EARLY SLOVAK-HUNGARIAN DEBATES ABOUT THE MORAVIAN PRISTINE STATES. INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL MOTIVES IN FORMING NATIONAL HABITS

• Authors: Kollai István
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Present paper attempts to scrutinize the 18th-century interpretational debates between the Slovak and Hungarian proto-nationalist circles and persons about the Great Moravian past and about the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. The article does not intend to introduce the contradicting historical narratives in detail, or analyse the righteousness of stances in light of later research results, but to focus on a special dimension of these disputes: i.e. how emotional and intellectual motives could play a role in the evolvement of identity debates. The conceptual framework of the research is that beside clear interest-motives (including personal or collective interests, as struggle for prestige or position), the feeling of being hurt by “untrue” statements could also bolster personal identification processes and inter-ethnic boundary-making processes. The paper’s general contribution to identity studies and conflict studies is that – beside interest-based motives, like struggle for power and (personal or collective) domination – emotional and cognitive motives are also relevant in nation-building, while their strong interrelatedness seems to be also evident. Methodologically, the early Slovak-Hungarian debates on Great Moravia, Svatopluk or on the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition – despite the scarcity of sources – seems to be a suitable research terrain due to the lack of institutionalized structures of nationalization; hence, bottom-up identification and boundary-making processes might be easier to detect than in later ages.

Keywords

EN

SLOVAK; HUNGARIAN; GREAT MORAVIA; CYRILLO-METHODIAN TRADITION

• Publisher: Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre
• Journal: Konštantínove listy
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 102 - 111

Contributors

author

Kollai István

• Comenius University Bratislava, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3086-0840

Identifiers

DOI

10.17846/CL.2023.16.2.102-111