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Encyclopedia Britannica



SLOVAKS (Slovak, fern. Slovenka, adj. slovensk, formerly called Slovene, but to be distinguished from the Slovenes of Carinthia, in Magyar Tat)

This article appears in Volume V25, Page 245 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SIV-SOU
SLOVAKS (Slovak, fern. Slovenka, adj. slovensk, formerly called Slovene, but to be distinguished from the Slovenes of Carinthia, in Magyar Tat) , a Slav people numbering about 2,500,000 and mostly living in the northern counties of
Hungary
 . On the west they extend into the neighbouring districts of Lower Austria and Moravia where they march with the Germans and the kindred Moravians, being bounded by the river Morava and the Jablunka Mountains; on the north they
touch
  the Poles along the frontiers of Silesia and
Galicia
 ; on the
east
  about 22 E. they meet the Little Russians along an indented boundary; on the south they have the Magyars as neighbours along a line joining Pressburg and Zemplfn. Within these limits, save for the Germans in the towns, the Slovaks are not much mixed: they have isolated settlements throughout the western half of
Hungary
  extending far enough south to meet similar settlements of Servians. Their
chief
  centre is S. Marton on the Turocz. The Slovaks seem to have occupied this territory in the 5th or 6th century A.D. and 'also to have stretched far to the south; they formed part of Samo's empire (middle of 7th century), but were subject to the Avars and the Franks, and then formed part of
Great
  Moravia until that kingdom was in 907 conquered by the Magyars, who displaced or assimilated the southern Slovaks and have ever since been lords of the rest, save for a short time when they were under Boleslav the Brave (A.D. 973) Of Poland, and early in the 14th century when a local
magnate,Count
Matthew
  of Trencfn, made himself an independent ruler. In 1848-1849, when the Magyars rose against Austria, the Slovaks rose against the Magyars, but were handed back to them on the conclusion of peace. The Magyars have always treated the Slovaks as an inferior race and have succeeded in assimilating many districts where the prefix Tot in place-names shows the former presence of Slovaks: those who take the Magyar language and attitude are called IsiIagyarones. The Magyars, in pursuance of this policy, do their best to suppress the Slovak nationality in every way, even to the extent of taking away Slovak children to be brought up as Magyars, and denying them the right to use their language in church and school. The result is a large emigration to America. (See letters by Scotus Viator in Spectator, 1906 sqq.)
The Slovaks are a peaceful, rather slow race of peasants (their aristocracy is Magyarized), living almost exclusively upon the land, which they till after the most primitive methods. Where this does not yield sufficient, they wander as labourers and especially as tinkers all over Austria-Hungary and even into South Russia. They are fond of music, and their songs have been collected.
The Slovak language is most closely connected with Cech, the difference being bridged by the transitional dialects of Moravia: though Miklosich has classed it as a variety of Cech, it is better to take it separately, since it has not been subjected to the
special
  changes which have in that language assimilated the vowels to the foregoing palatal consonants, nor developed the s which is characteristic of the other North-Western Slavonic tongues, but .has remained in a more primitive stage and preserved (as might be expected from its central position in the Slavonic world) many points of agreement, phonetic, morphological and lexical, with South Slavonic and Russian. The alphabet is founded on the Cech, the
accent
  is always on the first syllable, long vowels are indicated by acute accents. There are usually reckoned to be three groups of dialects, Western, Central and Eastern; the first being nearest to Cech, the last to Little Russian; the Central dialects exhibit less decided features. The Slovak dialects spoken in Moravia have been well investigated by Bartos, the others still await satisfactory treatment, as does the question of the relation of Slovak to other Slavonic groups.
From the time of the Hussites and still more after the Reformation, Cech missionaries, colonists and refugees had brought with them their Bible and service books; Cech became the literary language, and is still the church language of the Slovak Protestants. The use of the local tongue was the result of a desire on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy to get at their people. A. Bernolak (1762-1813), who first systematized the orthography and made a dictionary, taking Western Slovak as his basis, was a priest, and so was Jan Holly (1785-1849), who wrote epics and odes in the classical taste. A new start was made in the 'forties by L'udevit Stur, Josef Hurban and M. Hodia who adopted the central dialect, united the Catholic and
Protestant
  Slovaks in its use and successfully opposed the attempts to keep the Slovaks to the use of Cech. However,afarik the
great
  Slavist and the poet Kollar continued to write in Cech, the argument being that Slays should unite to oppose the enemies of the race: but without their language the Slovaks, having no traditions of independent political life, would have nothing to cling to. The
chief
  Slovak writers since 5tur (mostly poets) have been O. Sladkovic, S. Chalupka, V. Paulin '-Tot, and at present Orszag-Hviezdoslav and Svetozar Hurban-Vajansky. During the 'sixties the Slovaks founded three gymnasia and a Matica, or literary, linguistic and educational society, such as has been the centre of revival for the national life of other Slavonic nations. These were all closed and their property confiscated by the Magyars in the early 'seventies, but the struggle continues, and national self-consciousness is too strong for the attempts at Magyarization to have much probability of success.
(E. H. M.)


End of Article: SLOVAKS (Slovak, fern. Slovenka, adj. slovensk, formerly called Slovene, but to be distinguished from the Slovenes of Carinthia, in Magyar Tat)


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