I. Vajk Szakonyi
How they formed their Nation.
The Most recent Research into the Hungarian Homecoming
PART ONE
The Tóts or, as they call themselves, the Slovaks, just as the other minorities in Hungary, the Rumanians, Germans and Serbs, settled in large groups in the areas they now occupy, only at the time of the Wars with the Turks and later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was only after the Turkish Wars and during the eighteenth century, that historians provided proofs of the existence of the Slovaks as a people in this territory.
It is a known historical fact that, at the time of the death of King Mátyás Corvinus in 1490, 80% of the population of Hungary (four million), was Hungarian. During the 150-year struggle with the Turks, the Hungarian population of the southern periphery of Hungary remained untouched but, at the same time, the Hungarians living in the southern and central parts of Hungary were almost totally destroyed. In order to complete the destruction, the Hapsburg Empire, when they “liberated” the country, entirely annihilated the remaining population in these areas. According to contemporary historians, one could travel a hundred kilometers without meeting one person.
After the Peace Treaty of Karlóca of 1699, when the country, except for the Temes territory, was liberated from the 150-year Turkish occupation, the population of Hungary numbered 2.5 million (reduced from 4 million) and of these, the Hungarian population did not even make up one million. This means that from the time of King Mátyás, the Hungarian population of 80% was reduced to 35%. Since the territory was depopulated, the Hapsburgs resettled the territories with other ethnic groups and the number of Hungarians was further reduced to less than 30%. At the same time, the Slovaks in Felvidék, (northern Hungary) at the time of King Mátyás, numbered no more than a quarter of a million and, at the end of the nineteenth century, their numbers had grown to 2 million. While the Hungarians were fighting their life and death struggle against the Turks, their numbers were reduced to one-third of their numbers at the time of King Mátyás, and the Slovaks numbers increased eight-fold. The great increase in population growth among the Slovaks indicates that this was not a natural progression. It is obvious that this was the result of an influx of population, which will be addressed in more detail later on.
Before we address this question, let us find out who the Slovaks were, where they came from and from which people they originated and when; under what circumstances they established their identity as a people and how their name was changed to Slovak from Tót, which had been their name as an ethnic group in Hungary for a thousand years.
It is important to mention that the Hungarians, right after their Homecoming in A.D. 896, called not only Moravian Slavs who were living in Felvidék, or the northern Slavs “Tót”, but they called all the people of Slavic origin who were living in the Carpathian Basin, or Hungary, by this name. At the same time, the Slav peoples who were living outside of the Carpathian Basin, like Russians, Poles, Czechs, Moravians, Croatians, Serbs were never called “Tót” but their own national name was used. (Dr. Kniezsa)
The proof of this can be found in the Árpád documents in several different places. For example the King of Hungary was named King of the Croatians, the Tóts, the Bosnians, the Dalmatians, and King of Ráma and Havasalföld (the lower Danube). In this list the land of the Tóts was named alongside Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia and this is proof that, in the Middle Ages, the land of the Tóts was a territory neighboring the above territories. It lay between the rivers Dráva and Száva and included Zágráb, Kőrös and Varasd. (The Slovaks (Tóts) now claim the Hungarian Felvidék as their territory.) The Hungarian maps from before the time of the Turkish invasion show that the country of the Tóts lay in the south-west section of Hungary and not in the northern section which is Felvidék, now Slovakia.
Returning to the question of the origin of the Tóts/Slovaks, we have to mention that there are several contradictory theories in existence. The historians who recorded their theory of the origins of the Slovaks did so in their own political interest.
Among these theories, the Hungarian version is the only one, which can be proven by contemporary documents and historical facts.
The first theory of the Slovak origins was naturally written and propagated by the Slovaks themselves. The second comes from the neighboring Czech people. The third version is that which the Hungarians write about the origins of the Slovaks. (See: Magyar Tajékoztató Zsebkönyv, 1541 (Handbook of Hungarian Information); Dr. J. Karácsonyi: Történelmi jogunk, 1921. (Our Historical Right) and Dr. C. Moravek: Magyarországi nemzetiségei, 1934 (The Ethnic Minorities in Historic Hungary); Hadak útján: Magyarország életjoga a Kárpátmedencében, 1966 (Hadak útján: Hungary’s right to exist in the Carpathian Basin.) etc.)
According to the official Slovak theory, in the millennium before Christ, the Slovak tribe was the first to break away from the other Slav peoples and establish itself as an independent nation in the territory of the Vistula and Oder rivers and the Pripet marshes, which was the ancient home of the Slavs. Therefore the Slovaks are the “father” of all the Slav peoples and this most ancient Slav people migrated toward the south at the time of the birth of Christ. They first occupied the Czech-Moravia territory and the territory of Silesia. In the sixth century A.D., they crossed the Carpathian Mountains and their settlers reached the forested territory of Dévény-Módor, Nyitra and Zólyom. After that, they crossed the northern part of the Danube and went as far as Lake Balaton. In the western direction, they occupied a territory, which is now the largest part of Austria.
In addition to this theory, the Slovaks have a more romantic story of their origins, written by Safarik and Stőr, in the nineteenth century. They state that: “at one time the Slovaks were lords of both sides of the Danube as far as the Black Sea, from the Tátra Mountain to Saloniki.”
According to the Slovaks, the Great Moravian Empire, which lasted only a few decades, was not Moravian but Slovak, and Princes Ratislav and Svatopluk were also Slovaks. We mention this unfounded theory as a point of interest.
There is no doubt that, at the time of the Hungarian Homecoming, among the Avars, Székelys, Bulgars and the early Magyars there were some Slavs living in the territory of the Carpathian Basin.
According to Hungarian historians, (István Szabó: A magyarság életrajza, 1941(The Biography of the Hungarians); György Györffy: Magyarország történeti demográfiája, 1963 (Hungarian Historical Demographics) the total population of this territory was estimated to be 200,000 at the time of the Hungarian Homecoming. Out of these, the Northern and Southern Slavs probably numbered no more than 100,000.
The Moravian Slavs, after the Hungarian Homecoming, must have been very small in number because Constantine Porphyrogenitus writes: „The Turks (Magyars), who came to that territory, destroyed them and occupied the land where they live today. The remains of the Moravian Slav populace scattered and fled to the neighboring countries.” (Chapter 41) According to Hungarian documents, after the Hungarian Homecoming, the small number of Slavic loan words in the Hungarian language is another proof that there were very few Slavs in that territory at that time. The Slavs, whom the Magyars found in the Carpathian Basin, were completely assimilated into the half-million strong Hungarian people within a century. If the Slav populace had been numerous, as the Slav historians state, the Homecoming Hungarians would have been assimilated into their number, as happened with the Bulgars, a people related to the Hungarians, who were assimilated into the more numerous Balkan-Slav people.
The same thing happened to the Avars. Charlemagne, very skillfully using the struggles within the Avar Empire, made an alliance with the Bulgars, conquered the Avars in A.D. 796 and occupied the Avar territories which were outside the Hungarian borders. At this time, one of the Avar groups settled in the Balkans among the Croatians and the Dalmatians where, like the Bulgars, they were so completely slavicized in a short time that, in A.D. 906, they led a cavalry campaign against the Saxons which lasted several years and the Western chroniclers record them as slavicized Avars or Croatians. Constantine also made a note about the Avars who had settled among the Croatians: “Among the Croatians, there are many Avars.” (of Avar origin.)
It was still common knowledge in the Middle Ages that, among the Croatian leaders, there were many of Avar origin and, even today, there are Croatian families who are proud of their Avar origins.
We will now relate the Czech theory about the Slovak origins, which is still accepted and propagated among the Czechs. According to this, the Slovaks spoke a dialect of the Czech language and did not have their own separate language. This dialect did not separate from the Czech language until after the fall of the Great Moravian Empire, in A.D. 895, when the Magyars caused the Tóts/Slovaks to separate from the body of the Czech people. Therefore the Tóts/Slovaks are actually of Czech origin, and their separate linguistic and racial individuality came into reality after the separation. Later, their racial characteristics changed because they assimilated a large number of Hungarians into their ranks.
The Hungarian border guards, the Székelys, who were ordered to protect the Little Carpathians in Felvidék, and who were the descendants of the Vág and Nyitra Magyars, (896) now declare that they are Slovaks. This fact is supported by the statements of Dr. János Karácsonyi in his book: Történelmi jogunk, (Our Historical Right)1921, according to which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a quarter of a million Hungarians and about 200,000 Germans from the Szepes and Bányaváros territories were assimilated into the Slovaks.
The third theory about the origin of the Slovaks was written by the Hungarian historians. This contradicts the other two and the Hungarians can support every statement by historical and archeological data. Before I explain this theory, I need to talk about the two Hungarian Homecomings. Before the Homecoming of the Magyars led by Árpád, in A.D. 896, there was a previous Homecoming of the Magyars, in the seventh century, so the Homecoming of Árpád and his Magyars is known as the Second Homecoming. This means that there could not have been a large Slav populace in the Carpathian Basin in A.D. 896, at the time of the Second Homecoming. The Hungarian historians did not know how to explain that Simon Kézai, the most ancient Hungarian chronicler, in his Gesta, called Árpád’s homecoming the Second Homecoming because. until recently, there was no knowledge that, at the time of the Avar Empire, the later Avars who settled in the Carpathian Basin, circa A.D. 670, were really the Magyars of the First Magyar Homecoming. The fact that they were Magyars (or Ogurs) is supported by the contemporary Greek, Bulgar and Russian chroniclers, who mention this homecoming with the exact date.
Based on the numerous archeological findings, the Hungarian archeologists were able to distinguish between the remains of the early Avars, who were the true Avars, and the later Avars, known as “al-avarok” who posed as Avars, whose cemeteries the Magyars of Árpád continued to use. The most surprising discovery was that the strongly Mongoloid Avars, from Central Asia, with Chinese characteristics, who used straight swords, appeared to be related to two later waves of Magyars who came into the Carpathian Basin, who were quite distinct because they had the ivy-motif and a slightly bent sword. The motifs of the later “al-avarok” and the Homecoming Magyars were identical. They both used the braid and the griffin and the ivy motifs. These two peoples were not anthropologically different either. Therefore the grave-goods of the Homecoming Magyars have, until recently, been regarded as Avar artifacts.
Hungarian historians recognized that the Homecoming Magyars did not occupy those territories where the later Avars, or those of the First Homecoming, were living. These territories took up most of the central part of the country, which was habitable. Dr. Gyula László, whose research took several decades, proved that, in these territories, the geographical names were all in the Magyar language. If the Avars had spoken the Turkish language, then most of the geographical names would have been Turkish. Likewise, if there had been a large Slav population in these territories, the place names would have been in the Slavic language. On the contrary, in this huge territory, all geographical names were, without exception, Magyar, and many of them were Hungarian tribal names, although the tribes of the Magyars of Árpád occupied other areas of the Carpathian Basin. Based on these facts, Dr. László stated his final conclusions, that the people whom the Magyars of Árpád found there, who were called the later Avars, “were not Avars but Magyars”. Not only their language and culture were Magyar but also their tribal and place-names. Dr. Gyula László presented his theory about the tribal names of the Magyars of the Second Homecoming at the Kossuth Club in May, 1969.
Early Hungarian and foreign chronicles have always advocated that “the first wave of Magyars, the First Homecoming, took place around A.D. 650”. Finally the Hungarian historians of today have accepted this fact, and the idea of the Second Homecoming is regarded as the most important event in the history of Hungarian archeology. (Dienes: Magyar régészet története, 1968, p. 107(History of Hungarian Archeology) “Magyar Nemzet”, 1969, May 27.: Until now the explanation of Hungarian historians for the “Double Homecoming” was the following -- “Since the Magyars are brothers of the Huns, according to the chroniclers – ‘the First Hungarian Homecoming’ refers to the influx of the Huns into the Carpathian Basin.”
The explanation of the Double Hungarian Homecoming solves the historical riddle of how the western Chronicles of the time before Árpád could have written about “Christian Magyars and Christian Magyar princes, counts, bailiffs and bishops”. For example, in A.D. 826, Pope Eugene II. sent a letter “to the Christian Magyar Prince”.
Emperor Charles the Bald, in A.D. 858, made the Convent Decision and, among those who signed, was the name of a Magyar count, whose name later appeared in other documents. From the year A.D. 862, Hincmar, the Bishop of Rheims, repeatedly wrote about the Magyar incursions into Germany and on another occasion mentions that the city of Vienna was destroyed by the Magyars.
In A.D. 863, the Annals of Fulda, mention that the Bishop of Utrecht was Magyar. Between 872 and 882, Pope John VIII. repeatedly wrote letters to the Prince of the Magyars asking him to build churches. (We could mention many more data similar to these, for example data, which connected the Bishops of Salzburg with the Magyars.)
The authenticity of the Double Homecoming has, in the recent past, been supported by unexpected data from western sources. In the British Museum, in 1969, an ancient English or Celtic ship’s log from a boat was found, whose writers were Othere and Wulfstan, Norman sailors, who wrote in the year 870 about their journey along the Danube River, to “Megya (ar) orszag” (“Maegtja Londe”) (Magyar Land) which is located north of the Croatians surrounded by huge mountains. The most interesting fact about this information is that they made a note about the “Seakel” (Székely) people living here. (Hazai tudósítások, 1967, Number 22.)
The journey of the two Norman sailors, which took place in the Carpathian Basin before the Second Hungarian Homecoming, is supported by new facts which have surfaced, whose author was King Alfred the Great of England, who was a contemporary of Prince Árpád, and who died in 906.
PART TWO
Another book has recently been published (1965) on the subject of the First Homecoming: Egyed Rudnay: Attila Trilógia (The Trilogy of Attila). He quotes from western and ecclesiastical sources. He states that in the seventh and eighth centuries there existed in the northern territory of Hungary (Felvidék) an “earlier Hungary”. Rudnay calls this earlier Hungary “Black Hungary”. The western chronicles often mention a prince of this Black Hungary, by the name of Tudun who, with his light cavalry, helped Charlemagne to conquer the Avars. They also mention his conversion to Christianity in 797, approximately 100 years before the Homecoming of Árpád and his Magyars. The existence of Black Hungary is supported by the Russian chronicler, Nestor, who wrote about the battle between the White and Black Magyars in the territory of Kiev, which was won by the Magyars of Prince Álmos (Árpád’s father). (The Battle of the White and Black Magyars, or “The Battle between the Peoples) There is also a 1000-year old stone relief, picturing the battle, which is to be found in the cathedral of Kiev.
The Chronicle of Nestor contradicts the research of Rudnay. Nestor calls those Magyars of the First Homecoming, who settled in the territory of Hungary in the seventh century, “White Magyars”, and he calls the Magyars of Álmos “Black Magyars”.
Rudnay insists that the “Black Magyars” who were living in Felvidék (northern Hungary) and in the northern part of Transdanubia, were the Huns who remained in this area after the collapse of the Hun Empire, and whose other name was “Székely”. According to Rudnay, the Székely people did not remain in Transylvania until the Homecoming of Árpád, as historians used to believe, because the Field of Csigla, where they remained, was not in Transylvania, but was in the territory of Felvidék. This is why the western chronicles call the Black Magyars, who were in Hungary before the Second Homecoming, “Huns” or “Magyars” but never “Avars”. There is no doubt that documents from the time of the Árpád Dynasty mention that there were, living beside the Rivers Vág and Nyitra and in the counties of Mosony and Vas, Székely guards and also the “Szepes ten-lance Székelys”, who were resettled to Transylvania by the kings of the Árpád Dynasty.
The existence of the Black Magyars and Székelys in Felvidék indicates that there never could have been a large Slav populace in that territory. It also explains how the two Norman sailors on the Danube learned of the existence of the Székelys because, if the Székelys had been living in Transylvania (far from the Danube), these sailors would never have met them.
After this small detour, we return to the origin of the Slovaks and I repeat what we have learned so far. We can state that, by the eleventh century, just over one hundred years after the Homecoming of the Magyars of Árpád, the non-Magyar peoples living in the territory of the Carpathian Basin had been assimilated into the more numerous Magyar populace. So much so, that the memory of the Slavs, who lived there before the Homecoming, lived on only in the few Hungarian geographical names of southern-Slav (Pannon-Slav) origin.
After this we can state that there is no proof of the presence of the Tót/Slovak people in the Carpathian Basin before the time of the Homecoming, not even the probability, because there are no written or archeological findings. The existence of the large number of Hungarian geographical names from the tenth to the twelfth century underlines this fact. In later centuries, the Tóts/Slovaks have changed many of these names to their language but they have been unable to erase all traces of them.
We know that the Homecoming Magyars, in the beginning, settled beside the larger rivers and in the smaller hills and only later did they settle in the forested areas of the Carpathians, which they used as marchlands for their protection. For example, not long after the Homecoming, the Szepes ten-lance Székelys could be found on the plateau of Poprád. They called the peak of the Tátra Mountain “the Castle of Bors”, after the Magyar leader, Bors. (Anonymus) Not only Szepes County is full of pure ancient Magyar names but, in other counties in the most northern territories of Hungary, which are now purely Slovak, numerous pure Magyar names can be found, for example Turócz (in earlier writings Turuc, which is easy to imagine leads back to the Turuk, Török or Turk name.). Here, in the County of Turócz, in Blatnica, a gold artifact was excavated, belonging to a famous Magyar prince from the time before the Second Homecoming. (A gold battle-axe, ornamented with ancient Scythian motifs) Also in Felvidék there are ancient Magyar names, in the counties of Szepes, Sáros, Zólyom (Sólyom), Árva, Bars, Mára-maros, Ung, etc. The name Maros exists not only in the name Nagymaros near Esztergom at the curve of the Danube, but can be found also in India, in the province of Bihar, as the name of a large river called Maros.
The Homecoming Magyars encircled their settlement territory with an unpopulated marchland, which could have been 50-100 km. wide. Where entry to this marchland could be accessed, there were passes, which could be well defended. The documents prove without doubt that, at the time that the danger of western attacks began to diminish, 200 years after the Homecoming, in the time of King St. László (1077-1095), King Kálmán the Booklover (1095-1116) and under their descendants, the marchlands began to be populated.
The first settlers were Germans and Tóts. The latter, who are called Tót only in the Hungarian language, were white Croatians who migrated from Silesia, the last remnants of the Croatians who had been resettled to the Balkans by the Avars. (Ratčki) In order to prove the above statement, we quote clause No. 80 of King Kálmán the Booklover: “All the free people who work on other people’s land and the hospes (guests) like the Tóts or other foreigners shall pay the same tax as the rest of the nation.” Therefore the Tóts, who came in later, were not placed into serfdom but, as foreigners, they were given the status of freemen or hospes (guests). After the white Croatians, came other smaller groups of northern-Slav settlers. King Robert Károly in 1370, settled Tóts and Wends from the country of the Tóts, which was between the rivers Dráva and Száva, to the territory of Felvidék, to the valleys of the Vág and Nyitra rivers and the mining cities. (Iványi) The slavization of the “Siculus de Vag” or the Székelys of the Vág valley, probably began at this time.
After this, for several centuries, there is no mention of the Tóts in Felvidék. The first note about them is in the fifteenth century, when King Mátyás, for the purpose of taxation, made a list of all the family houses. According to this record, the populace of the Tóts was a maximum of a quarter of a million. In 1795, in Trencsén, Turócz, Árva, Liptó, Zólyom, in a territory of about 13.000 km˛, the populace of the Tóts/Slovaks, had increased ninefold. (Dr. Karácsonyi).
The Slovaks of today, in Felvidék, cannot be the descendants of the few Tóts who were living in the Carpathian Basin at the time of the Second Magyar Homecoming. The increase in their numbers was due to resettlements, which resembled a large migration of people, started by the Turkish conquerors, who forced out of their southern home the Croatians, Slovenes and the Vlachs (Wallachians) who lived on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.
After the start of the Turkish Wars, the population of the territory between the Dráva and Száva rivers was almost completely changed. The Turks first attacked the pure Magyar populace of the southern territories of Hungary, the counties of Szerém, Pozsega and Verőcze, whom the Turks either annihilated or carried away as slaves. Later the Croatians and Serbs from the Balkans settled into the depopulated territory of Szerém.
The Croatians were able to defend for a short while their ancient homeland of Száva-Kulpa in the mountains close to the shores of the Adriatic Sea. When the Turkish attacks increased, they had to leave their ancient home and resettle to the north, between the Dráva and Száva rivers.
The populace of the country of the Tóts -- Zágráb, Kőrös, Varasd, were mainly Slavonians, or descendants of the Pannon-Slavs from the time of the Second Homecoming. These people were also forced to flee toward the north, because of the large numbers of Croatians who entered their territory and settled among them. Since the Turks continued their incursions into the central part of Hungary, the populace fled to the western borders toward the less populated territory on the northern side of the Danube, to the more secure territory of Felvidék.
When the Slovenes/Slavons, fleeing from the Turks toward the north, arrived in Felvidék in large numbers, they gave their name to the Tóts and they became known as Slovaks. At that time the name, Slovene, was a collective name, referring to all the Slavs.
The Vlachs (Wallachians), mountain shepherds, who received their name from their occupation, goatherds, also fled from the Turks, from the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula toward the north. This name “Vlach” did not refer only to the Rumanians, but was also a collective name, which referred to all shepherd people.
The Vlachs (Wallachians) from the western Balkans appeared to be a curse from God, released on the agricultural settlers because their immoral culture accepted robbery and killing as a part of life. Their wandering herds of goats and sheep completely destroyed the forests and the farmlands.
There is no doubt that, racially, there was not much difference between the Slav people of the western Balkans and the eastern Vlachs (Wallachians), who at the same time settled in inhabited areas of forested mountains of the eastern Carpathians. The language of both peoples was almost entirely Slavic, which only under the cultural influence of the Transylvanian Hungarian princes began to become romanized.
The Western Vlachs (Wallachians), who originated from the territory bordering the Adriatic Sea, were nomad Slavs who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wandered in large groups to the north and settled in Felvidék. We learn about this from Hóman-Szekfű Magyar történet, (Hungarian History)Volume III., p. 469-479, who provide surprising data supported with maps of the area where these people settled.
The Austrian Emperors intended to resettle these wild mountain Vlachs permanently in the territory between the Dráva and Száva rivers and use them as border-guards. Emperor Ferdinand II, in 1630, and Leopold I. in 1667, passed a law the “Vlach Statutum” which designated them as border-guards. The mention of the name “Vlach” is the proof that the Southern Slavic Vlachs, whom the Hungarians call “Rác”, continued to be called Vlachs until this time.
The numbers of the Tóts in Felvidék increased rapidly as a result of the Turkish wars and their further growth was aided by the Czech Hussite struggles. In 1620, when the Catholic army of the Hapsburgs decisively defeated the Protestant Hussites, at the Battle of Fehérhegy, the Hussites fled in large numbers to Felvidék, where they found refuge with the Protestants there. One of these Hussite groups received from the Transylvanian Prince, Gábor Bethlen, 32 villages from his own land, where they could settle. Another group of Hussites settled in the city of Beszterce, where they soon became slavicized, just as previously the Southern Slav Slovenes, Croatians, Vlachs and a smaller number of Poles and Ruthenians. These peoples later became known as Slovaks.
Thus, at the end of the eighteenth century, a new people was born, the two million strong Slovak nation, which was able to develop and multiply without any interference from the Turks and, after the Turks had withdrawn from Hungary, they were able to resettle many of their numbers into the depopulated territories of Hungary, the Great Hungarian Plain, Bácska, Temesköz and Szerémseg. Many Slovaks settled in Nyirség, the county of Békes, Temesköz (Bánság) and the Tót villages around Pest and in counties, which until this time had been purely Hungarian, such as Bars, Hont, Zemplén, Nógrád, Nyitra and Pozsony.
The Slovaks, who regard their Slovak name as an ancient name, actually only picked up that name in the late eighteenth century and, since this time, it has become generally used. Antal Bernolak, a Roman Catholic priest and writer (1762-1813) used the name Slovak for the first time, referring to the Tóts. At the same time, Bernolak not only gave the name to the Tóts, but he is considered to be the founder or “father” of the Slovak language and literature, because he used the “middle” Slovak dialect as a literary language in order to combat the Czech influence on the Slovak language. This was necessary because the Lutherans made up one sixth of the Slovak people and had been the most cultured segment from the time of the Hussites. These Lutherans used the Bible written in the Czech language and used the Czech language in their church liturgy. Therefore, there was a danger that the Slovaks, who had no literary language at that time, would adopt the Czech language, which in time would have meant that the Catholic religion would have taken second place to the Lutheran religion. The Hungarian Roman Catholic clergy also noticed this danger and therefore, from the time of the Counter-Reformation, the Hungarians turned against the Czech language and supported the Slovak language. With this, the Catholic clergy became the main support for the formation of the independent Slovak nation. Bishop Péter Pázmány became the strongest advocate for this independent status of Slovakia. He established a seminary for Slovak speaking priests at the University of Nagyszombat. “May the Tót (Slovak) people have leaders of their own blood.”
Before the eighteenth century, the leaders of the Tóts, when talking about their own nation, used the term “Hungarus”. For example: Daniel Krman, of Slovak origin, a priest-poet from the valley of the Vág, who was several times a diplomatic envoy, in the service of Ferenc Rákóczi II., when he stated his national origin, always stated “Hungarus”.
The Tóts generally used “Hungaricae Nationum” to describe their nation but they also used “SLAVONICAE NATIONUM” which is another proof of the Southern Slavic origin of the Slovaks. For example the Diet of Zsolna, in the year 1708, used “Slavonicae nationum” as the name of the Tót people.
Moreover, when the name “Slovak” first appeared in a written document in the sixteenth century, it was a family name from Felvidék and was not the name of the Tót or “Slovak” people.
Taking all the above-mentioned historical facts into consideration, we can see without doubt that the Slovaks, became an established separate people only at the end of the eighteenth century, when they adopted the name “Slovak”.
Therefore the theory, presented by the present day Slovaks, of their origin in the ancient past, is not valid and on this basis, they had no right to claim the Hungarian part of Felvidék (northern Hungary), which they continue to possess because they are in the majority today. They managed to obtain this territory by skillfully manipulating the political situation, just as the Austrians in Burgenland, the Serbs in Délvidék, and the Rumanians in Transylvania. These peoples too, have no right to permanently keep these territories of the 1000-year old Hungary, which they obtained by falsification of the facts.
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