Slavdom

Chapter 6

1 St Augustine, Confessions, 1.1.2.

Confessions,2 Štúr, ‘Pan-Slavism and our Country.’

3 The last Habsburg Emperor was Franz Joseph’s great-nephew, Bl. Karl I (1887 – 1922). Having inherited the misfortune of World War I, Karl worked behind the scenes to bring an end to the s*******r, and extricate his land from the conflict, whole. This was impossible, for many reasons, of course. Never abdicating the throne per se, he was exiled from the newly-proclaimed Republic of Austria. Attempts at reclaiming the throne of Hungary in 1921 were unsuccessful. He was raised to the altar by St Pope John Paul II in 2004; the beatification process of his wife, Servant of God Zita, is ongoing as of 2020.

4 According to Paul Robert Magocsi, the name itself is derived from ‘Onogur,’ which signified a ‘loose federation of Finno-Ugric and Bulgar-Turkic tribes’ of which the Magyars formed a part. See Magocsi, With their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2015), p. 41.

With their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns5 ‘List Słowaka Węgierskiego do redakcji Tygodnika Literackiego [The Letter of a Hungarian Slav to the Editors of the Literary Weekly], 21 January 1839. Collected in Ľudovít Štúr, Wybór pism [Selected Writings], ed. Halina Janaszek-Ivaničková (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1983), pp. 406-412. Štúr wrote the letter originally in Polish.

Tygodnika LiterackiegoWybór pism6 Štúr, ‘The Slovaks, in Ancient Days and Now.’

7 Hungarian history provides us with an eloquent example. Lajos Kossuth (1802 – 1894), father of the modern ethnic Hungarian state and determined magyariser, was of Slovak extraction; his uncle Juraj Košút (1776 – 1849), was just as strong a supporter of Slovak nationality.

8 Rio Preisner, Až na konec Česka [To the Very End of Czechia] (London: Rozmluvy, 1987), p. 238.

Až na konec Česka9 David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1917? (New York: Vintage, 2007), pp 122, 261.

Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1917?10 Fromkin, pp. 100, 122.

11 Janaszek-Ivaničková, p. xvii.

12 Janaszek-Ivaničková, p. viii.

13 Such as we find described in ‘A Journey through the Region of the Váh,’ in which the discovery of a letter from King Matej Korvin ‘proves that even the Kings of Hungary addressed their Slavic subjects in the Slavic tongue in matters of public importance, and it also testifies to the fact that the Czech tongue was familiar to, and favoured by, the courts of the Hungarian kings.’

14 See ‘Slavs, brothers!’ and other of his writings from the time of the Slavic Congress in Prague, for example.

15 Janaszek-Ivaničková, p. xvii. Pavel Josef Šafařík (Šáfarik in Slovak, 1795 – 1861) was a Slovak poet and writer, like Kollár, creative primarily in Czech.

16 Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and its People (New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1960), p. 145. This is also the subject of Svetozar Hurban Vajanský’s aptly-entitled narrative poem Herodes (1879). See Svetozar Hurban Vajanský, Sobrané diela [Collected Works] Vol. IV, Tatry a more [The Tatras and the Sea] (Trnava: G. Bežu, 1924), pp. 139 – 173. Of course, the Magyars weren’t the only ones to do such a thing. The Nazis instituted the same policies in Poland and Eastern Europe in their Lebensborn programme, and the European Americans strove to assimilate Native American children through their boarding schools in which they described their aim to be ‘saving the man by killing the Indian.’

Slovakia and its PeopleHerodesSobrané diela Tatry a moreLebensborn17 Whom Štúr describes in but one strong word: maďaroman, i.e. Magyar-maniac.

maďaroman18 Anton Špiesz, Ilustrované dejiny Slovenska: na ceste k sebauvedomiu [Illustrated History of Slovakia: on the Path to Self-Consciousness] (Bratislava: Perfekt, 1992), pp. 17, 20.

Ilustrované dejiny Slovenska: na ceste k sebauvedomiu19 A charge, in his Pan-Slavic writings, that he will constantly level at the Poles.

20 Štúr, The Slovaks, in Ancient Days and Now.

The Slovaks, in Ancient Days and Now.21 Špiesz, p. 24.

22 ‘Die Ungarn.’ Archäologie in Deutschland, Sonderheft 2008: 75 – 108, p. 80a.

Archäologie in Deutschland, 23 ‘The Education Laws of 1879, 1833 and 1891 made the teaching of Hungarian compulsory in kindergartens and primary and secondary schools. Soon there were no Slovak secondary and higher elementary schools in [Slovak] Upper Hungary, and between 1880 and 1890 the number of church schools fell from 1,700 to 500.’ Paul Lendvai, Total Blindness: the Hungarian Sense of Mission and the Nationalities (New Brunswick: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 300.

Total Blindness: the Hungarian Sense of Mission and the Nationalities24 Although, in the passage to which we refer, Štúr elaborates his statement using Poland as an example, this connection is even more apparent in the Russian term for ‘homeland’ — rodina. The same word in Slovak, Czech and Polish (rodina, rodzina) means ‘family.’ The Russian Slavophile Ivan Kireyevsky similarly theorised that whereas ‘western states rest upon subjugation, the Russian state is founded upon familial peace’ [rodinný mir] Cf. Samuel Štefan Osuský, Šturova filozofia [Štur’s Philosophy] (Bratislava: Slovenská liga, 1936), p. 33.

rodinarodina, rodzinarodinný mir, Šturova filozofia25 I am always reminded here of the late, great Prof. William Schmalstieg, an authority on Lithuanian, Balto-Slavic, and linguistics in general, under whom I had the honour and great pleasure of studying Old Church Slavonic in the 1980s. Once, in response to a question concerning the difference between a ‘language’ and a ‘dialect,’ he responded: ‘A language has an army.’ Mutual intelligibility or not, the inroads that English has made all over the world since the Second World War seem destined to put an end to any Pan-Slavic dreams of a Slavic lingua franca. Quite recently, my wife and I were approached by a Ukrainian tourist in Kraków, who asked us to take his picture against the backdrop of the church of SS Peter and Paul on Ulica Grodzka. He made his request in English, and thanking us, complimented us on ‘our beautiful city,’ encouraging us to visit ‘the beautiful cities of Kyiv and Lviv’ — in English, despite our Slavic ‘brotherhood.’

26 In his speech to the Slavic Congress in Prague: ‘It was us that defeated the Turks, but the Germans ascribe that to themselves.’

27 Jan Kollár, O literní vzájemnosti mezi rozličnými kmeny a nářečími slovanského národu [On Literary Reciprocity among the Various Tribes and Dialects of the Slavic Nation] (Praha: Jan S. Tomíček, 1853), p. 3.

O literní vzájemnosti mezi rozličnými kmeny a nářečími slovanského národu28 Referred to as a zeměvid slavjanský, i.e. ‘Slavic landimage’ — a neologism intended to avoid borrowings from foreign languages. It didn’t stick. In contemporary Czech, Slovak and Polish, one uses mapa. An even more frenetic example of linguistic Pan-Slavism is provided by Kollár’s perhaps over-ebullient motto: Slávme slávne slávu slávov slávnych — ‘Let us nobly celebrate the glory of famous Slavs.’

zeměvid slavjanský, mapa.Slávme slávne slávu slávov slávnych29 Jan Kollár, Prózy [Prose Writings] (Prague: Knihovna Klasiků, 1956), p. 291.

Prózy 30 Or Slavobratří, to cite another of his charming neologisms.

Slavobratří, 31 The ‘Manuscripts of Králové Dvůr and Zelená hora,’ were supposedly discovered by Václav Hanka circa 1817, but their authenticity was immediately questioned. Most scholars consider them forgeries, although even Goethe was enthused by them at the time.

32 The most famous of these is the stone idol of the four-faced god Światowid discovered in the River Zbrucz. See Henryk Łomiański, Religia Słowian i jej upadek [The Religion of the Slavs, and its Decline] (Warsaw: PWN, 1985), p. 158. This idol was discovered in 1848, and presented to the Archeological Museum in Kraków by Mieczysław Potocki on 13 May 1851, where it remains to this day. The donation was recorded in Josef Miloslav Hurban’s Slovenskje Pohladi [Slovak Perspectives] 1851:I.5 (25 June), p. 198b., where in true Slavic antiquarian fervour, he notes that the idol is ‘wearing a cap such as can be seen amongst the people still today.’

Religia Słowian i jej upadekSlovenskje Pohladi33 Aleksander Brückner, Mitologia słowiańska i polska [Slavic and Polish Mythology] (Warsaw: PWN, 1985), p. 44.

Mitologia słowiańska i polska34 Polish Pan-Slavists are few and far between. Walerian Krasiński is one colourful exception to the rule; Alexander Maxwell provides an interesting introduction to this oddball in his article ‘Walerian Krasiński’s Panslavism and Germanism (1848): Polish Goals in a Pan-Slav Context,’ in The New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 42 (2008):101-120. Although there were Polish delegates at the Slavic Congress in Prague, Georges Luciani points out that there were none at the follow-up Congress of Moscow in 1867 — no surprise considering the ‘mutual hatred’ between the two peoples and the January Insurrection of 1863 falling just four years previous. See Georges Luciani, ‘Du Congrès de Prague (1848) au Congrès de Moscou (1867)’ [From the Congress of Prague (1848) to the Congress of Moscow (1867)] in Revue des études slaves 47 (1968): 85-93.

Panslavism and GermanismThe New Zealand Slavonic JournalnoneRevue des études slaves35 Part of the retouching of history in Matúš of Trenčín concerns the character of Matúš himself. Štúr deftly evades the question of his hero’s ethnicity, which may well have been Magyar (Csák), by shrouding his genesis in a Byronic darkness. ‘So, you know Skalka, the castle above Trenčín? / Monks brought him there, they say, when he was small. / Where he was born, who his folks might have been, / This no one knows, and no one ever shall.’

Matúš of Trenčín 36 Oddo, p. 120.

37 ‘What’s with the Pan-Slav! Instead of saying kissaszonka for ‘little miss,’ he says slečna! For ‘I kiss your hands’ he pops off with ruky bozkávam instead of kezítcsókolom; calls himself služobnik for ‘your humble servant’ and not alászolgája, and when you say ‘Praise the Lord,’ dicsértesék, he comes back at you with naveky ameň ‘for ever and ever,’ just as he should, but… in Slovak!… He uses the plural in formal address… And did you see how his name is spelt on his shingle? With an S, not SZ!… Pan-Slav… He takes his dinner and supper at Heindl’s, where he orders in Slovak…’ Janko Jesenský, Cestou k slobode, 1914-1918 [On the Road to Freedom] (Turčianský svätý Martin: Matica Slovenská, 1933), pp. 7-8.

kissaszonkaslečna! ruky bozkávamkezítcsókolomslužobnikalászolgájadicsérteséknaveky ameňS, not SZ!Cestou k slobode, 1914-1918 38 Július Mésároš, ‘Magyaren und Slowaken. Zur Frage des Panslawismus in der Vormärzzeit’ [Magyars and Slovaks: On the Question of Pan-Slavism in the pre-March Period] in Ľudovít Holotík, ed. Ľudovít Štúr und die slawische Wechselseitigkeit [Ľudovít Štúr and Slavic Reciprocity] (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1969), p. 189.

Ľudovít Štúr und die slawische Wechselseitigkeit39 Janaszek-Ivaničková, p xxxiv.

40 Kollár, p. 3.

41 Osuský, p. 177, and: ‘Štúr was opposed to all petitions and moaning; he burned for action,’ p. 167.

42 František Sekanina, ‘O našem Karlu Havlíčkovi Borovském’ [Concerning our Karel Havlíček Borovský] in Karel Havlíček-Borovský, Životní Dílo [His Life’s Work] (Prague: Věčné prameny, 1940), p. 17.

Životní Dílo43 Osuský, p. 176.

44 To argue against this, one need only point to the current intra-Vyšehrad quarrel between Slovakia and Hungary over dual citizenship, and the cultural wars (the ‘Women’s Strike,’ for example), which is polarising Poland as much as any other western country.

1 Traditionally, Hungary was a multi-ethnic unit in which Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, and Magyars coexisted. The contemporary conflation of ‘Hungary’ and ‘Hungarian’ with Magyar is the result of the breaking up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire along ethnic lines following World War I. We will follow Štúr’s usage throughout. ‘Hungary’ and ‘Hungarian’ refer to the broad geopolitical concept; Magyar to the dominant ethnic group which today is commonly referred to in English as the ‘Hungarians.’

2 V samých Čechách. In the Slavic tongues, the regions inhabited particularly by the Czechs — Bohemia and Moravia — are referred to as Čechy (Czechy, and so on). This general name of both regions has never been adequately translated into English; modern-day usage ‘Czechia’ is both awkward and anachronistic as a geographical description for times preceding 1993. In our text, we will use ‘Czech regions’ or ‘Czech lands’ when Štúr is speaking of both areas in common, and Bohemia or Moravia, as the specific case requires.

V samých Čechách.3 As becomes apparent here, ‘A Journey through the Region of the Váh’ is conceived as an epistolary report intended for Štúr’s Czech friends.

1 Starý i nový věk Slováků. The manuscript, originally written in Czech, seems to have been conceived as an addition to Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft [Slavdom and the World of the Future]. Although composed in 1841, it did not appear in print until the 1935 edition prepared by Josef Jirásek, from which our translation was made. The pseudonym ‘Bedlivý Luborod’ is rather corny: ‘Watchfuleye Nationlover.’ The quasi-Biblical voice in which Štúr composes this work is based on Adam Mickiewicz’s Księgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego [Books of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrimage, 1832], which served a similar purpose.

Starý i nový věk SlovákůDas Slawenthum und die Welt der ZukunftSlavdom and the World of the FutureKsięgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego Books of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrimage2 The original text has a misprint here: it reads nároků (‘of claims’) where obviously it ought to be národů (‘of nations’).

nárokůnárodů3 In the original, šetřit.

šetřit.4 Jako dobrý otec čelední nad domem svým.

Jako dobrý otec čelední nad domem svým.5 There is possibly a play on words here in the original Czech. Pobil Svätopluk pluky jejich — note the similarity of the word for regiments — pluky — and Svätopluk’s name, which adds the modifier ‘holy, sacred’ to a syllable identical with ‘regiment:’ Svato-pluk.

Pobil Svätopluk pluky jejich — pluky6 Štúr uses the Slavic term Semihradsko here — intimating that Transylvania was part of the Great Moravian Empire too.

Semihradsko7 Ouskoci.

Ouskoci8 Bratislava, today; formerly known by its German name Pressburg.

9 A mountain looming above Nitra.

10 Cf. Psalms 136: 3-5: ‘For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.’

11 Štúr uses the term vyvolenec here, meaning ‘elect’ or ‘chosen’ one — continuing with the Old Testament parallels.

vyvolenec12 Up until 1844, when Magyar was pushed through as the official tongue, Latin was used as the administrative language of Hungary.

13 See Proverbs 25:22 and Romans 12:20, although Na hlavy své sypali ste oheň may have more of a sense of ‘calling down fire upon your own heads.’

Na hlavy své sypali ste oheň14 See Mark 14:21 and Matthew 26:24, where Christ uses this phrase in reference to Judas.

15 Štúr has in mind his own father here, Samuel Štúr (1789 – 1851).

16 According to Josef Jirásek in his notes to the Czech original, this took place in Komárno. Among the Slovaks publicly whipped were Martin Bartoš, who took 64 strokes, Jiří Junáček (50), Pavel Russ (40) and Stefan Vrabec (24).

17 This, and other of the old soldier’s reminiscences, touch upon the Napoléonic Wars of the early nineteenth century. The battle of Aspern (or Essling) took place near the end of May in 1809. The first stanza of Štúr’s song sounds odd in Polish ears. While there may have been Poles in the Austrian army, during the Napoléonic era, Poles (Francophile as they generally are) placed great hopes in Napoléon for the restoration of their partitioned country. Poles made up the largest contingent of the Grande Armée, after the French. Štúr’s song can be understood mainly as an expression of Austro-Slavism: that political movement in the latter nineteenth century, which sought to win more autonomy and political clout for the Western and Southern Slavs by gathering them under the sceptre of the Habsburgs. Austro-Slavism is in contradistinction to Pan-Slavism proper, which aimed rather at bringing all the Slavs into a tight political union under the lead of Russia — something that Štúr was later to espouse, after growing disillusioned with the former.

18 The word used here is rodák. While ‘fellow countryman’ or ‘compatriot’ are close English equivalents, rodák, as it derives from rod (more or less, ‘clan’) signifies a relationship deeper than the political — it is an ethnic term, a term implying common generation, common blood. Both Slovaks and Magyars are Hungarians, politically speaking; but in terms of the rod, both belong to different ethnic nations.

rodákrodákrodrod19 Jirásek identifies him as Alexander Prónay, who served as General Inspector of the Evangelical Church in Slovakia from 1819 until 1839.

20 The man referred to is Count Karol Zay (1797 – 1871), whom Štúr knew well, having been employed by him as a scribe for seven months in 1834. Zay strove, unsuccessfully, to win over Štúr to the magyarising party.

21 See Matthew, 28:19.

22 John 4:24. The citation is almost verbatim; the verb used in Scripture, however, is ‘adore’ rather than ‘pray,’ but Štúr is, of course, trying to make a point about language policy.

23 Throughout, Štúr uses the term vlast, which we translate as ‘motherland,’ because of the writer’s frequent invocations of Slovakia as a female entity, and his use of terms such as ‘mother tongue.’ Here, for the first time, he uses the word otčina — ‘fatherland’ proper.

vlastotčina — 24 See John 10:1-10.

25 See Matthew 18:15-20; Matthew 12:37.

26 1 John 4:16.

27 Matthew 5:45.

28 See 1 John 4:14, Colossians 1:20.

29 And God sent not His son…the only begotten Son of God. John 3:16–18.

30 Sacramenters, or Sacramentarians, as they deny both Catholic and Lutheran dogmas concerning the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. To them, the Eucharist is merely a symbol, a sign, hence, a ‘sacrament’ and nothing more. Luther argued against the Calvinist view espoused by Ulrich Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy, which took place in October, 1529.

31 See 2 Timothy 3:13; 2 John 1:7.

32 Štúr uses the terms chrám (cathedral, large church) and kostel (church). The first term particularly is directed to appeal to the Catholics, to whom the apostolic succession of bishops is particularly important.

chrámkostel 33 Matthew 7:16, 7:20; Luke 21:30.

34 Hebrews 3:12-13. Verse 12 continues from ‘heart of unbelief’ with ‘to depart from the living God.’

35 Štúr does not indicate which of the letters to the Thessalonians, 1 or 2, he has in mind here, but 1 Thessalonians 2:1-9 seems germane to his topic: ‘For yourselves know, brethren, our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: But having suffered many things before, and been shamefully treated (as you know) at Philippi, we had confidence in our God, to speak unto you the gospel of God in much carefulness. For our exhortation was not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deceit: But as we were approved by God that the gospel should be committed to us: even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who proveth our hearts. For neither have we used, at any time, the speech of flattery, as you know; nor taken an occasion of covetousness, God is witness: Nor sought we glory of men, neither of you, nor of others. Whereas we might have been burdensome to you, as the apostles of Christ: but we became little ones in the midst of you, as if a nurse should cherish her children: So desirous of you, we would gladly impart unto you not only the gospel of God, but also our own souls: because you were become most dear unto us. For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: working night and day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you, we preached among you the gospel of God.’

1 There may be an untranslatable pun behind this curious metaphor. The line reads Padajú Uhria jako vetrom slivy in the original; uherka černá (lit: ‘black Hugarian’) is another name for the common plum (Prunus domestica). This term still exists in common parlance in the kindred Polish language: węgierka.

Padajú Uhria jako vetrom slivy uherka černá węgierka.1 Velehrad. Štúr composed this letter in Polish, and thus seeks to Polonise proper names where possible. Poles today use the Czech spelling, although ‘Welegród’ or ‘Wielegród’ is possible. Later on, Štúr uses the Polish version of Svätopluk — Świętopełk.

2 As might be expected, Štúr’s Polish is quite good, but in these lines he makes a few mistakes, and expresses himself in an unclear fashion. There are a few Slovakisms, such as his use of baśnie for ‘poems.’ In Slovak básne, and in Czech básně mean ‘poems;’ in Polish baśnie means ‘fables’ or ‘fairy stories’ — wiersze is used for verses. The line przyjmijcie więc i Wy wzajemnie od nas do czasopism Waszych coś Słowackiego (lepiej Słoweńskiego) wszystko jest Sławiańskie! is a little difficult to understand. Firstly, Słowacki is good Polish for ‘Slovak,’ Słoweński would be ‘Slovenian’ — here too Štúr is using a Czecho-Slovakism: Slovenský… To return to the unclarity: the line literally would be translated: ‘Therefore accept You as well, in reciprocal fashion, something from us to Your periodicals, something Slovak (better, Slovanian) everything is Slavic!’

baśniebásne, básněbaśniewierszeprzyjmijcie więc i Wy wzajemnie od nas do czasopism Waszych coś Słowackiego (lepiej Słoweńskiego) wszystko jest Sławiańskie!SłowackiSłoweńskiSlovenský… 1 It is noted that this poem was sung at the unveiling of the monument at Ján Hollý’s grave in the cemetery at Dobrá Voda on 11 May 1854. Hollý had moved to Dobrá Voda in 1843 following a severe fire, from which he barely emerged alive, which destroyed his home in Madunice (where Štúr had earlier visited him). Born in 1785, Hollý died in 1849. The poem was sung to the tune of ‘Veje vietor, veje, od Tatier k Dunaju’ [The wind is blowing, blowing, from the Tatras to the Danube’]. In Slovak, the name of the locality, Dobrá Voda, means ‘good water.’

1 We omit here a long digression into the history of international trade… from the Phoenicians to the contemporary British Empire.

2 Dresden lies 120.5 km from Leipzig. Today, the distance is covered in roughly one hour and thirty-six minutes by train. Štúr is referring here to the standardised Austrian mile, which was equal to 7.586 km. Fifteen Austrian miles gives us 113.79 km — so the poet was off by roughly one unit of measure.

3 V českej Prahe. It is unclear why Štúr expresses himself thus. In Polish, Praga can refer to both Prague and the Praga section of Warsaw; Poles sometimes speak of Praga czeska in order to specify which location they’re referring to. Perhaps Štúr, in this essay, wishes to underscore the ‘Slavic’ nature of the city, despite its large German-speaking population.

V českej PrahePragaPraga czeska4 Magyar did not replace Latin as the administrative language of Hungary until 1846. It seems that Štúr is making an ironic aside here: nationalist Magyars (speaking a non-European tongue) still wish to underscore their Western affiliations by Latinising Magyar, not Slovak, place names in the Latin language.

5 The Slavic languages are one of the most closely related language groups in the Indo-European family. It is for this reason that many nineteenth-century Pan-Slavs like Štúr spoke of a ‘Slavic’ language, designating individual tongues like Polish, Czech, Slovak and Russian as ‘dialects’ of the same.

6 Again, whether that narodnost or ‘ethnicity, nationality’ be Polish and Lusatian, or ‘Slavic,’ is unclear — and probably didn’t matter to Štúr.

narodnost7 The Slavic languages possess three sub-classifications: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Old Church Slavonic) and West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lusatian Sorb). It is more likely that the three dialects Štúr is speaking of here are the Polish, the Lusatian Sorb — and whatever he was speaking, Slovak, Czech, or the ‘Czechoslovak’ language that Ján Kollár advocated.

8 Oppitz, or in Sorbian, Rakecy.

9 Štúr appends these statutes to his essay in the original Lusatian Sorb.

10 The proper spelling in Lusatian Sorb is prašeć so.

prašeć so11 Štúr has here bohowóm spasám. This is not entirely good Sorbian; more properly, it would be bohóm, swým spásám, although some suggest that he might be citing the ‘old Slavic’ of Václav Hanka’s Rukopis královédvorský — like the songs of Ossian, an elaborate literary fraud which many people at the time, especially Pan-Slavs, took as good coin, evidence of the cultural antiquity of the Slavic people. In the poem narrative poem ‘Čestmír a Vlaslav’ [Čestmír and Vlaslav] the phrase appears as we correct it above.

bohowóm spasám. bohóm, swým spásámRukopis královédvorský12 An expansive cycle of descriptive sonnets dealing with ‘Slavdom’ by the aforementioned Slovak poet Ján Kollár, originally published in 1824.

13 Lubin, Thromberg.

14 Although this may still be true of the Sorbs in Lusatia, it does not occur in Poland — although the use of white as a colour of mourning is of ancient provenance amongst the Slavs. Therefore, the long continuance of its use in Lusatia, testified to by Štúr, may well be an example of long cultural continuity.

15 That is, non-Slavs, Germans.

16 Here Štúr once more engages in a general consideration of the importance of trade to the health of a national group. His thesis is that, for whatever reason, be it ‘distaste of trade or devotion to a peaceful way of life,’ the Slavs left the development of their cities to foreign elements. Not only did this lead to the influx of a permanent foreign element to the once ‘purely Slavic’ cities, but also to the development of a high culture — fostered by wealth — in the foreign language. The Slav who wished to take part in that high municipal culture had to become ‘foreign’ himself, adopting the foreign tongue and assimilating himself to foreign customs, thus abandoning his Slavic nationality.

17 Here, Štúr bemoans the lack of support for education in the native tongues of the Slavic lands, seen as a threat by the ‘foreign elements.’ The one praiseworthy exception to this general rule is Dr Amerling in Prague, who, with the blessing of the civic authorities, arranged public lectures in Czech ‘on chemistry and technology’ at the university, on Sundays.

18 The correct spelling in Sorbian is khorosć. It means ‘illness,’ as chorý in Slovak means ‘ill.’

khorosć. chorý19 Muža z vlasteneckých plánov po Lužiciach na slovo vzatého. A pun: A man engaged in the practical, patriotic act of supporting his language by busying himself with its words, is to be taken at his word as far as his patriotism and future plans for serving the nation are concerned.

Muža z vlasteneckých plánov po Lužiciach na slovo vzatého. 20 That is to say, using Czech diacritical marks.

21 ‘You’ve given me so much!’

1 In the original Slovak, this line rhymes: Je to zem, na ktorej my sme orali, a Nemci žrali.

Je to zem, na ktorej my sme orali, a Nemci žrali.2 Pravoslovanský život, which has a mystical, quasi religious ring to it (cf. pravoslávny, ‘Orthodox,’ in Slovak.

Pravoslovanský život, pravoslávny, 3 Štúr is arguing on behalf of all Slavic minorities in Hungary, here. The idea is, even if the Czechs were strong enough to assert their autonomy, and even if they were able to unite with the Slovaks, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes would be left hanging, at the mercy of nationalising Magyars, if the Magyar dominance was not done away with.

4 A good portion of the Austrian civil service in Galicia was made up of German-speaking Czechs.

5 Translator’s note: Here and later, Galicia is a historical and geographic region at the crossroad of Central and Eastern Europe, not Spanish Galicia.

Translator’s note:6 Czech poet and publicist Karel Havlíček-Borovský enunciated a call to arms in that revolutionary year of 1848, with the aim of ‘paralysing’ German and Magyar dominance in the empire.

7 In other words, Štúr will not be satisfied with cultural autonomy, respect for the ethnic traditions of the non-German and non-Magyar nations — he is after political independence.

1 Speaking in Prague, when Štúr uses the direct address in the second person, it is the Czechs he has in mind.

2 Bílá hora — a mountain near Prague, which gave its name to a battle fought there (8 November 1620) — traditionally considered as the stifling of Hussitism and the independence of the Czech lands from the Holy Roman Empire.

3 Slovo is a word common to all Slavic languages. Meaning ‘word,’ the Slavs derive their general name (cf. Polish Słowianie, Slovak Slovania) from it. This indeed may be because of the very close relationship between the Slavic languages, which to a great degree are mutually intelligible. The word for ‘German’ in the Slavic tongues is some variant of Niemiec (Polish; Nemec, Slovak) — which is similar to the word for ‘dumb, without speech’ — (cf. Polish niemy, Slovak nemý) — and thus perhaps derives from the description of ‘a person who cannot speak our tongue.’

SlovoSłowianieSlovaniaNiemiecNemecniemy, nemý4 Vzhůru, bratři, pojďme směle na dravého nepřítele! Vzhůru, bratři! Do boje! A song from the Hussite years (and thus dear to the hearts of Czechs and Slovaks — especially Protestants — who have tended to idealise the Hussite rebellion as a national resistance to the invading (Catholic) Habsburgs. The song is included in a collection of songs edited by the Czechoslovak poet Jan Kollár. Štúr has modified the opening lines somewhat, which in the original read: Vzhůru, Češi! Poďme směle na hrdého nepřítele, vzhůru, bratři, do boje! (‘Arise, Czechs, and let us boldly go, against the proud enemy…’)

Vzhůru, bratři, pojďme směle na dravého nepřítele! Vzhůru, bratři! Do boje! Vzhůru, Češi! Poďme směle na hrdého nepřítele, vzhůru, bratři, do boje! Czechs, proud5 Like all Pan-Slavs, Štúr conveniently passes over the ‘repression’ that Poles experienced, from a ‘sixth’ side, i.e. the partitioning of Poland by the Russians — as if only the Prussians and Austrians were to blame for the demise of the Polish Commonwealth. Similarly, the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin bristled at Western support for the Poles during the November 1830 uprising against Russia, saying that the French and the British have no right to meddle in ‘family squabbles.’ Štúr is likewise silent on the matter of the treatment of Ukrainian peasants at the hands of their Polish (and Russian) landlords — those Slavs also might have something to say about ‘repression’ at the hands of their ‘brothers’…

6 German: ‘That’s dangerous! That smells like Panslavism!’

7 Bili smo već Taliani, Nemci, Ugri i Cigani.

Bili smo već Taliani, Nemci, Ugri i Cigani.1 In 1835.

2 Jako kaluž ve tmách. From Jan Kollár’s Slávy dcera [The Daughter of Sláva, 1832] Sonnet 325.

Jako kaluž ve tmáchSlávy dcera 3 For historical regions (for example, the Polish regions of Galicia were annexed to the Habsburg crown only recently, toward the end of the XVIII c.) certain areas of the Austrian empire enjoyed more nominal autonomy than others. The Czech regions were highly germanised by the time in which Štúr was writing, more highly developed industrially, and had a harder row to hoe to convince Vienna that recognition of their autonomy did not constitute secession from the empire per se. The Slovaks in the Kingdom of Hungary faced mounting pressure from the Magyars, ironically, during the latter nation’s own push to emphasise their own ethnic identity. Any hopes the Slovaks had of Vienna coming to their aid in the revolutions of 1848 were disappointed, as the Austrians were more concerned with appeasing the powerful Magyars and retaining Hungary for the Habsburg crown than the rights of the ethnic minorities there. As for Croatia, as a result of the Spring of the Peoples in 1848, Josip Jelačić was appointed Ban of the Croatian regions of the Hungarian kingdom. Štúr was often critical of Jelačić for his subservience to the Emperor.

Ban4 Strana račia — since crabs are supposed to walk backwards, the ‘Crab Party’ is the opposite of progressivism.

Strana račia 5 The dispersal of the Slavic Congress resulted in the June Uprising (12 – 17 1848), after which martial law was enacted in Prague.

1 In 1453.

2 In Czech, the Rukopis královédvorský, and a second manuscript, the Rukopis zelenohorský or Green Mountain Manuscript. These are poetic works written in an archaic form of Czech; published in 1817 and 1819, they were lauded at the time as authentic early mediaeval texts proving the antiquity of Slavic letters. Most linguists — including Josef Dobrovský — considered them forgeries, most likely by the hand of Václav Hanka, a student of Dobrovský’s, who based his judgement on a familiar pattern of linguistic errors, characteristic of a student of his (whom he did not name). Despite that, some scholars still today consider the works genuine.

Rukopis královédvorskýRukopis zelenohorský Green Mountain Manuscript3 Although the original manuscript of the Lay of Igor’s Campaign perished in the great fire of Moscow in 1812, causing some to doubt the authenticity of the text as presented by Prince Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, most philologists accept it as an authentic text composed in the XIII century.

Lay of Igor’s Campaign 4 Štúr got two dates wrong in his list: he originally had Heidelberg founded in 1387, and in the case of Vienna, transposed the last two numbers as 1356. We give the actual dates in our translation. For some reason, he overlooks the establishment of another mediaeval university on Slavic soil: the University of Kraków was founded in 1364 as the second university north of the Alps; it precedes Vienna by a year.

5 Štúr uses the adjective nevinný, which can also be translated ‘innocent.’

nevinný1 In Slovak, križacke ťaženie — which in a Slavic context conjures up images of the Teutonic Knights of the Cross. This militant religious order, mostly made up of German nationals, was the instrument of German expansion in the north-east of the continent. At the XV century Council of Constance, the Polish theologian Paweł Włodkowic argued against their policy of enforced conversion of pagans in Lithuania. Defeated at the battle of Grunwald by a combined Balto-Slavic army led by Polish King Władysław Jagiełło, the order was reduced to a Polish fiefdom at the outset of the Renaissance. The term thus has a very biting irony to it.

križacke ťaženie — 2 Czech and Slovak, and the varieties of Czech spoken in Moravia, are mutually understandable to such a degree that some linguists consider them to be dialects of one tongue, rather than separate languages. The history of the establishment of Slovak in its own right is complicated, with many Catholics, such as Anton Bernolák, favouring its codification separately from the Czech, others (mainly Protestants) advocating Czech as a literary language for the Slovaks, to which they had become used through centuries of ecclesiastical usage, and others still, like the poet Jan Kollár, advocating the development of a general ‘Czechoslovak’ language based on both dialects. In his age of intensifying national / ethnic consciousness in the multinational Hungarian kingdom, Štúr was also motivated in his advocacy for Slovak by politics: to deprive the Magyars of the possibility of repressing the speech of the Slovaks as a foreign import (Czech), not native to the region, and imposing Magyar upon them all the more strongly as a result.

1 First printed in the Czech journal Květy, in 1837, the year of Pushkin’s death (1799 – 1837). Pushkin was killed in a duel by Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès (1812 – 1895), a French Royalist serving in the Tsarist Army (hence the references to strangers and refugees in the poem). The duel was over Pushkin’s wife Natalia, with whom d’Anthès seems to have been obsessed to the point of marrying her sister in order to have an excuse to be near her. Some rumours suggest that the duel was provoked in service to Pushkin’s enemies, who wanted him dead (‘Moscow’s Ivan’). The ‘pogrom of blooms’ destroying ‘another and another’ seems to refer to the Decembrist conspirators, many of whom were put to death in 1826, while many others were sent off into Siberian exile. Among their number were some poets and writers, including the poet Kondraty Ryleyev (1795 – 1826). Although the Decembrists were inspired by his poetry, Pushkin himself seems not to have been let in on the conspiracy.

Květy, 1 Janko Kráľ.

1 Most often, Štúr uses the word ‘tribe’ in reference to the particular branches of the Slavic family (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc.) while reserving ‘nation’ for the Slavic conglomerate as a whole. It is rare when he uses the word kmeň, tribe, in the singular, as here, in reference to all Slavs.

kmeň2 That is, Constantinople. Štúr uses the Slavic name of the ancient capital of the Eastern Empire. Not only Pan-Slavs used it; the word appears in Adam Mickiewicz’s Crimean Sonnets too.

Crimean Sonnets3 Štúr bitterly speaks of the Austrian principle of ‘co-equality,’ which he sees as no equality at all, but rather a policy favouring German settlement of newly-annexed Slavic territories.

4 Štúr is correct. The ‘noble democracy’ of the old Polish republic was such that no motion, no matter how crucial, could be enacted unless there was absolute agreement. All it took was one noble to rise and cry out Nie pozwalam; ‘I don’t permit it,’ and the whole matter had to be rehashed until the recalcitrant noble was convinced. This was the so-called ‘golden freedom’ or liberum veto which could be, and was, exploited by the neighbouring empires of Russia and Prussia. To control what was happening in the Polish Sejm — all they needed do was buy the vote of one corrupt representative. The widespread democracy of the Polish republic, which enfranchised some 10% of the male population — a large number, given the percentages in Western Europe, which were below 5% even in the United Kingdom — hovered near anarchy, something that some Poles held up as a political virtue: Polska nierządem stoi — ‘Poland stands through lawlessness,’ was a phrase often invoked by supporters of the ‘golden freedom’ and bitterly fought against by those who sought stable policy. Although the Constitution of May 3, 1791 (the first modern constitution in Europe) formally abolished the ‘golden freedom,’ the reaction from hegemonic Russia was too strong for the weakened Polish kingdom, which shortly disappeared from the political map of Europe due to three progressive partitions in the late eighteenth century.

Nie pozwalamliberum vetoSejm — Polska nierządem stoi — 5 Translator’s note: Štúr may be right about not all Poles being angels at the time of the Partitions, and some working actively to further the plans of the partitioning powers at the cost of their own country. But the manner in which he phrases this treason, excusing, or at least mitigating, its shame on account of ‘service’ to a ‘fraternal’ tribe ‘more capable and better suited to rule’ (the Russians) must rankle the Polish eye. It is this kind of attitude that goes furthest toward explaining why there were so few Pan-Slavs in Poland.

Translator’s note: 6 Galicia, or Halicz, was that part of Poland that fell to Austria during the partitions. Stretching from areas neighbouring Moravia and Slovakia in the west into a large portion of today’s Ukraine, the major cities were Lwów and Kraków. The relationship between Poles and Ukrainians has always been a complicated one, exacerbated in the XIX century by the Polish nobility’s often harsh treatment of peasants, many of whom were Ruthenes (Ukrainians) in eastern Galicia. Here, Štúr may be referring to the so-called Rabacja or ‘Galician s*******r’ of 1846, a b****y peasant uprising against the (mainly Polish) aristocracy, or the demands of Ukrainian representatives to the Slavic Congress in 1848 for the ethnic division of Galicia — something diametrically opposed to what the Pan-Slavs were trying to achieve — or both. These events were fresh in the minds of all in 1853, when Slavdom and the World of the Future was first published.

RabacjaSlavdom and the World of the Future7 Of 1848, with which the Slavic Congress in Prague came to an end.

8 The afore-mentioned Rabacja, which many suggest was fomented by the Austrian authorities in order to put down a conspiracy of Polish nobles, centred in Kraków.

Rabacja9 The Union of Brześć (1595) united Orthodox dioceses in Poland with the Roman Catholic Church. While retaining their own liturgical traditions, including the right of priests to marry, the Unici or “Uniates” recognise the supremacy of the Pope. The church exists to this day and is often referred to as the “Greek Catholic Church.” It remains a bone of contention in Ukraine and Russia.

Unici10 Perhaps in an effort to underscore the ethnic unity of the Slavs, Štúr uses the term ‘western Serbs’ here, as he uses ‘southern Serbs’ later on to speak of the Serbs proper. He was not the only one to do so; until very recently, the Slavs inhabiting Lusatia were spoken of as ‘Lusatian Serbs,’ although the term ‘Sorbs’ has now come into general use.

11 It is possible that Štúr means Ukrainian here, the language of the Ruthenes. He would not be far wrong; all of the other languages (or ‘dialects’ as he would put it) belong either to the West Slavic or South Slavic subgroups; Ukrainian, like Russian and Belorussian, belong to the East Slavic tongues. It is the only such language in former Austria-Hungary.

12 Acceding to their pleas for military aid against the rebellious masses during the Spring of the Peoples.

13 That of the Decembrists.

14 I.e. Austria, or the Habsburgs, — an existing and thus ‘positive’ nucleus around which to develop Slavic autonomy, rather than creating a new Slavic federation ex nihilo, as it were.

ex nihilo15 A reference to the putting down of the revolts in the 1848 Spring of the Peoples. The Russians aided the Austrians in dealing with the nationalist rebels in Hungary, which most concerns Štúr the Slovak.

16 Russian and German: ‘I am not your brother.’

17 Matthew 8:22.

18 ‘Long live the ban and the Croats, together united.’

19 Mostly in Part II, which we omit here. Among other causes of the progressive fall of the West are a decline in morality, and an abandonment of Christianity, which Štúr blames on the influence of Marxism.

20 Rather confusingly, Štúr uses the term ‘Greek Catholic’ here.

21 While it is true that historians often point to the democratic excesses of the Polish nobility, and the lack of a strong central authority, not to say an absolutist monarch, as one of the contributing factors in the decline and eventual disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe, methinks that Štúr doth here protest too much. The first king elected after the extinction of the Jagiellonian dynasty at the death of Zygmunt II August in 1572, was the French prince Henri Valois (1551 – 1589, known in Poland as Henryk Walezy). Poland, famed during the Reformation as the ‘paradisus hereticorum’ on account of its broad tolerance of Protestants dissenting from the Catholic faith, sent a delegation to Paris before Henri’s formal accession to the throne in order to have him swear, before the altar in Notre Dame, to uphold the Warsaw Confederation, which guaranteed freedom of religion in Poland. It was important to have the king take this oath because, as was well known, Henri was one of the motive forces behind the s*******r of French Huguenots known as the ‘St Bartholomew’s Day m******e’ in 1572. When the prince attempted to demur, Hetman Jan Zborowski of the Polish delegation stepped forth with the words Si non iurabis, non regnabis! [‘If you don’t so swear, you shall not rule!’] One would think that the Lutheran Štúr, who argues against religious intolerance in so many of his works, including the present one, would at least be able to appreciate this constriction of the king’s ‘rights.’

Si non iurabis, non regnabis! 22 In the old Polish Republic, the zajazd was an execution of a nobleman’s rights by armed force — which could be seen as a strong man taking the law into his own hands, with no-one to oversee or prevent his actions. The Polish national epic, Pan Tadeusz, composed by Adam Mickiewicz in the early 1830s, has just such a zajazd as one of its leitmotifs, hence the subtitle, Ostatni zajazd na Litwie [‘the last foray in (the Polish province of) Lithuania’].

zajazdPan TadeuszzajazdOstatni zajazd na Litwie23 The Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807 – 1815).

24 D’ailleurs les Polonais m’ont paru peu propres à remplir mes vues. C’est un peuple passioné et léger. Tout se fait chez eux par fantaisie et rien par système. Leur enthusiasme est violent, mais ils ne savent ni le régler ni le prepétuer. Cette nation porte sa ruine dans son caractère.

D’ailleurs les Polonais m’ont paru peu propres à remplir mes vues. C’est un peuple passioné et léger. Tout se fait chez eux par fantaisie et rien par système. Leur enthusiasme est violent, mais ils ne savent ni le régler ni le prepétuer. Cette nation porte sa ruine dans son caractère.25 Where the Frankfurt Parliament held its deliberations.

26 An allusion to the Polish general Józef Bem (1794 – 1850), who fought for the Magyars during the 1848 Revolution. Somewhat of a renegade, he later fled to the Ottoman Empire and embraced Islam, after being appointed Governor of Aleppo.

27 Again, Bem springs to mind here, as does Adam Mickiewicz, who died in Turkey, attempting to raise a Polish legion to fight on the Ottoman side against the Russians during the Crimean War.

28 Ljudevit Gaj (1809 – 1872), Croatian publicist, publisher of the Novine Horvatzke [Croatian News].

Novine Horvatzke 29 It seems that in using this word, Štúr is not referring to the sons of the Tsar, but the ‘little tsars’ of the other autonomous realms he admires: Serbia and Montenegro.

30 Štúr employs this term in its original sense — a collection of elders, from the Latin senex.

senex.31 Matthew 6:23, Luke 12:31. The entire quote reads ‘Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.’