EN
The author examines the definitions of the terms ethnicity, nation, and nationalism in the context of the development of the Slovak national movement of the 19th century. He concludes that, according to Anthony D. Smith’s typology, the Slovaks were an ethnic community striving to achieve an equal position with other nations and ethnicities in Hungary. According to the author, this effort had a clearly positive ethical and moral dimension aimed at the growth, development, and cultivation of the Slovak ethnicity. He documents this in the work of Ján Kollár, although he admits that Kollár also makes negative statements about other nations, especially Magyars and Germans, whom he accused of trying to eliminate the Slavs.