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131-617: Its core territory is the region now called Moravia in the eastern part of the Czech Republic alongside the Morava River , which gave its name to the kingdom. The kingdom saw the rise of the first ever Slavic literary culture in the Old Church Slavonic language as well as the expansion of Christianity , first via missionaries from East Francia , and later after the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 863 and

262-479: A "Great" Moravia at the southern Morava river in present-day Serbia, and another Moravia on the northern Morava river in present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia. A similar theory was also published by Toru Senga. In the 1990s, the southern thesis was further developed by Charles Bowlus, who wrote that Moravia emerged in the region of the "confluences of the Drava , Sava , Drina , Tisza and southern Morava rivers with

393-592: A Moravian ruler. Carantanians (ancestors of present-day Slovenians ) were the first Slavic people to accept Christianity from the West. They were mostly Christianized by Irish missionaries sent by the Archdiocese of Salzburg, among them Modestus , known as the "Apostle of Carantanians". This process was later described in the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which states that Mojmír , "duke of

524-650: A certain city, which in the language of that people is called Dowina", according to the Annals of Fulda . Although the Franks could not take the fortress, Rastislav agreed to accept Louis the German's suzerainty. However, he continued to support the Frankish monarch's opponents. For instance, Louis the German deprived one Count Werner "of his public offices", because the count was suspected to have conspired with Rastislav against

655-568: A few years the Magyars came, a people of Peonia, sacked their land and devastated it. But [Methodius's disciples] were not captured by the Magyars for they fled to the Bulgarians. However, the land remained desolate under the rule of the Magyars. Written sources from the 9th century contain almost no information on the internal affairs of Moravia. Only two legal texts—the Nomocanon and

786-537: A major part of the Vienna Basin . In the Czech Republic, several larger cities and towns lie on the Morava, particularly Olomouc , Kroměříž , Otrokovice , Uherské Hradiště , Veselí nad Moravou and Hodonín . Brno , the second largest city of the Czech Republic, lies within the river basin. As of 2009, the catchment area of the river had a population of c.  3.5 million people. Downstream of Hodonín,

917-638: A number of archaicisms preserved until the early 20th century (the articulation of yat as / æ / in Boboshticë , Drenovë , around Thessaloniki, Razlog , the Rhodopes and Thrace and of yery as / ɨ / around Castoria and the Rhodopes, the presence of decomposed nasalisms around Castoria and Thessaloniki, etc.), the dialect is posited to have been part of a macrodialect extending from the Adriatic to

1048-649: A result of earlier alternations between short and long vowels in roots in Proto-Indo-European , Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic times, and of the fronting of vowels after palatalized consonants, the following vowel alternations are attested in OCS: /ь/ : /i/;  /ъ/ : /y/ : /u/; /e/ : /ě/ : /i/; /o/ : /a/; /o/ : /e/; /ě/ : /a/; /ъ/ : /ь/; /y/ : /i/; /ě/ : /i/; /y/ : /ę/. Vowel:∅ alternations sometimes occurred as

1179-858: A result of sporadic loss of weak yer , which later occurred in almost all Slavic dialects. The phonetic value of the corresponding vocalized strong jer is dialect-specific. As an ancient Indo-European language, OCS has a highly inflective morphology. Inflected forms are divided in two groups, nominals and verbs. Nominals are further divided into nouns, adjectives and pronouns. Numerals inflect either as nouns or pronouns, with 1–4 showing gender agreement as well. Nominals can be declined in three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), three numbers (singular, plural, dual ) and seven cases : nominative , vocative , accusative , instrumental , dative , genitive , and locative . There are five basic inflectional classes for nouns: o/jo -stems, a/ja -stems, i -stems, u -stems, and consonant stems. Forms throughout

1310-650: A short and unhappy time, because the Hungarians utterly destroyed everything in it". The Hungarians started their conquest of the Carpathian Basin after their defeat in the westernmost territories of the Pontic steppes around 895 by a coalition of the Bulgars and Pechenegs. Only a late source, the 16th-century Johannes Aventinus , writes that the Hungarians had by that time controlled wide regions to east of

1441-485: A short period, his suzerainty. On the other hand, the existence of the archaeologically attested shared cultural zones between Moravia, Lesser Poland and Silesia do not prove that the northern boundaries of Moravia were located over these territories. According to archaeologist Béla Miklós Szőke, the comitatus of Mosaburg in Pannonia was never part of Moravia. Neither archaeological finds nor written sources substantiate

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1572-481: A third theory, the megale adjective refers to a territory located beyond the borders of the Byzantine Empire. Finally, the historian Lubomír E. Havlík writes that Byzantine scholars used this adjective when referring to homelands of nomadic peoples, as demonstrated by the term " Great Bulgaria ". [There] is Belgrade , in which is the tower of the holy and great Constantine, the emperor ; then, again, at

1703-573: A variant of the angular Glagolitic alphabet was preserved in Croatia . See Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed. For Old Church Slavonic, the following segments are reconstructible. A few sounds are given in Slavic transliterated form rather than in IPA, as the exact realisation is uncertain and often differs depending on

1834-488: Is also likely to have preserved an extremely archaic type of accentuation (probably close to the Chakavian dialect of modern Serbo-Croatian ), but unfortunately, no accent marks appear in the written manuscripts. The South Slavic and Eastern South Slavic nature of the language is evident from the following variations: Old Church Slavonic also shares the following phonetic features only with Bulgarian : Over time,

1965-684: Is dated to 822 when the emperor "received embassies and presents from all the East Slavs, that is, Obodrites , Sorbs , Wilzi , Bohemians , Moravians and Praedenecenti, and from the Avars living in Pannonia " at an assembly held at Frankfurt . The late-9th-century Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum ("The Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians") makes the first reference to

2096-401: Is given in the table below. Autocephaly recognized by some autocephalous Churches de jure : Autocephaly and canonicity recognized by Constantinople and 3 other autocephalous Churches: Spiritual independence recognized by Georgian Orthodox Church: Semi-Autonomous: Written evidence of Old Church Slavonic survives in a relatively small body of manuscripts , most of them written in

2227-406: Is occasionally used by Western scholars in a regional context. According to Slavist Henrik Birnbaum , the term was introduced mostly by Macedonian scholars and it is anachronistic because there was no separate Macedonian language, distinguished from early Bulgarian, in the ninth century. The obsolete term Old Slovenian was used by early 19th-century scholars who conjectured that the language

2358-775: Is presented by Püspöki-Nagy and Senga, who write that the reference to the Merehanii —who obviously inhabited the southern regions of the Great Hungarian Plains to the north of the Danube, but south of the territories dominated by the Bulgars—and their 30 fortresses shows the existence of another Moravia in Central Europe. Among the Bohemians are 15 fortresses. The [Marharii] have 11 fortresses. The region of

2489-563: Is sometimes called Old Slavic , which may be confused with the distinct Proto-Slavic language . Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovene and Slovak linguists have claimed Old Church Slavonic; thus OCS has also been variously called Old Bulgarian , Old Croatian , Old Macedonian or Old Serbian, or even Old Slovak , Old Slovenian . The commonly accepted terms in modern English-language Slavic studies are Old Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavic . The term Old Bulgarian ( Bulgarian : старобългарски , German : Altbulgarisch )

2620-561: Is the Czech and Slovak name for both the river and the country, presumably the river name being primary and giving name to the surrounding country. The ending -ava, as in many other Czech and Slovak rivers, is most often regarded as Slavicization of the originally Germanic -ahwa (= modern German "Au" or "-a"), cognate to Latin aqua. Some scholars again link it, via Celtic -ab, to Indo-European PIE *apa / *opa ("water, sea"). The root mor- might be also connected with other Indo-European words with

2751-574: Is the designation used by most Bulgarian-language writers. It was used in numerous 19th-century sources, e.g. by August Schleicher , Martin Hattala , Leopold Geitler and August Leskien , who noted similarities between the first literary Slavic works and the modern Bulgarian language. For similar reasons, Russian linguist Aleksandr Vostokov used the term Slav-Bulgarian . The term is still used by some writers but nowadays normally avoided in favor of Old Church Slavonic . The term Old Macedonian

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2882-421: Is without doubt that no Moravian forces fought in the battle at Brezalauspurc , where the Hungarians routed a large Bavarian force in 907. The Moravian land, according to the prophecy of the holy archbishop Methodius, was promptly punished by God for their lawlessness and heresy, for the banishment of the orthodox fathers, and for the torments inflicted on the latter by the heretics with whom they acquiesced. In

3013-594: The Black Sea , and covering southern Albania, northern Greece and the southernmost parts of Bulgaria. Because of the very short time between Rastislav 's request and the actual mission, it has been widely suggested that both the Glagolitic alphabet and the translations had been "in the works" for some time, probably for a planned mission to the Bulgaria . The language and the Glagolitic alphabet, as taught at

3144-671: The Bulgars is immense. That numerous people has five fortresses, since their great multitude does not require fortresses. The people called [Merehanii] have 30 fortresses. According to a 13th-century source, the History of the Bishops of Passau and the Dukes of Bavaria , Bishop Reginhar of Passau ( r.   818–838) baptized "all of the Moravians" in 831. There is no other information on

3275-547: The Byzantine emperor to send a "teacher" (učiteľ) to introduce literacy and a legal system (pravьda) to Great Moravia. The request was granted. The missionary brothers Cyril and Methodius introduced a system of writing (the Glagolitic alphabet) and Slavonic liturgy, the latter eventually formally approved by Pope Adrian II . The Glagolitic script was probably invented by Cyril himself and the language he used for his translations of religious texts and his original literary creation

3406-585: The Common Slavic period, such as intrasyllabic synharmony and the law of open syllables . For consonant and vowel clusters and sequences of a consonant and a vowel, the following constraints can be ascertained: As a result of the first and the second Slavic palatalizations, velars alternate with dentals and palatals. In addition, as a result of a process usually termed iotation (or iodization ), velars and dentals alternate with palatals in various inflected forms and in word formation. In some forms

3537-514: The Court Law for the People —have been preserved. The former is a translation of a collection of Byzantine ecclesiastical law ; the latter is based on the 8th-century Byzantine law code known as Ecloga . Both were completed by Methodius shortly before his death in 885. In addition to the study of early medieval chronicles and charters, archaeological research contributed to the understanding of

3668-655: The Cyrillic script developed early on at the Preslav Literary School, where it superseded Glagolitic as official in Bulgaria in 893. The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire . Old Church Slavonic spread to other South-Eastern, Central, and Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably Croatia , Serbia , Bohemia , Lesser Poland , and principalities of

3799-536: The Czech Republic , which derives its name from the river. The Morava originates on the Králický Sněžník mountain in the north-eastern corner of Pardubice Region , near the border between the Czech Republic and Poland and has a vaguely southward trajectory. The lower part of the river's course forms the border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and then between Austria and Slovakia. The root of

3930-494: The Danube with an average discharge rate of 110 m /s (3,900 cu ft/s), collected from a drainage area of 26,658 km (10,293 sq mi), of which 20,692.4 km (7,989.4 sq mi) is in the Czech Republic. The Morava is a lowland river with a basin that consists of 51% plains ; mountains make up only seven percent of the basin while thirty five percent are considered highland. The average slope of

4061-622: The Danube ". Bowlus emphasized that the orientation of the Frankish marcher organization was focused on the south-east territories, which also supports Great Moravia's southern position. Martin Eggers suggested the original location of Moravia was centered around modern Banat at the confluence of the rivers Tisza and Mureș ('Moriš' in Serbian), with further expansions extending to the territories in present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia . The earliest possible reference to Slavic tribes living in

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4192-478: The Danube Delta . During the 20th century however, large tracts of the river, especially downstream from Litovel , have been regulated with the ensuing effect of loss of inundation areas (floodplains). Since the river basin is densely populated and, especially the Czech part, industrialised, the river also receives a lot of wastewater. Agriculture also contributes to spreading nitrogen and other nutrients into

4323-593: The First Bulgarian Empire during the late 10th and the early 11th centuries. The language has an Eastern South Slavic basis in the Bulgarian-Macedonian dialectal area, with an admixture of Western Slavic (Moravian) features inherited during the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia (863–885). The only well-preserved manuscript of the Moravian recension, the Kiev Missal , or

4454-563: The Kievan Rus' – while retaining characteristically Eastern South Slavic linguistic features. Later texts written in each of those territories began to take on characteristics of the local Slavic vernaculars, and by the mid-11th century Old Church Slavonic had diversified into a number of regional varieties (known as recensions ). These local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language . Apart from use in

4585-681: The Kingdom of Hungary (within the Habsburg monarchy during 1526–1918 because of imperial expansion). During the Cold War , this section of the river was part of the Iron Curtain , forming the frontier between Austria and Czechoslovakia . In July 1997, the Morava basin (especially its northern and eastern part) was affected by heavy stratiform rain, which lasted several days and caused catastrophic floods . The Morava originates in

4716-572: The March of Pannonia , against Louis the German in 853. The Frankish monarch retaliated by invading Moravia in 855. According to the Annals of Fulda , the Moravians were "defended by strong fortifications", and the Franks withdrew without defeating them, though the combats lasted until a peace treaty was worked out in 859. The truce is regarded as a stalemate and shows the growing strength of Rastislav's realm. Conflicts between Moravia and East Francia continued for years. For instance, Rastislav supported Louis

4847-815: The Middle Danube , dated to around 550. Large territories in the Pannonian Basin were conquered after 568 by the nomadic Avars who had arrived from the Eurasian Steppes . The Slavs were forced to pay tribute to the Avars and to participate in their raids against the Byzantine Empire , the Franks and the Lombards . Even though the Avar settlement area stabilized on the Danube river in

4978-831: The New Stone Age . The lower part of the river, downstream of the confluence with the Thaya at Hohenau an der March , which today marks the Austro-Slovakian border, is one of the oldest national boundaries still extant in continental Europe: it was the eastern boundary of the Carolingian Empire with the Avar Khaganate around 800, and from the 10th century onward marked the border of the Imperial marcha orientalis , later Duchy of Austria , with

5109-516: The bull Industriae tuae for Svatopluk whom he addressed as "glorious count" (gloriosus comes) . In the bull, the pope refers to Svatopluk as "the only son" ( unicus fillius ) of the Holy See, thus applying a title which had up to that time been only used in papal correspondence with emperors and candidates for imperial rank. The pope explicitly granted the protection of the Holy See to the Moravian monarch, his officials and subjects. Furthermore,

5240-500: The "boy" Svatopluk II was rescued by Bavarian forces "from the dungeon of the city in which he was held with his men" in 899. According to Bartl, who wrote that Svatopluk II had inherited the "Principality of Nitra" from his father, the Bavarians also destroyed the fortress at Nitra on this occasion. According to most nearly contemporaneous sources, the Hungarians played a prominent role in the fall of Moravia. For instance, Regino of Prüm writes that Svatopluk I's "sons held his kingdom for

5371-807: The 9th and 10th centuries never used the term in this context. Instead they mention the polity as "Moravian realm" or "realm of Moravians" ( regnum Marahensium , terra Marahensium , regnum Marahavorum , regnum Marauorum , terra Marauorum or regnum Margorum in Latin, and Moravьska oblastь in Old Church Slavonic ), simply "Moravia" ( Marawa , Marauia , and Maraha in Latin, Morava , Marava , or Murava in Old Church Slavonic, and M.ŕawa.t in Arabic ), also regnum Sclavorum ( realm of Slavs ) or alternate regnum Rastizi ( realm of Rastislav ) or regnum Zuentibaldi ( realm of Svatopluk ). "Morava"

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5502-600: The 9th and 11th century in Great Moravia and the First Bulgarian Empire. The language was standardized for the first time by the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia from 863. The manuscripts of the Moravian recension are therefore the earliest dated of the OCS recensions. The recension takes its name from the Slavic state of Great Moravia which existed in Central Europe during the 9th century on

5633-434: The 9th century obviously had limited knowledge of the geography of distant regions of Central Europe. Furthermore, Moravian monarchs adopted an expansionist policy in the 830s, thus the borders of their realm often changed. Moravia reached the peak of its territorial expansion under Svatopluk I ( r.   870–894). Lesser Poland , Pannonia and other regions were forced to accept, at least formally and often only for

5764-689: The 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and undertaking the task of translating the Gospels and necessary liturgical books into it as part of the Christianization of the Slavs . It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th-century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica (in present-day Greece ). Old Church Slavonic played an important role in

5895-501: The Avars in the last decade of the 8th century which caused the collapse of the Avar Khaganate . The Royal Frankish Annals narrates that Avars who "could not stay in their previous dwelling places on account of the attacks of the Slavs" approached Charlemagne in Aachen in 805 and asked to be allowed to settle in the lowlands along the river Rába . Following the collapse of the Avar Khaganate, swords and other elements of Frankish military equipment became popular in territories to

6026-415: The Bavarian version of the Annals of Fulda , the Moravians' invasion "led to Pannonia's being laid waste" to the east of the river Rába . However, Regino of Prüm states that it was Arnulf of Carinthia who maintained control over Pannonia in 884. Svatopluk had a meeting with Emperor Charles the Fat ( r.   881–888) at Tulln an der Donau in Bavaria in 884. At the meeting, "dux" Svatopluk became

6157-430: The Byzantine missionary contingent in 886. Exiled students of the two apostles then brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the Bulgarian Empire , being at least some of them Bulgarians themselves. Boris I of Bulgaria ( r.  852–889 ) received and officially accepted them; he established the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School . Both schools originally used the Glagolitic alphabet, though

6288-488: The Danube Valley and the plains of northern Europe , for animals as well as, at least historically, for humans. Its weak slope across flat plains furthermore means that the river is prone to meander and flood, creating vast floodplains . Because of these reasons, the floodplains of the Morava River are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems in Europe. Its richness in plant and animal species (some 12,000 species have been identified) ranks it second in diversity only to

6419-480: The Danube. However, its formation is scarcely described by contemporaneous sources. The archaeologist Barford writes that the first report of the emerging Moravian state was recorded in 811. In the autumn of this year, according to the Royal Frankish Annals , Avar rulers and the duces or "leaders of the Slavs who live along the Danube" visited the court of Emperor Louis the Pious ( r.   814–840) in Aachen. The earliest certain reference to Moravians or Maravani

6550-529: The East it had a status analogous to that of Latin in Western Europe , but had the advantage of being substantially less divergent from the vernacular tongues of average parishioners. Some Orthodox churches, such as the Bulgarian Orthodox Church , Russian Orthodox Church , Serbian Orthodox Church , Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric , as well as several Eastern Catholic Churches, still use Church Slavonic in their services and chants. Initially Old Church Slavonic

6681-531: The Empire to Western Christianity. The meaning of the name of Great Moravia has been subject to debate. The designation "Great Moravia"— Megale Moravia ( Μεγάλη Μοραβία ) in Greek —stems from the work De Administrando Imperio written by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos around 950. The emperor only used the adjective megale in connection with the polity when referring to events that occurred after its fall, implying that it should rather be translated as "old" instead of "great". According to

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6812-475: The Franks and Bulgarians. Upon his request, the emperor sent two brothers, Constantine and Methodius —the future Saints Cyril and Methodius—who spoke the Slavic dialect of the region of Thessaloniki to Moravia in 863. Constantine's Life narrates that he developed the first Slavic alphabet and translated the Gospel into Old Church Slavonic around that time. Louis the German crossed the Danube and again invaded Moravia in August 864. He besieged Rastislav "in

6943-424: The German's son, Carloman , in his rebellion against his father in 861. The first record of a raid by the Magyars in Central Europe seems to have been connected to these events. According to the Annals of St. Bertin , "enemies called Hungarians" ravaged Louis the German's kingdom in 862, which suggests that they supported Carloman. Rastislav wanted to weaken influence of Frankish priests in his realm, who served

7074-533: The German, which ended with a peace treaty concluded at Forchheim in May 874. According to the Annals of Fulda , at Forchheim Svatopluk's envoy promised that Svatopluk "would remain faithful" to Louis the German "all the days of his life", and the Moravian ruler was also obliged to pay a yearly tribute to East Francia. In the meantime, Archbishop Methodius, who had been released upon the demand of Pope John VIII ( r.   872–882) in 873, returned to Moravia. Methodius's Life narrates that "Prince Svatopluk and all

7205-545: The German] ordered the Bavarians to assist Carloman, who wished to fight against [Svatopluk], the nephew of [Rastislav]. He himself kept the Franks and Alemans with him to fight against [Rastislav]. When it was already time to set out he fell ill, and was compelled to leave the leadership of the army to Charles his youngest son and commend the outcome to God. Charles, when he came with the army with which he had been entrusted to [Rastislav's] huge fortification, quite unlike any built in olden times, with God's help burnt with fire all

7336-429: The Great Moravian Academy ( Slovak : Veľkomoravské učilište ), were used for government and religious documents and books in Great Moravia between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the West Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia. In 885 Pope Stephen V prohibited the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia in favour of Latin . King Svatopluk I of Great Moravia expelled

7467-525: The Holy See never denied Methodius's orthodoxy , in 880 the Pope appointed his main opponent, Wiching , as bishop of Nitra upon the request of Svatopluk, who himself preferred the Latin rite. A letter written around 900 by Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg ( r.   873–907) and his suffragan bishops mentions that the pope sent Wiching to "a newly baptized people" whom Svatopluk "had defeated in war and converted from paganism to Christianity". Other sources also prove that Svatopluk significantly expanded

7598-516: The Kiev Folia, is characterised by the replacement of some South Slavic phonetic and lexical features with Western Slavic ones. Manuscripts written in the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) have, on the other hand, few Western Slavic features. Though South Slavic in phonology and morphology, Old Church Slavonic was influenced by Byzantine Greek in syntax and style, and is characterized by complex subordinate sentence structures and participial constructions. A large body of complex, polymorphemic words

7729-400: The Lower Pannonian region, also known as the Balaton Principality, which was referred to in Latin sources as Carantanorum regio, or "The Land of the Carantanians". The name Carantanians (Quarantani) was in use until the 13th century. Kocel's decision to support Methodius represented a complete break with his father's pro-Frankish policy. Svatopluk had by that time been administering what had been

7860-427: The March of Pannonia—became tense. Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg clearly accused the Moravians of hiring "a large number of Hungarians" and sending them against East Francia at an unspecified date. During the " Wilhelminer War "—a civil war between two factions of local noblemen in the March of Pannonia which lasted from 882 and 884—Svatopluk "collected troops from all the Slav lands" and invaded Pannonia. According to

7991-431: The Morava river forms the Czech-Slovak frontier), into two regions—the Záluží region on the Morava's western (Czech) bank and Záhorie on its eastern (Slovak) bank. Záhorie also boasts the only surviving building from Great Moravian times, the chapel at Kopčany just across the Morava from the archaeological site of Mikulčice (these two important Great Moravian places are now connected by a bridge). The core of Great Moravia

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8122-438: The Moravian state and society. The Moravian centres at Mikulčice, Pohansko and Staré Město were thoroughly excavated in the 1950s and 1960s. However, as Macháček writes, "the acquired huge amounts of finds and data still have to be properly processed". Morava (river) The Morava ( German : March ) is a river in Central Europe , a left tributary of the Danube . It is the main river of Moravia historical region in

8253-423: The Moravians are twice mentioned in the text: first as Marhari , and next as Merehani . He says, that the reference to the Marhari and their 11 fortresses was made between 817 and 843, and the note of the Merehani shows the actual state under Svatopluk I. In contrast with Havlík, Steinhübel together with Třeštík and Vlasto identify the Merehani with the inhabitants of the Principality of Nitra. A third view

8384-419: The Moravians" decided to entrust "to him all the churches and clergy in all the towns" in Moravia upon his arrival. In Moravia, Methodius continued the work of translation started in his brother's life. For instance, he translated "all the Scriptures in full, save Maccabees ", according to his Life . However, Frankish priests in Moravia opposed the Slavic liturgy and even accused Methodius of heresy . Although

8515-447: The Moravians", expelled "one Pribina " across the Danube. Pribina fled to Ratpot who administered the March of Pannonia from around 833. Whether Pribina had up to that time been an independent ruler or one of Mojmir's officials is a matter of scholarly discussion. For instance, Urbańczyk writes that Mojmir and Pribina were two of the many Moravian princes in the early 9th century, while according to Havlík, Třeštík and Vlasto, Pribina

8646-525: The Priest of Dioclea —a late-12th-century source with questionable reliability—narrates that one "Sventopelk" was crowned king "on the field of Dalma" in the presence of a papal legate. Moravia reached its maximum territorial extent in the last years of Svatopluk's reign. According to Regino of Prüm , King Arnulf of East Francia "gave the command of the Bohemians to King Zwentibald of the Moravian Slavs" in 890. Bartl and other Slovak historians write that Svatopluk "probably" also annexed Silesia and Lusatia in

8777-436: The Principality of Nitra, under his uncle Rastislav's suzerainty, but contemporaneous documents do not reveal the exact location of Svatopluk's successorial territory. Frankish troops invaded both Rastislav's and Svatopluk's realms in August 869. According to the Annals of Fulda , the Franks destroyed many forts, defeated Moravian troops and seized loot. However, they could not take Rastislav's main fortress and withdrew. [Louis

8908-450: The Slavic countries, Old Church Slavonic served as a liturgical language in the Romanian Orthodox Church , and also as a literary and official language of the princedoms of Wallachia and Moldavia (see Old Church Slavonic in Romania ), before gradually being replaced by Romanian during the 16th to 17th centuries. Church Slavonic maintained a prestigious status, particularly in Russia , for many centuries – among Slavs in

9039-414: The White Carpathians and the Chřiby mountains, has retained its non-Czech identity in its designation "Slovácko" which shows common origins with the name of the neighbouring Slovakia—a token of a past shared identity in Great Moravian times. This core region of Great Moravia along the river has retained a unique culture with a rich folklore tradition: the above-mentioned Slovácko stretches, to the south (where

9170-498: The alternations of /c/ with /č/ and of /dz/ with /ž/ occur, in which the corresponding velar is missing. The dental alternants of velars occur regularly before /ě/ and /i/ in the declension and in the imperative, and somewhat less regularly in various forms after /i/, /ę/, /ь/ and /r /. The palatal alternants of velars occur before front vowels in all other environments, where dental alternants do not occur, as well as in various places in inflection and word formation described below. As

9301-425: The ancient customs", which shows that pagan rites were continued for decades even after 831. According to the Annals of Fulda , around August 15, 846, Louis the German , King of East Francia ( r.   843–876) launched a campaign "against the Moravian Slavs, who were planning to defect". The exact circumstances of his expedition are unclear. For instance, Vlasto writes that the Frankish monarch took advantage of

9432-471: The archaeologist Florin Curta , the sword was produced by a Frankish artisan from the Carolingian Empire . On the other hand, Ján Dekan writes that it represents how Moravian craftsmen selected "elements from the ornamental content of Carolingian art which suited their aesthetic needs and traditions". Moravia, the first Western Slavic polity, arose through the unification of the Slavic tribes settled north of

9563-412: The area that a text originated from. For English equivalents and narrow transcriptions of sounds, see Old Church Slavonic Pronunciation on Wiktionary . For English equivalents and narrow transcriptions of sounds, see Old Church Slavonic Pronunciation on Wiktionary . Several notable constraints on the distribution of the phonemes can be identified, mostly resulting from the tendencies occurring within

9694-509: The borders of East Francia in a north-to-south order—mentions that the Moravians or Marharii had 11 fortresses or civitates . The document locates the Marhari between the Bohemians and the Bulgars, and also makes mention of the Merehani and their 30 fortresses. According to Havlík, who writes that Conversion is a consolidated version of notes made by several authors in different years,

9825-668: The borders of his realm. For instance, according to the Life of Methodius , Moravia "began to expand much more into all lands and to defeat its enemies successfully" in the period beginning around 874. The same source writes of a "very powerful pagan prince settled on the Vistula " in present-day Poland who persecuted the Christians in his country, but was attacked and seized by Svatopluk. Upon Methodius's request, in June 880 Pope John issued

9956-898: The bull also confirmed Methodius's position as the head of the church in Moravia with jurisdiction over all clergymen, including the Frankish priests, in Svatopluk's realm and Old Church Slavonic was recognized as the fourth liturgical language together with Latin , Greek and Hebrew . The longer version of the Annals of Salzburg makes mention of a raid by the Magyars and the Kabars in East Francia in 881. According to Gyula Kristó and other historians, Svatopluk initiated this raid, because his relations with Arnulf—the son of Carloman, King of East Francia ( r.   876–881), who administered

10087-580: The circumstances of this mass conversion. Vlasto writes that Mojmír had by that time been converted to Christianity; according to Petr Sommer and other historians, he was also baptized on this occasion. All the same, the Life of Methodius narrates that Christian missionaries had by the 860s arrived in Moravia "from among the Italians , Greeks and Germans " who taught them " in various ways ". The Life of Constantine adds that missionaries from East Francia did not forbid "the offering of sacrifices according to

10218-534: The creation of the Glagolitic alphabet , the first alphabet dedicated to a Slavic language. Glagolitic was subsequently replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet created in the First Bulgarian Empire . Although the borders of this empire cannot be exactly determined, Moravia reached its largest territorial extent under prince Svatopluk I ( Slovak : Svätopluk ), who ruled from 870 to 894. Separatism and internal conflicts emerging after Svatopluk's death contributed to

10349-563: The description of the travel of Cyril and Methodius from Moravia to Venice through Pannonia in the Life of Cyril ) also substantiate the traditional view. These Maroara have to the west of them the Thyringas and some Behemas and half the Begware, and south them on the other side of the Danube river is the land Carendre extending south as far as the mountains called the Alps. ... To

10480-726: The development of Slavonic liturgy. As part of preparations for the mission, in 862/863, the missionaries developed the Glagolitic alphabet and translated the most important prayers and liturgical books , including the Aprakos Evangeliar , the Psalter , and the Acts of the Apostles , allegedly basing the language on the Slavic dialect spoken in the hinterland of their hometown, Thessaloniki , in present-day Greece . Based on

10611-536: The development of the local Slavs accelerated. The first Slavic fortified settlements were built in present-day Moravia as early as the last decades of the 7th century. From the end of the 7th century, it is possible to register the rise of a new social elite in Moravia, Slovakia and Bohemia—the warrior horsemen. The social organization of the local Slavs continued to grow during the 8th century, which can be documented by further building and development of fortified settlements. In Moravia, they unambiguously concentrate around

10742-571: The early 890s. According to the Annals of Fulda , King Arnulf proposed a meeting to Svatopluk in 892, "but the latter in his usual fashion refused to come to the king and betrayed his fidelity and all the things which he had promised before". In response, Arnulf invaded Moravia in 892, but could not defeat Svatopluk, although Magyar horsemen also supported the Eastern Frankish monarch. Svatopluk—"a man most prudent among his people and very cunning by nature", according to Regino of Prüm—died in

10873-417: The early period of the khaganate (southern border of present-day Slovakia), a smaller (southernmost) part came under their direct military control after the fall of Samo's empire. In the late period of the khaganate, the Avars had already inclined to a more settled lifestyle and their co-existence with the local Slavs can be already characterized as some kind of cultural symbiosis. In the 7th and 8th centuries,

11004-529: The east of the land Carendre, beyond the uninhabited district, is the land of the Pulgare, and east of that is the land of Greeks. To the east of the land of Maroara is the land of the Vistula, and east of that are those Datia who were formerly Goths. The borders of Moravia cannot exactly be determined because of the lack of accurate contemporaneous sources. For instance, the monks writing the Annals of Fulda in

11135-484: The emperor's vassal and "swore fidelity to him", promising that he would never attack the emperor's realm. Archbishop Methodius died on April 6, 885. Led by Bishop Wiching of Nitra, Methodius's opponents took advantage of his death and persuaded Pope Stephen V ( r.   885–891) to restrict the use of Old Church Slavonic in the liturgy in the bull Quia te zelo . Bishop Wiching even convinced Svatopluk to expel all Methodius's disciples from Moravia in 886, thus marring

11266-560: The fall of Great Moravia, which was overrun by the Hungarians , who then included the territory of present-day Slovakia in their domains. The exact date of Moravia's collapse is unknown, but it occurred between 902 and 907. Moravia experienced significant cultural development under King Rastislav , with the arrival in 863 of the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius. After his request for missionaries had been refused in Rome, Rastislav asked

11397-412: The first Slavic state. Louis the German sent his armies against Moravia in 872. The imperial troops plundered the countryside, but could not take the "extremely well-fortified stronghold" where Svatopluk took refuge. The Moravian ruler even succeeded in mustering an army which defeated a number of imperial troops, forcing the Franks to withdraw from Moravia. Svatopluk soon initiated negotiations with Louis

11528-519: The first known ruler of the united Moravia. Mojmír and his successor, Rastislav ("Rostislav" in Czech), who ruled from 846 to 870, initially acknowledged the suzerainty of the Carolingian monarchs, but the Moravian fight for independence caused a series of armed conflicts with East Francia from the 840s. According to most historians, the core territories of Moravia were located in the valley of

11659-519: The frontiers of his realm. For instance, according to Kirschbaum, he annexed the region of the Slanské Hills in the eastern parts of present-day Slovakia. Barford even writes that the development of the state mentioned as "Great Moravia" by Constantine Porphyrogenitus commenced in Rastislav's reign. He turned against East Francia and supported the rebellion of Radbod , the deposed prefect of

11790-423: The history of the Slavic languages and served as a basis and model for later Church Slavonic traditions, and some Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches use this later Church Slavonic as a liturgical language to this day. As the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic , the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages. The name of

11921-572: The inflectional paradigm usually exhibit morphophonemic alternations. Fronting of vowels after palatals and j yielded dual inflectional class o  : jo and a  : ja , whereas palatalizations affected stem as a synchronic process (N sg. vlьkъ , V sg. vlьče ; L sg. vlьcě ). Productive classes are o/jo- , a/ja- , and i -stems. Sample paradigms are given in the table below: Adjectives are inflected as o/jo -stems (masculine and neuter) and a/ja -stems (feminine), in three genders. They could have short (indefinite) or long (definite) variants,

12052-491: The interests of East Francia. He first sent envoys to Pope Nicholas I in 861 and asked him to send missionaries to Moravia who mastered the Slavic language. Having received no answer from Rome , Rastislav turned to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III with the same request. By establishing relations with Constantinople , he also desired to counter an anti-Moravian alliance recently concluded between

12183-426: The internal strife which followed Mojmír's death, while according to Kirschbaum, Mojmír was captured and dethroned during the campaign. However, it is without doubt that Louis the German appointed Mojmír's nephew, Rastislav , as the new duke of Moravia during this campaign. Rastislav ( r.   846–870), who initially accepted the suzerainty of Louis the German, consolidated his position within Moravia and expanded

12314-406: The king. The Byzantine brothers, Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius, visited Rome in 867. At the end of the year, Pope Hadrian II ( r.   867–872) sanctioned their translations of liturgical texts and ordained six of their disciples as priests. The pope informed three prominent Slavic rulers—Rastislav, his nephew, Svatopluk and Kocel , who administered Lower Pannonia —of his approval of

12445-543: The land (from 822) is older than the record of the river. The German name of the Morava, March , was derived from the Slavic name. The banks of the Morava have been inhabited for a very long time. The village of Stillfried  [ de ] , on the Austrian part of the river, was already the location of a human settlement 30,000 years ago. Agriculture began to be practiced in the Morava valley approximately 7,000 years ago, and fortified settlements began to appear during

12576-450: The language adopted more and more features from local Slavic vernaculars, producing different variants referred to as Recensions or Redactions . Modern convention differentiates between the earliest, classical form of the language, referred to as Old Church Slavonic, and later, vernacular-coloured forms, collectively designated as Church Slavonic . More specifically, Old Church Slavonic is exemplified by extant manuscripts written between

12707-538: The language in Old Church Slavonic texts was simply Slavic ( словѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ , slověnĭskŭ językŭ ), derived from the word for Slavs ( словѣ́нє , slověne ), the self-designation of the compilers of the texts. This name is preserved in the modern native names of the Slovak and Slovene languages. The terms Slavic and Slavonic are interchangeable and either may be used correctly in English. The language

12838-404: The latter being formed by suffixing to the indefinite form the anaphoric third-person pronoun jь . Synthetic verbal conjugation is expressed in present, aorist and imperfect tenses while perfect, pluperfect, future and conditional tenses/moods are made by combining auxiliary verbs with participles or synthetic tense forms. Sample conjugation for the verb vesti "to lead" (underlyingly ved-ti )

12969-519: The meaning of water, lake or sea (sea: Slavic more, Latin mare, Welsh môr, German Meer; humidity: English and German Moor, Slavic mokr- ). Compare also other river names like Mur in Austria and another Morava in Serbia, etc.). After the fall of Great Moravia, the central territory of Great Moravia was gradually divided into the newly ascending Kingdom of Bohemia and Hungarian Kingdom . The frontier

13100-456: The nation of the Moravians, which King Arnulf had subdued with the aid of their might" at the coronation of Arnulf's son, Louis the Child , in 900. The Annals of Grado adds that a large Hungarian army "attacked and invaded" the Moravians in 900. Facing the threat of further Hungarian attacks, Mojmír II concluded a peace treaty with Louis the Child in 901. Due to the lack of documentary evidence,

13231-601: The north of the Middle Danube. A new archaeological horizon—the so-called " Blatnica-Mikulčice horizon "—emerged in the valley of the northern Morava river and its wider region in the same period. This horizon of metalwork represents a synthesis of "Late Avar" and Carolingian art. One of its signature items is a sword found in a grave in Blatnica in Slovakia, which is dated to the period between 825 and 850. According to

13362-421: The north to present-day Slovakia, Moravia and Bohemia. Similarly, in the 1820s, Friedrich Blumenerger placed Great Moravia to the south on the borders of Pannonia and Moesia. Their views remained isolated until the 1970s, when Imre Boba again published a theory that Moravia's core territory must have been located around Sirmium, near the river Great Morava . Péter Püspöki-Nagy proposed the existence of two Moravias:

13493-689: The oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and remains the liturgical language of many Christian Orthodox churches. Until the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666, Church Slavonic was the mandatory language of the Russian Orthodox Church . Historians credit

13624-509: The other hand, he succeeded in restoring the Church organization in Moravia by persuading Pope John IX ( r.   898–900) to send his legates to Moravia in 898. The legates in short order installed an archbishop and "three bishops as his suffragans" in Moravia. Conflicts emerging between Mojmír II and his younger brother, Svatopluk II , gave King Arnulf a pretext to send his troops to Moravia in 898 and 899. The Annals of Fulda writes that

13755-582: The promising literary and cultural boom of Central European Slavs—the Slovaks took nearly a thousand years to develop a new literary language of their own. Pope Stephen addressed the Quia te zelo bull to Zventopolco regi Sclavorum ("Svatopluk, King of the Slavs"), suggesting that Svatopluk had by the end of 885 been crowned king. Likewise, Frankish annals occasionally referred to Svatopluk as king in connection with events occurring in this period. The Chronicle of

13886-530: The river Morava , today in present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia. Archaeological findings of large early medieval fortresses and the significant cluster of settlements growing around them suggest that an important centre of power emerged in this region in the 9th century. Early sources ( Alfred the Great 's contemporaneous translation of Orosius 's History of the World , which mentioned Moravia's neighbours, and

14017-415: The river Morava. In Slovakia, the oldest Slavic fortified settlements are documented for the last decades of the 8th century. They were exclusively in areas which were not under direct Avar influence, but probably not built only as protection against them, because some of them are also found in northern territories ( Orava , Spiš ). Variation in pottery implies the existence of at least three tribes inhabiting

14148-544: The river flows along a sparsely inhabited, forested border area, all the way to its outfall into the Danube, just below Devín Castle on the outskirts of the Slovak capital Bratislava . The total length of the Morava is 352 km (219 mi) , of which 269.4 km (167.4 mi) is in the Czech Republic (including the Czech-Slovak border), making it the third longest river in the Czech Republic . The Morava feeds

14279-464: The river is 1.8‰ and at the confluence 4‰. The bedrock of the river basin is mostly crystalline bedrock and flysch . The Morava is unusual in that it is a European blackwater river . The longest tributary of the Morava is the Thaya , flowing in at the tripoint of the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. The longest tributaries of the Morava are: The Morava River forms an important link between

14410-471: The river's name, mor- , is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word for 'water', 'marsh', from which the Latin word mare arose. The suffix -ava is a Slavic form of the Proto-Germanic word ahwa , meaning 'water', 'river'. The name of the river was first documented as Maraha in an 892 deed. The river gave its name to the entire historical land of Moravia , yet the oldest surviving record of

14541-418: The river. Nevertheless, the central part of the river has retained much of its natural character and in later years conscious efforts have been made to protect the nature and ecosystem of the river basin. Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( / s l ə ˈ v ɒ n ɪ k , s l æ ˈ v ɒ n -/ slə- VON -ik, slav- ON - ) is the first Slavic literary language and

14672-421: The rivers Hron and Danube in the Carpathian Basin. A letter of Theotmar of Salzburg and his suffragans evidences that around 900 the Moravians and the Bavarians accused each other of having formed alliances, even by taking oaths "by the means of a dog and a wolf and through other abominable and pagan customs", with the Hungarians. According to Liudprand of Cremona , the Hungarians already "claimed for themselves

14803-460: The running back of the river, is the renowned Sirmium by name, a journey of two days from Belgrade; and beyond lies great Moravia, the unbaptized, which the [Hungarians] have blotted out, but over which in former days [Svatopluk] used to rule. Such are the landmarks and names along the Danube river [...]. The work of Porphyrogenitos is the only nearly contemporaneous source using the adjective "great" in connection with Moravia. Other documents from

14934-518: The summer of 894. He was succeeded by his son, Mojmir II , but his empire shortly disintegrated, because the tribes subjugated to Svatopluk's rule by force started to get rid of Moravian supremacy. For instance, the Bohemian dukes (based in the Prague region) accepted King Arnulf's suzerainty in June 895, and Mojmír II attempted to restore his supremacy over them without success in the next two years. On

15065-875: The territory of Dolní Morava in the Králický Sněžník Mountains , on the slope of the Králický Sněžník mountain at an elevation of 1,371 m (4,498 ft), not far from the border with Poland. The lowlands formed by the river are the Upper Morava Valley and then the Lower Morava Valley in Moravia, the Morava Field or Marchfeld in Lower Austria , and the Záhorie Lowland in Slovakia. The latter three are actually continuous parts of one large basin, forming

15196-419: The traditional view of the permanent annexation of huge territories in his reign. Other scholars warn that it's a mistake to draw the boundaries of core territories because Moravia did not reach that development level. In 1784, Slovak historian Juraj Sklenár disputed the traditional view on the location of Moravia and placed its core region in the region of Syrmia , stating that it spread from that location to

15327-479: The use of the vernacular in the liturgy in a letter of 869. In 869 Methodius was sent by the pope to Rastislav, Svatopluk and Kocel, but Methodius visited only Kocel, who sent him back to the pope. Hadrian then consecrated Methodius as archbishop with the title of Metropolitan of Sirmium to "the seat of Saint Andronicus ", i.e., the see of Sirmium. At the beginning of the 9th century, many Carantanians (Alpine Slavs), ancestors of present-day Slovenians , settled in

15458-476: The valley of the northern Morava river was made by the Byzantine historian Procopius . He wrote of a group of Germanic Heruli who "passed through the territory of all of the Sclavenes " while moving towards Denmark in 512. Archaeological sites have yielded hand-made ceramics, and closely analogous objects in southern Poland and western Ukraine appeared at the confluence of the northern Morava River and

15589-526: The very location of Great Moravia ( historiographical terms, as its original formal name is unknown) are a subject of debate. Rival theories place its centre south of the Danube (the Morava in Serbia) or on the Great Hungarian Plain. The exact date when the Moravian state was founded is also disputed, but it probably occurred in the early 830s under Prince Mojmír I ( r.   820s/830s–846),

15720-412: The victories bestowed by heaven. Svatopluk allied himself with the Franks and helped them seize Rastislav in 870. Carloman annexed Rastislav's realm and appointed two Frankish lords, William and Engelschalk , to administer it. Frankish soldiers arrested Archbishop Methodius on his way from Rome to Moravia at the end of the year. Svatopluk, who continued to administer his own realm after his uncle's fall,

15851-408: The walled fortifications of the region, seized and carried off the treasures which had been hidden in the woods or buried in the fields, and killed or put to fight all who came against him. Carloman also laid waste the territory of [Svatopluk], [Rastislav's] nephew, with fire and war. When the whole region had been laid waste the brothers Charles and Carloman came together and congratulated each other on

15982-411: The wider region of the northern Morava river in the early 9th century. Settlement complexes from the period were unearthed, for instance, near modern Bratislava , Brno and Olomouc . Fortresses erected at Bratislava, Rajhrad , Staré Město and other places around 800 evidence the development of local centres of power in the same regions. Charlemagne launched a series of military expeditions against

16113-449: The year in which Moravia ceased to exist cannot be determined with certainty. Róna-Tas writes that the Hungarians occupied Moravia in 902, Victor Spinei says that this happened in 903 or 904, while according to Spiesz, the Moravian state ceased to exist in 907. The Raffelstetten Customs Regulations , which was issued in the years 903–906, still refers to the "markets of the Moravians", suggesting that Moravia still existed at that time. It

16244-569: Was Mojmír's lieutenant in Nitra . Historians who identify Pribina as the ruler of an autonomous state, the Principality of Nitra —for instance, Bartl, Kirschbaum and Urbańczyk—add that "Great Moravia" emerged through the enforced integration of his principality into Moravia under Mojmír. The 9th-century Catalogue of Fortresses and Regions to the North of the Danube —which lists the peoples along

16375-413: Was accused of treachery and arrested by Carloman on Louis the German's orders in 871. The Moravians rose up in open rebellion against the two Frankish governors and elected a kinsman of Svatopluk, Slavomír , duke. Svatopluk returned to Moravia, took over command of the insurgents, and drove the Franks from Moravia. According to the Czech historian Dušan Třeštík , the rebellion of 871 led to the formation of

16506-493: Was based on the Eastern South Slavic dialect he and his brother Methodius knew from their native Thessaloniki . Old Church Slavonic, therefore, differed somewhat from the local Slavic dialect of Great Moravia which was the ancestral idiom to the later dialects spoken in Moravia and western Slovakia. Later, the disciples of Cyril and Methodius were expelled from Great Moravia by King Svatopluk I , who re-orientated

16637-406: Was based on the dialect of Pannonia . It is generally held that the language was standardized by two Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and his brother Methodius , for a mission to Great Moravia (the territory of today's eastern Czech Republic and western Slovakia; for details, see Glagolitic alphabet ). The mission took place in response to a request by Great Moravia 's ruler, Duke Rastislav for

16768-613: Was coined, first by Saint Cyril himself and then by his students at the academies in Great Moravia and the First Bulgarian Empire , to denote complex abstract and religious terms, e.g., ꙁълодѣꙗньѥ ( zъlodějanьje ) from ꙁъло ('evil') + дѣти ('do') + ньѥ (noun suffix), i.e., 'evil deed'. A significant part of them wеrе calqued directly from Greek. Old Church Slavonic is valuable to historical linguists since it preserves archaic features believed to have once been common to all Slavic languages such as: Old Church Slavonic

16899-416: Was extended, according to annals, in the early 830s, when Mojmir I of Moravia conquered the neighbouring principality of Nitra (present-day western Slovakia). The former principality of Nitra was used as what is termed in Slovak údelné kniežatsvo , or the territory given to and ruled by the successor to the throne, traditionally the ruling kъnendzь (Prince)'s sister's son. Nevertheless, the extent, and even

17030-467: Was originally settled on the Morava river. However, from the 12th century, the Czech kings managed to gain more and more of the region on the eastern bank, eventually gaining the whole stretch of the eastern territory from Uherské Hradiště down to Strážnice along the White Carpathians. The original core territory of Great Moravia, nowadays forming the eastern part of Moravia and situated between

17161-452: Was written with the Glagolitic alphabet , but later Glagolitic was replaced by Cyrillic , which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire by a decree of Boris I of Bulgaria in the 9th century. Of the Old Church Slavonic canon , about two-thirds is written in Glagolitic. The local Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, known as Srbinčica , was preserved in Serbia and parts of Croatia , while

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