Slovakia is the “right hand” half of the former Czechoslovakia. Why the two halves ever came together, and why they have split apart, becomes more clear from this short history. I will present the story up to the modern era in this post, and present the 20th century story — which brings to light some very interesting details indeed — in a subsequent one or two.

For background, examine this map which, though dated, is interesting for showing the migrations of the Slavs. In the period of AD 400-600, one group migrated westward, then split into the Czech, Poles, and Slovaks. A south-bound group divided into the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. The third major group doubled back eastward and divided into the Russians, ByeloRussians, and Ukrainians.

In the region of Slovakia, nestled between the Carpathian mountains and the Danube River, the Quadi tribe, which harassed the Romans, was evicted by the Huns 400-455. The Huns were displaced by the Heruli (until 491) who were then evicted by the Lombards. The Lombards crossed the Danube southward, perhaps in response to pressure from the oncoming Slavs. By 527, the Slovaks were in possession, and remain to this day. But soon the Mongol Avar tribe pushed through the area, penetrating into the Frankish kingdom by the end of the century. The Duke of Bavaria pushed back. Finally one Samo — it is not certain whether he was Slovak or Frank — was elected king in 627, and freed the Slovaks from both the Franks and Avars. But upon his death in 662, the tribe gradually fades from view until the rise of Charlemagne in the early 800s, when “Greater Moravia” appears on the stage — a territory which included the later Bohemia (to the west) and Slovakia (to the east) and parts of modern Poland and Croatia.

Moimir I (815-846) expelled rival Pribina of Nitra (see map). Receiving baptism by the German bishop Urolf, he set up bishoprics in Nitra and Olomouc (100 miles due north of Bratislava), and aided the work of German missionaries. During his rule, there was a Slovak delegation at the Congress of Frankfurt in 822, and the first church was consecrated in Nitra in 833.

His successor Rastislav (846-879) made a decision with far-reaching import from our perspective. Himself installed by interference from the German emperor, he nonetheless feared the excessive entanglement of church and empire; especially as such an arrangement interfered with his own plans. Desiring to continue the Christian mission yet be free of the German hegemony, he appealed to the eastern Emperor Michael III in Constantinople. Michael commissioned Cyril and Methodius to continue the missionary work. The diligence of these men left a deep mark. They translated the Bible into the vernacular, in the process inventing the Cyrillic alphabet. This Bible was the first translation into the people’s language anywhere (excepting Greek and Latin). The Germans complained to Rome, but Pope Hadrian blessed the work of Cyril and Methodius and approved the Slavonic liturgy. (Recall that this was before the great east-west division.)

The earlier-banned Pribina and his son Kocel had become hereditary rulers of the Mark Pannonia (region south and west of the Danube at the left end of modern Hungary). They sponsored the education of pious young men in the Slavonic rite.

Meanwhile, nephew Svatopluk I usurped the throne, and sent Rastislav to the mercy of the Germans. The Germans also arrested Methodius on the charge of preaching in their territory; during that ordeal, the priests of Pannonia kept the flame burning. Kovac successfully appealed the treatment of Methodius to Rome. However, none of this happens quickly, and during the confusion, and continuing after Methodius’ death in 885, the Germans were insinuating their influence, with the Latin rite slowly superceding the Slavonic.

The usurper Svatopluk was able to hold his own militarily, and at his death in 894, Great Moravia was at its zenith. But his successor Moimar II faced conflicts in every direction: from his cousin Slavs the Bohemians to the west, the Magyars (Hungarians) to the southeast, and the Germans to the southwest; coupled with distracting rivalries amongst his sons. The Czech Duke Borivoj seceded from Greater Moravia, appealing to the Empire for protection. (As far as I can tell, this was the first time the Bohemians and Slovaks separated as two separate peoples.) In 896 Duke Arnulf of Bavaria joined with the Magyars to wrest Pannonia from Greater Moravia; then double-crossed the Magyars by keeping it — at least so the Hungarians thought. The struggle between Latin/German and Slovak churches continued. In 901 Moimar made peace with the Germans. But in 907 “occurred one of the bloodiest battles in history. In three days the flower of the German army was destroyed, their Moravian allies scattered, and the Magyar hordes victorious. That was the end of Greater Moravia… And what had been a great empire was partitioned among the Magyar, Pole, and Czech” (p. 94). For four centuries, the Slovaks disappeared from the stage of the movers and shakers of history. It was largely the domain of Hungary, and indeed, at times, Slovakia was the only thing left even to the Hungarians. But the people of the land lived on… (continued here).

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, first installment (see contents).

[G13] In this book the presence of the Jews in Russia prior to 1772 will not be discussed in detail. However, for a few pages we want to remember the older epochs.

One could begin, that the paths of Russians and Jews first crossed in the wars between the Kiev Rus and the Khazars– but that isn’t completely right, since only the upper class of the Khazars were of Hebraic descent, the tribe itself being a branch of the Turks that had accepted the Jewish faith.

If one follows the presentation of J. D. Bruzkus, respected Jewish author of the mid 20^th century, a certain part of the Jews from Persia moved across the Derbent Pass to the lower Volga where Atil [west coast of Caspian on Volga delta], the capital city of the Khazarian Khanate rose up starting 724 AD. The tribal princes of the Turkish Khazars, at the time still idol-worshippers, did not want to accept either the Muslim faith – lest they should be subordinated to the caliph of Baghdad – nor to Christianity – lest they come under vassalage to the Byzantine emperor; and so the clan went over to the Jewish faith in 732. But there was also a Jewish colony in the Bosporan Kingdom [on the Taman Peninsula at east end of the Crimea, separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov] to which Hadrian had Jewish captives brought in 137, after the victory over Bar-Kokhba. Later a Jewish settlement sustained itself without break under the Goths and Huns in the Crimea; especially Kaffa (Feodosia) remained Jewish. In 933 Prince Igor [912-945, Grand Prince of Kiev, successor of Oleg, regent after death of Riurik founder of the Kiev Kingdom in 862] temporarily possessed Kerch, and his son Sviatoslav [Grand Prince 960-972] [G14] wrested the Don region from the Khazars. The Kiev Rus already ruled the entire Volga region including Atil in 909, and Russian ships appeared at Samander [south of Atil on the west coast of the Caspian]. Descendents of the Khazars were the Kumyks in the Caucasus. In the Crimea, on the other hand, they combined with the Polovtsy [nomadic Turkish branch from central Asia, in the northern Black Sea area and the Caucasus since the 10^th century; called Cuman by western historians; see second map, below] to form the Crimean Tatars. (But the Karaim [a jewish sect that does not follow the Talmud] and Jewish residents of the Crimean did not go over to the Muslim Faith.) The Khazars were finally conquered [much later] by Tamerlane [or Timur, the 14^th century conqueror].

A few researchers however hypothesize (exact proof is absent) that the Hebrews had wandered to some extent through the south Russian region in west and northwest direction. Thus the Orientalist and Semitist Abraham Harkavy for example writes that the Jewish congregation in the future Russia “emerged from Jews that came from the Black Sea coast and from the Caucasus, where their ancestors had lived since the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity.” J. D. Bruzkus also leans to this perspective. (Another opinion suggests it is the remnant of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.) This migration presumably ended after the conquest of Tmutarakans [eastern shore of the Kerch straits, overlooking the eastern end of the Crimean Peninsula; the eastern flank of the old Bosporan Kingdom] (1097) by the Polovtsy. According to Harkavy’s opinion the vernacular of these Jews at least since the ninth century was Slavic, and only in the 17^th century, when the Ukrainian Jews fled from the pogroms of Chmelnitzki [Bogdan Chmelnitzki, Ukrainian Cossack, 1593-1657, led the successful Cossack rebellion against Poland with help from the Crimean Tatars], did Yiddish become the language of Jews in Poland.

[G15] In various manners the Jews also came to Kiev and settled there. Already under Igor, the lower part of the city was called “Kosary”; in 933 Igor brought Jews that had been taken captive in Kerch. Then in 965 Jews taken captive in the Crimea were brought there; in 969 Kosaren from Atil and Samander, in 989 from Cherson and in 1017 from Tmutarakan. In Kiev western Jews also emerged.: in connection with the caravan traffic from west to east, and starting at the end of the eleventh century, maybe on account of the persecution in Europe during the first Crusade.

Later researchers confirm likewise that in the 11^th century, the “Jewish element” in Kiev is to be derived from the Khazars. Still earlier, at the turn of the 10^th century the presence of a “khazar force and a khazar garrison,” was chronicled in Kiev. And already “in the first half of the 11^th century the jewish-khazar element in Kiev played “a significant roll.” In the 9^th and 10^th century, Kiev was multinational and tolerant.

At the end of the 10^th century, in the time when Prince Vladimir [Vladimir I. Svyatoslavich 980-1015, the Saint, Grand Prince of Kiev] was choosing a new faith for the Russians, there were not a few Jews in Kiev, and among them were found educated men that suggested taking on the Jewish faith. The choice fell out otherwise than it had 250 hears earlier in the Khazar Kingdom. Karamsin [1766-1826, Russian historian] relates it like this: “After he (Vladimir) had listened to the Jews, he asked where their homeland was. ‘In Jerusalem,’ answered the delegates, ‘but God has chased us in his anger and sent us into a foreign land.’ ‘And you, whom God has punished, dare to teach others?’ said Vladimir. ‘We do not want to lose our fatherland like you have.’” After the Christianization of the Rus, according to Bruzkus, a portion of the Khazar Jews in Kiev also went over to Christianity and afterwards in Novgorod perhaps one of them – Luka Zhidyata – was even one of the first bishops and spiritual writers.

Christianity and Judaism being side-by-side in Kiev inevitably led to the learned zealously contrasting them. From that emerged the work significant to Russian literature, “Sermon on Law and Grace” ([by Hilarion, first Russian Metropolitan] middle 11^th century), which contributed to the settling of a Christian consciousness for the Russians that lasted for centuries. [G16] “The polemic here is as fresh and lively as in the letters of the apostles.” In any case, it was the first century of Christianity in Russia. For the Russian neophytes of that time, the Jews were interesting, especially in connection to their religious presentation, and even in Kiev there were opportunities for contact with them. The interest was greater than later in the 18^th century, when they again were physically close.

Then, for more than a century, the Jews took part in the expanded commerce of Kiev. “In the new city wall (completed in 1037) there was the Jews’ Gate, which closed in the Jewish quarter.” The Kiev Jews were not subjected to any limitations, and the princes did not handle themselves hostilely, but rather indeed vouchsafed to them protection, especially Sviatopolk Iziaslavich [Prince of Novgorod 1078-1087, Grand Prince of Kiev 1093-1113], since the trade and enterprising spirit of the Jews brought the princes financial advantage.

In 1113, Vladimir (later called “Monomakh”), out of qualms of conscience, even after the death of Sviatopolk, hesitated to ascend the Kiev Throne prior to one of the Svyatoslavich’s, and “exploiting the anarchy, rioters plundered the house of the regimental commander Putiata and all Jews that had stood under the special protection of the greedy Sviatopolk in the capital city. … One reason for the Kiev revolt was apparently the usury of the Jews: probably, exploiting the shortage of money of the time, they enslaved the debtors with exorbitant interest.” (For example there are indications in the “Statute” of Vladimir Monomakh that Kiev money-lenders received interest up to 50% per annum.) Karamsin therein appeals to the Chronicles and an extrapolation by Basil Tatistcheff [1686-1750; student of Peter the Great, first Russian historian]. In Tatistcheff we find moreover: “Afterwards they clubbed down many Jews and plundered their houses, because they had brought about many sicknesses to Christians and commerce with them had brought about great damage. Many of them, who had gathered in their synagogue seeking protection, defended themselves, as well as they could, and redeemed time until Vladimir would arrive.” But when he had come, “the Kievites pleaded with him for retribution toward the [G17] Jews, because they had taken all the trades from Christians and under Sviatopolk had had much freedom and power…. They had also brought many over to their faith.”

According to M. N. Pokrovski, the Kiev Pogrom of 1113 had social and not national character. (However the leaning of this “class-conscious” historian toward social interpretations is well-known.)

After he ascended to the Kiev throne, Vladimir answered the complainants, “Since many [Jews] everywhere have received access to the various princely courts and have migrated there, it is not appropriate for me, without the advice of the princes, and moreover contrary to right, to permit killing and plundering them. Hence I will without delay call the princes to assemble, to give counsel.” In the Council a law limiting the interest was established, which Vladimir attached to Yaroslav’s “Statute.” Karamsin reports, appealing to Tatistcheff, that Vladimir “banned all Jews” upon the conclusion of the Council, “and from that time forth there were none left in our fatherland.” But at the same time he qualifies: “in the Chronicles in contrast it says that in 1124 the Jews in Kiev died [in a great fire]; consequently, they had not been banned.” (Bruzkus explains, that it “was a whole Quarter in the best part of the city… at the Jew’s Gate next to the Golden Gate.”)

At least one Jew enjoyed the trust of Andrei Bogoliubskii [or Andrey Bogolyubsky] in Vladimir. “Among the confidants of Andrei was a certain Ephraim Moisich, whose patronymic Moisich or Moisievich indicates his jewish derivation,” and who according to the words of the Chronicle was among the instigators of the treason by which Andrei was murdered. However there is also a notation that says that under Andrei Bogoliubskii “many Bulgarians and Jews from the Volga territory came and had themselves baptized” and that after the murder of Andrei his son Georgi fled to a jewish Prince in Dagestan.

In any case the information on the Jews in the time of the Suzdal Rus is scanty, as their numbers were obviously small.

[G18] The “Jewish Encyclopedia” notes that in the Russian heroic songs (Bylinen) the “Jewish Czar” – e.g. the warrior Shidowin in the old Bylina about Ilya and Dobrin’a – is “a favorite general moniker for an enemy of the Christian faith.” At the same time it could also be a trace of memories of the struggle against the Khazars. Here, the religious basis of this hostility and exclusion is made clear. On this basis, the Jews were not permitted to settle in the Muscovy Rus.

The invasion of the Tatars portended the end of the lively commerce of the Kiev Rus, and many Jews apparently went to Poland. (Also the jewish colonization into Volhynia and Galicia continued, where they had scarcely suffered from the Tatar invasion.) The Encyclopedia explains: “During the invasion of the Tatars (1239) which destroyed Kiev, the Jews also suffered, but in the second half of the 13^th century they were invited by the Grand Princes to resettle in Kiev, which found itself under the domination of the Tatars. On account of the special rights, which were also granted the Jews in other possessions of the Tatars, envy was stirred up in the town residents against the Kiev Jews.” Similar happened not only in Kiev, but also in the cities of North Russia, which “under the Tatar rule, were accessible for many [Moslem? see note 1] merchants from Khoresm or Khiva, who were long since experienced in trade and the tricks of profit-seeking. These people bought from the Tatars the principality’s right to levy Tribute, they demanded excessive interest from poor people and, in case of their failure to pay, declared the debtors to be their slaves, and took away their freedom. The residents of Vladimir, Suzdal, and Rostov finally lost their patience and rose up together at the pealing of the Bells against these usurers; a few were killed and the rest chased off.” A punitive expedition of the Khan against the mutineers was threatened, which however was hindered via the mediation of Alexander Nevsky. “In the documents of the 15^th century, Kievite [G19] jewish tax-leasers are mentioned, who possessed a significant fortune.”

Note 1. The word “Moslem” is in the German but not French translation. I am researching the Russian original.

(continued)