magnate, Count Matthew of Trenčín, 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 Tót in place-names shows the former presence of Slovaks: those who take the Magyar language and attitude are called Magyarones. 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 Čech, the difference being bridged by the transitional dialects of Moravia: though Miklosich has classed it as a variety of Čech, 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 ř 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 Čech, 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 Čech, the last to Little Russian; the Central dialects exhibit less decided features. The Slovak dialects spoken in Moravia have been well investigated by Bartoš, 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, Čech missionaries, colonists and refugees had brought with them their Bible and service books; Čech 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. Bernolák (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 Štúr, Josef Hurban and M. Hodža 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 Čech. However, Šafařík the great Slavist and the poet Kollár continued to write in Čech, the argument being that Slavs 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 Štur (mostly poets) have been O. Sladkovič, S. Chalupka, V. Pauliný-Tót, and at present Ország-Hviezdoslav and Svetozár Hurban-Vajanský. 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.
Bibliography.—R. W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary: a History of the Slovaks (1909), gives all that can be required, with special chapters on Popular Art, Poetry and Music by D. Jurkovič the architect, S. Hurban-Vajanský and M. Lichard the composer. See also T. Čapek, The Slovaks (New York, 1906); Dr E. Stodola, Prispevok ku Statistike Slovenska (contribution to statistics of Slovakland) (Turocz S. Marton, 1902); Fr. Sasinek, Die Slovaken (Prague, 1875); S. Czambel, in Die österreichische Monarchie in Wort und Bild; Ungarn; vol. v. pp. 434 sqq. (Vienna); K. Kálal, Die Unterdruckung der Slovaken (Prague, 1903); J. Borbis, Die evangelisch-lutheranische Kirche Ungarns (Nordlingen, 1861), gives the religious history; J. Vlček, Dejiny Literatúry Slovenskej (history of Slovak literature) (Turocz S. Marton, 1889; Russian trans., Kiev, 1889); Sbornik Slovenských Národnich piesní (collection of Slovak Popular Songs, &c), published by the Matica (1870–1874); Slovenské Spevy (Slovak Ballads) (Tur. S. Mart., 1882); D. Jurkovič. Les Outrages populaires des Slovaques, text in Čech, headings in French (Vienna, 1906) ; J. Loos, Wörterbuch der slovakischen, ungarischen und magyarischen Sprache (Budapest, 1871); L. Štúr, Nauka reči Slovenskej (Science of Slovak Speech) (Pressburg, 1846); J. Victorin, Grammatik der slowakischen Sprache (Practical) (Budapest, 1878); S. Czambel, Prispevky k dejinám jazyka Slovenského (Budapest, 1887); Rukovät Spisovnej reči Slovenskej (Handbook of Literary Slovak) (Tur. S. Mart., 1902); Slováci a ich reč (Slovaks and their speech) (Budapest, 1903), cf. a review in Archiv f. Slav. Phil. xxvi. p. 290 ; Fr. Pastrnek, Beiträge zur Lautlehre der slowakischen Sprache (Vienna, 1888); Fr. Barto, Dialektologie Moravská with specimens (Brünn, 1886); A. Šembera, Základové Dialektologie Čecho-slovenské (Foundations of Čecho-Slovak Dialectology) (Vienna, 1864).
(E. H. M.)
SLOVENES [Slovenci, Ger. Winden, to be distinguished from the Slovaks (q.v.) and from the Slovinci (see Kashubes) west of Danzig], a Slavonic people numbering about 1,300,000. The chief mass of them lives in Austria, occupying Carniola (Krajina, Krain), the southern half of Carinthia (Chorutania, Koroško, Kärnten) and Styria (Stajersko, Steiermark) and some of the northern part of Istria; a small division of them is found over the Italian border in the vale of Resia; others in the extreme south-west of Hungary. Their neighbours on the south-west are Italians, on the west and north Germans: history and place-names point to Slovenes having formerly held parts of Tirol, Salzburg and Austria Proper; and on the east they have given up south-west Hungary to the Magyars; to the south they have the kindred race of the Croats. The boundary on this side is difficult to fix, as the transition is gradual and a certain dialect of Croatian (marked by the use of kaj = “what”) is by some considered to have been originally Slovene (see Croatia-Slavonia). Even within the limits above defined the Slovenes are much mixed with Germans, especially in the towns; only in Carniola are they fairly solid. Here they call themselves Krajinci rather than Slovenes, in fact everywhere the general term gives place to local names, because the race is so much split up geographically, dialectically and politically that consciousness of unity is of rather recent growth. The main intellectual centre has been Laibach (Ljubljana) and next to it Klagenfurt (Celovec); in Graz (Gradec) the German element, and in Görz (Gorica) the Italian, predominates.
The Slovenes arrived in these parts in the 7th century, apparently pressed westwards by the Avars. By A.D. 595 they were already at war with the Bavarians, later they formed part of Samo’s great Slavonic empire and were not quite out of touch with other Slavs. On its collapse they fell under the yoke of the Bavarians and Franks. At first they had their own princes, but in time these gave place to German dukes and margraves, who had, however, to use the native tongue on certain occasions. These fiefs of the empire finally fell to the Habsburgs and never gave them any trouble, hence their language has had freer play than that of most of the Austrian Slavs: they have been allowed to use it in primary and secondary schools and to some extent in local administration. The Slovenes were very early (beginning with the 8th century) Christianized by Italian and German missionaries; to them we owe the Freisingen fragments, confessions and part of a sermon, the earliest monuments, not merely of Slovene but of any Slavonic. The MS. dates from c. 1000, but the composition is older. The language is not pure Slovene, but seems to be an adaptation of an Old Slavonic translation. Yet it is enough to show that Old Slavonic is not Old Slovene. Kocel, a prince on the Platten See, to whom Cyril and Methodius (see Slavs) preached on their way to Rome, was probably a Slovene, but no traces of their work survive in this quarter. Except for a few 15th-century prayers and formulae we do not find any more specimens of Slovene until the Reformation, when Primus Truber translated a catechism, the New Testament and other works (Tübingen, 1550–1582), and J. Dalmatin issued a splendid Bible (Wittemberg, 1584), with an interesting vocabulary to make his work intelligible to any Slovene or Croat: at the same time and place A. Bohorizh (zh = č) issued a good grammar (Arcticae Horulae, &c). To counteract this the Roman Catholics translated the work of their English apologist Stapleton, but their final policy was to burn all the Slovene books they could find, so that these are extremely rare. The policy was successful and only about 15% of the
