Slovakia and the Slovaks
However, even today, many confuse Slovakia with Slovenia, another of the many Slavic countries. Slovenia is an alpine (and maritime) republic, situated south of Austria. Slovakia is located under the upper arc of the Carpathians, north of Austria and Hungary. The Slovak section of the Carpathians is dominated by the High Tatras, which at the time of the national revival (19th century) became a cherished subject of Slovak poets and even made it to the national anthem as a symbol of the defiance of time and future freedom. The river Danube, also often revered by Slovak poets, forms Slovakia's southern (ethnic and state) border. Mountains and valleys characterise Slovakia; there are few lowlands. This geographical profile conserved individual regions at the expense of national unity and dialects at the expense of a unified written language.
Slovak literature, which "borrowed" the languages of its neighbours (Czech, German, and partly Hungarian) or was focused on Latin, was "hidden" from sight equally well for a long time. The first attempt at an independent written language was made as late as the 1780s and was associated with the activities of the Bernolákites (after the linguist A. Bernolák), a group of Catholics. This attempt was not very successful, although one of the greatest Slovak poets, Ján Hollý, wrote in "Bernolák". The written Slovak which is developed and cultivated today appeared in 1843 through the promotion of a Central Slovak dialect to a nationwide language. It "assumed power" in literature immediately after its appearance. The generation of "Štúrites" (after the central figure of the national revival Ľudovít Štúr), who entered literature through Czech (slovakised Czech), quickly reoriented on Slovak. In a short time, Slovak poets and prose writers adopted the language and applied themselves to wonderful creations which have not lost their vitality.
The process of the birth of a national identity, reinforced by a national written language, was so long for many reasons. One was the absence of an independent state; there was also no political, administrative and cultural centre, which is usually a state's capital. Another quite important reason was the so-called pan-Slav idea, which formed the first rung on the ladder to national awareness and was developed in the 19th century, mainly by Slovaks - the poet Ján Kollár and European scholar Pavol Jozef Šafárik. It was based on the idea that all Slavs formed one nation consisting of separate "tribes". In Kollár's concept, Slovaks were not an independent "tribe", but constituted a joint tribe with the Czechs. The linguistic proximity of Czech and Slovak and the non-existence of a codified written Slovak language led to the simple conclusion that they were one nation (tribe), whose language had acquired two forms after the Czechs and Slovaks found themselves in different states - the Slovaks in Hungary and the Czechs in Austria. This mistaken result even formed a part of state doctrine when Czechoslovakia was established in 1918, causing internal instability.
Incidentally, neither creator of the pan-Slav idea, that is, neither Ján Kollár nor Pavol Jozef Šafárik, adopted Slovak as his written language in 1843, and both continued to write in Czech. Nor did the Czech side see the Štúrites' step in a positive light. It was regarded as "segregation", as the division of one whole into two parts, even as betrayal. At the time, Ľudovít Štúr reacted to critical Czech voices as follows: "Maybe some of them will also think that we want to tear ourselves away from the Czechs, but let God preserve us from separation. He who tears himself away from his brothers will fall under the worst response before our nation. We will remain, as we were, in that union with them, adopt whatever they bring of significance, stand with them in spiritual unity, and where we can do them good, we want to do it, as we expect it in return from them as brothers." Štúr also came from the "tribe" concept, but maintained the position that Czechs and Slovaks belonged to two "tribes", declaring it as follows: "We Slovaks are a tribe and as a tribe we have our own dialect, which is different and distinct from Czech. This dialect (Štúr means Czech) helped us while our Slovak people slept intellectually and indeed without its intellectual nourishment mainly in religious affairs it could not have arisen, but now that it has been resurrected, as we see every day, our Slovak nation will not simply wait for what another gives it, and merely receive, but will create itself and provide for itself with its own intellectual produce." The word "nation", which appears in Štúr's text, means that Štúr already sees the terms "tribe" and "nation" as synonyms. And his words saying that Slovaks had arisen and could therefore "provide" for themselves intellectually relate to the ongoing period of national revival (end of the 18th but mainly the first half of the 19th century).
At that time, the national emancipation movement was accelerating in the whole of central Europe and the Balkans. The nations imprisoned in Austro-Hungary or suffering under Turkish rule (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croatians, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc.) were striving for freedom and national rights. In this, they recalled their own history and derived a right to independence from it. A famous chapter in the history of Slovaks (but also Czechs and Moravians) was the period of the Great Moravian Empire, which extended along the central Danube area and merged the territories of Panonia, Slovakia, Moravia, Bohemia, Lusatia, etc. The Great Moravian Empire only lasted a short time (around 50 years), but it entered Slovaks' awareness and strengthened their desire for freedom and a free nation and state development over the centuries. The Great Moravian Empire was not just the first state of Slovakia's forefathers; it also meant the beginning of Slovak culture and literature.