1683-1790 1849-1866






Slovakia 1790-1849



While the enlightenment philosophers wrote about the need of social, political and economic reform on a theoretical level and thus reached an intellectual public, the numerous reforms implemented by Joseph II., notwithstanding the problems they created, the resistance many of them met and the short duration of them being in force, affected practically everyone in the Habsburg monarchy and generally raised expectations in such reforms, only the matter being discussed, how they were to be implemented. Also they provided a greater degree of individual freedom, as the state institutions were insufficiently prepared to take over the social control the Catholic church had exercised. The Josephinian reforms had provided organizations which could function as fora for emerging cultural-national sentiment, such as the priests' seminary in Bratislava (although that had not been the intention when the seminary was founded in 1784) and had touched the language issue, which had to provoke a cultural awakening movement among all the ruled minorities of the Austrian Empire. For Slovakia, the most important of the temporary, failed Josephinian reforms was the liberation of the serfs.
In Upper Hungary (Slovakia), the official language, used in administration, education and jurisdiction had been Latin, which, of course, was mastered only by an educated elite. The Slovak language was used by the mass of the population, mainly as an oral language, although a Slovak literature existed, based on the written Czech language.
For the improvement of the education of the Slovaks, a standardized written Slovak language was required. Two competing schools emerged, one at the Catholic priests' seminary in Bratislava, which developed an orthography based on the dialect of central Slovakia. Anton Bernolak (1762-1813) was the leading figure; he published a Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian dictionary. Protestant intellectuals promoted a written Slovak which would lean stronger on the written Czech.
In 1805 and again in 1809, Napoleon's armies invaded western Slovakia; in 1805 the war was concluded with the Peace of Pressburg (Bratislava); in 1809 the city of Bratislava was besieged, her ancient castle destroyed.
In the 1830es, within the Hungarian Diet, political nationalism became the dominant stream. Moderate Hungarian nationalists (Count Szechenyi) foresaw a multilingual Kingdom of Hungary, while radical Hungarian nationalists like Lajos Kossuth emphasised linguistic unity. Slovakia thus faced the threat of Magyarization.
The industrialization began to have an impact on Slovakia, although railroad construction was limited (due to the mountainous nature of the country) and factories were few in the early decades of the 19th century. Slovakia's economy depended heavily on agriculture, mining and forestry. Following the Austrian state bankrupcy of 1811 and the end of the Napoleonic wars 1815, the state as the main customer for weapons and ammunition drastically reduced her purchases, which had an adverse affect on the Slovakian mines and ironworks. A series of poor harvests did not help alleviate the situation; in a number of incidences there was unrest, triggered by famine. An 1831 peasant rebellion targetted noble landlords; although quickly suppressed, it indicated the necessity of the abolition of feudal dues.
A new generation of Slovak patriotic scholars (Hodza, Hurban, Kollar, Stur) emphasized the similarity of Czech and Slovak languages and promoted the concept that the Czecho-Slovaks formed one people. In response to the increasing threat of Magyarization, in 1842 Slovak scholars petitioned Austria's government to take measures to protect the Slovak language, explicitly to appoint a censor for Slovak books and to establish a professorship for the Slovak language at the University of Pest. These demands were ignored.
The works of Ludovit Stur (1815-1856) resulted in the establishment of one standardized Slovakian grammar and orthography, which was oriented on spoken Slovakian rather than a written Slovakian heavily leaning on Czech; his Slovak Grammar was published in 1847. Janko Matuska wrote the lyrics to "Thunder over the Tatra Mountains", modern Slovakia's national anthem (1848).
On May 11th 1848, Demands of the Slovak Nation were presented at a public meeting in the small town of Litovsky Sv. Mikulas, the intended addressee of course being the Hungarian Diet. The demands included equal representation of the nationalities and Slovak to become the official language in Slovakia. Further demands included the abolition of serfdom and feudal dues and a widely extended suffrage. The Hungarian diet not only rejected these demands, but regarded the action of the Slovak patriots as subversive; martial law was proclaimed; warrants for the arrest of Stur, Hurban and Hodza were issued. They managed to escape to Prague, where the first Pan-Slavic Congress convened. They later moved to Vienna, where they were instrumental in the establishment of the Slovak National Council (Sept. 16th 1848). On September 19th the SNC - on Slovakian territory - formally declared the separation of Slovakia from Hungary, and a militia, the Slovak volunteers was formed. Within two weeks, Hungarian forces had pushed them across the border into Moravia; Slovakia was exposed to Hungarian military administration.
The Slovak National Council was in a conflict with the Hungarian Diet and thus had common interests with Vienna. In March 1849 the SNC petitioned the Emperor for separating Slovakia administratively from Hungary - another petition ignored by the Viennese administration. The year 1848 brought, however, the long-demanded abolition of serfdom. In that year, Bratislava also was connected by (steam) railroad with Vienna.






EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Slovakian History, from Slovakia.org
History of Bratislava, from Bratislava Region
History of Kosice, from Kosice Region; from Kosice.sk
History of Trnava, from : City of Trnava
Article Bedich Bloudek, from Encyclopedia of the 1848 Revolutions
Museum of the Slovak National Councils - Slovak National Museum
Biography of Ludovit Stur, by Pavol Fabik
DOCUMENTS Slovakia's National Anthem, from Slovakia.org
REFERENCE Peter A. Toma, Dusan Kovac, Slovakia - from Samo to Dzurinda, Stanford : Hoover Institution Press 2001
Maria Dowling, Brief Histories : Czechoslovakia, London : Hodder 2002


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on September 9th 2003, last revised on November 1th 2004

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