The Fall of the Moravian State
Battle with the Hungarians, fragment from the cyclorama "Arrival of the Magyars." Art by Arpad Feszti.
In 894, the Hungarians living in Etelkuz were drawn into the war between the Germans and the Moravians. While some sources claim the Hungarians were summoned by the Germans, others say the Moravian prince Svatopluk was called in to fight against them. Most likely, both accounts are correct: the Hungarians simply defected for some reason from one "ally" to the other.
And here we come to an important turning point. stories, when a new state entity emerged in Europe that had a significant impact on the entire history of Europe and on the Slavs of Central Europe in particular.
A bit earlier
We won't dwell on the prehistory of the ancient Hungarians. Their migration across the steppes of Eastern Europe occurred from the Urals, through the Levedian or Don steppes, where they became reliable allies of the Khazars, to the so-called Etelkuza, the area between the Dnieper and Dniester rivers. Forced to flee Levedian by the Pechenegs, they moved to the so-called Etelkuza. And then, opportunely enough, the Byzantines noticed them.
The Romans, burdened by the struggle with the Arabs, did not have sufficient forces for a second front, the war against the Bulgarians of Tsar Simeon. He, who had received an excellent education in Constantinople, defeated the Roman army in 984 and approached the capital of the Christian Empire. In response, Emperor Leo VI the Wise (866–912) sent the droungarian Eustathius with fleet To the leaders of the "Turks," as the Romans called the Hungarians, Árpád, and to the "sacred leader" Kurszán (Kusalu). The Magyars agreed to participate in the campaign against the Bulgarians and were transported across the Danube, where they devastated the entire northern part of the country.
Upon learning of the Hungarian invasion, Simeon rushed north, but was defeated and fled to Dorostol on the Danube (now Silistra, Bulgaria). The Magyars, having collected a huge horde of captives, fled across the Danube, selling the captives to the Romans.
After plundering Bulgaria, they set out on a campaign westward along the Danube. As I wrote earlier, they were initially invited by the Eastern Frankish Emperor Arnulf to wage war against Svyatopolk, but somehow ended up allied with the latter.
Perhaps he tempted them with the riches of Pannonia. And so, in 894, the ancient Hungarians descended upon the Danube region. As the Annals of Fulda report:
...killing men and old women, driving away young women like cattle for their own pleasure, they exterminated the inhabitants of Pannonia to the last man.
During this campaign, the Prince of Great Moravia, Svyatopolk (Svyatopluk), died. Meanwhile, while the ancient Hungarians were on campaign, Tsar Simeon turned to their steppe enemies, the Pechenegs.
When the Turks set out on a military campaign, the Pachinakites, together with Simeon, wrote Constantine Porphyrogenitus, came against the Turks, exterminated their entire families and mercilessly drove out the Turks who were guarding the country.
Many modern authors believe that the ancient Hungarians' transition to a new homeland was premeditated: they "cleansed" Pannonia of its population, conducted reconnaissance, etc. It seems that this was not the case; at least, the sources do not support this hypothesis.
Historiography has long held that the campaign to reclaim a homeland consisted of a crossroads between horsemen and civilians on foot. In fact, among the Hungarians, as among other nomadic warrior peoples, women were no different in clothing from men and performed all the heavy housework themselves. We have archaeological evidence that among the Pechenegs, the ancient Hungarians' enemies, women served as blacksmiths.
So, in case of an attack, nomads, even without men, could quickly take refuge and even put up some resistance.
A Hungarian man and woman from the period of the founding of their homeland. Reconstruction by the eminent Hungarian historian and archaeologist Gyula László.
Returning from a raiding expedition, they gathered the Hungarians scattered across the steppe and were forced to retreat from their nomadic camps.
The road along the Danube to the west was cut off by the Pechenegs, so the route there was completely different, so seven tribal unions of the Hungarians: Nyek, Medyer, Kurtgyarmat, Tarjan, Jeno, Ker, Kesi and three Kavar tribes, moved west by a different route.
They marched north along the Dnieper and Dniester rivers, which is why the Old Russian Chronicle reports that the Hungarians passed by Kyiv. Clearly, they were one of the hordes; otherwise, Kyiv would have been in dire straits under Oleg.
Idosh Ugri past Kiev Mountain, even so to call n҃nѣ Ougorskoe. [and] And when he came to the Dnieper, he became a leader. bѣsha bo hodѧshe just like the Polovtsi.
The terrain and river flows of this region led the Hungarians to the Carpathian passes and from there to the Carpathian Basin. This was once the territory of the Avars, as a Russian chronicler clearly described the route from the source of the Dnieper through the Carpathians:
приходъ оѿ стекло и оустрмишас чересъ горъıслииӕ.
Since nothing was heard about the Hungarians in Europe for several years, one must assume that they were making their way north, along the rivers, past Kyiv, then west, to the Carpathian passes.
What's happening in Great Moravia?
As often happens in such associations, which are often called chiefdoms in modern historiography, with the death of the leader, Svyatopolk, the loss of lands began.
The first to "leave" was the territory of the Czechs in 895. Czech leaders decided to directly, rather than through Moravia, recognize themselves as vassals of the East Frankish Empire. Czech princes arrived in Regensburg, among them Spytihnev, the son of Svatopluk's comrade-in-arms, Bořivoj. They were followed in 897 by the Luzhian Serbs. From this point on, constant warfare raged between the Czechs and Moravians, until the fall of Moravia in 906.
Against this background, struggles periodically broke out between the sons of Svyatopolk: the elder Mojmir II and Svyatopolk the Younger, who sat in the Principality of Nitra.
As Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote in his legendary instructive history of Great Moravia:
This Sphendoplocus had three sons, and when he was dying, he divided his country into three parts and left each of his three sons one share, appointing the first as high archon and the other two to obey the first son's command. He urged them not to fall into discord and not to turn against one another, demonstrating this by example. Specifically, he brought three sticks and tied them together, gave them to the first son to break, and when he was unable to do so, he gave them to the second, and then to the third. Then, separating the three sticks, he gave each of them one. Taking them and receiving the command to break them, they immediately did so. By this example, he convinced them.
Of course, that wasn't the point. Moravia's weakness was rooted in its social structure, held together only by Svatopluk's personal power. This system could only have developed if external forces hadn't prevailed.
As a consequence of this, a pagan reaction began; missionary activity to Christianize the Slavs of Moravia was based on the strength and authority of Svyatopolk; with his weakening, a reaction was inevitable.
But at this time the Magyars appeared here.
Alternative version of
According to Anonymous's "Deeds of the Hungarians," a dubious source considered by many scholars, the conquest of the Moravian Principality began with a Hungarian ruse. This legend may have been true, as a "commonplace" version of the conquest. Svatopluk, who had turned to Árpád for help during his struggle against the Franks, received his ambassador, Kushin. And here the legend begins. Kushin brought with him a magnificent white horse, a gilded saddle, and bridle, asking in return for a bunch of grass, a cup of water, and a handful of earth. Svatopluk, unperceived, exchanged gifts.
"The Legend of the White Horse." Illustrated Chronicle by Lajos Martin Kalthy, 14th century.
It's worth noting that the legend was written down after the Hungarians' nomadic lifestyle had become a thing of the past, and they had forgotten that such a ritual among nomads was not a ruse, but rather a means of forming an alliance. However, Anonymous interpreted the situation to mean that in 894 the Hungarians demanded the land and the Danube for themselves.
There may have been a historical grain here, since they had cleared out part of the Eastern March, and Svyatopolk allowed them to occupy only these lands.
Hungarians find a homeland
Having crossed the Carpathian passes, the ancient Hungarians began to seize lands in the Carpathian Lowland.
This region was inhabited by Eastern Roman, Latin-speaking peoples in Transylvania, and by Bavarian and Alemanni colonists in the Eastern March, relict groups similar to the Avars. However, the main population everywhere was Slavic, representing various ethnic and tribal groups, both southern and western. In some areas, the population was extremely sparse.
The inner Carpathian basin, which the Hungarians occupied, was surrounded by a vast, almost uninhabited border strip (only small groups guarding the border could live there), forming a wide arc in the Carpathians, running along the Lower Danube and Sava rivers in the south, and including the Vienna Basin to the Enns River in the west.
Vereisky Pass. Monument in honor of the 1100th anniversary of the discovery of the homeland. Sculptor R. Matl.
But without war, it was impossible to capture and develop even sparsely populated lands. As we wrote above, part of it had already been "cleansed" of its population during the campaign of 894.
The Hungarians captured one of the Moravian principalities on the lower Tisza and to the east of it. They simultaneously occupied Transylvania. They captured the entire eastern half of the southern Danubian Plain up to the Danube and began advancing into northern Moravia by 896.
They settled in the area of the Principality of Nitra with the permission of a Slavic ruler, most likely Svatopluk the Younger. While his elder brother, Mojmir II, recruited the Hungarians to fight in the Czech lands, he simultaneously built a new fortress, Novohrad, in the area of Nohrad, part of which today belongs to Slovakia and part to Hungary, on the threatening route.
In such a situation, Hungarians “get acquainted” with new routes, robbing left and right.
The brothers were not satisfied either. Svyatopolk the Younger, incited by Margrave Aribo, ruler of the Eastern March, besieged Mojmir II in his city, but he was saved from the siege by the Bavarians in the winter of 898/899, who also burned his city.
Taking advantage of the weakness of the Moravian princes, in 900 the Bavarians raided the Moravians and plundered them for three weeks.
Meanwhile, the Hungarians weren't idle either; Emperor Arnulf (died December 899) hired them for war in Italy. There, the Hungarians found themselves surrounded at Brenta (Lombardy). On September 24, 899, they routed the Italian knights in a desperate battle. They then devastated and occupied Pannonia as far as the Enns River (now in Styria, Austria). Now they became neighbors of the Moravians not only to the east but also to the south, and they descended on Carinthia:
They destroyed castles, burned churches, killed people, and to instill even more horror, they drank the blood of the dead.
In this situation, the Franks and Prince Mojmir II concluded a treaty, and his brother fled to Bavaria. He did so just in time: in 902, the Hungarians attacked Moravia but were routed, while the nomads routed the Moravians' allies, the Bavarians. An attempt to resolve the situation peacefully failed because the Bavarians killed the chieftain Kusal (Kursan) during a meeting.
There is no further information about Moravia; Hungarian legends say that a huge battle between the Slavs and the Hungarians took place near the village of Banhida, and that at the head of the former's army stood a certain Svyatopolk, possibly Svyatopolk the Younger, who either drowned while fleeing in the Danube or hid as a hermit on Mount Zobor near Nitra.
The last Carolingian king in the east, Louis IV (893–911), attempted to recapture the middle Danube region, Pannonia, from the Hungarians in 907. He dispatched Margrave Luitpold, who had defeated them in the same region seven years earlier, and Archbishop Thietmar of Salzburg on a campaign against the Hungarians. The battle with the Hungarians took place near modern-day Bratislava, where the Hungarians completely routed the Bavarians and pursued them for 1000 km.
The settlement of the Western Slavs in the 9th century
In Moravia, they captured the Principality of Nitra and the southern regions of eastern Great Moravia. This territory became Strata Ungarorum, the "Hungarian road," through which they made their westward campaigns. Having already established long-standing relations with the Moravian nobility, the Hungarians did not destroy them, but retained them to control the territories, with the goal of endless exo-exploitation. The nomads preferred sparsely populated lands, where it was easier to migrate than to settle among Slavic peoples.
Some later sources report that during the reign of Henry I the Fowler (reign 919–936) the Mojmir dynasty still ruled and there was a Moravian archbishop (976).
And soon these lands came under the control of the Polish king Bolesław the Brave.
Thus, in the center of Europe, the early Christian Slavic state union fell, the collapse of which made the eastern lands of the Carolingian Empire, and then the Saxon emperors, the object of long and devastating raids by the Hungarians.
The fall of Moravia and the rise of the nomadic Hungarians led to tectonic shifts in the center of Europe, which will be discussed in the next article.
As a result of the Hungarian invasion and the destruction of Moravia, the Slavs of this region had different fates: death, assimilation, flight from these territories, loss of their statehood for a thousand years, like the Slovaks.
The acquisition of Slavic writing in Moravia became a crucial factor in the development of social society among the Eastern Slavs.
To be continued ...
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