8 - Slovak Slavism and Panslavism

Summary

There is a widely held view that the Slovak people have long associated themselves with a generalised Slavic identity and that they presented themselves to the outside world simply as Slavs. It was only much later, so this argument goes, that they began to identify themselves as a separate Slavic nation. It has also been argued that the words slovanský (Slavic) and slovenský (Slovak) were rarely differentiated; the Slovaks sometimes referred to themselves as Slovania (Slavs), and sometimes as ‘Slovaks’. Further, it has been contended that the author of this idea of Slavic reciprocity was the Slovak poet, Ján Kollár (1793–1852), who composed the epic poem Daughter of Sláva, and On the Literary Reciprocity Between the Slavic Tribes and Dialects, which was also published in German.

Another influential Slovak author from this period was Pavol Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861), who wrote pioneering Slavic works such as Slavic Antiquities and Slavic Ethnography. Other Slovak scholars also developed the terms ‘Slavic reciprocity’ (slovanská vzájomnost') and ‘Panslavism’, which are still in use in specialist texts today. Those who are interested in the history of the Slavic nations may also recall that the author of one particularly influential Panslavic programme was L'udovít Štúr (1815–1856), who was an important figure in the gradual development of a Slovak national identity.

While this brief description is largely accurate, it is necessary to be far more precise about the concept of a Slovak identity. The expressions of Slovak Slavism mentioned above cannot be understood without examining how it developed.