturb local economic conditions. For
example, employers are heard to complain of
156 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
lack of working men. Wages have gone up.
The price of land has risen. A few figures
will show what kind .of material America is
getting from SlovakkmtK During 1869-1890
the county of Spis had lost by emigration
14$ of youths from twenty to twenty-five years
of age, the county of Sarys 34 %. Of men
whose ages varied from twenty-six to thirty
years, Spis lost 3 1 <f , Sarys 44 % y Abauj Torna
22 % y and Zemplin 16 %. Owing to emigra-
tion the old ratio of 100 men to 103 women,
heretofore prevalent, has undergone a remark-
able change. In 1890 there were, as against
100 males, 1 1 5 females in Spis, 1 16 in Sarys, and
115 in Abauj Torna. In many instances land
values have arisen 100 % because of the influx
of American money earned in the coal fields
of Pennsylvania. The postal bank at Kosice,
which is the distributing centre for the north-
eastern counties, received in 1896 six and
one half millions of florins in remittances from
America. The village of Butka in Zemplin,
with i r 56 Slovak inhabitants, was the grateful
recipient in ten years of 351,435 florins from
across the ocean. 1
To regulate " wanton " emigration a special
1 Most of the figures adduced here are taken from Dr. Emil Sto-
dola's Prtspevok ku Statistike Slovenska, 1902.
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 157
law was enacted in 1903. The state promised
to keep a watchful eye over its subjects even
beyond the seas " in their own interest and for
the good of the State." Pithily a newspaper
characterized this determination of the Hun-
garian Government to go into the steamship-
ticket business : " Why do people leave their
native country ? Clearly because they are being
neglected by the home government. Suddenly
the state, which has done nothing for them
while in Hungary, becomes solicitous about
their well-being, promising to watch over and
protect them after they have taken leave of
their homes."
What is the national dress of the Slovaks ?
This is hard to answer. One might almost
say that there are as many distinct styles as
there are counties. Near industrial centres
the handsome and striking national dress has
partly disappeared ; but as industries are an
exception and agriculture the rule in the high-
lands, national costumes are still worn in abun-
dance. The adolescent youth, the married
couple, the old folks, each class affects a garb
suited to its respective fancies or station in
life. Dresses differing either in material or
pattern are worn at such functions as weddings,
funerals, dances, etc.
158 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Commonly, the men are smooth-shaven and
wear long hair. The younger set, and par-
ticularly those who have served in the army,
cut their hair short. Near the boundary line,
where they mix with the Magyars, both young
and old are partial to mustaches. In the
matter of trousers the Slovak tailor is as
whimsical as his Magyar brother-in-law. While
in certain districts fashion seems to dictate
tight-fitting trousers, in other places again the
pantaloons that are worn attain to the propor-
tion of a bifurcated skirt. The same appears
to be the case with hats.
The waistcoat only covers the chest and
shoulder-blades. It is sleeveless. When the
weather is cold it may be exchanged for a
fur-lined "kamisol." As for the top coat, its
nomenclature is as varied as the style in which
makers cut it. " Halena" is a popular name,
meaning literally a wrap, though " huna " is
another well-known designation for a surtout.
Of light, black, brown, or gray cloth, the halena
may be either short, to the belt-line, or if fancy
so dictates, long, to the knees. Short or long,
all halenas are appropriately braided on the
collar, in the centre of the back, in front, and
in the corners of the skirt. No finery is com-
plete without needlework, the designs being
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 159
lineal, geometrical, figurative, and floral. Of
embroidery men seem to be as fond as women,
displaying it generously on their shirt collars
and sleeves and on waistcoats, "lajblik."
When the latter article is made of cloth, it is
sure to be ornamented with rows of fancy
buttons, in lieu of embroidery. A loose cloak
is worn over the shoulders. In the higher
altitudes a fur coat has been found to be an
indispensable garment, and the sagacious moun-
taineer has a saying : " Until the Easter holi-
days keep the sheepskin on ; after them do not
let it go." " Krpce," which is a moccasin-like
sandal fastened to the foot with thongs, was
until recent years universally worn. The pride
of every village gallant (among Moravian Slo-
vaks) is a hat cockade, " pierko " or " kosirek,"
made of plumes or feathers cock and heron
feathers most commonly. To knock down
one's "kosirek" would be an insult that no
village beau could let go unpunished.
It is customary for girls to go bareheaded
and to braid their hair, except in Upper
Trencin and Lower Nitra. " Cepec," a sort of
bonnet, is the distinguishing head-gear of mar-
ried women. Among the well-to-do peasants
down south, where the soil is rich, it is not un-
common for a bride to have in her wardrobe
i6o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
as many as sixty or eighty bonnets or " parts,"
a diadem-like head ornament with ribbons
attached to it at the back, thirty detachable
embroidered sleeves, thirty petticoats, etc. A
thoughtful mother will begin to work on the
trousseau of her daughter the year of her
birth, so that most of the apparel may be
complete by the time she arrives at maturity.
Usually an outfit like that will do for the life-
time of the woman, passing by inheritance
to children and grandchildren, like jewelry in
other countries.
First to the body comes the " rubac " or
chemise, homespun of hemp or flax. Cloth
skirts are in universal favor, the prevalent tints
being blue, black, and green. In the summer-
time, cloth skirts are replaced by linen "let-
nica." In some counties skirts of customary
length are worn ; in others again, as in Nitra
and Pressburg, they barely reach to the knees.
Attached to the skirt is the waist, or " zivotok,"
"brucel," or "kordulka," as it is alternately
called. The " lajblik," which corresponds to the
bodice, is a separate garment. Over the skirt
is worn a tunic or " fertuch," as it is called.
On this piece is lavished the daintiest em-
broidery. In some districts the head is covered
with a " polka," this being a strip of white linen,
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 161
muslin, or chiffon about nine feet in length,
which is wound around the head like a tur-
ban and tied behind, permitting the ends, also
highly embroidered, to be seen to advantage.
The feet are encased in " cizma," top boots.
Justly famous is the needlework of Slovak
women ; chemises, guimps, bodices, cravats,
aprons, and sleeves, the latter always puffed to
the elbow and flowing, all these articles being
rich with embroidery.
A familiar figure on every European high-
way is the Slovak tinker. Having seen him
once, you will always recognize him by his
picturesque hat, long-hair, and mantle. With
rolls of wire and mouse-traps slung over his
back, the tinker is a tireless trotter who feels
himself at home everywhere, without, however,
losing his national type. Almost all the tin-
kers come from the district traversed by the
river Kysuca, opposite the Silesian frontier. In
the town of Caca (Csacza), where they have
their rendezvous, you may hear these tinkers
conversing together in tolerably good English,
French, German, and Russian, besides minor
European tongues. House peddling supports
hundreds of families who are attached to the
barren districts. There are travelling vendors
of wicker-ware, of hats, embroideries, spices,
i62 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
and ornamental knick-knacks, of cloth and cali-
co prints, of mouse-traps, etc. As raftsmen
and shingle makers, Slovak skill is much ap-
preciated in the lumber regions. In the har-
vest time they go down to the great wheat belt
to hire themselves as farm laborers. There is
depressing poverty everywhere ; but here in
the sub-Carpathian cliffs it is crushing. Ex-
treme poverty drives thousands to seek a liveli-
hood in other pursuits than agriculture. In
winter the staple food of the peasantry is cab-
bage and potatoes ; this is especially true in
upper Trencin County.
It is estimated that there live in Pest, the
capital, 25,000 Slovaks. Another city with a
large Slovak population is Csaba, in the county
of the same name, with some 30,000 inhabitants.
Yet neither Pest nor Csaba, nor yet Nitra, the
one-time seat of Svatopluk's kingdom, holds the
same place in the affection of the Slovaks as
Turciansk^ Sv. Martin (Tur6cz Szt. Mdrton),
a little town of some 3000 people, on the river
Turec, which is an affluent of the Vah. Here,
high up in the mountains, where the winters
are long and severe, the Slovaks have estab-
lished their national centre. In the early
sixties the municipality of Martin, which was
then a village possessing no advantage or at-
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 163
traction over other country places, excepting
the patriotism of its citizens, offered its hos-
pitality to the " Matica Slovenska." That
representative body was being persecuted by
the government. The leaders of the Matica
were so touched by the generous offer that
Martin was then and there voted the future
capital of the nation. In June, 1861, a memo-
rable meeting was held there at which the dele-
gates present adopted the " Memorandum," a
" Slovak Bill of Rights." Stephen Daxner
drafted the document. Since 1861, Martin has
witnessed all or almost all the popular assem-
blies held. Here stands the " D6m," contain-
ing both an interesting museum and a library.
Here some of the principal newspapers are
printed and published, like the Ndrodnie No-
viny, the review Slovens k Pohlady, etc.; here
theatrical performances are given. The " Spe-
vokol," a singing society, and " 2ivena," the
foremost woman's society, have their head-
quarters here. Likewise the "Tatra Bank"
is established in Martin. Annually, in the
month of August, a kind of national reunion
takes place in the diminutive capital. Some-
how or other a visitor to Martin feels that a
tactical blunder has been made in selecting so
small a place for the centre of an important
i6 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
mission work. A just cause will often fail, or,
if not that, at least suffer, for lack of a suitable
environment.
Discouraging, if not critical, is the situation
in regard to schools. Sad to say, there is not
a single higher school in St. Stephen's king-
dom, public or sectarian, where Slovak is either
taught as a subject or used as a medium of
instruction. Even the university at Pest is
closed to the Slovak language, although it
supports a chair of Croatian and has promised
to erect one of Old Slavic (obsolete). Is it
Svatopluk's ghost again ? Or is it a question
of utility ? Hardly that. Any tinker will tell
you that with his despised Slovak tongue he
can travel over a vast territory in Europe and
make himself understood, while with Magyar
he is utterly lost the moment he crosses the
boundary of the fatherland.
Elementary schools are of several kinds :
confessional or sectarian, state, and communal.
In the 1 6 Slovak counties there were in 1899
596 Protestant (Augsburg) schools, 351 Helve-
tian, 2014 Catholic, 410 Russian Orthodox,
1 17 Jewish, 342 state, 190 communal, 69 mixed.
Divided by the language which is used in
teaching, 519 were Slovak, 35 Russian, 2076
Magyar, 6 German, 1189 Slovak-Magyar, 192
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 165
Russian-Magyar, 1 1 7 German-Magyar. Of
the teachers 16 % could not show their training
certificates, being by occupation agriculturists
and mechanics.
Slovakkbttd supports 33 gymnasia, 6 real
schools, 1 6 pedagogical institutes, 2 Protestant
theological schools, 5 Catholic and i Russian
Orthodox seminaries, several convents, and
about 140 trade schools and commercial schools,
but in all of these instruction is in Magyar.
Students are forbidden to converse in Slovak
either in or out of school. This rule is strictly
enforced, non-compliance therewith being pun-
ished with expulsion for panslavism. To read
a Slovak book or a newspaper is a still graver
offence, and teachers will not hesitate to go
through the student's trunk and effects in
search of the interdicted literature.
Six Catholic bishoprics attend to the spirit-
ual needs of the faithful in the highlands,
yet not one incumbent is a Slovak. Formerly
there were Slovak libraries in Catholic semina-
ries, but the ruthless hand of the oppressor has
scattered every one of them to the winds.
An important personage in every commune
is the " notary," whose office corresponds some-
what to that of the city clerk in our Western
States. One and all of these notaries are un-
1 66 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
compromising apostles of Magyarization. The
mayor who attaches his signature to Magyar
official documents, which he does not under-
stand, is a helpless tool of the notary. The
village has to do the notary's bidding. In
many instances he is the local postmaster, and
keeps a record of births, marriages, and deaths.
The notary, by reason of his official position,
possesses information within reach of no other
inhabitant in the place. Nothing escapes him.
He knows accurately what newspapers and
books you read, whether you order your goods
from " patriotic" or Slavonian firms. The
local priests and teachers, if they be Slovaks,
must be on guard before the notary, knowing
that he watches and reports their every action.
Even the butcher, the innkeeper, and the tailor
find it profitable to court the notary's favor.
Elections without his assistance or interfer-
ence are unthinkable.
Only one kind of Slovak reading matter
meets the gracious pardon of the mighty no-
tary. It is the Vlast a Svet and Slovenskt
Noviny, the two most widely circulated Slo-
vak publications, but with a Magyar tendency.
Slovakla&l is called systematically the " High-
lands" in these papers; Slovaks, " High-
landers." These two worthy journals publish
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 167
excerpts from Magyar literature ; they print
the pictures of ministers from time to time
but Slovak authors and their productions are
under ban in their columns.
In 1880 a society was established, having
for its main object the Magyarization of proper
names. Thousands of Slovaks have for divers
reasons changed their old-time patronymics.
In 1898 a law was created whereby non-
Magyar towns and villages shall assume Mag-
yar names. Communes, says this law, can
have but one official name, z. e., Magyar.
This name shall be designated by the Ministry
of the Interior.
Justice is administered only in Magyar, not-
withstanding the plain language of the " Law
of Nationalities." Attorneys may not plead in
Slovak. Government officials, the clergy, and
teachers are sure of promotion if they Mag-
yarize ostentatiously.
In the railway, postal, and telegraph service,
Slovak is studiously suppressed, and you will
not find a railway or postal guide, manual,
notice, or map containing one sentence in that
language. No one ever thinks of appointing
an official to a position in the highlands be-
cause of his knowledge of Slovak. On the
contrary, officials will openly deny a knowledge
i68 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
of Slovak, for fear of being taken for panslavs.
As a matter of fact, you may be refused a rail-
road ticket if you ask for it in the language of
Svatopluk.
In some towns, having pure Slovak popu-
lation, you may see none but Magyar signs
above shops and stores. A mechanic will hang
out a Magyar sign above his workroom, not
because he is forced by law to do so, but be-
cause a Slovak sign would be looked upon as
a provocation involving the sure loss of the
patronage of the notary, the forester, and the
rest of the local dignitaries. Besides, it is a
matter of pride with every notary to have as
few of these objectionable signs in " their "
villages as possible.
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW.
IN their vernacular the Magyars call Hungary
" Magyarorszag," or, literally, " Magyar-
land." Is Hungary the land of somebody
else, too? Certainly not, say the Magyars. And
herein may be found the key to the whole situa-
tion, a situation very perplexing indeed, when it
is considered that the Magyar element consti-
tutes hardly one half of the entire population
of the country. Of late it is contended that
the fatherland can be neither great nor happy
unless all the inhabitants are Magyarized.
Szechenyi, the great patriot, it is pointed out,
could have had nothing else in mind when he
declared : " There are many who think that
Hungary has been. For my part, I like to
think that Hungary shall be."
The year when the Magyars first set foot
on the soil of Hungary may never be known.
Writers caution us not to accept too readily
the many stories and legends which have been
woven around the early doings of these Tu-
ranians by ingenious native historians. We
169
1 70 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
are assured on good authority that Arpad
never existed ; that it is not the name of a
person, signifying, as it does, a rank. Almos
likewise is said to be a mythical hero. The con-
gress at Pusztaszeri was never held, and hence
no covenant was entered into there. Similarly
the election of early dukes should be relegated
to the realm of fables. 1 What battles the Mag-
yars fought during the first decades of their
occupation of Hungary, and with whom, is
equally uncertain. No ray of light glimmers
through the darkness which enshrouds the
happenings of those distant days. The first
authentic account that we have of them is
that they assisted the Germans, in 907, at the
battle of Pressburg, where Svatopluk's Great
Moravian Kingdom was destroyed. After
this, driving the Slavonians north and south,
the Magyars seized the fertile plains of the in-
terior, the Alf6ld, which they have regarded as
their favorite home ever since.
" Who came first, Magyars or Slovaks ? "
This is a vexatious chapter in Hungarian his-
tory. " It is of utmost importance to know,"
remarks a Magyar writer (Volf), " what peo-
ple, if any, have a better claim to priority in
Hungary than we. The Germans, Croatians,
1 Julius Botto, in the Slovenske Pohlady, part 12, xv. (1895).
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 171
Servians, Russians, and Rumuns all came later
than we Magyars, some of them even settling
here quite recently. As far as the Armenians,
Greeks, and Bulgarians, and other minor
nationalities are concerned, that is a matter
that hardly merits consideration. We also
possess information bearing on the colonies of
Slovenes, Bohemians, Moravians, and Slovaks.
The only moot point is, whether the Slovenes
and Slovaks of our times, or whatever is left
of them, are descended in a direct line from
the people who constituted the Great Mora-
vian Kingdom and hence can claim priority."
Then the author proceeds to answer his own
questions by saying that the Magyars did not
find any Slovaks at the time of the conquest,
the latter having migrated to Hungary at a
much later period ; that the Slovaks of the
present day must not be confounded with the
nation that lived in the time of Cyril and
Methodius and King l Svatopluk between the
rivers Morava (March), Danube, and Hron ;
that those of them that remained at the time
of the conquest were soon assimilated by the
Magyars. " Our Slovaks of Upper Hungary,"
we read in a work issued by the Ministry
of Commerce, " came much later, after the
1 Properly speaking, " Prince " Svatopluk and not King.
172 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Hussite wars, from Bohemia and Moravia, and
still later from Galicia."
Competent scholars like Safarik settled the
question of the ancestry of the Slovaks a long
time ago, and settled it for good. Still, Mag-
yar writers are so persistent in repeating this
mischievous invention, and it is responsible,
directly and indirectly, for so much abuse on
the part of a certain class of politicians, who
affect to treat the Slovaks in their own home
as colonists, even as foreigners, that the matter
for this reason demands elucidation.
Let us see about the contention of the Mag-
yars, that they assimilated the Slovaks soon
after the conquest. If we are to believe their
own story, the Magyars came to Hungary at
the end of the ninth century. Henrik Marc-
zali reasons that, as the chieftains usually went
to battle with about 20,000 1 horsemen, his
people, on invading Hungary, must have been
250,000 strong and numbered, including slaves,
500,000 souls. Scattered over the vast area of
the country between the Carpathians and the
river Sava and from Transylvania and Buko-
vina on the east to Austria proper on the west,
how many Magyars could there have been to
1 Paul Krizko in the SlovenskJ Pohlady, September, 1898, in an
article entitled " Home of the Church Slavic and the Magyar Occu-
pation."
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 173
a square mile ? During the fierce wars that
followed the conquest their ranks must have
been thinned perceptibly. Is it believable that
the conquerors were in a condition to absorb
the natives, who were presumably more numer-
ous than they ? Again, is it probable that a
race inferior in culture could have absorbed a
superior race? When the Magyars invaded
Hungary, the Slavonians and Germans were
permanently attached to the soil, cultivating it.
Christianity and letters had already taken a
deep root in the land. In everything, but in
the art of war, the indigenous people surpassed
the newcomers, who were as yet nomads. Con-
tradict it as they may, the truth is that the Ger-
mans and Slavonians were the first to teach
the Magyars the crude arts of western culture.
Everywhere the influence of the superior race
was manifest. St. Stephen, who was crowned
in the year 1000 King of Hungary, organized
its administration in imitation of Slavonian
state institutions. Even the titles of his officials,
" Nadorispan" (Nadvorni zupan), "udvarnok"
(dvornik), " ispan " (zupan), he borrowed from
his Slavonic neighbors. Christianity came to
the Magyars from the same source. Slavonic
priests surrounded St. Stephen's throne to
mention the name of St. Vojtech, Bishop of
1/4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Prague and Magyar religious terminology is
full of Slavisms. Most of the Magyar words
relating to agriculture, field implements, plants,
fishes, birds, trade, house-building, food, drink,
social life, the notions of pleasure and pain and
bodily ailments are either purely Slavonic or
show unmistakable influence of that language.
In 1830 Safafik wrote to Francis Palack:
" My friend, the most ancient repository of our
Old Slavic is to be found in Magyar. You
may laugh, but it is nevertheless true that our
hairy ancestors in Scythia and Sarmatia used
to say galamb, kasa, barat, instead of holub
(pigeon), kosa (scythe), brat (brother), exactly
as our bearded Magyars do nowadays." l
The Magyars could not have assimilated the
1 A small illustration of how the Magyars have borrowed from
their Slavonian neighbors :
SLOVAK , MAGYAR ENGLISH
slama szalma straw
seno szena hay
brazda barazda furrow
stolar asztalos cabinet-maker
masiar meszaros butcher
podkova patko horseshoe
kovac kovacs smith
stvrtok cstttortok Thursday
piatok pentek Friday
milost malaszt grace
bran a borona harrow
oblok ablak window
pohar pohar goblet
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 175
ancient Slovaks, " children of the soil of whom
no one knew when they came," for the reason
cA*/
that they never colonized Slovaktarra Relia-
ble writers like Krizko assure us that in the
tenth and eleventh centuries Magyars were all
but unknown in the north. The few settle-
ments they established there disappeared with-
out a trace, merging in the dense native
population, like the colonies of Germans with
which Slovaktefhd was dotted in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, and which latter were
said to have been four times as numerous as
those of the Magyars. Can we be persuaded
to believe that the Magyars accomplished what
the Germans, with their superior organization
and Aryan language and incomparably higher
culture, failed to do, to absorb the Slovak peas-
ants and shepherds ? The truth of the matter
is that ever since their coming to Hungary the
Magyars were always massed on the Alfold.
From the Alfold their expansion south and
north for centuries has been inconsiderable.
But even if it had been possible to have Mag-
yarized the Slovaks, where was the incentive ?
The idea of nationality, it should be remem-
bered, had no place in men's minds then.
First came the throbbing of religion ; then the
sentiment of nationality. Properly speaking
i;6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
there were no Magyars, or Slavonians, or Ger-
mans, or Rumuns, before the French Revolu-
tion. Caste and birth formed the sole division
line the nobility and zemans being on one
side and the serfs on the other. In Hungary
the nationalization of the people was late in
coming. Until 1791 Latin had been the lan-
guage of the state, superseding all other
languages. . Again, if the present inhabitants
of Slovakknrd are descended from refugees,
religious and political, from Bohemia and Mo-
ravia, why should the people call themselves
Slovaks? Where did they get the name?
There are Slovaks in Moravia. They speak a
subdialect that differs from the Moravian dia-
lect. Where did these Moravian Slovaks come
from ? True, Hussite Bohemians settled in
Slovaklifrel in considerable numbers. Colonies
of them sprang up, especially during the armed
raids by John Jiskra of Brandys. Numerous ex-
iles settled in the country later, during the relig-
ious persecutions in Bohemia in the seventeenth
century. But all the Bohemian settlements
are accurately known : contemporaneous docu-
ments enumerate every church, castle, and town
that Captain Jiskra or his lieutenants had held.
We can even guess, taking the then population
of Bohemia as a basis of calculation, what the
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 177
number of these refugees had been. Suppos-
ing that there were 100,000 of these Hussites,
which is an exaggerated figure, we still have
the bulk of the nation unaccounted for. The
Slovaks are now estimated at 2,500,000 or
3,000,000, Bohemians and Moravians in round
numbers at 5,000,000. We may assume that
in the past the same or nearly the same ratio
prevailed as now. How much population
would it have taken from Bohemia to have
colonized Slovensko by Bohemians ? Strange
to say, the Bohemian chroniclers of that time,
and they were numerous, have not recorded
any such depopulation of their native country.
So much concerning the absurd contention
that the Slovaks are descendants of refugees
from Bohemia.
The rise of the Magyar element in Hungary
dates back to the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury. It came spontaneously. Since King
Stephen's time Latin had been recognized and
employed as the official language of the coun-
try. People of culture also preferred it as a
medium of intercourse. A change occurred
under Joseph II. That progressive but im-
practicable monarch became dissatisfied that
Austria should be a polyglot state. He
wished his subjects to forget their mother
1/8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
tongues and to speak and to know one lan-
guage only ; and he decided that that language
should be German. Conformably to the reso-
lution he formed Joseph II. issued a number
of linguistic ordinances that are now chiefly re-
membered for the odium they brought on their
author. Every non-German land in the mon-
archy was aroused to instant opposition. The
Hungarian Estates were uncompromising, re-
fusing to aid in the enforcement of the ordi-
nances. It took just a decade to convince the
Emperor that his hateful innovations were a
failure, and that, in trying to make Austria
German, he had been pursuing an unattainable
dream. Therefore, he revoked the ordinances,
in Hungary at least. Unimportant as it seemed
at that time, the incident may really be said to
constitute a turning point in modern Hun-
garian history. Latin had in the meantime
become an anachronism and the Estates con-
cluded that that language was just as objec-
tionable to them as German. Why not, since
a change had been decided upon, replace
Latin with the language of a people who have
always guided Hungary's destiny, who were
politically and numerically the strongest single
factor in the fatherland? Unanimously the
diet agreed that Magyar should be the succes-
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 179
sor of Latin. First, the experiment was tried
in schools. A law was promulgated in 1790
introducing Magyar in the higher institutions
of learning. Another law was enacted in 1792
requiring every government official to show a
competent knowledge of it. By 1830 the diet
recommended to all employees of the state to
transact business in Magyar exclusively. Six
years later the recommendation assumed the
form of an order. 1 By 1848 Magyar became
compulsory in the public schools. At present
it is paramount in parliament, compulsory in
schools, and used exclusively in the administra-
tion of the government.
The prestige that the Magyar element at-
tained as a result of the elevation of its idiom
to the dignity of an official language was incal-
culable and instantaneous. Until the passage
by the diet in 1 790 of the famous ordinances,
all natives of Hungary may be said to have re-
garded themselves as equal. Since then their
1 A legal opinion which is entitled to some respect contends that a
wrong interpretation was originally put on the session law of the
diet of 1790-1791. What that law terms " lingua hungarica nativa"
should not be translated to mean Magyar, because under an estab-
lished custom a person of Magyar birth used to be designated as
" Hungarus" while a native of Hungary, other than a Magyar, was
styled "Hungarus nativus." "If this be true," reasons the above
authority, " lingua hungarica nativa " cannot mean the Magyar lan-
guage, but an idiom which is native to " Hungarus nativus," that is
Slovak to a Slovak, Rumun to a Rumun, etc.
i8o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
mutual relations have undergone a radical
change. 1
You fall into the Magyar cul-de-sac the mo-
ment you reach March egg, on your way from
Vienna to Budapest. The transformation is
wonderfully sudden, and to an Austrian must
be painful. The harsh but familiar sound of
German to which your ear has accustomed it-
self during your stay in the Hapsburg capital
ceases to be heard at Marchegg, a town near
the Hungarian frontier, and its place is every-
where usurped by Magyar. Even the Austrian
double-headed eagle which in Cisleithania
spreads its protecting wings over every "Ta-
bak Trafik " is seen no more this side of the
river Leitha. From now on the only coat of
arms that one sees is that of the royal Hunga-
rian crown. At home, in the H of burg, Francis
Joseph I. may be Emperor of Austria if he
likes, and wear the title which his ancestors
assumed in 1804, but here in Hungary he
must be King or nothing.
1 In 1848 the old-time Latin designation of the country, " Hunga-
ria," was abolished for a new name, " Magyarorszag," and the law of
1868 created the fiction that Magyars were the sole nation in the land,
the other inhabitants being mere "nationalities" and "alien
nationalities" at that. Accordingly, no Slovak may refer to his
people in print as a "nation," only as "nationality." Should the
proscribed word "nation" nevertheless appear in print the local
prosecuting attorney may proceed at once to punish the author.
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 181
The Austrians assert that Hungary contrib-
utes as her share toward the common expenses
30 % in cash and gets 50 % of rights in return.
This reproach may not be wholly true ; yet, if
any one ever thought that the Magyars got the
poorer side of the bargain they made with
Austria in 1867, let him glance at the balance-
sheet of Hungary's commerce for the last
twenty-five years, and, above all, let him go to
Budapest and see that bustling city. With its
wide, clean, and well paved "uts" and "utczas,"
teeming with business, Budapest bids fair to
rival Vienna in the course of the next quarter
of a century. But few ties not those of blood
and common ancestry, remember unite Aus-
tria and Hungary together. The army and
the navy, finances, weights and measures, cus-
toms, and foreign affairs are some of the things
common to both halves of the empire. Of late
years, one or two of those ties are beginning
to snap. Already a party is forming in Aus-
tria which favors the erection of a tariff wall
between Transleithania and Cisleithania. Hun-
gary's yearly output of wheat is so enormous
that it is beginning to crush the small Austrian
miller and flour merchant. Every wall so con-
structed will, in the nature of things, mean one
tie cut loose. At present the people demand
182 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
that Magyar be substituted for German in their
home regiments. To-morrow they are bound
to ask some other concession. Eventually the
relationship may narrow itself to that of a per-
sonal union. And suppose there is a deadlock
then ? It is well to bear in mind that, while
Austria has survived the cesarean operation
known as dualism, she has never been herself
since. If another Beust were to be called in,
who can prophesy the result ? The contem-
plation is a mournful one, that, while Hungary
could exist as an independent state without
Austria, that power could hardly live without
Hungary. Let whoever doubts it glance at
the map of the empire. It will be seen that,
with Hungary taken out of her geographical
body, Austria's boundaries would become un-
tenable, inviting territorial spoliation on three
sides at once : by Germany, Italy, and Russia.
Like most agricultural people, the Magyars
appear to have no predilection for business.
One can see it in the make-up of their capital,
which is more Hungarian than Magyar. Al-
though you may hear almost nothing else on
the Kerepesi lit and the Andra*ssy lit but the
euphonious tongue of the Arpads, still, scratch
a Magyar, and either a German or a Slavonian
will turn up ! Rarely, to your query in Ger-
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 183
man, will you receive the answer, " Nem
ertem" do not understand. In the principal
thoroughfares of Budapest but few store signs
bear names with a Magyar ring. On Jewish
New Year the author noticed fully 95 % of the
stores in the capital closed. As a matter of
fact, the Hebrews lend the weight of their
enormous wealth and intelligence to the Mag-
yar cause. It is they who constitute the bulk
of newspaper readers.
What one must respect about the Magyars
is their " Schlagfertigkeit," or readiness to
strike, to use a German military term. This
" Schlagfertigkeit " has always been duly ap-
preciated in Vienna. A nation that knew how
to change the defeat at Vilagos in 1849, to
victory in 1867, must surely possess qualities
which even Austria is bound to recognize.
The greatest fortune of the race was that the
native nobility steadfastly espoused its cause.
Unaided by the nobility, the simple-minded
and proverbially hard-headed race might have
never become the ruling factor in the country
which it is to-day.
Francis Kossuth, son of Louis Kossuth, said
to the writer in the fall of 1903 in Budapest :
" I fear that our relations toward Austria are
not comprehended abroad. Hungary and Aus-
1 84 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
tria are two sovereign states. The law of 1723
defines our respective positions clearly. We
are bound to mutual self-defence, that is all.
At each coronation the Austrian Emperor,
who is King of Hungary, takes an oath to the
effect that he will defend and uphold the con-
stitution of the country, and we Hungarians
pledge ourselves to defend him in return."
And, changing the course of his conversation
a little, Kossuth proceeded :
" We do not meddle with the internal policy
of Austria, but we view with apprehension the
endless conflicts between nationalities raging
there. It is this racial struggle which renders
the country weak. The only hope I see for
Austria is that she should reconstruct herself
as a confederation. The Germans there are in
a minority, and they cannot hope to maintain
their hegemony over the Slavonians much
longer. To this confederacy we Hungarians
would have no objection. We sympathize with
the Bohemians in their struggle for home rule.
They are entitled to it exactly as much as we
are. Their only misfortune was that they had
been beaten and almost exterminated. Aus-
tria could never down us, except in 1849 ; but
she had to borrow troops from a neighboring
power to do that."
" How is the Emperor-King liked by the
Hungarians ? "
" There is no disloyalty in Hungary, none
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 185
whatever. The greatest trouble with our King
is that he is too much of a German."
" And what do you want him to be ? "
Kossuth answered readily, " A Magyar."
" Suppose your relations with Austria were
only those of a personal union and in time
even that tie became too burdensome to the
Hungarians ?"
" We Hungarians could not help that."
" A pamphlet was issued recently in Buda-
pest advocating the idea of a ' Nagy Magyar-
orszag ' a Greater Hungary, that should
extend to the Adriatic Sea and should include
some of the Balkan States. Is your 'Party of
Independence ' sponsor to such a plan of terri-
torial aggrandizement ? "
" No. There are not one hundred men in all
Hungary who take such phantasies seriously."
" When your father, Louis Kossuth, visited
the United States in 1851 he made a number
of speeches there, in all of which he denounced
the Austrian Government for tyrannizing the
Magyars. It is now charged that your own
people are guilty of the same acts of oppres-
sion against others. Why is that right now
which was wrong in 1848 ?"
" There is no persecution in Hungary. The
very fact that our census shows 47 % of non-
Magyar people in the country proves that
there is not and cannot be any persecution."
So much for Kossuth.
It is the boast of patriotic Magyars that the
1 86 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
constitution of Hungary is one of the most
liberal in Europe. Recently a Magyar noble-
man of distinction expressed the opinion, at
a public function given in his honor in New
York, that the people of Hungary enjoyed the
same measure of freedom as Americans did,
except that theirs was not a republican form
of government.
Judging from the applause that greeted it,
the sentiment found ready belief in the minds
of those who were present. Another sentence
that evoked enthusiasm was to the effect that
all Hungarian citizens have equal rights under
the law, and that protection is assured to the
different nationalities in the use of their
speech and the development of their respec-
tive culture. Theoretically this may be true
enough ; whether it is so in fact, and whether
" Magyar freedom " implies the same notion
as " freedom in Hungary," must be seriously
doubted. Observing foreigners have noticed,
for instance, 1 that the restricted suffrage, the
manner of voting, and the arrangement of the
electoral districts is such that, except for the 40
members from Croatia and Slavonia, the Mag-
yars, who according to Kossuth constitute only
53 % of the population, hold all but about a
1 Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, by A. Lawrence
Lowell, 1896.
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 187
score of seats in the parliament. Again, out of
a total of 20,000,000 people but 1,000,000 are
eligible to citizenship, the bulk of the voters
being disfranchised. Until now the elections
have been monopolized by the nobility, an-
cient and new, by large landed proprietors,
captains of industry, and their lawyers. Al-
most all the leading statesmen and politicians
were aristocrats by birth ! Aristocracy it was
that stood at the helm of every revolution.
Hungarian premiers, chosen from among the
high nobility, managed to build up and main-
tain a government party, to which was given
the adjective, does it not sound like irony ?
" Liberal."
" It is a well-known fact," comments an
opposition journal, " that the Liberal party
maintains itself in power by means of money
wrung from wealthy men who are willing to
pay well for a Hungarian patent of nobility.
By far the most bountiful dispenser of titles
was Koloman Tisza. During his premiership
no less than 290 rich commoners were en-
nobled. No Hungarian premier since 1848
made such a brilliant record in this particular
line as Tisza. The stir that was caused by
the elevation of the brothers Guttmann to the
rank of barons is still fresh in the minds of
opposition journalists in Hungary and Croatia.
188 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
It was charged openly at that time that the
government party swelled its election fund by
some $240,000, this sum representing the
assessment imposed on the Guttmanns for
the title. ' Why wonder/ wrote Arpad, sar-
castically, ' in the Middle Ages baronies used
to be conferred on people who furnished their
kings with large armed forces. Why in our
times should not patriots be raised to the
rank, who are able to supply the government
with delegates willing to fight its battles in the
more modern sense on the floor of the
parliament ? ' '
Recently a journal was prosecuted on the
usual charge of " incitement against Magyar
nationality," it having encouraged a Slovak
town to resist, by every means at its command,
the Magyarization of its name. Needless to
say that the editor was found guilty, and the
town authorities lost their cause. Systemati-
cally the Slavic nomenclature of cities, castles,
villages, mountains, streams, and hillsides up
in the north is rubbed off, as it were, and re-
placed by Magyar nomenclature. In no other
European country has the craze for changing
one's patronymic, voluntarily and otherwise,
taken such a firm hold as in Hungary. In
1898 alone, 6722 persons changed their names,
among the applicants being 58 priests, 123
professors, 116 school teachers, 58 physicians,
MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 189
10 lawyers, 7 journalists, 33 merchants, etc.
It is characteristic that while the government
will permit a German or a Slavonian to assume
a Magyar name it will in every case refuse the
adoption of Slavonian or German patronymics.
As things are, it would be clearly hazardous
to guess a Hungarian's ancestry by his name.
Thus, for instance, the name of that brave
Magyar Deputy Pol6nyi used to be, before the
transformation, Pollatscheck. Deputy Veszi,
a noted chauvinist, bore the name of Weiss
before the exchange. Deputy Visontay's origi-
nal name was Weinberger. The publishers
Rakosi and Legrady formerly answered to the
names of Kremser and Pollack respectively.
Irany once upon a time was Halbschuh ; Deputy
Morcsanyi, Preslicka ; Deputy Heltay, Hofer ;
Deputy-Canon Komlossy, Kleinkind ; Palmai
used to be Pereles ; Szederkenyi, a foremost
Ugronist, Schoennagel; Deputy Gajary, Bettel-
heim ; Deputy Mezei, Gruenfeld ; Deputy Csar-
tar, Loeffelholer; Fenyvessy, Griesskorn. With
artists and writers it is likewise. It is gener-
ally known that the paternal name of the most
brilliant Magyar poet, Petofi, was Petrovic.
Less known is it that behind Munkacsy, the
painter, was concealed Lieb, and behind Laszlo,
also a painter, Laub, and that Wilhelmina
THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Parlaghy was a Brachfeld. The ancestral
name of Matrai, the sculptor, was Mudrlak ;
of composer Mosony, Brand ; of pianist Po-
lonyi, Pollatsche k ; of composer Konti, Kohn;
of violinist Remenyi, well remembered in
America, Hoffman ; of the actresses Fay,
Helvay, and Naday -- Jeiteles, Schweitzer,
and Navratil respectively. Professor Kornfeld
changed his name to Koranyi, statistician
Hajduska to Korosi, Professor of surgery
Kacenka to Racsay, the orientalist and
historian Bamberger to Vambery, historian
Morgenstern to Marczali, Professor Kominik
to Kom6nyi, and so forth.
The Magyars have an instinctive distrust of
the Slavs, and they like to believe that all
Upper Hungary is steeped deep in panslav-
ism. Yet the real danger they do not appear
to see the danger of pangermanism, which is
stealthily enveloping Austria and Hungary,
threatening to crush them both. The Slavs
have still too many of their domestic troubles
to settle and to occupy them before they are
ready for conquests. Moreover, they are liv-
ing in the morning of their history. The
Magyars are nothing if not sagacious, but will
it not be too late when they at last realize the
true source of danger to their national hopes ?
PERSECUTION.
11 Full freedom is assured to the different nationalities in the use of
their speech and the unfolding of their culture." The Millen-
nium of Hungary, 1897, page 415; official work approved by
Ministry of Education.
/"COUNTLESS cases of the flagitious per-
^-^ secution of Slovaks could be cited. A
few instances, taken from here and there, are
printed for the perusal of an impartial reader :
Dr. Julius Markovic was a candidate for par-
liament from a Slovak district in the present
year (1905). Contrary to expectations he was
defeated, because over one hundred of his
votes were thrown out, unjustly, as he charged.
Markovic entered a protest. At once the Mag-
yar party filled a counter-protest. The court
to which the contest was taken ordered, in fine
impartiality, that Markovic and his protestants
deposit a security ample to cover the costs of
the contest. And as the counter-protestants
put in the names of some eight hundred wit-
nesses to be examined, to defeat the ends of
191
192 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
justice, of course, the court fixed the disburse-
ments at eight hundred florins a day. As the
examination of several hundred witnesses
would necessarily have dragged on for weeks
and weeks, and would have required a security
equal to a king's ransom, Dr. Markovic very
sensibly gave up the contest, and his opponent
to-day sits in the " freely-elected " Hungarian
Parliament.
The Hungarian postal authorities recently
put on the prohibited list the Ndrodni Listy,
an influential daily paper published in Prague,
Bohemia. The editor went to Pest to see what
the trouble was, and there a department head
informed him that his journal was excluded
from Hungary because, first, it from time to time
printed articles hostile to the " Magyar state " ;
secondly, " it accused the government of forci-
ble Magyarization " ; and lastly, " it encouraged
closer literary relations between the Slovaks
and Bohemians."
On July 23, 1899, during Szell's ministry, a
public meeting was held in Sv. Mikulas (Lipto
Szt. Miklos). A school teacher, Salva, who has
since been suspended for " panslavic agitation,"
attempted to speak concerning the lack of
schools among Slovaks. Joob, a government
PERSECUTION 193
official who was present at the meeting, cau-
tioned Salva not to use the term " Slovak."
The speaker then used the term " man " instead
of " Slovak " ; but even this designation proved
objectionable, and Salva was not allowed to
proceed. The next speaker, Rev. Kubik, was
also stopped by Joob because he alluded to
Slovaks as "the men from Liptov County,"
and to their language as " our mother tongue."
A schoolbook prepared for the public schools
by John Gyorffy, and approved by the Min-
istry of Education, says on page 10: " Mag-
yarorszag is our fatherland, in which live,
besides Magyars, people of other tongues.
Such people are designated as nationalities.
In our country live citizens of German, Rumun,
Servian, Russian, Croatian, and Slovene (Vend)
nationality who, together with the Magyars,
compose one Hungarian nation."
Slovaks, as will be noticed, are purposely
omitted.
Formerly several of the middle schools and
training institutes for teachers had modest libra-
ries of Slovak books. All these have since been
removed. In the pedagogical institute at
Trnava, there was a collection of books gath-
I 9 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
ered together by Matzenauer, a well-known
writer and patriot, Matzenauer's successor
hid the books in a garret and a still later in-
cumbent consigned them to the flames. At
Stiavnica eight hundred Slovak books were
thrown on a rubbish heap.
There is a bank in Martin called "Tatra,"
incorporated originally with a capital of 400,000
florins. The incorporators, all of them promi-
nent Slovaks, could not, hard as they tried,
obtain a charter, until they consented to put
Magyar partisans and government officials at
the head of the executive of the board of di-
rectors. Even now the bank has on its roster
of officers pliant creatures forced on it by the
government. Usually it is some renegade of
the zeman class who is foisted upon the stock-
holders, and who, in return for the salary he
receives, keeps the government pretty well in-
formed as to the bank's doings. If a loan is
made to a " panslav merchant," that individual
is sure to suffer for it in the end. The citi-
zens of Brehy (Magasmart) applied for a loan
to Tatra recently. The local teacher who
assisted in the loan negotiations on behalf of
the commune was persecuted and harried for
it, till at last he was deprived of his place.
PERSECUTION 195
About twelve years ago the people built a
handsome Casino, or " Dom," as they call it,
in Martin. Since the Matica building has
been confiscated, the D6m is the only public
property of the Slovak people. There are a
number of taverns and inns at Martin, but the
" D6m," though it is by far the most preten-
tious building in the town, cannot get a liquor
license. As a result the " D6m " is a pretty
bad investment.
At Martin they built a cellulose factory in
1 903. The " Tatra Bank " financed the scheme,
which represented an investment of some $300,-
ooo (1,500,000 crowns). Imagine the conster-
nation of the promoters and stockholders when
the government announced that it would not
permit the operation of the cellulose works
by the management then in charge. This
plainly meant that the "panslavs" who put
money in the enterprise must either get out or
sell out. For months after completion the cel-
lulose factory was forced to remain idle. The
one concession that the authorities granted was
to permit the management to run the costly
machinery every Saturday to save it from rust
and ruin. Otherwise not a wheel could be
turned in the place. The writer happened to
196 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
be in Martin just at that time, and when the
circumstances were related to him he could
scarcely believe the truth of it. At last, having
first exhausted every means of getting a license
from the authorities, but failing everywhere, the
stockholders were glad to sell out the "pan-
slavic cellulose" to a party of capitalists in Pest.
At present the Slovaks are represented by
two deputies in the parliament, although by
right providing of course elections were free
from violence, intimidation, bribery, and notori-
ous partiality they should have at least forty
deputies. But it is only within the last decade
or so that they are represented at all. Despite
repeated trials in the past no Slovak candidate
was fortunate enough to break through the
iron ring, and that even in counties having,
except for a sprinkling of local officials, pure
native population. What is the reason ? The
solution of this shocking condition of things
is directly attributable to the Hungarian elec-
toral law, which is everywhere partial to the
Magyar race, and to the corrupt methods em-
ployed in election times by government officials.
In the first place, electors are arbitrarily dis-
franchised by local notaries who prepare the
electoral sheets. In Nitra county there were
PERSECUTION 197
in 1895 22,812 electors. In 1897 the number
was decreased to 17,073. Among the 5739
electors disfranchised for various reasons there
was not one Magyar. The electoral lists are
prepared with the view of catching the unwary.
An old trick is to misspell names. Thus Valek,
if he be an opposition Slovak, is entered as
Valon ; Kasak as Kassan ; Kucera as Kucuri,
and so forth. Another method employed is to
enter on the register either the wrong age or
occupation of the voter, which of course results
in his disqualification, leading, possibly, to
arrest and punishment. Deputy Gedeon Ro-
honczy declared on the floor of parliament
February 14, 1898, that the government spent
in the fall of 1896 three millions of the people's
money to defeat opposition candidates. Ro-
honczy himself admitted receiving a bribe from
the government that year, amounting to 5000
florins. *
In 1879 a number of citizens of Tisovec
(Tiszolcz) held a meeting for the purpose of
organizing a singing society, and in compli-
ance with the law in due time submitted for
approval a set of by-laws adopted by them.
1 Charles Kalal's exhaustive article in the Bohemian review OsvPta
entitled " About the Magyarization of Slovakland," 1898.
I 9 8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Because of some trivial technicality, the authori-
ties rejected the by-laws. Promptly the petition-
ers remedied the alleged error and handed in
amended by-laws. What became of these no
one knew ; but tired of waiting the petitioners
in December, 1886, filed a new copy. A few
days after the filing a notice was served on the
attorney for the petitioners to the effect that his
clients had incurred a fine of three dollars, owing
to inadequate revenue stamping. An appeal
was so far successful that the fine was reduced
about one half. A higher court set aside the
fine altogether. In the month of May the
county authorities at last took up the matter
of the by-laws, deciding, however, that in view
of recurrent manifestations of disloyalty the
by-laws must be disallowed. At once an ap-
peal was instituted to the proper authorities in
Pest, with the result that the government re-
fused to interfere. A third draft of the by-laws
appeared before the county authorites in 1890 ;
but with no better success than before. Pan-
slavism was still rampant among certain classes
of Tisovec, explained a patriotic official, and
for that reason the by-laws could not be recom-
mended to be adopted. From this adverse
decision the petitioners appealed anew to the
ministry, which in turn ordered the county to
PERSECUTION 199
set forth its dissenting reasons more fully and
specifically. Thereupon the county reported
that in its opinion the industrial classes of
Tisovec harbored anti-Magyar feelings. On
the strength of this argument, the ministry
dismissed the appeal. Just before the elections
to the diet, one of the head officials of the
county met some of the petitioners by appoint-
ment, and then and there entered into a com-
pact with them to recommend their by-laws
for approval, providing they in turn would sup-
port the government candidate. Accordingly
the much-tried by-laws were once more sub-
mitted for the scrutiny of the authorities.
Unfortunately the county clerk did not like
the proposed name of the society. So he
asked the petitioners to change it and hand in
the by-laws at some later day. The suggestion
was willingly complied with. After long and
patient waiting, it became plain to them that
the county officials procrastinated on purpose,
and the petitioners, or rather those of them who
were yet living, decided to ignore the local
authorities and to send a certified copy direct
to Pest to be filed there. This so angered the
local Magyar patriots that their mouthpiece,
the Gomor Kishont, published a scathing
article against Tisovec, calling the petitioners
200 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
bandits ! In course of time the government
returned the by-laws to the municipality of
Tisovec. What did that corporation think of
them ? Of course Tisovec gave its glad sanction
but there the matter rested again. And thus
the citizens of Tisovec waited for nineteen
years for the approval of the by-laws of a sing-
ing society.
A number of Slovak working men in Pest
decided, a short time ago, to organize an edu-
cational society. The ministry rejected the
by-laws on the ground " that an educational
organization pursuing nationalist tendencies
could not be allowed."
The Martin Ndrodnie Noviny published an
article on May 3, 1897, entitled " Paralysa Pro-
gressiva," in which the writer denounced in
scathing language the capricious Magyariza-
tion of Slavic names of towns, etc., in Nitra
County, urging the respective municipalities
to resist the practice by invoking the law's aid
if necessary. In support of his contention the
writer cited the opinion of Charles Taganyi,
a member of the Magyar Historical Society
who was sent out to report on the matter.
Taganyi was adverse to the plan, claiming
that " local topographical names were the most
PERSECUTION 201
trustworthy witnesses of the past of this or that
place, equal in value to documentary proof,
and, whenever possible, should be preserved."
July 15, 1897, the Ndrodnie Noviny printed
another stinging article, called " Slavery from
Above and from Below," and written in the
usual opposition vein. To the prosecuting
attorney both articles appeared libellous, and
on June 23, 1898, Ambrose Pietor, one of the
editors, though not the author of the articles,
was found guilty by a jury of twelve for
" inciting against Magyar nationality," and
sentenced to state's prison for eight months.
When the news spread in Martin that Pietor
was returning home, having served his term in
jail, the relatives of the popular editor, his
friends, and admirers, flocked to the railroad
station to shake hands with him and felicitate
him on his home-coming. Mathias Dula, it
appears, made a short address of welcome
when his friend was alighting from the rail-
way carriage, and three women, Viera Dula,
Etelka Cablk, and Ella Svehla, presented
Pietor with flowers.
Quietly and orderly the enthusiastic throng
now proceeded from the railroad station to the
town.
At this juncture appeared on the scene
202 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
more as an agent provocateur than as an offi-
cer of peace, for until now peace was not
disturbed Attila Ujhelyi and ordered his gen-
darmes to surround the vehicle in which sat
Pietor and Dula. Angry and insulted at this
unnecessary show of force, the crowd began to
sing the national anthem, and continued sing-
ing this and other patriotic songs until the
editor reached his home. Later Ujhelyi's
gendarmes broke into the court of Mudrofi's
house, where the editorial rooms of the Ndrod-
nie Noviny are located, under the pretext of
looking for a " tall man who sang defiantly in
their faces." When ordered out of the prem-
ises, which they had no right to enter without
a warrant of law, the gendarmes loaded their
muskets and threatened to shoot if interfered
with.
The sequel to the above incident came later,
when Ujhelyi, anxious to make a record for
himself before his superiors as a " scourge of
panslavs," lodged a complaint for seditious con-
duct, on information and belief, against thirty-
two citizens of Martin. Oddly enough Ujhelyi
informed on every one against whom he either
had a personal grudge or whom he suspected
of panslavic agitation, no matter whether he
or she were present at the demonstration or
PERSECUTION 203
not, as was proved by subsequent investiga-
tion.
Long and ruinous ruinous for the defend-
ants of course prosecution ensued, with the
result that the criminal court sentenced to
prison Matus Dula for 3 months, B. Bulla for
2 months, Svetozar H urban for i month, Vla-
dimir Mudron i month, Andrew Halasa i
month, Joseph Skultety i month, Joseph
Capko i month, Steve Cablk i month, John
Cablk 14 days, Ludwig Soltesz 14 days, Joseph
Fabry 14 days, Joseph Cipar i month, An-
drew Sokolik 14 days, Samuel Kucharik 14
days, Konstantin Hurban i month, Paul Mud-
ron 14 days, Peter Kompis i month, Gedeon
Turzo 14 days, Julius Braneck^ 14 days, Anton
Novak 14 days, Anton Bielek 14 days ; Viera
Dula was fined 50 florins, Etelle Cablk 100
florins, Helena Svehla 50 florins. The Appel-
late Court, to which the cases were taken, enor-
mously increased the sentences and fines along
the whole line. Thus Matus Dula received
6 months imprisonment, Svetozar Hurban 5
months, Mudron 3 months, and so forth.
In its insane desire to denationalize Slo-
vensko at all hazards, the Hungarian Govern-
ment lent its aid to the "transportation" of
204 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
Slovak children to pure Magyar districts. The
first expedition of this kind, conducted ostensi-
bly under the auspices of the " Culture Society
of Upper Hungary," was undertaken in 1874,
and netted 400 children. On the second ex-
pedition, in 1887, 1 90 youngsters were captured
and separated from their parents without the
latter's consent. A third child hunt took place
in 1888, and with the assistance of gendarmes
86 children were taken away. The fourth ex-
pedition, organized in Liptov County, brought
only 15 children. The fifth child crusade is
recorded in Nitra County, in 1892, 174 child-
ren being herded together for transportation
to Magyar districts in the Hungarian lowlands.
About this time a violent protest was raised
against the inhuman practice and it was
stopped.
In June, 1904, at Paludzka (Kispalugya) the
Rev. Paul Cobrda, while conducting a school
examination at that place, sang with the child-
ren three popular Slovak songs, one of them
being Kto za pravdu hori (" He who is afire
for truth "), and at the end of a patriotic talk to
the little folk said something like this : " Dear
children, remember well your lessons, for it
may have been your last examination in
Slovak. They may want to deprive you of
PERSECUTION 205
your mother tongue in the future, and you
may hear nothing but Magyar." On February
2 3> 1 95> tne reverend preacher was tried by a
jury at Ruzomberk (Rozsahegy) on a charge
of sedition, and sentenced to state's prison for
six months, to pay a fine of 200 crowns and the
costs of the trial, amounting to 560 crowns.
Relatives and admirers of the late Joseph
M. H urban, patriot and preacher, erected at
Hlbokci a suitable monument to his memory.
Arrangements were made to have the monu-
ment unveiled on September 8, 1892. From
all parts of the country people arrived to be
present at the unveiling ceremony. To the in-
dignation of the assembled multitude, and to
the poignant grief of the family, gendarmes
broke into the church and parish house and
ordered the crowd to disperse, threatening to
use force unless their orders were strictly
obeyed. The widow and immediate members
of the family were allowed to enter the ceme-
tery conditionally. But the family was not in
a mood to barter for conditions with the official
in charge of the gendarmes, explaining that, as
the local authorities had permitted the unveil-
ing ceremony to take place unrestricted, and
that as nothing had been done to disturb the
206 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
peace, the ceremony must go on as originally
planned or not at all. Smarting under the
brutal conduct of the gendarmes, and deeply
hurt in his filial affection, the son of the dead
patriot, Svetozar Hurban Vajansk^, who is
editor-in-chief of the Ndrodnie Noviny, wrote
a scathing condemnation of the government
which tolerated such atrocities, heading his
article " Hyenism in Hungary/' For the
authorship of the article the distinguished pub-
licist was prosecuted, convicted, and promptly
sentenced to two years in state's prison.
Isadore Ziak, in 1898, wrote an article for
the Ndrodnie Noviny, under the heading
" Megalomania." To put it somewhat irrever-
ently, Ziak essayed to prove that the Magyars
were suffering from a case of " big head." The
district attorney of the place recognized in the
article an insult to the dominant race ; in other
words, the crime of inciting against the Magyars,
and prosecuted the author. On the trial of the
case, Ziak's attorney tried to convince the jury
that panslavism, for which the Slovaks were
being harried interminably, was a myth and an
invention. " Not so, however, is pan-Magyar-
ism, which purposes to denationalize Hungary."
Continuing, 2iak's attorney pleaded :
PERSECUTION 207
" The prosecution urges you to act in ac-
cordance with paragraph 172 of the Penal
Laws, which treats of incitement against a class
or nationality. Do you remember what that
good and honorable Magyar Mocsary said
when the law under which you, gentlemen of
the jury, are asked to convict my client, was
debated in the diet? Mocsary maintained at
that time that the law was a device to oppress
non-Magyar people. True, Minister Pauler
defended the measure, assuring the legislature
that those who conceived the law had in mind
the protection of Magyars and non-Magyars
equally. But what does experience teach us
from day to day ? That non- Magyar defend-
ants alone are caught in the meshes of this law
for has any one ever heard that this kind of
prosecution was brought against a Magyar
newspaper for inciting against Slovaks, not-
withstanding the fact that it is the latter who
suffer most in the columns of the hostile press ?
We suspect that the government has an object
in bringing all these suits against our principal
newspaper, the Ndrodnie Noviny. That ob-
ject seems to be to muzzle and to ruin our
press. In one year the editors of the Ndrodnie
Noviny were saddled with nineteen months
of state's prison, and 1600 florins in fines."
All pleading and eloquence were in vain, for
the sentence of the court was : " Isadore 2Tiak,
having been found guilty of incitement against
208 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY
the Magyar race in the article entitled ' Meg-
alomania/ is sentenced to state's prison for
three months, and to pay a fine of 800 crowns
in addition to the cost of the trial."
In February, 1905, Igor Hrusovsky, editor
of the Pov&zskt Noviny, received a sentence of
one year in state's prison and 500 crowns fine
because of seditious incitement against the
Magyars. Wherein consisted Hrusovsk^'s
crime ? In disagreeing with a jury that had
found guilty of the crime of incitement John
Valdsek, a Slovak representative to parliament.
As justly famous is the case of the brothers
Markovic, one of whom is a lawyer and the
other a physician, and of Ludevit Culik, a
Protestant minister. On September 22, 1901*
Rudolph Markovic, who was a nationalist can-
didate for parliament, came in company with
his brother to Home Bzince (Felsobotfalu) to
speak to his constituents. It appears that both
brothers Markovic in their speeches in this
place condemned the mad course of the gov-
ernment toward the Slovaks. From Bzince
the Markovic brothers proceeded on the same
day to Lubina, and there again addressed a
crowd of about 600 to 800 people, in the usual
opposition style of campaign speakers. Rev.
PERSECUTION 209
Culik also spoke at the latter place. To the
local notary the speeches appeared seditious,
and he lodged a complaint against the speak-
ers, with the result that the criminal court
at Nitra, which town was once the proud seat
of King Svatopluk, sentenced Dr. Rudolph Mar-
kovic to state's prison for five months with 500
crowns fine ; Dr. Julius Markovic to state's
prison for two months with 200 crowns fine ;
pastor Ludevit Culik to three months state's
prison with 500 crowns fine. From this sen-
tence all three defendants appealed to the
" Curia Regis " at Pressburg, and to quote the
exact words of a Bohemian newspaper, " A most
unheard-of thing happened in Slovakland the
Appellate Court reversed the Lower Court
and set the defendants free. Of course, the
Markovic brothers and Rev. Culik were inno-
cent, but nobody expected that a Slovak in
Hungary, once sentenced to prison for sedition,
could be released from the clutches of the law."
Dr. Julius Markovic, after his release, pub-
lished the whole case in book form (252 pages)
under the title : Nitriansky politicky trestny
process.
0>IT2UA
MAIHADMUF
QUAJ^A
.OI8M3V
INDEX
Albrecht, King, 66.
Alexander I., of Russia, 30,
3i, 32-
Arady, Adalbert, 118.
Bach, Minister, absolutism
of, 87; resigns, 88.
Bajza, Joseph I., precursor
of Bernolak, 106, 116, 118.
Bachat, Daniel, 129.
Bartholomaeides, 1 19.
Batthyanyi, Premier, opposes
Slavic Congress, 40.
Bel, Matthew, 112, 117.
Bella, Andrew, 129.
Bernolak, Anton, codified
Slovak language, 105, 106,
107, 108, 109, 112, 115, 116,
117; founds societies to
propagate it, 118, 121, 125,
136.
Bencur, Dr. Matthew, 143.
Bielek, Anton, 144.
Bludek, leads Slovak in-
surgents, 84, 85, 86.
Boleslav, Empire of, col-
lapsed, 13-
Bohemians, " Apostles of pan-
slavism," 24; establish set-
tlements in Slovakland, 67 ;
deplore literary secession
of Slovaks, 122.
Borik, Jaroslav, 80, 84.
Bptto, John, 137, 140, 141.
Bfetislav,' 13.
Caban, O, 126.
Cernansky, S., 119, 125.
Cerven. Thoma.s, 92.
Chrastek, Michael, 92.
Charles, King Robert of An-
jou, 62, 63.
Chalupka, Samuel and John,
family of writers, 129, 137,
140, 142.
Cobrda, Rev. Paul, 204.
Cochius, C, 126.
Csak, (Csaky) Matthew,
noted Slovak rebel, 62;
wars on King, 63; ambi-
tions of, 64; defeated at
Rozhanovce, 64, 65, 103,
134-
Croatians, resent Magyar
meddling, 72 ; make war on
Magyars, 79.
Culik, L., 208, 209.
Cyril, Slavonic Apostle, 3,
10, n, 12, 14, 49, 57, 171.
Czambel, Dr. Samo, author
of " Slovaci a ich rec,"
112, 127.
Dattel, Anton, 118.
Daxner, Stephen M., drafted
" Memorandum," 89, 91,
143, 163.
Deak, 94.
Dobrovsky, Joseph, father of
Slavic philology, 23, 24, 25,
31, no, in.
Dobsinsky, Paul, folklorist,
129, 142.
Dohnany, Nicholas, 142.
Dolezal, 125.
211
Elizabeth Queen, troubles
during reign of, 66, 67.
212
INDEX
Eszterhazy, 40.
Falbi, Simon, 118.
Fandli, George, 106, 118.
Fejerpataky, Caspar, 123.
Feriencik, Nicholas Stephen,
142.
Florinskij, Russian philolo-
gist, upholds independence
of Slovak, in.
Frischeisen, Colonel, 86.
Francisci, John, 91, 142.
Frankfort Parliament, aims
at entity of Austria, 35;
precipitates Slavic Con-
gress, 37, 38, 76, 82.
Gaj, Ljudevit, journalist,
father of "Illyrism" or
unity of South Slavs, 29;
supports Jelacic, 73, 81, 82.
Germans, builders of cities in
Hungary, 60; at height of
influence under Joseph II.,
61 ; their settlements in Slo-
vakland absorbed, 62.
Gerometta, E., 126.
Godra, M., 119, 129.
Graichman, Jacob, 142.
Griinwald, Adalbert, 95, theo-
ry of extermination of Slo-
vaks, 96, 97.
Hamaliar, M., 119.
Hattala, Prof. Martin, gives
to Slovak scientific and
Slavonic finish, 108, 126,
127.
Havlicek, Charles, Bohemian
journalist, 33 ; dissents
from Kollar's views, 34.
Hegediis, Roland, 155.
Hegel, theories of, accepted
by Slovaks, 140.
Herder, German philosopher,
panslavist seed traced to,
22, 23, 26.
Holly, John, Bernolakist poet
of prominence, 107, 128,
136.
Holly, George, 118.
Hodza, Michael M., 51, 65,
80, 84, 85, 86, 108; writes
" Epigenes Slovenicus,"
125, 126, 127, 128, 134; per-
secuted and exiled, 138, 139.
Holuby, 80, 120, 143, 154.
Hrobofi, Samo, mystic and
Hegelian, 126, 139.
Hruskovic, 125.
Hrusovsky, Igor, 208.
Hunyadi, regency of disputed
by Csak, 67.
Hurban, Joseph M., soul of
revolutionary movement,
51, 65, 80, 84, 85, 87, 127,
128, 134, 137, 138, 139;
Slovak O'Connell, 205.
Hussites, 54, invade Slovak-
land, 66; introduce Kralic
Bible, 68, 104; nationalize
Slovaks, 115.
Illyrism, abhorred by Mag-
yars, 73; meaning of, 82.
Jagic, in.
Janecek, military leader of
insurgents, 84, 85, 86.
Jelacic, Ban Joseph, 73,
defiant toward Magyars,
74; abolishes serfdom at
home, 77, 78; implored to
aid Servians, 79 ; wages war
on Magyars, 80; adverse
criticism of the Ban, 81,82.
Jiskra, John, of Brandys,
Hussite Captain, 67, 114,
167.
Joseph II., Emperor, 95;
tries to make Austria-Hun-
gary German, 62, 106, 113,
177; his ordinances, 178.
Jungmann, Nestor of Bohe-
mian letters; views on pan-
slavism, 25, 26.
Justh, 90.
INDEX
213
Kalal, Charles, 197.
Kalincak, John, 140, 141.
Kellner, Peter, 142.
Kmet, Andrew, 56, 143.
Kopitar, 23, 25, 31.
Kocel, Prince, Slovak ruler,
Korvin, 103, 141.
Kossuth, opposes non-Magyar
nationalities, 51, 69, 71,77;
"Kossuth Gibbets," 81, 84,
86, 152; his son Francis
Kossuth interviewed, 183,
184, 185, 186.
Kollar, John, author of " Sla-
vy Dcera," 4; High priest
of panslavism, 18; his
literary reciprocity and
"Slavonic patriotism," 19;
appeals to Slavs to unite,
20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31,
33, 40, 41, 5i, 82, 113, 122,
124, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132,
133, 134, 139, 141, 142.
Krai, Janko, 140, 141.
Krizko, Paul, 143, 172, 175.
Krcmery, August, 129.
Krman, Daniel, 112.
Kukuljevic, Ivan, first sug-
gested Slavic Congress, 39.
Kuzmany, Charles, 91, 92,
129, 142.
Ladislav, Posthumous, 66,
67.
Leibnitz, his utterance to
Peter of Russia, 23.
Leska, Stephen, 112.
Lewartowski, 86.
Lewis, King, 56.
Lichard, Milan, 151.
Lovich, A., 120.
Macsaj, Alexander, 105; pre-
cursor of Bernolak, 116.
Maria Theresa, 106.
Markovic, Dr. Julius, 191,
192, 208, 209.
Marothy, Daniel, 129.
Matuska, John, author of
" Nad Tatrou sa bliska,"
135, 137, 142.
Methodius, Apostle of Slav-
onians, 10, n, 14, 57, 171.
Mecislav, of Poland, 58.
Metternich, downfall of, 69.
Milkin, Tichomir, 143.
Modrafi, 80.
Moyses, Bishop Stephen,
leads deputation to Emper-
or-King, 90, 92.
Mudron, Paul, 51, 92.
Niederle, Lubor, i, 55.
Nejedly, Joseph, 118.
Orszagh, John, 92, 143.
Palacky, Francis, his letter
to the Frankfort Parlia-
ment, 23, 36, 41, 45, 122,
174-
Palarik, John, 142.
Palkovic, George, 112, 117,
iiQ, 137-
Pauliny, 98, 99, 129, 137, 142.
Pauliny-Toth, 2iga, 149.
Pietpr, Ambrose, 201.
Podjavorinsky, Ludmila, 143.
Podhradsky, Joseph, 129.
Pongrac, 67, 103.
Pfemysl, 7.
Pribina, Prince, 57.
Radlinsky, Andrtw, 91.
Rajacic, Metropolitan, 75, 79.
Revay, 90.
Rieger, Francis L., 45 ; views
on panslavism, 46.
Rotarides, 8q.
Rostislav, Prince, 57.
Rudnay, Primate Alexander,
107; munificent patron of
letters, 117.
Rybay, George, 112, 120.
Safafik, Paul Joseph, author
of " Slavic Antiquities,"
2I 4
INDEX
etc., 20, 21, 23, 26, 30, 31,
51, 1 10, 113, 122, 127, 132,
133, 140, 142, 145, 146, 148,
174.
Saffarovic, Anton, 118.
Samo, founder of Slavic em-
pire, 7, 13.
Sasinek, Francis, 98, 143.
Scasny, J., 126.
Seberiny, J., 120.
Semian, 125.
Servians, revolt and plan
" Vojvodina," 76; cruelly
treated by Magyars, 79.
Sigismund, King, 66.
Sinapius Daniel, 112.
Skultety, 49, 143.
Sladkovic, Andrew, noted
poet, 128, 140, 141.
Sladkovic, Martin, 143.
Slavic Congress at Prague,
first family gathering of
Slavs in centuries, 39, 41 ;
ends abruptly by outbreak
of revolution, 43, 77.
Soltesz, Ellen Marothy, 143.
Somolicky, J., 143.
Stephen, King, fosters civili-
zation in Hungary, 58, 59,
104 ; Slavic influence at his
court, 173, 177-
Stodola, Dr. Emil, 156.
Stur, Ludevit, 51 ; revolution-
ary leader in 1848, 65, 80,
83, 84, 108, 109, in, 119;
reforms Slovak language,
120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127,
128, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137,
138, 139-
Svatopluk, ruler of Great
Moravia, 13, 14, 15, 47, 57,
65, 66, 97, 171.
Suplikac, Colonel Stephen,
Servian "Vojvoda," 76.
Sulek, 80.
Szentivanyi, 90.
Tablic, Bohuslav, 112, 119,
1 20.
Tisza, " There is no Slovak
nation," 98, 187.
Tomasik, Samuel, author of
the hymn " Hej Slovaci,"
129, 137, 140, 141.
Tranovsky, 125.
Trefort, Minister, 98, 99.
Ugron, Gabriel, his utterance
on Magyars, 50.
Vaclav II, King of Bohemia,
62, 63.,
Vajansky, Svetozar Hurban,
author, patriot and leader,
142, 206.
Vambery, Arminius, 145.
Vansa, Theresa, 143.
Vladislav II., 66, 67, 103.
Vlcek, Jaroslav, 102.
Zach, 84, 85.
Zaborsky, Jonas, 123.
Zapolya, John, 65.
Ziak, Isador, 206, 207.
Zoch, G., 129.
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