Friday, August 22, 2014

Brief History of Slovakia

image provided by traveltoslovakia.info
The Slovakian history has be dominated by wars for power and control of the people of this land. Slovakia has been inhabited since the early paleolithic period with evidence of tribes as the predominate social organization through the 5th century. By 1200 BC the Lusitian culture was spread through Slovakia. Some scholars think that this culture was protoslavic and the region of northern Slovakia and southern Poland was the ancient homeland of Slavs.

By 400 BC the Celtic tribes occupied the southwestern part of Slovakia and ruled the territory more than three centuries. They brought new production techniques to metallurgy, pottery, textiles and agriculture.

By 9 BC the Celtic dominance began to give way to Germanic and Roman expansion, establishing the Roman provinces Panonia and Noricum  and the Germanic tribes Marcomans and Quads.  Three centuries later, Roman legions under command of the Emperor Tiberius attacked the territory of Slovakia and began to organize all of the Slovak territory. The period between the Roman defeat of the Germanic tribes and approximately 406 AD saw intermittent peace and war. At the end of this period the majority of the Quad population began to withdraw from Slovakia towards southern Germany. The territory of Slovakia became the temporary homeland of numerous Germanic tribes escaping the Huns who dominated the Danube Basin in the first half of 5th century.

By 470 AD the last Quads left Slovakia, creating a vacuum where Slavic tribes consolidated their power . Then in 568 AD the nomadic Avars who were of  Turkish origin invaded the Danube Basin and became the dominant power in Central Europe until 795 AD when Charlemagne's over throw of Muslim rule in the end of 8th century. Then the local Slavic tribes began to centralize power and began the long process of state building. By 822 AD the Moravian prince, Mojmir I, unified the principalities of Moravia and Nitravia to one state named Greater Moravia. 

By 880 AD the Pope, Johanus VIII, published the Industriae Tuae in which he establish the independent ecclesiastical province in Greater Moravia and recognized Slavic as the forth ecclesiastical language beside Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Then in 907 AD in the battle near Bratislava, Magyar armies defeated the Bavarian military and the Moravian principality was split between Magyars, Bavarian's and Czechs. Then in 955 AD the Magyar military forces were defeated and forced to accept Christianity and settle down. However, these battles for control of the Slavic lands continued through 1848 when Slovaks revolted, declaring themselves a nation and founded the Slovak Fellowship with the aim of independence. But, by 1880 the bulk emigration of Slovaks to the United States began. Within 30 years almost one third of Slovaks fled national and social oppression.
image provided by photographyblog.dallasnews.com

Finally, 1000 years after the Battle of Bratislava, living under the freedom of America, this large population of Slavs founded the Slovak League in America and started the campaign for national freedom of Slovaks in their homeland. Then fours year, after the Great War of 1914, the Pittsburgh Agreement created the Czech-Slovak state which was to guarantee home rule for Slovaks after creation of a Slovakian state.  However, the Czechs broke their word and refused to accept the new state of Slovakia as equal partner and two years later adopted a Constitution declaring Czech-Slovakia as a national “Czechoslovak” state.  This domination of Slavs by others continued through WWII and the following Russian domination through Communism. Finally, on January 1, 1993 the Slovak's realized their dream and a Slovak Republic became an independent and sovereign state.